First-Year Sunday Sermon
By the Rev. Matthew Ichihashi Potts, Ph.D ’13
Plummer Professor of Christian Morals in the Faculty of Divinity
Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church
(The following is a transcript of the service audio, Aug. 30 2026)
May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us this day and remain with us always. Amen. Welcome back, everyone. It's great to be here. It's great to be here with you. You look great. The view up here is beautiful. It's a beautiful church. You're all beautiful. It's always such a joyous day when we can return after the summer, kick off the new school year full of hope and optimism and possibility. All beautiful things, all things we celebrate duly with great joy.
But I have to tell you, it never fails. The first Sunday back, the gospel lesson is always a downer. That's true today. Also, Jesus is giving it to Peter. “Get behind me, Satan.” That's tough. And also, “take up your cross and follow me.” “If any of you would be my disciple, take up your cross and follow me.”
There might be no more pointed summary of discipleship that Jesus gives in the gospels, but it's a scary one. And if we're being honest, it's one that has not always been used to the best purposes in the history of the church. You can see how a teaching like that, "This is what it means to be a disciple, to take up your cross and follow me." How from that we can develop interpretations about the holiness of suffering or the saintliness of those who suffer, and how commending the saintliness of those who suffer might lead us to be ambivalent or indifferent to the suffering of those who suffer. And our churches have been guilty of that, have done that, have taken this line that way. So, as I said, this's a difficult way to begin the year.
Now, this rebuke of Peter, Jesus says, the gospel lesson starts, Jesus is telling them that he's going to die, being handed over to the authorities and die. And Peter says, "God forbid, this must never happen." Jesus rebukes him really forcefully. Peter's a sympathetic character, at least to me, right? Who wants to see their friend suffer and die? Who wants to see their teacher handed over to suffering and death? Of course, he says. "God forbid it, this must never happen." And that's true, but there's also context here. This rebuke, Peter's response, and this rebuke come from somewhere else. One of the tricks of talking about these gospel passages just as extracts is that it's part of a larger story, and so I'm going to fill in the larger story a little bit. This follows a really central moment in the Gospel of Matthew.
You'll see the beginning of our lesson says, then Jesus told them it's because something else happened before, and what happened before is Jesus had come to his disciples and said, "Who do you think I am? You've been with me for a while. Who do you think I am?" And Peter says, "You're the Messiah." And then Jesus told them, and then Peter says. So, the rebuke comes in the wake of this, what's traditionally called the confession, Peter's declaration that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah of God. But even that moment, Peter's confession, also has its own context. So, if you look at the larger story of the gospel, the Gospel of Matthew, when Jesus starts his ministry, he calls a couple of disciples, he does some teaching, he has a miracle or two. They're pretty like low-grade miracles, like low-level miracles: one healing, healing one person. Peter's mother-in-law, one person at a time. But as the chapters advance towards this moment where Peter makes this confession, this declaration, the miracles ramp up. These deeds of power become tremendous, like superhero deeds of power.
Jesus calms a storm, controls the weather. Jesus walks on water. Jesus feeds 5,000 people. More than 5,000, actually; the scripture says 5,000 men. There were women and children there also, right? More than 5,000 people, thousands and thousands with a wave of his hand and prayer feeds thousands of people, cures not just one person, whole crowds of people. And then, just in case you didn't notice the first time, feeds 4,000 people. And it's in the wake of all this, the ramp-up of these immense, amazing deeds of power, that Jesus poses this question to disciples, "Who am I?"
Now, these superhero miracles are hard to believe. They are incredible. In the literal sense of that word, they are hard to believe. We can talk about believing in them; that's a different sermon. For this morning, the point is that they are hard to believe because this is in the context: these amazing, impossible-to-believe events. This is the context in which this question is posed to Peter. Put yourself in Peter's place. Who do you say that I am? Here's who Peter is. He's a fisherman from a backwater, living in a region that has been occupied for centuries by foreign powers, living in a region which is, at that time, occupied by the most powerful force, the most powerful empire in the history of the world, and they rule with cruelty and ruthlessness, and his people suffer. They have no hope for throwing off the boot of this oppression.
They imagine, they hope, they dream of restoring the Jewish kingdom, throwing off oppression, restoring the Jewish king, but who could do that with a power so great and so vast? And then this guy shows up who literally walks on water. He controls the weather. He feeds thousands with a wave of his hands, and he comes, after doing all these things, comes to Peter and says, "Who do you think I am?" And Peter says, "You're the one. You're the only one who could do what we need done." When Peter says, "God forbid, this must never happen," it's not just because he doesn't want his friend to suffer and die. It's also because he's saying, "That is not the way this is supposed to go, man. You are the only one who can do this, and we need you to do this."
Peter believes in Jesus, but maybe more than he believes in Jesus, he believes in what Jesus will do for him and for his people and also how Jesus will do it for him and for his people. And as soon as Jesus suggests or reveals that he intends to do something else, Peter's affirmation becomes a denial. That's not who you are. I need you to be somebody else. God forbid, this must never happen. It's easy, 2,000 years later, knowing the story of Jesus; it's easy maybe to criticize Peter, but affirming Jesus as the Christ while denying his plans- that's a common habit in Christian life.
Consider those who proclaim themselves Christians in our world today, especially the powerful, people in power who very publicly demonstrate or articulate their faith in Jesus. I can imagine Jesus going to them, showing up to them, saying to them, "These men in high places who wear their faith so loudly and proudly," I imagine Jesus saying to them, "Who do you think I am?" And them saying in faith, "You are the Christ." And what if Jesus said, "You're right, and you need to welcome every stranger and care for the foreigner and support the immigrant in your land." What do you think they'd say? "God forbid, this must never happen." Or maybe Jesus goes to them and says, "Who do you say that I am?" And they say, "You're the Christ, the Messiah of God." And he says, "You're right." And the Messiah has come to free the prisoner and set free the captive because God desires mercy, not sacrifice. They would say, "God forbid, this must not happen."
I'm not trying to pull any punches here. I'm not just talking about those bad Christians out there against us versus us good Christians in here. Imagine Jesus comes to us and says, "Who do you say that I am?" And we say, "You are the Christ, the Messiah of God." And Jesus says, "You're right." I want you to go bless all those persecutors. I want you to do good to those who intend these harms. I want you to love your enemy. I know what I'm supposed to say; I'm tempted to say, "God forbid it, this must never happen."
Or imagine Jesus coming into this beautiful church, our beloved church, this well-appointed, well-endowed church, and Jesus saying to us, "Who am I?" And we say, "You are the Christ, the Messiah of God." And Jesus says, "Yes, sell everything you have and give it to the poor." "God forbid, this must never happen." These miracles- walking on water, controlling the weather, conjuring nourishment out of thin air- they're all unbelievable, literally, as I said, incredible. And that's the point because it's actually easier for Peter to believe, for us to believe in all these impossible deeds of power than it is for us to believe that God's plan for the world is love. Not power, not might, not vengeance, not violence, not wealth, not riches, but love.
I'm sure you've noticed that there's a scary world out there. The world needs saving. The question we face, the one that poses Jesus's rebuke to Peter, is whether our world will be saved by overwhelming force or overwhelming love. I know what our answer, I know what my answer is supposed to be, but it's hard. It's a real dilemma. To choose love requires great courage, great faith, and great resolve, and, at times, great risk. It might require denying yourself and taking up your cross.
There's an interesting thing about these great deeds of power in the Gospel of Matthew, about all these superhero-type miracles. After this moment in Matthew's gospel, they mostly cease. There's a healing here and there. Jesus heals one person at a time again, but on his way to Jerusalem to do what he has told them must be done, Jesus just walks around teaching, telling people to forgive each other, warning them of what's going to happen to him, and eating and spending time with undesirables and deplorables. It's almost as if he exercised all that power in the beginning of his ministry just to show that he could lay it all aside at the end. He showed them all the things he was capable of doing just so he could show them that the world needs something else, just to show them that violence and vengeance are not part of God's plan. Just to show them that in God's kingdom, acts of love matter more than deeds of power; to show them that the way of salvation really is the way of love, even, God forbid, if it leads to a cross.
God forbid because Jesus did not want suffering. Jesus prayed fervently to have his suffering taken away just as we pray for all those who suffer, that their suffering will be taken away. But it's the lie of power that the way of force and of violence is free of suffering or free of risk. When the world is falling apart, when the world needs saving, any way forward carries some risk. Suffering can meet us in myriad ways. The question for us is not, "Must we suffer?" The question is, "What do we believe in the end will save us? What is the power that will save this broken beloved world? Will it be devastating force or steadfast, stalwart love? We know Jesus' answer, but his question still stands. Will you follow?