August 30, 2026, The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

The Stories We Carry

Romans 12:9–21; Matthew 16:21–28

There is something quietly powerful about tattoos. Across cultures and throughout history, people have marked their bodies with signs of belonging, identity, family, faith, grief, memory, and transformation. A tattoo is not always decoration. Sometimes it is a story carried on the body. It says: Remember this.

Remember who you are. Remember where you have come from. Remember someone you have loved. Remember what you have survived. Remember what you believe. Remember the person you are becoming.

That is part of what makes tattoos so meaningful. They are not merely images; they can become vessels of memory, carrying stories that might otherwise fade and giving visible form to things held deep within us.

I carry many of those stories myself. But it all started in 2011 with my first tattoo which is a large Canterbury Cross, about the size of a hubcap, on my back. I got it when I first started seminary, specifically with today’s Gospel in mind: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” I wanted the Cross marked on me. I wanted a visible reminder of the path I was beginning to walk.

Over the years, though, that tattoo has come to mean far more than I imagined. It reminds me of the crosses we bear—not only suffering, though certainly that is part of it, but the whole journey: joys and disappointments, certainty and doubt, doors that opened and doors that seemed firmly closed.

It also reminds me how difficult the road to seminary was, and how uncertain the road to ordination could feel. There were moments when I wondered whether I would get there at all. Plus, the unexpected deaths of my father and uncle added further layers of grief to navigate. And yet, looking back, I can now see what I could not always see then: God was present every step of the way.

The Cross on my back has become a kind of spiritual memory: God was there. I did not walk alone. What looked like an ending sometimes became a beginning. And resurrection is not possible without the Cross.

Perhaps that is why today’s Gospel can be difficult. Peter has just confessed that Jesus is the Messiah. He has understood something true about Jesus’ identity. But when Jesus begins to tell the disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, suffer, be rejected, and be killed, Peter cannot accept it: “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.”

Jesus responds with some of the harshest words he ever speaks to a disciple: “Get behind me, Satan!” Why such a strong response? Because Peter has understood that Jesus is the Messiah, but not what kind of Messiah he is. Peter wants victory without suffering. Glory without sacrifice. But the way of God does not work that way.

Then Jesus turns to all the disciples and says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

We need to hear these words with care. Jesus is not saying that suffering is good in itself. He is not telling those who are abused to remain in harm’s way, or those who are oppressed simply to accept oppression. He is not asking us to seek pain, excuse cruelty, or call injustice holy.

The cross is not a celebration of pain. The cross is what happens when the love of God confronts a world organized around power, violence, fear, exclusion, and self-interest. Jesus takes up his cross because he refuses to abandon love.

That is where Paul’s words in Romans matter. Paul gives us a picture of what taking up the Cross looks like in daily life: “Let love be genuine.” “Hold fast to what is good.” “Love one another with mutual affection.” “Rejoice in hope.” “Be patient in suffering.” “Persevere in prayer.” “Extend hospitality to strangers.”

Then Paul presses further: “Do not repay anyone evil for evil.” “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” This is what carrying the Cross looks like. It is not simply enduring whatever life throws at us. It is choosing love when hatred would be easier. Reconciliation when resentment feels justified. Generosity when fear tells us there will not be enough. Hospitality when the stranger makes us uncomfortable. Hope when despair seems more reasonable.

And that is no small thing. We live in a world that often feels unsettled and weary. We see violence and war. Political division. Loneliness. Poverty. Injustice. Displacement. Wildfires raging around us and catastrophic flooding n Nepal and China because of climate change. There is a deep uncertainty about the future. At times, it can feel as though the ground beneath us is falling away, and the changes around us rarely seem to be for the better.

The temptation is to retreat: to protect ourselves, build walls around our hearts, and say, “This is too much. I cannot make a difference.” But Jesus says: Take up your cross and follow me. Not because we can fix everything. Not because we can save the world on our own. But because we are called to participate in God’s work of healing it.

Our crosses will look different. For one person, it may be the difficult work of forgiveness. For another, the courage to apologize. For another, standing beside someone pushed to the margins. For another, caring faithfully for a loved one. For another, remaining hopeful in uncertainty. For another, simply getting up tomorrow and choosing love again.

These things may seem small, but the kingdom of God is built through such things.

This is what my Canterbury Cross has taught me. The tattoo is not the Cross itself; it is a reminder of the Cross. Every time I see it—or remember that it is there—it calls me back to a story larger than myself. It reminds me that my life is not simply my own: my joys, suffering, vocation, and story are connected to others, and to God’s story.

And so is yours. Each of us carries stories that have shaped us: stories of joy and grief, stories we are proud to tell, and stories we would rather forget. Some are written on our bodies. Others are written deeper—in our memories, relationships, scars, and hearts.

The good news of the Gospel is that none of these stories is beyond God’s reach. God does not erase our stories; God redeems them. The Cross tells us that God enters directly into the brokenness of human life, and the Resurrection tells us that brokenness does not get the final word.

So today, as we hear Jesus call us to take up our cross, we might hear it not as a threat, but as an invitation. Remember that you belong to God. Remember that you are not alone. Remember that love is stronger than hatred. Remember that reconciliation is possible. Remember that evil does not have the final word. And remember that even when the road is difficult, God is present.

The Cross we carry is never ours alone. Christ goes before us. Christ walks beside us. Christ meets us in the suffering of the world. And Christ calls us to become, in our own small ways, agents of healing and reconciliation.

“Do not be overcome by evil,” Paul says. “Overcome evil with good.” That is the work before us. That is what it means to take up our cross.

And perhaps, when people look at our lives, they will see more than our scars or burdens. Perhaps they will see the marks of love: people who refused to give up on one another; a community that chose hospitality over exclusion, reconciliation over division, hope over despair, and love over fear.

Even in a world that feels unsettled, may others see in us people who still trust that God’s love is stronger. People willing to carry that love into the world. People willing to remember. To follow. To take up their cross. And to trust that wherever the road leads, God is present every step of the way. Amen.