Reflection for Sunday – August 23, 2026

Readings: Isaiah 22: 19-23; Romans 11: 33-36; Matthew 16: 13-20 
Preacher: Eileen Slagis

This August our Scriptures describe a particularly difficult time in Jesus’ life.  His cousin John has been gruesomely murdered by the autocrat, Herod.  And while he wants some private time to pray and to mourn, his preaching has attracted large crowds who follow him, wondering if he might be the promised Messiah. 

It is late, 5,000 men and uncounted women and children are hungry , and his friends have found seven loaves of bread and two fish.  And after blessing the food and eating, they fill twelve wicker baskets with the remnants.  Now perhaps he can get away. 

But his friends, out on the lake fishing, are being tossed by wind and rain.  Simon, big and blustery, sees Jesus walking across the water; he jumps out of the boat and panics.

And on to Sidon and Tyre where they meet a Canaanite mother desperate for her daughter’s recovery.  “I know you can heal her,” the woman says. And while Jesus would turn aside from such a woman and such a request, he realizes that her faith in him exceeds many of his companions.

And when they reach Caesaria Phillipi, Jesus must wonder, looking at his friends who are you and who am I?

And so, he asks them: Who do people say that I am?  And from their various seats around a fire they respond:
              John the Baptist?
              Elijah?
             Jeremiah?

Simon breaks out “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!”

When I read Scripture, I try to imagine what it was actually like, the experience before it was written down by the community that recorded this memory.  What was it like to be in a mob seated on a hill, trying to hear words possibly blown by the wind, having children climbing over me, getting hungry and wondering why I dashed out of my house without taking any food, or shawls, or blankets with me.  And how am I going to get these children home, tired and hungry with miles to walk back.

And what about Jesus’ companions, long before they were called “disciple” or “apostle?” Were they confused, confounded?  What did they wonder about a man who may have grown up with some of them?  They did not have the assurance that his miracles would lead them to the Messiah. Many of them certainly hoped he was and also certainly hoped they would have high positions in the new world order.

And the Canaanite woman, so fearful for her daughter that she approaches the Jewish healer and refuses to be turned away.  And Jesus grows through this encounter. 

And how about Simon, the fisherman with a family and a mother-in-law who was ill?  The responsible behavior would have been to go home and take care of his family.  Did he worry about them? Was he pulled between family and this new reality?  And where did those words come from? 

Jesus recognizes that his Father gave Simon those words— Simon who would slice off a servant’s ear to protect Jesus, then sleep when Jesus needed his support. Simon, who would deny that he even knew Jesus.  Simon who wept bitterly when he realized what he had done.  Simon, says Jesus, “You are my rock.” 

And all of us today, trying to decide how to deal with the new world order that hovers over us, are we so different from Simon?  Pulled between responsibilities, blustering with confidence one minute, panicking a few minutes later?  Are we also being chosen to be rocks, to help transform this present world into a better one. 

Let us pray for what we need: gentleness with those who are suffering, holy anger for abuses, courage to speak truth to power, strength to sort the important from the stuff. 

God give us the grace to say, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” And to act as if we mean it.