August 30, 2026
By Kristin Berkey-Abbott
Matthew 16:21-28
Today’s Gospel picks up where last week’s
Gospel stopped. Literally. It’s the very next verse. And a gentle reminder—when the Gospels were
written, they didn’t have chapters and verses.
Those were inserted later, much later.
And the lectionary of specified readings on any given Sunday is even
newer.
Last Sunday we read the earlier verses of
chapter 16, where Peter declares Jesus to be the Messiah. Jesus declares that Peter will be the rock on
which Jesus will be the church, the rock, a solid foundation. And now, just a few verses later, Jesus is
saying that Peter is Satan? What is
going on?
The most likely possibility is that Jesus is
not saying Peter equals Satan, not saying that Peter is possessed. But in Peter’s vow, Jesus recognizes the tempter
lurking, the one he has already encountered, just after his baptism, in the
wilderness, when he is offered every variation of worldly power. The tempter says that Jesus will be exalted
if he will just move from Supreme leader to loyal follower—of the tempter.
It’s that same worldly power that attracts
Peter. Remember back to last week’s
Gospel, that Jesus and the disciples are in Caesarea Phillipi. Last week we talked about this place being
one of palaces built to glorify Caesar, but this place also tells a story about
the Jewish family of rulers who sold out to the Romans, Herod the Great and his
descendants, the same family of Herods who haunt the whole Gospel of Matthew.
New Testament scholar Audrey West sums up the
history this way: “A couple of decades
before Jesus’ birth, Herod the Great had built a temple . . . in honor of
Caesar Augustus. By the time Jesus and his disciples visited the region,
Caesarea Philippi had been given over to the auspices of Herod’s son, Philip
the tetrarch, who established the city as the administrative center of his
government. By the time the Gospel of Matthew was written, people were
likely aware that the Roman commander who led the destruction of Jerusalem in
70 CE had returned with his troops to Caesarea Philippi in celebration of their
victory.”
Tired of tyranny, Peter declares Jesus to be
the true Messiah, the one foretold by the prophets, the one who will restore
the fortune of Israel. Like so many who
followed Jesus, he was hoping for a savior to kick the Romans out of the
homeland and bring down traitors like Herod.
Perhaps Peter looked at the crowds and envisioned a popular uprising—and
in fact, there was a popular uprising, in 70 CE, which led to the destruction
of Jerusalem and the Jews being forcibly deported to lands that weren’t their
own.
Like Peter, we, too, are yearning for many
types of deliverance. As I listened to
the outpouring of grief after the death of Dolly Parton this week, I thought of
the many kinds of deliverance and hope she offered. For some grievers, it’s the rags to riches
story that we hope is possible for all.
For some, it was her ability to be successful in all sorts of businesses
in a time where there were hardly any female CEOs—and even today, only 11% of
CEOs are female. Everyone has a favorite
story of how she was such a force for good in the world, all the many ways she
supported so many oppressed populations:
her hometown, little children who needed books (which is all children),
drag queens, black musicians from Whitney Houston to Beyonce, storm ravaged
places, on and on the list could go. It’s
no wonder that so many people yearned for Dolly Parton to run for president.
Peter, too, must have looked at Jesus and all
the ways he had been such a deliverance to so many people. And he envisions what the world would be like
if Jesus was king, not Herod, not Caesar.
Let’s be honest—we’ve probably had the same
kind of vision. Wouldn’t the world be a
better place if Jesus was in the White House?
Of course, some people do make that claim, that Jesus is there, that the
U.S. has most favored nation status.
I thought of this recently when stuck in
traffic behind a Jeep with a spare tire cover that depicted an image of a cross
and an American flag that declared that God has been blessing the nation for
250 years. I thought of the different nations of Native Americans who might
disagree, of others who were brought to the country in chains and kept enslaved. I thought of all the people brought to this
country from other lands to do hard work like building railroads, but who weren’t
allowed full citizenship. On and on this
list could go, of people who might not see a story of blessing over the past
250 years of history.
But the idea itself is a seductive one, this
idea that God favors some of us and worldly wealth flows from that favor. However, this idea that mingles nationalism
and the Divine is not what Jesus proclaims.
Again and again, he tells us just the opposite: the last shall be first and the lowly shall
be uplifted.
If Jesus ran for president with those campaign
promises, would he be elected?
Jesus understands what Peter wants, what most
of us want. We want what Dolly had, the
sparkly wealth, the adoration that results in a whole world grieving when death
comes, the power that comes with wealth and adoration.
Jesus points us to the other side of the Dolly
Parton story, the way that she gave away so much of her wealth and power. My favorite story that I didn’t know until this
week is that when her old friend and mentor Porter Wagner was facing jail
because he was in so much debt, she bought the rights to his catalogue, every
song he ever wrote or bought. And this
is the man who was not only her mentor, but the man who tried to destroy her
when she decided to try for a solo career.
He sued her for 3 million dollars.
But later, not only does she
rescue him, but then she turns around and gives the catalogue rights back to
his children, so they won’t be destitute.
Wow.
We grieve the loss of humans like Jesus, of
humans like Dolly, because their kind of grace and compassion is so rare. They have a fierce loyalty to this vision of
grace and compassion.
Today’s Gospel is indeed a study in loyalty. We’ve seen how Peter’s loyalty will shift,
and we know the end of the story, how Peter will deny this man he has declared
to be the Messiah. We see Jesus once
again resisting the tempter who wants the loyalty of Jesus. We see Jesus stay loyal to God even when
everyone around him, from the people in charge of society to his own followers,
are not able to maintain loyalty to God’s vision for the world.
At first glance, we might see today’s Gospel
as one that tells us not to ask questions.
After all, so many leaders on so many levels won’t tolerate anyone
telling their truths. We live in a time
where asking questions is seen by many people, particularly those in higher
realms of authority and power, as disrespectful and disloyal, a firing offense
or worse.
But that’s not what’s happening in this
interaction between Peter and Jesus.
Jesus reminds Peter that Peter’s view of liberation is much too limited
and that Peter, and indeed all humans, are oppressed by many forces in the
world. Jesus comes to set us free from
all the powers and principalities who will not stop dehumanizing practices just
because we want them to.
Again and again, Jesus asks the question that
echoes across the ages: will we be loyal
to our own vision of what liberation looks like—for ourselves, for each other, for
our nation, for the world—or will we make room for loyalty to God?
Our reading from Paul shows us what that
loyalty to God looks like, a loyalty summed up by the last verse of our second
reading: “Do not be overcome by evil,
but overcome evil with good.”
If we protest that only Jesus could do such a
thing, and he was Divine, and therefore we can’t be expected to go and live
likewise—well, in the life of Dolly Parton, we see evidence to the contrary.
We might not be able to give 30 million books
to children across the nation, the way that Dolly did. We might be just as confused as Peter at times. Happily, most humans live long enough to try
again, to pick up our crosses, to live a Jesus shaped life, not a life shaped
by the desire for all the worldly powers that are so alluring and so corrosive.
Out of a beginning poorer in material
resources than many of us will ever experience, Dolly Parton shows us what
might happen if we have the courage to live in the way that Jesus calls us to
live, if we commit to a world where everyone can flourish, not just the few at
the top, not only the Herods who collude with the forces of death and empire.
Let us face each day with new resolve to live in
a way so that we hold fast to what is good, having the courage to use all our
time, our resources, our talents, and our skills to be a living testimony to
Jesus by following his example, resisting the temptation to be loyal to other
forces that want our fidelity to a different vision, making a world that is
better for all.
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