Proper 17, Yr A (2026) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
Proper 17, Yr A (2026) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
Romans 12:9-21 St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
Matthew 15:21-28
In the name of the one, holy, and loving God:
in whom we live, and move, and have our being. Amen.
Peter has just proclaimed Jesus’ true identity:
he is the Messiah!
And Jesus has just proclaimed that Peter is the foundational rock of the Church.
Immediately following these pronouncements,
Jesus begins to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem,
undergo great suffering at the hands of the Temple leaders,
be killed,
and then be raised on the third day.
To which Peter objects.
At least Peter takes Jesus aside before he begins to rebuke him,
“God forbid it, Lord!
This must never happen to you.”
This cannot happen.
This must not happen.
Messiah has come to end suffering and pain and death…
not endure it!
When I read this passage,
I recalled a reflection written by Richard Rohr called, “The Gift of Tears.”
Rohr begins…
“The human instinct is to block suffering and pain.
“This is especially true in the West
where we have been influenced by the ‘rationalism’ of the Enlightenment.
“As anyone who has experienced grief can attest,
it isn’t rational.
“We really don’t know how to hurt!
We simply do not know what to do with our pain.”
[Adapted from Richard Rohr, Beloved Sons Series: Men and Grief (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2005) CK, MP3 audio.]
Peter cannot allow the possibility of the suffering and pain of Jesus.
And yet,
it is precisely Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection that bring us hope!
Rohr maintains that we cannot get rid of pain until we learn what it has to teach us;
and grief, suffering, loss, and pain always have something to teach us!
Along with Peter, we would much rather side-step the pain.
We would much rather be angry than sad.
“God forbid it, Lord!
This must never happen to you.”
But Jesus says,
“Get behind me, Satan!
You are a stumbling block to me;
for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Jesus continues, speaking now to all his disciples,
“If any want to become my followers,
let them deny themselves
and take up their cross and follow me.
Peter is beginning the grief process…
he just doesn’t know it yet.
The man who has offered him the gift of eternal life
has just announced that he is going to suffer and die,
and Peter can have none of that.
Here is where Rohr would suggest that Peter sit down and have a good cry!
Saint Ephrem the Syrian (303 – 373 CE),
a Doctor of the Church,
considered tears to be a sacramental sign of divine mercy.
Saint Ephrem says:
“Give God weeping
and increase the tears in your eyes;
through your tears and [God’s] goodness
the soul which has been dead will be restored.”
[Ephrem, sermon on Isaiah 26:10, in Penthos: The Doctrine of Compunction in the Christian East, by Irénée Hausherr, trans. Anselm Hufstader (Cistercian Publications: 1982), 29.]
The “weeping mode” is a very different way of being in the world…
One that all too often our culture names as “weak,” esp. for men.
We would much rather fix, explain, control, or blame.
And yet, as Rohr says,
when we are able to weep,
“we are finally free to feel the tragedy of things,
the sadness of things.
“Tears cleanse the lens of the eyes so we can begin to see more clearly.
“Sometimes we have to cry for a very long time because our eyes are so dirty
that we’re not seeing truthfully or well at all.
“Tears only come when we realize we can’t fix it
and we can’t change it.
“The situation is absurd,
it’s unjust,
it’s wrong,
it’s impossible.
“She should not have died;
he should not have died.
How could this happen?
“Only when we are led to the edges of our own resources
are we finally free to move to the weeping mode.
“The way we can tell our tears have cleansed us
is that afterwards
we don’t need to blame anybody,
even ourselves.
“It’s an utter transformation and cleansing of the soul,
and we know it came from God.
“It is what it is,
and somehow God is in it.” (Rohr, ibid.)
As I read today’s reading from Paul’s letter to the Church at Rome,
I thought…
Well, if we all lived like that,
then the kindom of heaven might be fully realized!
“Let love be genuine;
hate what is evil,
hold fast to what is good;
love one another with mutual affection….
“Rejoice in hope,
be patient in suffering,
persevere in prayer….
“Bless those who persecute you;
bless and do not curse them….
“Do not repay anyone evil for evil,
but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all….
“If your enemies are hungry,
feed them;
if they are thirsty,
give them something to drink….
“Overcome evil with good.” [Romans 12:9-21]
Saint Ephrem the Syrian might have added to the end:
And sit down and have a good cry!
Sit down and have a good cry.
I told several people this week,
and I really do believe…
that we all do the best we can do with what we have at the moment.
Even if folks intend to do harm,
and some people do…
I believe that they themselves have been so harmed, or are so broken,
that they cannot act differently without God’s deep healing.
We often live in the midst of things we don’t understand….
unending wars over land or oil or precious minerals,
broken bodies or minds,
a lack of respect or generosity in daily living…
death.
When we find ourselves in the midst of the hard stuff of life,
perhaps it is then that we sit down and have a good cry,
and cleanse the lens of our soul,
knowing that God is with us and loves us to our core.
God is with us…
and will never leave us.
Amen.
