A Word from Joel - June 26, 2025
“I’m convinced that unless we know the lineage, the exact genre, and the unique approach of the Hebrew prophets, we can’t really understand Jesus.”
Richard Rohr
This past Sunday, we were blessed to be joined by the Rev. David Bubb who gave a wonderful sermon, while I was officiating two different weddings. This week, I will be back in the pulpit and begin a summer sermon series on the Hebrew prophets. The summer lectionary readings involve the prophets, which pairs perfectly with the release of Richard Rohr’s new book, The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage.
For most Christians, the Hebrew prophets serve as little more than fortune tellers of Jesus that we read in Advent and then forget about. Yet the prophets occupy nearly a third of the Old Testament. Surely, there is more for them to teach us. Rohr contends that the prophets lead us into the “way of tears.” Like us, the prophets look at the state of the world and get angry. They see as we do that the world is a mess and anger is a perfectly reasonable response to injustice and war. Yet the prophets do not stay angry. They move us to the vulnerability of tears. Rohr writes,
There is an inherent sadness and tragedy in almost all situations: in our relationships, our mistakes, our failures large and small, and even our victories. We must develop a very real empathy for this reality, knowing that we cannot fully fix things, entirely change them, or make them to our liking…Prophets and mystics recognize what most of us do not—that all things have tears and all things deserve tears. They know that grief and sadness are doorways to understanding life in a non-egocentric way.
This summer, we will journey with the prophets from anger to grief, and finally to love. Along the way, we will discover that this is Jesus’ path as well. In this age of outrage, God is calling to us through tears, promising a better day in which all will belong.
Finally, I want to thank everyone who has been praying for me. I am slowly recovering from shingles and feel much better today than I did last week.
Richard Rohr
This past Sunday, we were blessed to be joined by the Rev. David Bubb who gave a wonderful sermon, while I was officiating two different weddings. This week, I will be back in the pulpit and begin a summer sermon series on the Hebrew prophets. The summer lectionary readings involve the prophets, which pairs perfectly with the release of Richard Rohr’s new book, The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage.
For most Christians, the Hebrew prophets serve as little more than fortune tellers of Jesus that we read in Advent and then forget about. Yet the prophets occupy nearly a third of the Old Testament. Surely, there is more for them to teach us. Rohr contends that the prophets lead us into the “way of tears.” Like us, the prophets look at the state of the world and get angry. They see as we do that the world is a mess and anger is a perfectly reasonable response to injustice and war. Yet the prophets do not stay angry. They move us to the vulnerability of tears. Rohr writes,
There is an inherent sadness and tragedy in almost all situations: in our relationships, our mistakes, our failures large and small, and even our victories. We must develop a very real empathy for this reality, knowing that we cannot fully fix things, entirely change them, or make them to our liking…Prophets and mystics recognize what most of us do not—that all things have tears and all things deserve tears. They know that grief and sadness are doorways to understanding life in a non-egocentric way.
This summer, we will journey with the prophets from anger to grief, and finally to love. Along the way, we will discover that this is Jesus’ path as well. In this age of outrage, God is calling to us through tears, promising a better day in which all will belong.
Finally, I want to thank everyone who has been praying for me. I am slowly recovering from shingles and feel much better today than I did last week.
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