Follow Me

A Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 17, Year A)
August 30, 2026

Text: Matthew 16:21-28

Now, O Lord, take my lips, and speak through them. Take our minds, and think through them. Take our hearts, and set them on fire. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

If you’ve ever been to a baptism here at St. Mary’s or in any Episcopal church, you know that there are certain things to expect during the service. For example, there’s a moment in the liturgy when we ask the candidate for baptism a series of questions.

We call these the renunciations and affirmations.

Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?

Do you renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?

Do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God?

And each time, the answer is the same:

I renounce them.

Then, the questions turn from what we’re leaving behind to what we’re taking on.

Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior?

Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love?

Do you promise to follow and obey him as your Lord?

And each time, the answer is, “I do.”

We renounce the evil powers of this world and all sinful desires that draw us from God’s love and we turn to Jesus and promise to follow and obey.

Those words are very familiar to most of us.

But did you know that Christians have been answering questions like these at baptism for more than seventeen hundred years?

The exact wording has changed over the centuries, of course, but the basic pattern is very similar: What do you renounce? Whom do you believe in? And whom will you follow?

And in the early Church, those questions weren’t answered only with words.

They also answered them with their bodies.

Imagine going back seventeen or eighteen hundred years ago.

It’s the night before Easter, and everyone is gathered for the Easter Vigil—the traditional time when candidates for baptism would be presented.

You’ve spent months—perhaps even years—preparing for this moment. And now, in the darkness of the Easter Vigil, you’re standing with others who are about to be baptized.

But before you go down in the water, you’re told to face west—the direction of the setting sun. The west represents darkness.

And facing west, you renounce Satan and the powers of evil.

In some parts of the Church, you might even stretch out your arms as you spoke the words—a physical way of rejecting the old life you were leaving behind.

Then you’re told to turn around.

You turn from the west toward the east—from the darkness toward the place where the sun will soon rise.

And facing that direction, you confess your faith in Jesus Christ.

Then you go down into the waters of baptism.

The whole thing is almost like a sermon preached with the body.

As if to say, “This is the way I was going. Now this is the way I choose to go.”

It’s a powerful image and I think a helpful reminder for all of us that getting baptized and becoming a Christian isn’t just about believing certain things about who Jesus is.

It’s about changing directions.

It’s about deciding whom we’re going to follow.

Will we choose to follow our own way or will we follow the way of Jesus?

And I think that’s exactly the question Jesus puts before Peter in our Gospel lesson this morning.

In my sermon last Sunday, I talked about how Peter got everything right.

Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?”

And Peter answered correctly: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus praised him and told him that he would be the rock on which he built his church.

But almost immediately, everything changes.

In our Gospel reading for today, we hear Jesus explaining to the disciples what he must go through.

He tells them that he must go to Jerusalem. That he will suffer. That he will be rejected and killed.

And that on the third day he will be raised.

But Peter doesn’t accept what Jesus has to say.

He takes Jesus aside and begins to rebuke him.

“God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.”

It’s obvious that Peter cares deeply for Jesus and doesn’t want to see any harm come to him.

But there’s more to it than that.

This wasn’t the plan he thought it would be.

This wasn’t what he or any of the disciples expected in the Messiah.

The Messiah was supposed to come and save them from oppression and restore the kingdom of Israel.

They were looking for a great warrior who would lead them in a fight, not someone who was getting ready to die.

So you can understand Peter’s reaction.

He was expecting a Messiah who would triumph over Rome—not one who would end up on a Roman cross.

In response to Peter, Jesus says to him, “Get behind me, Satan!”

Those are harsh words, and it’s easy to imagine that Jesus is casting Peter out, almost like saying, “Get away from me. I’ve had enough of you.”

But if we closely at the original Greek, a more helpful translation of that verse might be, “Get back in line.”

A disciple follows the teacher, not the other way around.

Peter’s problem is that he’s forgotten his place as a disciple.

He’s trying to impose his own will—his own plan, and in the process, he becomes a stumbling block for Jesus, an adversary to what God is trying to do.

And Jesus says, “No.”

Get back in line.

Remember your place.

Follow me.

Peter isn’t an evil person.

But he is resisting the way Jesus has chosen to walk—the way of the cross—the way of self-giving, sacrificial love.

Jesus tells him, “You are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Peter wants Jesus to go his way and to be the Messiah he wants.

Jesus is calling Peter to trust him and to follow God’s plan.

That’s really what this Gospel is all about and where it meets us in our own lives.

Do we choose our own way and try to impose our will over God’s will?

Or do we trust and follow Jesus?

Jesus says it this way:

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

There it is again.

Follow me.

Get behind me.

Let me lead, and I’ll show you the way.

That reminds me of those ancient Christians waiting for baptism on the night before Easter.

Facing one direction.

Renouncing the evil powers of this world.

And then turning toward the light.

Friends, that turning doesn’t happen just once.

We only get baptized once.

But we spend the rest of our lives learning how to live more fully into our baptism.

That’s one of the reasons we often renew our Baptismal vows.

It’s not just something nice we do in church from time to time. We do it because we need to be reminded of who we are and who we’ve chosen to follow.

We do it because every day there are moments when we find ourselves standing exactly where Peter stood, faced with the choice of following our own way or the way of Jesus.

Paul gives us some good examples in our reading this morning from Romans.

Our way says, “Look out for yourself.”

The way of Jesus says, “Extend hospitality to strangers.”

Our way says, “If someone hurts you, hurt them back.”

The way of Jesus says, “Bless those who persecute you.”

Our way says, “Get even.”

The way of Jesus says, “Do not repay anyone evil for evil.”

Our way says, “Hate your enemies.”

The way of Jesus says, “If your enemies are hungry, feed them.”

Paul sums it all up when he writes: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

These may seem like small decisions. But over time, they determine the direction of our lives.

And in those moments, the question is the same:

Whom do we follow?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer once put it in very simple terms:

“Your ‘Yes’ to God demands your ‘No’ to all injustice, to all evil, to all lies, to all oppression and violation of the weak and the poor, to all godlessness and mocking of the holy. Your ‘Yes’ to God demands a brave ‘No’ to everything that will ever hinder you from serving God alone, whether it be your profession, your property, your house, your honor before the world. Faith means decision.”

I love that last line.

“Faith means decision.”

Maybe not one big decision all at once.

But a thousand small decisions made over a lifetime.

A thousand opportunities to say “no” to what draws us away from God and “yes” to what brings us closer to God.

There will be countless times when we realize that we’ve put ourselves and what we want in front of what God wants.

We start telling God where we think we should go instead of allowing him to lead us.

We start deciding what we think discipleship should look like instead of allowing him to form us.

We start setting our minds on human things rather than divine things.

But in those moments, Jesus doesn’t cast us aside.

He says, “Get back in line.”

Remember your place.

Follow me.

That’s what the Christian life looks like.

We renounce evil.

We turn toward the light.

And we follow the one leads us to abundant life with God.

And when we discover that we’ve started walking our own way again, by the grace of God, we turn back.

Back toward Jesus.

Back toward the way of the cross.

Back to the one who says to Peter, and to every one of us:

Get behind me.

And follow.

Amen.