13 Pentecost

 

August 30, 2026

 Matthew 16:21-28

 + I’m going to start out today doing something kind of unpleasant.

 But, I’ll bring it back around.

 Eventually.

 I promise.

 Ok, so let’s just take a moment today and think about something.

 For this moment, let’s just look over our own personal history so far and think about a time when we thought we failed.

 Truly failed.

 Truly failed ourselves.

 Truly failed someone we loved.

 Truly failed professionally.

 Truly failed.

 Live with this memory for a moment.

 Let is sit there with you.

 Accept it for what it is.

 I’m not going to ask you give it up right yet.

 We’re gonna keep it here for a bit more.

 Let’s turn our attention to our Gospel reading today.

 In it, we hear those very familiar words,

 “Get behind me, Satan!”

 Jesus isn’t saying this to the religious leaders, or the government officials, or Herod, or Caesar

 He isn’t even saying it Satan himself.

 He is saying it to, of all people, Peter.

 Poor, poor Peter.

 Only moments earlier, Peter had just confessed that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of the living God.

 And Jesus had just called him blessed.

 He had named him—or rather his confession—the rock upon which the Church would be built.

 And now Jesus calls him what??

 Satan??

 Poor, perpetually well-intended Peter>

 Oh, what happened?

 Well, Peter listened.

 And sometimes listening gets us in trouble.

 This past week, classes started.

 And with my writing students, I tell them one of the rules of a good and effective writer is listening.

 Hearing what’s going on around you.

 Hearing the dialog at the next table.

 Hearing the world with the ear of a poet.

 But doing so can be dangerous.

 It can be unpleasant.

 Sometimes listening closely means hearing things we don’t want to hear.

 And Peter had just heard Jesus speaking about suffering, rejection, and death.

 And Peter could not accept it.

 Now, let’s be fair to Peter.

 He wasn’t the only one of his time who would have had a fairly clear expectation of who and what the Messiah was.

 And Peter sure knew that what Jesus was saying about himself was definitely not what a Messiah was supposed to do.

 After all, the Messiah was supposed to win.

 The Messiah was supposed to overthrow enemies.

 The Messiah was supposed to seize power.

 The Messiah was supposed to restore Israel’s glory.

 And Peter does what we, with those expectations, would’ve done as well.

 He responds to this by saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.”

 He’s so well-intended in this.

 He’s trying so hard to be the faithful follower.

 However, poor Peter’s idea of salvation is still shaped by power.

 He, and a lot of other people, wants a Messiah who conquers through force.

 A winner!

 A Mesiah who reveals a God who conquers through power and might.

 And what does Jesus come representing?

 Jesus reveals a God who conquers through love.

 And love, Jesus tells us, is not free.

 It will cost something.

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

 And no one—no one!—not even now, wants to hear that!

 Now, to be fair, Jesus isn’t telling us to actually seek out suffering.

 He’s not telling abused people to remain with their abusers.

 He’s not saying that illness, injustice, or oppression is somehow God’s will.

 He’s not wanting us to be self-wallowing martyrs to our own sad depressions.

 The cross is not a passive acceptance of whatever misery comes our way.

 (I think a lot of Christians miss that point)

 The cross, rather, is what happens when we love as Jesus loves in a world that is often hostile to love.

 The cross is what happens when we tell the truth in a world comfortable with lies.

 It is what happens when we live in a world in which we strive hard to recreate things in a way that suit us at the expense of others.

 It is what happens when we welcome those whom respectable society has rejected.

 It is what happens when we refuse to answer cruelty with cruelty, hatred with hatred, or violence with violence.

 It is what happens when people are being passive aggressive, or unduly subversive.

 Taking up the cross means choosing the way of Jesus even when another way would just be so much easier, and safer, or more profitable.

 Peter wanted Jesus to save his life.

 He really did.

 But he wanted him to do it by abandoning that way of love.

 But Jesus knew that a life preserved at the cost of love is no life at all.

 “For those who want to save their life will lose it,” Jesus says, “and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

 We spend so much energy trying to save our lives.

 We protect our reputations.

 We guard our possessions.

 We cling to control.

 We build walls around our hearts because we’re afraid of being wounded and hurt.

 And slowly, almost without noticing it, the life we have tried so desperately to protect becomes smaller and smaller.

 Jesus offers us another way.

 Give your life away, he says.

 Spend it on mercy.

 Pour it out in compassion.

 Risk it on love.

 Stand beside the lonely.

 Defend the vulnerable.

 Welcome the stranger.

 Forgive when you can.

 Begin again when you fail.

 This is how a life is lost.

 And this is how a life is found.

 Peter will eventually get it.

 He’ll eventually discover that being the rock of the Church does not mean possessing power.

 It means following Jesus.

 It means failing.

 And failing hard.

 It means being forgiven.

 It means continuing along the way.

 OK.

 So, let’s go back to that failure that we’ve been siting with during this sermon.

 Is it still there with you?

 If so, just remember as you sit here with it beside you—Jesus understood failure too.

 He was a failure.

 A failure int eh eyes of Peter.

 A failure in the eyes of the world.

 But our failures—that thing sitting beside you—don’t define us.

 We fail sometimes.

 Let it go.

 Give to God.

 Release it.

 And be done with it

 And forgive yourself for it.

 And remember, there are probably more failures ahead.

 We’re gonna fail in this life.

 There will be moments when we choose safety over love, when we choose comfort over truth, when we choose self-preservation over mercy.

 But Jesus will continue to call us.

 Take up your cross, he says to us.

 Follow me, he says to us.

 Lose the small and frightened life you have been guarding so carefully.

 Let it go.

 And discover a larger life.

 Discover a more abundant life.

 A life that can be found only when we give ourselves away in love.

 Amen.