Life is Changed, Not Ended

On September 1, 2026 By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

Sermon for Proper 17, Year A

Last week, we heard the story where Peter gave the “right” answer about who Jesus is. This week, we have the comfort of hearing Peter give the “wrong” answer. Faith isn’t about having all the right answers.

Immediately after Peter confesses Jesus to be “the Messiah, the Son of the Living God,” Jesus explains what “being the Messiah” really means. It means going to Jerusalem, being betrayed into the hands of the religious leaders, suffering, dying, and rising on the third day.

And Peter has a bit of a conniption over this. He says, in effect, “No way, José!”

The text says it a little more eloquently. It says, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.”

And Jesus rebukes him quite harshly. He calls him, “Satan.”

I think we should not be too harsh on Peter for giving this response.

First of all, Peter gives the wrong answer because he had several culturally-shaped ideas about who the Messiah was supposed to be. According to the views of that time, the Messiah was going to be a victorious king who was going to restore freedom and prosperity to the land of Israel, who would finally get people back on track spiritually, teach them to obey God’s commandments, whip this country back into shape. People were really excited about that kind of Messiah. That’s the image that Peter had in mind when he confessed Jesus to be “the Messiah.”

Jesus, of course, did not come to be a conquering king. He came to do something different. We know that today, but Peter hadn’t quite got the memo yet.

Second of all, Peter says what he says because he loves Jesus. Any one of us can imagine that, if a friend came up to us, while facing a challenging situation, and sounded like they were on the verge of giving up, we would say, “Hey now. Hold on. I know it’s rough right now, but we will get through this. I believe in you, my friend.”

That’s what Peter is trying to do with Jesus. He loves Jesus and is trying to encourage him. I can empathize with Peter, especially in his love for his friend.

I have two teenagers at home who are currently learning how to drive. (Pray for me.)

As many of you know, if you have kids and grandkids: When they reach that stage of development, your relationship with them begins to change.

Up until this point, I had been the one who drove my kids around. I put them in the car, checked the mirrors, used the turn signals, watched the speed, hit the brakes.

It was my job to get them to where they’re going. But now, they are learning how to get themselves there.

My job, at this stage, is to move over, get out of the driver’s seat, grab hold of that bar above the door, and try hard not to scream obscenities. It’s hard, but it’s also good. The goodness does not eliminate the hardness, but neither does the hardness eliminate the goodness of this transitional stage. The time has come for me to move out of the driver’s seat and into the passenger’s seat.

That’s similar to what is going on with Peter in today’s Gospel. When Jesus says to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan,” he’s not just being offensive or calling names. He’s also not kicking Peter out of the community of disciples.

He says, “Get behind me.” That word choice is very specific. In the very next verse, Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them take up their cross and follow me.” The Greek word for “follow” is the exact same word as “get behind me.”

So, when Jesus rebukes Peter, he isn’t saying, “Get away from me.” He’s saying, “Follow me.” Peter had become a stumbling block by trying to get ahead of Jesus, but Jesus is saying to him, “I need you to get behind me. I need you, Peter, to get out of the driver’s seat and trust that I’m leading you in the direction where you need to be going.”

That is very much the point of the Christian life: Following Jesus.

When Jesus, in this reading, talks about his own journey of death and resurrection, he is also giving us the primary metaphor for the Christian spiritual life: It is a process of death and resurrection.

We are not used to thinking about this, but it’s been right under our noses the whole time. We frequently hear in church that Jesus died for us, but the Scriptures of the New Testament and the liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer also say that we die with Christ and are raised with Christ.

In our Baptismal liturgy we pray a blessing over the water in the font. We say of that water, “In it, we are buried with Christ and his death. By it, we share in his resurrection.”

In our funeral liturgy, we have a beautiful phrase that I love: “For your faithful people, O Lord, life is changed, not ended.”

I love that phrase because, as we are going through our own journeys of death and resurrection, it’s tempting to think that death is the end, so we need to be reminded that there’s also a resurrection on the far side of it.

I think that point is especially pertinent for Peter, because he seems to be only half-listening to Jesus. He hears the part about being killed, but doesn’t listen to what Jesus says about being raised from the dead.

You and I have the benefit of knowing the rest of the Gospel story, but Peter didn’t. He hadn’t yet witnessed the empty tomb and the risen Christ. We have celebrated nearly 2,000 Easter Sundays since that first conversation happened. It’s as if the end of the movie has been spoiled for us, but Peter is still in the middle part of the story.

Today, many of us are still in the middle part of our own stories. We going through the metaphorical deaths and resurrections in our lives.

Maybe, like me, you too are teaching your teenagers how to drive. (If so, bless you.)

Many of us remember the experience of being a kid who is growing up to take their place as an adult. As adults, we get married, become parents, lose jobs, getting new ones, get divorced, and retire. We take on changing roles in our families, as it becomes our duty to care for our parents, who once took care of us.

All of these events involve a death to one way of life and a resurrection to another way of life. That image, which Jesus gives us in today’s Gospel, is one that we can use to guide our way along life’s journey. Once we start looking for it, we begin to find it everywhere.

It’s not just that Jesus died for us; it’s that we continually die with him, and are also raised with him. We might not always know what that resurrection will look like, just as Peter didn’t, but that’s okay.

Jesus doesn’t ask us to have all the answers; Jesus just asks us to keep following him and keep trusting him.

As you “walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” hear Christ saying to you, “I am with you,” and “Death will not have the final word in this story.” Because for us, his faithful people, “life is changed, not ended.”

You Are Loved, Now Act Like It!

On July 6, 2025July 6, 2025 By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon2 Comments

Sermon for the fourth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 9, Year C)

Click here to read the biblical texts.

When I was in the seventh grade, I used to get picked on a lot. And I mean a lot. It was a hard time for me. Like many teenagers, I was lanky, awkward, and definitely didn’t have much in the way of social skills. Eventually, things got so bad that the vice principal of my school sat down with my parents and gently suggested that I take karate lessons for self-defense.

So I did. I signed up for a local dojo, and it turned out to be a great experience. I got active, I made a few friends, and I really liked my teacher: Shihan Jessie Bowen. He was a fifth-degree black belt and the founder of the school. On the dojo wall was a picture of him shaking hands with action movie star Chuck Norris. For a twelve-year-old boy, that’s about as cool as it gets!

I, on the other hand, was very much not Chuck Norris. I was barely good enough to show up to beginner-level sparring class. So you can imagine how much anxiety I felt when, one night at the end of class, Shihan Bowen called me up to fight him—one-on-one—in front of the entire group.

It was a five-point sparring match. We danced around each other. He threw a kick; I dodged. I lunged; he parried. Somehow, by sheer grace or fate or dumb luck, I managed to land the final point. I had beaten Shihan Bowen—Grand Master and founder of the school—by one point!

I couldn’t believe it. For the first time in my life, I felt powerful. I was used to being the one getting pushed around in hallways. But now, something I did made an impact on the world around me. I wasn’t invisible. I wasn’t powerless. I was victorious.

It wasn’t until almost fifteen years later that the truth of the situation finally dawned on me: Shihan Bowen was a grown man—a martial arts master. I was a twelve-year-old novice. Obviously: He let me win.

But here’s the thing: it still mattered. That moment changed something inside me. I stood a little taller after that match. I walked a little differently in the world. For the first time, I had tasted what empowerment felt like. And even though it was a gift, it was a gift that stayed with me.

Shihan Jessie Bowen
Image Source: LinkedIn.com

This week’s gospel reading from Luke is all about that kind of empowerment. Jesus sends out seventy of his followers in pairs—no supplies, no money, no backup plan—just each other and a blessing of peace. He tells them to cure the sick, cast out demons, and proclaim the nearness of God’s kingdom.

This isn’t the first time Jesus does this. Back in the previous chapter of Luke’s gospel, he sent out twelve disciples with a similar mission. But here, the number is bigger. And in Scripture, numbers always mean something. The number twelve symbolized the twelve tribes of Israel—Jesus sending out the Twelve was like saying, “This mission I’m on? It’s not just about me. It’s for all of God’s chosen people.”

The number seventy, on the other hand, is the number of nations named in Genesis, chapter 10. In the ancient Jewish imagination, it represented the whole world. So when Jesus sends out the Seventy, it’s not just an expansion in logistics—it’s a cosmic statement: “This isn’t just about me, and it’s not just for Israel. It’s for everyone. Every nation. Every people. Every one of you.”

This is Jesus deputizing the Body of Christ.

He empowers them. Just like Shihan Bowen empowered me. They go out, they do the things he told them to do, and they come back ecstatic, saying, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name!”

You can almost hear the excitement: “We did it! We really did it! It worked!”

But then Jesus does something surprising. He doesn’t throw a party. He doesn’t say, “Great job, team!” Instead, he says, “Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

It’s kind of a buzzkill, isn’t it? It’s like scoring the winning goal and having your coach say, “That’s fine, but it’s not the point.”

But actually—it’s a beautiful moment of truth. By saying, “Your names are written in heaven,” Jesus is reminding them, and us, that their worth does not lie in their victories or their usefulness. Their worth lies in their belovedness.

Jesus is saying, “Do not rejoice in what you can do for God. Rejoice in who you are in God.”

That’s the heart of the gospel. Everything else flows from that.

You see, we live in a world that constantly tells us our value depends on what we accomplish. Your job title, your productivity, your bank account, your social media following—those are the metrics that define worth in our culture.

But the gospel tells us otherwise.

You are not the sum of your successes. On the other hand: You are also not the sum of your failures. You are not defined by the worst thing you’ve ever done. You are not your resume. You are not your criminal record. You are a beloved child of God, cleverly disguised as an accountant, or a teacher, or a retiree, or a sleep-deprived parent, or a seventh grader in a sparring match.

Your name is already written in heaven. That’s not just a metaphor for some far-off afterlife. It’s a present-tense truth about your identity right now.

What you can do flows out naturally from who you are. Empowerment comes from belonging. Jesus doesn’t say, “Go do this so that God will love you.” He says, “You are already loved. Now go act like it.”

Your identity—the deep, unshakeable truth that you are loved—is what empowers you to go out into the world and do the work of healing, reconciling, casting out the demons of hatred and despair, proclaiming peace, and planting flags of hope in a broken world.

In psychological terms, we might call this “self-efficacy”—the belief that you can take meaningful action, that your choices matter, that you are not powerless in the face of overwhelming odds.

That belief doesn’t just come from inside your head. It comes from the heart of God. You are internally anchored and outwardly faithful. Your power comes from your belovedness.

That’s why this passage ends not with fireworks but with a steady, grounding reminder. It’s not about demons submitting. It’s about walking through the world knowing your name is already written in love.

And from that place, you go.

You go to meet whatever lies ahead—not because you have to prove your worth, but because you carry it with you.

In 1955, a seamstress named Rosa Parks decided not to give up her seat on a segregated bus. A young pastor—only 26 at the time—named Martin Luther King Jr. joined the cause. Together, they sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, one of the early fires in the movement for civil rights.

At the end of that long protest, someone asked an elderly woman if she was tired after walking instead of riding the bus for over a year. She famously said, “My feets is tired, but my soul is rested.”

That’s what it looks like to be loved and to act like it. Tired feet. Rested soul. Internally anchored. Outwardly faithful.

Not everyone is called to make history. But all of us are called to make peace. To bear one another’s burdens. To plant a flag of love in our corner of the world.

So where is Jesus sending you?

You might not be called to march in Montgomery or cast out demons on command. But there is still injustice to confront. Still healing to offer. Still Good News to proclaim.

You might be called to speak peace in a family dispute.
To walk gently with someone in grief.
To show up for someone who thinks they don’t matter.
To bring your quiet presence to a place aching for hope.
To speak your “yes” or your “no” with courage and clarity.

And maybe most of all: to believe again that your life matters, and that your presence, however small it seems, makes a difference in the unfolding of the kingdom of God.

You don’t have to be dramatic. You don’t have to win.

You just have to show up.

Show up with your name written in heaven. Show up with nothing but love in your pocket. Show up knowing that even when the demons don’t flee and the healing doesn’t come, even when the sermon flops and the email goes unanswered, you are still loved.

That’s your true power.
That’s your unshakeable dignity.
That’s how you make a difference in the world.

One act of faithful presence at a time.

Amen.