How Do We Follow Jesus Today? (Matthew 16:21–28)

What does vulnerability cost you? Explore this week’s Gospel reading and consider what it means for us today.

Each week, we post a passage from Sunday’s Scriptures; share links to resources that give context and inspire new ideas; and offer a few questions to get you thinking about what we’ll read together in church.

The Gospel for August 30, 2026

Matthew 16:21–28

Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?

“For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Read all of Sunday’s Scriptures

Step Into the Story

3 Ways to Go Deeper

Commentary

“I don’t think Jesus calls us to deny our humanity but to commit to following him while fully accepting how vulnerable our humanity will be if we choose to be revolutionaries,” writes Professor Mitzi J. Smith, inviting us to see this story in its original context — under the brutal Roman Empire. “Jesus was willing to be God’s revolutionary Messiah knowing the violence that could be done to his body as a consequence of pursuing justice, love, and peace instead of the privileges of empire.”

Poetry

What does it mean to follow Jesus today? Sixteenth-century mystic Teresa of Ávila offers this wisdom, which still resonates in our modern world: “Christ has no body now but yours, / No hands, no feet on earth but yours, / Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world.”

Sermon

Author Nadia Bolz-Weber offers another perspective: “Maybe it’s really denying the self that wants to see itself as separate from God and others.”

Reflection Questions

Take a Moment to Wonder

• Based on Jesus’s example, what does it mean to be a revolutionary?
• What does vulnerability cost you?
• How would your life change if saw yourself as inherently, unchangeably connected to God — and others?