August 30, 2026

Well, I came here among you all to be your rector five years ago at the ripe old age of 35. And many of you have kind of gently and, you know, enjoyably given me grief over my youth at times.

But I'm not as young as you might think. And case in point, just this past week I was driving up to Frederick on 270. Being a dutiful driver, I was in the right lane. And as I'm going along, I am very, very quickly coming on this car that seems to be doing about 50 on 270. So, of course, I move over into the left lane to pass. And as I'm getting closer, I realize it's a Chevy Corvair. And as I'm getting ready to pass, this panel truck flies up onto the bumper of this Corvair. And immediately two things came to mind. One, visions of uncontrollable swing axles and exploding rear engines. And the second was that 92-year-old Ralph Nader, wherever he is, is probably experiencing some disturbance in the force.

And now 61 years on, Unsafe at Any Speed has been out, and we know that some of Nader's concerns might have been a little bit overblown. But nevertheless, as I was processing that moment and that immediate thought that I'm going to get ahead and away from this car as far as possibly I can, I thought about all of these times that we think we know better than everyone else, that we have this idea that we know better than the powers that be. No matter what safety regulations might be, no matter what new information might come about, we know better than all of that.

There's this famous social media clip that's made its way around the internet for the last few years. It's from a mid-1980s news broadcast in California about California more strictly enforcing their drinking and driving laws. One gentleman interviewed in the story said, "It's kind of getting common where a fella can't put in a hard day's work, put in 11, 12 hours, and then get in your truck and at least drink one or two beers." And then another woman in the same broadcast said, "They're making laws where you can't drink when you want to, when you have to wear a seat belt when you're driving. Pretty soon we're going to be a communist country."

And we think about that now, we look back on those experiences, and we're kind of aghast at the attitude. I mean, I remember as a kid all the old mechanics grousing when leaded gasoline was banned nationally, and all the outrage when we had these clean indoor acts that came into effect and you couldn't smoke inside anymore. And yet we look back on all that now and say, of course, of course we do these things. They're for the good of the community.

Yes, we might have to make individual sacrifices in our own life, but there's something greater at work here. There's something more important at hand. And we don't always know the best. We don't always know what is right. We don't always have the full picture ourselves. Over and over again, we always seem to have these attitudes, get stuck in these places where we think we know better than everyone else. And that is kind of at the heart, one of the major through lines we have in our readings today—this notion that we know better even than God, God's self.

We hear this great response by Jesus in verse 23 of our gospel passage: "But he turned back and said to Peter, 'Get behind me, Satan. You are a stumbling block for me. You are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things.'"

So often when we get stuck in these places of knowing better, when we think we have a firm grasp on the reality of the world, we often are in that place of having our mind set on human things.

We had a wedding yesterday here, a blessing of a wedding, and we read that great passage from St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians where he talks about seeing through a mirror dimly. We never know fully, but we sometimes, maybe often, operate as if we do.

And what is it that Jesus is condemning here? It's interesting, actually, because our translation of this gospel passage is rather unique. Back in verse 21, Jesus uses a Greek term here, dei, which is in reference to the things that are necessary, when it says that he must go to Jerusalem. That "must" is this dei, and it's this sense that there is a necessity here. There is something that is a requirement of the divine plan, of the grand scheme of things.

You know that passage that I love talking about from St. John's Gospel, where Jesus had to go through Samaria—where there's this sense that him going through Samaria, interacting with the Samaritan woman at the well, is a part, a necessary part, of expansively understanding the salvific work that he is on about.

So often when we see this Greek in the New Testament, when we see it in the ministry of Jesus' life, it has this kind of eschatological character to it. It has this implication for all of salvation history. So many times when Jesus says, "These things must happen," or "I must do this," using that Greek, he is referencing the things of cosmic importance.

But here's where the New Revised Standard is unique. Verse 22: "And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, 'God forbid it, Lord; this must never happen to you.'"

There's a parallelism here. Jesus says these things must happen, and Peter says they must not happen. But that's actually a very rare translation. Bible Hub, a great website with lots of resources, has 61 different translations of the Bible into English. And out of those 61, only 11 of them use this word "must." Because if you actually go back and you read the Greek, the sense is more like, "This cannot be true of you." Peter doesn't say "This must not happen." He says, "This cannot be true of you. If you are the Savior, this cannot be a part of who you are."

And to have this sense that Peter says this must not happen, I want to suggest to you that that actually kind of has this implication of we—I, we—need to do something to make sure this doesn't happen. We need to have some agency in this.

And while that might not be exactly right, correcting the sort of rigid interpretation of the Greek, I think as a homiletical, as a teaching mechanism, this parallelism is actually quite provocative because it gets at a sense of how we often want to control things.

And it's actually a nice parallelism to what happens later on in Matthew's gospel, just 10 chapters later, when Jesus is arrested at the garden in Gethsemane. The ear of the soldier's slave gets cut off. Now, that's an occurrence in all four Gospels, but in John's rendering of that story, he names Peter as the one who chops off the ear.

So we have Peter saying, "These things cannot happen. We must prevent this." And then just 10 chapters later, he does something physical to sort of prevent what is about to transpire. He kind of constantly is stuck in this sense that I have agency, I know better than you, Jesus, and I'm going to use that agency to do what I think needs to be done in the world.

And throughout all of our readings today, we have the counter-narrative to that—the reminder that it ultimately is not about us, that it is about God and God's judgment.

What do we hear at the end of our reading from Jeremiah? "They shall not prevail over you, for I am with you to save you." This is God speaking. "I am with you to save you and deliver you. I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked and redeem you from the grasp of the ruthless."

Even when things have gone awry, even when we are stuck and mired in these times of great suffering and peril, it is still God who does the action of saving. It is God who is our deliverer.

Psalm 26: "Give judgment for me, O Lord, for I have lived with integrity. I have trusted in the Lord and not faltered." I have trusted—you give judgment. It is for you, God, to give judgment for me, not for me to give judgment myself.

And then we hear this most clearly in our epistle from Romans, where St. Paul goes into this extended discourse about our proper role and location in all of this. Verse 12: "Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer"—all very challenging things for us to do.

"Do not repay anyone evil for evil," continuing with verse 17, "but take thought for what is noble and excellent, if it is possible." I love that caveat from St. Paul: If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

"Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God." That's particularly trying language for us, I think, as very nice, comfortable, settled, mainline Protestants. We don't like to think about God being wrathful, God being judgmental. But at the same time, what do we do with these times of great struggle, these times of great suffering, these times where others have violated our space, our safety, our right to live peaceably with all?

How do we live in these times of great division and discord? It's not for us to be the judges. It's not for us to be the ones who repay evil for evil. It is God's role alone to be the judge. God's role alone to bring about the judgment of the world.

And how do we do that then? Well, I think St. Paul gives us that sense of what this looks like. We contribute. We contribute to the needs of the community, our community here, the lived experience of the church. We extend hospitality to those who are different from us, the stranger, the one in need. We bless those who are persecuting us. We weep with those who weep. We rejoice with those who rejoice. We live in harmony with one another. We are not haughty, and we associate with the lowly. We do not claim to be wiser than we are. We imbue this sense of humility.

These are all difficult and challenging ways to live in the world, but they are fundamental to what it means for us to have our call as Christians. And to be honest, it may be not so far out of reach as we might expect.

I think so often when we encounter these teachings, they seem so utopian. They seem so far beyond reach, beyond what we are capable of in the miredness of all of our prejudices and all of our struggles to try to live and love one another, live with and love one another.

And yet, just this past week at 80 years old, Dolly Parton passed away. And she might have been one of the clearest exemplars of what this can look like in a real, lived, embodied experience. I suspect that she may be the only person who was lauded unquestionably, unconditionally, by both the Democratic Socialists of America and President Trump. They both released statements about how profound her impact on the world has been.

Also, a clip from 2016, an interview with Larry King, came up in the course of people memorializing her, remembering her. She said:

"If you're gay, you're gay. If you're straight, you're straight. And you should be allowed to be how you are and who you are. I keep saying, well, if you're the fine Christian that you think you are, why are you judging people? That's God's job. We're not God. We're not judges. We're supposed to love one another. We're supposed to not judge. We're not supposed to take vengeance on other people. That's God's job. We should be accepting and loving. We are all God's children. We are who we are. And we should be allowed to be who we are."

That, from a woman who came from a background that you would think would have all sorts of prohibitions and attitudes diametrically opposed to that sentiment. And yet she had this profound gift for being open and humble and compassionate to those who had her life experience, and those who did not. Those who knew the things that she came from, and those who had wildly different life experiences. She had an ability to graciously navigate that diversity in a way that kept her grounded in who she was, but also lived with compassion and generosity in the world around her.

And so often, when we encounter admonitions in the Gospels and in St. Paul's writings, we sometimes feel that they are too beyond reach, too far beyond reach, too inaccessible to us in the murk and mire of the complexities we live with. But we have, just in Dolly Parton, just in the many examples of people we may know in our own lives, that place of humility, of compassion, of kindness that can be the wellspring of this right and proper orientation in the world around us.

And it's not that those who are operating out of this place of vitriol, of hatred, of injustice and oppression—it's not that they won't be called to account. But it's that it's not our role to be the judge and the arbiter of that calling to account. That is the work of God. That is the work of God's justice. That is the ultimate arc and plan of salvation, of righting the things that are wrong in this world.

And so today, as we encounter these lessons, as we hear this rather difficult teaching from Jesus, I want to go back to what he says to Peter:

"You are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things. If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me."

There is a sense that when we do this hard work of humility, it's not going to be an easy road. It's not going to be the smoothest of journeys. But it is the way of righteousness. It is the way of ultimate justice. It is the way of living in a world where we proclaim the alternative truth of compassion, of love, of generosity even in the midst of diversity. And that is the greatest weapon we have against the ills and evils of the broken and fallen world that we live in.

Because when we do not repay evil for evil, but instead repay evil with justice and beauty and love, through the power of God, we will persevere and overcome all the challenges that we confront now and in the future. And ultimately, in living in that way, ultimately inhabiting those spaces of righteousness, we will realize the beauty, the totality, and the completeness of God's plan for us and for the whole world.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.