August 23rd, 2026 13th Sunday after Pentecost

Exodus 1:8-2:10

Now a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the  event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the  land.” Therefore they set taskmasters over them to  oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and  Rameses, for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. The Egyptians subjected the Israelites to hard servitude and made their lives bitter with hard servitude in mortar and bricks  and in every kind of field labor. They were ruthless in all the tasks  that they imposed on them.
The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women and see them on the  birthstool, if it is a son, kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall  live.” But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this and allowed the boys to live?” The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like  the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the  midwife comes to them.” So God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and became very strong. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the  Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter  live.”
2 Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman.The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months. When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him and  plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed  it among the reeds on the bank of the river. His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him.
The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her  attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds  and sent her maid to bring it. When she opened it, she saw  the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him. “This must be one of  the Hebrews’ children,” she said. Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Yes.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse it for me,  and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed  it. When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s  daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, “because,” she  said, “I drew him out of the water.”

Matthew 16:13-20  (The Message)

When Jesus arrived in the villages of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “What are people saying about who the Son of Man is?”

They replied, “Some think he is John the Baptizer, some say Elijah, some Jeremiah or one of the other prophets.”

He pressed them, “And how about you? Who do you say I am?”

Simon Peter said, “You’re the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus came back, “God bless you, Simon, son of Jonah! You didn’t get that answer out of books or from teachers. My Father in heaven, God himself, let you in on this secret of who I really am. And now I’m going to tell you who you are, really are. You are Peter, a rock. This is the rock on which I will put together my church, a church so expansive with energy that not even the gates of hell will be able to keep it out.

“And that’s not all. You will have complete and free access to God’s kingdom, keys to open any and every door: no more barriers between heaven and earth, earth and heaven. A yes on earth is yes in heaven. A no on earth is no in heaven.”

He swore the disciples to secrecy. He made them promise they would tell no one that he was the Messiah.