Readings for the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 21 – Track 1 – Year A)
Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16
Philippians 2:1-13
Matthew 21:23-32
This sermon was preached at Christ Episcopal Church in Eureka CA on September 27, 2026.
Yesterday, several of us gathered at Sequoia Park to celebrate the Feast of the great Anglican bishop and theologian Lancelot Andrewes, whom Kurt Vonnegut considered the greatest English writer and whom T.S. Eliot considered the first great Anglican preacher. Andrewes was also known as a faithful man of prayer; and we prayed some of the personal prayers that he wrote for each day of the week that correlate with the seven days of Creation. One of Lancelot Andrewes’s students who studied directly under him at Westminster School in London was the great Anglican poet George Herbert, who wrote, “Seven whole days, not one in seven, I will praise thee,”[1] thus urging us to emulate Lancelot Andrewes who didn’t just pray on Sundays but who prayed each day of the week, for apparently five hours each day. George Herbert also wrote a poem in which he offers a cascade of rich metaphors and sensory images for prayer. In the poem, aptly titled “Prayer,” Herbert defines prayer as “the church’s banquet,” as “God’s breath in man returning to his birth,” “the soul in paraphrase,” “heart in pilgrimage,” “Engine against th’ Almighty,” “Reversed thunder,” “a kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;” and I can’t help but imagine him tipping his hat to Lancelot Andrewes when he describes prayer as “the six-days world transposing in an hour.” The image and metaphor that Herbert uses which I want to reflect on with you briefly this morning is prayer as the “Christ-side-piercing spear.” Now what does that have to do with our readings today?
Well, according to St. Paul and the early church fathers, when Moses struck the rock at Horeb with his staff and water poured forth, he was doing more than just quenching the peoples’ thirst with a spectacular miracle. He was enacting a form of prayer that reached its pinnacle when the Roman soldier pierced Christ’s side and water poured forth from his flesh. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul wrote, “I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all baptized in the [Red] sea…and they all drank from the spiritual rock…and the rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:1 – 4). In another George Herbert poem titled “The Sacrifice,” he writes from Christ’s perspective, saying: “They strike my head, the rock from thence all store / of heav’nly blessings issue evermore.”
Almost every Sunday, I begin my sermon my addressing God as our “Rock.” On one level, this metaphor suggests strength and a solid foundation like the wise man who built his house upon the rock. However, for ancient and modern Jewish readers, this image points to the Rock of Horeb, which Moses struck with his staff. In the Gospel of John, Jesus embraces this metaphor when he cries out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink” (John 7:37 – 38), and when he offers rivers of living water that flow from the heart.
So, what does it mean for our prayer to be the “Christ-side-piercing-spear,” the spear that pierced Christ’s side from which water flowed? What does it mean for our prayer to be the staff that struck the Rock of Horeb from which water flowed, the Rock that is Christ? I see this image as an invitation for us to bring our authentic, sometimes edgy selves, to God in prayer; to bring our questions and complaints and confusions; to bring our frustration and anger and violence; and to be prepared to be transformed by God’s response.
In his book Turning the Diamond: Exploring George Herbert’s Images of Prayer, author Dennis Lennon explains that prayer can be understood as “condoned violence directed at heaven and against God with his full permission.”[2] He expands on this image when he says, “George Herbert sees our prayer as that spear piercing Christ’s side, penetrating deep into his innermost body, his heart, releasing the flow of his inexhaustible life into the world[3] …what the spear-thrust did to Jesus on the cross, our prayers do now. In prayer we enter the heart of Jesus, an action that releases the outpouring of his life for the world.”[4] The image invites us into genuine interaction with God and to bring our whole selves to Christ in prayer; and yes, to be transformed by the divine response.
The parable of the two sons in today’s Gospel reminds me of another parable from Matthew’s Gospel in which Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father in heaven…On that day, many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not do many deeds of power in your name?’ But I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers!” (Matthew 7:21 – 23). In other words, Christ is not looking for disciples who simply drop his name or use his name to accumulate power and prestige. Christ is looking for disciples who are willing to be transformed by an authentic personal relationship with him. Christ is looking for disciples who are ready to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling, who are willing to love and embrace the people that they are most uncomfortable loving, who are willing to bring their honest selves to Christ and receive a response that might pierce their own hearts, who are willing to acknowledge the ways that they continue to crucify Christ, and who are ultimately willing to let the same mind be in them that was in Christ Jesus, who emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, and humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross.
George Herbert also called prayer “the soul’s blood.” May we not be afraid to honestly bring our spears of prayer to Christ’s side and our staffs of “condoned violence” to the Rock and, although there may indeed be fear and trembling, let us not resist the transforming waters that pour forth, piercing our own souls and sanctifying our own hearts, trusting that God is at work in us, enabling us to will and to work for His good pleasure. Amen.
[1] George Herbert, “King of Glory, King of Peace”
[2] Dennis Lennon, Turning the Diamond, 48.
[3] Dennis Lennon, Turning the Diamond, 57.
[4] Dennis Lennon, Turning the Diamond, 58.
