The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost - August 23, 2026

St. Paul’s - Proper 16 - August 23, 2026

Do you remember in school when the teacher would come in and say, “Please clear your desks. We’re having a pop quiz today?”

As Matthew tells the story, Jesus (being an excellent teacher) asks two questions in his pop quiz. He prefaces his zinger question with an easier one: Who do people say that I am?  In other words, what’s the word on the street?  What have you heard?  What do the opinion polls suggest?

I don’t know about you, but I can just about hear the schoolboy relief in the disciples’ voices (Ooh, ooh! This is an easy one!  I know this one!) as they scramble to answer Jesus’s question.  People say you’re John the Baptist!  No, no, they say you’re Elijah!  Actually, some folks think you’re Jeremiah.  Yes, but others say you’re one of the prophets!

I’m guessing they go on for a while, each disciple trying to drown the others out with a more succinct, authoritative, and promising answer.  Not coincidentally, the answers the disciples come up with are based entirely on the religious factions they’re partial to. 

Interestingly, Jesus neither affirms nor denies any of the disciples’ answers.  He simply listens, allowing his friends to offer up everything they think they know, based on other people’s preferences, ideas, and expert opinions.  As if to say: this is an okay place to begin.  This is where all explorations of faith begin, in naming what we’ve heard, examining what we’ve inherited, and parroting back the certainties others have handed to us.  These answers cost us little; they’re safe and benign.  They hearken back to history and tradition, and that’s lovely.  But there’s no intimacy in them.  No personal stakes.  No investment, no fire.  Naming what we’ve heard from others, repeating what we’ve inherited from our parents or pastors or peers — these are useful ways to start our explorations.  But we cannot build our faith lives on hearsay alone.  At some point, the question of who Jesus is, must become personal.  

So Jesus presses on.  Question two of the Pop quiz. But who do you say that I am?  Looking at each disciple in turn, he awaits a more intimate answer.  Meaning: forget about other people’s theologies and interpretations.  Put aside tradition and creed, valuable as they are, and consider the life we have lived together thus far.  The bread we’ve broken, the miles we’ve walked, the burdens we’ve carried, the tears we’ve shed, the laughter we’ve shared. Who am I to you?  How have you experienced me?

Matthew doesn’t give us much detail about the scene, but when I imagine what happens next, I see the disciples falling into an awkward silence.  I imagine them avoiding eye contact with Jesus.  Shuffling their feet.  Coughing.  Casting anxious glances at each other.  I imagine every single one of them desperately hoping that someone else will answer first.

And I imagine Jesus, standing patiently and vulnerably in their midst through that long silence, waiting to hear what his closest friends will say about him.  Do they know him?  Have they learned to trust his heart and his words?  How much have they comprehended of his mission and vision, and how much are they willing to confess out loud?  Do they love him enough to make a claim?  To take a risk?  To speak truths that might cost them?

Cue Peter.  Bold, reckless, earnest, impetuous Peter.  When the silence becomes unbearable, he throws himself forward and answers the question as confidently as he can:  You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.

A perfect, A-plus answer.  Right?

Well, sort of.  In this week's Gospel account, yes, Jesus commends and blesses Peter for his answer.  Jesus declares that he will build his church upon the rock of Peter’s bold testimony.  And he promises Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven.  All of this is true, and powerful, and worth celebrating.

But it’s not the end of the story. 

What does it mean for you today that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God? Who am I?  Where do I stand in this life we’re making together?  What do I mean to you?

In other words, what does it mean for us today to stand with Peter and say that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God? I have held this question before me – before us – like never before. I think we are discovering a larger and more relevant understanding of what it means for Jesus to be the Messiah, the Son of the living God. 

Here’s what I mean by that. I thought I knew or had some idea of what it meant for Jesus to be the Messiah. It used to be mostly a Sunday morning kind of question, but now it’s an every day kind of question. It used to be about the future, but now it’s about the present moment. It’s no longer only or even primarily about saving souls, it’s about changing hearts. And if Jesus is not changing your heart and my heart then he is not the Messiah of our lives. And if he is our Messiah then he necessarily changes how we live.

Division characterizes our lives today and yet I have never been more aware of our interconnectedness and the ways we, for better or worse, impact and affect each other. The boundaries of me and mine – my life, my family, my needs, my community, my people – are being expanded. It’s really not all about me, the Big Bend or the United States. 

So when the Messiah says something like love your neighbor, I’m having to redefine who my neighbor is and what that is asking of me. And if I follow this Messiah as the way, the truth, and the life what does that ask of me in my marriage and parenting? How does it shape my friendships and other relationships? Am I discerning between the light and darkness in what I read and post on social media? What happens when his way, truth, and life conflict with the way, the truth, and the life of my friends, my family, my country?

And how many more times must the Messiah say, Peace be with you, or Do not be afraid, before I take those words to heart? If he really is my Messiah, then I have to look at the values I hold, the priorities I establish, and the truths I claim for myself and see if they align with his. When he says, Follow me, or Come and see, do I go or do I blaze my own path? 

It seems there is not a part of my life over which he does not want to be the Messiah, the Son of the living God. Sometimes I take comfort in that, other times I take offense.  

Those are the kind of things that come up for me when I think of Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of the living God. What about you? In what ways does it matter or make a difference in your life that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God? Is that just a title we give him or is it asking something of us? Is it changing how we live, and if not, why do we come here Sunday after Sunday?

I ask these questions not just of you but of myself. I ask them because I struggle with that gap between knowing the correct answer, and living that answer. Where does that struggle come up for you? When have you lived in the gap between knowing the correct answer and doing something with it?

I think that’s what Jesus has set before Peter today. I think that’s what Paul is writing about in today’s epistle when he warns us about being conformed instead of transformed. And I think Jesus experienced that gap in the Garden of Gethsemane as he struggled with what he knew to be his Father’s will.

It’s not enough to just give the correct answer. I learned that from my math teacher. I don’t remember what grade I was in but I remember how excited I was when I got my first math book that had the answers in the back. Do you remember that? I had always struggled with math and I thought to myself this year is going to be different.

My homework didn’t take long that first night. When the teacher gave it back to me every answer was correct. But there were no stars or smiley faces, and I didn’t get a 100. I got an F and a red ink note that said, Show me your work.

I wonder if that’s why Jesus sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah. Maybe he is less interested in our answer and more interested in seeing our work. Maybe Jesus is saying to us, Show me your work.

Maybe Jesus is saying to us, Show me what the kingdom looks like in your life, in your relationships, in your context. 

The kingdom comes locally, temporarily, intermittently, episodically in our particular circumstances through what we bind and what we loose. The kingdom comes, is actually here, is really real, whenever we love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, pray for those who abuse us, turn the other cheek to those who strike us, welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, forgive our offender, give to the beggar. (John Caputo) The kingdom is not a reward for these works; the kingdom is these works. (John Caputo) Wherever these works are happening, there is the kingdom. The kingdom is about what we do and how we live. The kingdom is what life looks like when we respond to what God is calling for. (John Caputo). The kingdom comes every time you and I give existence to the insistence of God. 

Have you ever thought of yourself as having the responsibility of giving existence to the kingdom? Have you ever thought that God might need you as much as you need God?

We can stand up every day and declare that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God but what difference does that make if we are not loosing people from injustice, racism, hunger, poverty, guilt, shame, fear, anger? What difference does that make if we are not loosing people to go in peace? What difference does that make if we are not binding ourselves to each other in love, compassion, forgiveness, hospitality, healing, hope, prayer? What difference does that make if we are not binding up the broken hearted?

I don’t want to just give the right answer. I want to be the right answer and to do the right answer, don’t you? 

We’ve each been given the keys of the kingdom, the power to bind and the power to loose. What are you doing with that in your life today? What are you unlocking for yourself? And what are you unlocking in the life of another? In what ways are you binding yourself to the life of another for his or her well-being?

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

Show me your work.