Tag Archives: peter

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.

A Sermon for The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 16, Year A)
August 23, 2026

Text: Matthew 16:13-20

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.

Earlier this year, I was wandering through a used bookstore when I came across a book by Nadia Bolz-Weber called Accidental Saints. Some of you may be familiar with Nadia. She’s a Lutheran pastor and author, and she’s probably not what you would expect when you hear the words “Lutheran pastor.”

She’s covered in tattoos. She’s very open about her complicated past, and she’s known for being pretty blunt and honest about her own struggles with faith.

I’d heard of the book before, and it was only a few dollars. So I picked it up, brought it home, and did what I often do with books I intend to read: I put it on the shelf.

And there it sat for several months.

Until recently, when I picked it back up and started reading.

And there’s one story in particular from the book I want to share with you this morning.

Several years ago, Nadia was invited to speak at a national youth gathering in New Orleans.

And it wasn’t just a youth retreat with fifty or sixty kids. We’re talking about tens of thousands of teenagers gathered inside the Superdome.

And at first, Nadia wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. When she was invited to speak, she said no.

She didn’t think she was the right person for the job. She didn’t think she knew how to talk to teenagers. And she certainly didn’t think she had anything to say that they would find meaningful.

The organizers asked her again, and she still said no.

But eventually, she agreed to do it.

And almost immediately, she began wondering what in the world she had gotten herself into.

She asked people what they thought she should talk about. She bounced ideas off of trusted friends and family members.

Nothing seemed right.

And there was something else.

Not everyone was happy that Nadia Bolz-Weber had been invited to speak at the event.

Her story isn’t exactly neat and tidy. She had struggled with addiction. She had spent years away from the Church. Her path to becoming a pastor had been anything but ordinary.

And there were people who wondered whether someone with a story like hers was really the person who should be standing in front of thousands of teenagers talking about Jesus.

I imagine that only made the question in the back of her mind that much louder:

“What could someone like me possibly have to offer?”

But then something happened on the way to New Orleans.

On the flight there, Nadia was sitting next to a teenage girl named Chloe. Chloe had pink bangs, and she was quiet and kept mostly to herself.

And as they began to talk, Nadia discovered that Chloe knew something about what it was like to feel different—to feel like maybe she didn’t quite fit the mold of what other people expected her to be.

Nadia knew something about that, too, and as they talked, she began to realize something.

Maybe she didn’t need to figure out how to become the kind of person who could speak to thousands of teenagers.

Maybe the thing she had to offer was simply her own story.

Finally, the moment came.

Nadia walked onto that stage in the Superdome and looked out at thousands of young people.

And she told them the truth.

She told them about herself. About the ways she had struggled. About the mistakes she had made. About the ways her life hadn’t always followed the nice, straight path we imagine a Christian is supposed to follow.

She didn’t give them some polished version of herself.

She gave them the truth of who she was.

And somehow, God was at work in all of it.

The person who was convinced she had nothing to say to these teenagers connected with them in a way she never could have imagined.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that story this week—and about how easy it is to believe that we have to be the perfect Christian, or the perfect disciple, before God can really use us.

And I think our Gospel reading for this morning has something to teach us about that.

In our lesson from Matthew, Jesus asks the disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”

They give him the answers they’ve heard. Some say John the Baptist. Others say Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.

But then Jesus makes the question personal.

“But who do you say that I am?”

Peter answers the question.

“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus responds, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah,” and then he says something extraordinary:

“You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.”

Of all the disciples, Peter is the one who first confesses Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God.

If you know anything about Peter, you know he’s anything but the perfect disciple.

He isn’t a scholar or religious leader.

When Jesus meets him for the first time, he’s working as a fisherman with his brother Andrew when Jesus simply says, “Follow me.”

And Peter does.

From that point on, Peter follows Jesus faithfully—but not perfectly.

As we heard in our Gospel lesson a couple weeks ago, Peter is the one who sees Jesus walking across the water and actually has enough faith to climb out of the boat and walk toward him.

But then he notices the wind and waves. He becomes frightened and begins to sink.

“Lord, save me!” he says.

That’s Peter.

Faithful enough to climb out of the boat but frightened enough to doubt.

And perhaps the best example comes right after the story in today’s Gospel.

Peter has just answered correctly.

He says to Jesus, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus praises him and calls him the rock on which he’ll build his church.

But then, only a few verses later, Jesus begins explaining to the disciples that he must go up to Jerusalem, suffer, and die.

Peter pulls him aside and rebukes him.

And Jesus responds, “Get behind me, Satan.”

That’s quite a turn in the story.

One moment, he says to Peter, “On this rock I will build my church.”

A few verses later, he says, “Get behind me, Satan.”

And of course, much later in the Gospel, Peter says to Jesus that even if everyone else abandons him in his time of need, he will never leave him.

And we all know what happened there.

On the night when Jesus is arrested, Peter denies even knowing who Jesus is. Not once, but three times.

And yet this is the man Jesus chooses.

Because Jesus knows Peter.

He knows his courage and his fear.

His faith and his doubts.

He knows Peter will sometimes get things right and sometimes fall short.

And still Jesus looks at him and says:

I will use you to build my Church.

Not some future version of you.

Not the Peter who’s finally figured everything out.

Just you.

I wonder how many of us have a hard time believing that about ourselves.

Because it’s easy to fall in the trap of believing that God can only use us if we’re the perfect disciple.

We think to ourselves, “If I only knew the Bible better…”

Or “If I only prayed more…”

Or “If only my faith were stronger…”

Or “If only I hadn’t made those mistakes…”

Maybe then God could use me.

So we hold back.

Because somewhere deep inside of us is that same question Nadia was asking herself:

What could someone like me possibly have to offer?

And if you think priests and clergy are immune to that question, I’ve got something to tell you.

We aren’t.

There are moments in my own life—even after eleven years of being a priest—when I question myself and wonder what in the world God was thinking when he called me to this ministry.

But one of the amazing things about Scripture is that it’s filled with so many beautiful examples of how God calls imperfect people—like Peter—to do extraordinary things.

Throughout history, the Church has been filled with imperfect people. People who were courageous one moment and frightened the next. People who loved Jesus but also struggled to be faithful.

People like Peter and Nadia.

People like us.

And maybe that’s where God’s grace comes in.

God doesn’t expect us to be perfect.

God meets us where we are and begins working through us there.

God takes what we have to offer and does things with it that we never could’ve imagined.

That’s what Nadia discovered at that youth gathering all those years ago.

She thought she needed the perfect message or the perfect words.

But all she really needed was to be herself.

And God used it.

Some of the things she thought made her unqualified to speak were the things that allowed her to connect with those teenagers.

And I wonder if that’s sometimes true for us, too.

Maybe some of the things we wish we could erase from our past are the very things that allow us to recognize someone else’s pain.

Maybe our struggles have taught us compassion.

Maybe our failures have taught us humility.

Maybe the places where we’ve needed grace the most have become the places where we can offer grace to someone else.

God can use all of it.

When I hear Jesus say to Peter, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church,” I hear something wonderfully hopeful for all of us.

You don’t have to have everything figured out.

You don’t have to have the perfect words.

You don’t have to become some perfect version of yourself before God can work through you.

You just have to be willing to offer what you have.

Your gifts.

Your experiences.

Your story.

Your faith—even when it’s not perfect.

Your authentic self.

God is asking for you—just as you are.

Whatever you may think you have—or don’t have—to offer, you are enough.

Jesus looks at you just as he did with Peter and says, “I will use you.”

Not some future version of you.

Not the you who’s finally figured everything out.

Just you.

Amen.