The Little Way (1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:11-16)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on May 28, 2017, Easter VII)

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Odd Advice

“Humble yourselves.” So suggests 1 Peter to a persecuted community of Christ-followers. It strikes me as rather odd advice. When we stand face to face with a bully or an enemy, humility is probably the last option that presents itself. Our instinct, instead, is fight or flight. With our ego pricked and our heart racing, we must decide between standing up for ourselves or saving ourselves: either fight then and there, or live to fight another day.

If 1 Peter were alone in recommending humility in the face of the enemy, then we might write his words off as the suggestion of a lofty visionary, someone living in the impractical world of ideals rather than in the knitty-gritty world of flesh and blood. But 1 Peter is not alone. The letter of James also recommends humility in very similar terms. Humility, according to them both, is how you resist evil (cf. James 4:6-7, 10).

The Enemy Is Within

And they weren’t alone. For many early Christ-followers, resisting evil meant neither self-defense nor self-preservation. It meant self-denial. We see this odd idea lived out in the lives of the desert fathers, a rather odd bunch themselves, a gaggle of early Christ-followers who went into the desert to practice their faith in monastic communities. Reading about the desert fathers always puts me on the edge of my seat. I approach them as you might a crazy uncle—expecting something both irreverent and eye-opening. I imagine them sometimes as a group of grumpy old men, both crotchety and wise.

Take, for instance, this story about Father Macarius. One day, a young man asks him, “How do I become a holy man?” Father Macarius responds, “Go to the cemetery. I want you to abuse the dead for all you’re worth. Throw sticks and stones at them, curse at them, call them names—anything you can think of.” The young man can hardly believe his ears, but he does as he’s told. When he returns, Father Macarius asks, “What did the dead people say?” The young man responds that they said nothing. They were dead. “Isn’t that interesting?” Father Macarius muses. “I want you to go back tomorrow, and this time spend the day saying everything nice about these people. Call them righteous men and women, compliment them, say everything wonderful you can imagine.” The young man again does as he’s told. When he returns, Father Macarius asks how the dead responded this time. The young man responds that, again, they did not say a word. “Ah, they must be holy people indeed,” says Father Macarius. “You insulted them, and they did not reply. You praised them, and they did not speak. Go and do likewise, my friend, taking no account of either the scorn of men and women or their praises. And you too will be a holy man.”[1]

In tradition and folklore, it is said that the desert fathers fought great spiritual battles against the devil and his host of demons. But as this story hints at, the demonic forces are not some concrete, external reality. The enemy is not without: the enemy is within. The only battle the young man must wage is with the self, the ego, this thing that we call “I” or “me” formed by the constellation of our desires and achievements and what others think of us. As Father Macarius suggests, resisting evil means making ourselves little, or losing ourselves.

We see this more clearly in a simple story about Father Antony, the founder of the desert fathers. Antony says, “I saw all the snares that the enemy spread over the world, and I said, groaning, ‘What can get me through such snares?’ Then I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Humility.’”[2]

Humility Is Resistance

Humility may be a virtue, but in our modern world it has become a rather distasteful idea—and with good reason. In our world, humility is often shorthand for passive submission. For many folks today, to be humble means to surrender yourself uncritically to the world around you. Humility is little more than a white flag. It’s equivalent to saying, “Do to me what you will, I won’t resist.” 

If the writer of 1 Peter were confronted with this idea of humility, though, I’m fairly certain that he would raise his eyebrows. A humility that just submits to the status quo? A humility that doesn’t resist? That’s entirely the opposite of what he and the early Christ-followers had in mind. For them, humility is the very root of resistance. In the same breath, the writer of 1 Peter tells his audience to “humble themselves” and to “resist” the devil. The two instructions are one and the same.

Humility is resistance because it addresses evil at its very birthplace: the heart. Whereas the world believes that evil is outside and change begins only when we fix what is outside us, faith proclaims that evil is within and real change only happens when we disarm our egos and welcome the spirit of God. According to our scripture today, humility is about a change of hands. Humility, 1 Peter says, places us in “the mighty hand of God,” who “will himself restore, support, strengthen and establish” us (1 Pet 5:6, 10). If we rely only on ourselves, we’ll only ever get what we’ve already got. We need something new, something from outside ourselves. Change comes not from us, but from God. The Protestant reformers called God’s righteousness an “alien righteousness” for good reason. It is not our own. It is alien: it comes from outside us.

Humility does not immobilize us, as the world fears. It does the opposite. It mobilizes us—in a fuller, richer, stronger way than we could ourselves. By making ourselves little, by losing ourselves, we open ourselves up. We become fertile soil for God. When we open our ears, we can listen to others—and perhaps we will hear God. When we open our hands, we can accept help from others—and perhaps from God. When we open our minds, we see beyond reality into possibilities—and perhaps possibilities from God. Humility, I think, is the truth of what Paul meant when he said, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20).

In this sense, humility means getting out of our own way so that Christ can get in. Being humble is like dancing: only when we let the music enter inside us—and overtake us—can we dance in rhythm. Being humble is like playing jazz: only once the bass line has us on its leash can we improvise gracefully.

Little Zeros

In the last quarter of the 19th century, there lived and died in Lisieux, France a girl named Thérèse. Even when she lay on her deathbed as a twenty-four year-old, people were already calling her a saint. She, however, responded: “I am no saint….I am quite a little soul upon whom the good God has heaped graces.”[3] It was perhaps her favorite word: “Little.” She once explained, “To remain little means recognizing one’s nothingness, expecting everything from the good God, as a little child expects everything from his father.”[4] Or as she puts it more colorfully: “I of course can do very little, absolutely nothing, in fact, alone….Zero by itself has no value, but, put alongside one, it becomes potent.”[5] Thérèse saw that she alone had no claim to anything good; goodness came from God. She could only be its helper.

I have a hunch that the desert fathers and Jesus and the writer of 1 Peter would all agree. The way to God is the little way. The self—this thing we call “I”—is full of itself. Full of concerns, plans, hurts, achievements, failures. Sometimes there is too much noise to hear the music of God, to hear that buoyant bass line. But if we cast these anxieties onto God, as 1 Peter advises (1 Pet 5:7); if we make ourselves humble and small as the desert fathers and Thérèse both recommend; if we lose ourselves, as Jesus invites us to do—then we open ourselves to the alien spirit of God, the divine tune that draws us into the dance of reconciliation and restoration (cf. 1 Pet 5:10). We make ourselves zeros, powerless by the world’s math, but potent in the math of God’s love.

The Little Way to Greatness

Our scripture today concludes by dreaming of glory in the great by and by, when we will be restored and exalted (cf. 4:12, 5:10). My guess is that when most folks read this, they dream of themselves, only bigger and better. But I wonder if the point of humility is that it’s never just our glory or greatness. Perhaps glory and greatness will come only when we make ourselves little, small and light enough to be caught and lifted up in the gusts and winds of the Spirit. The glory and greatness will not be ours alone, but God’s and all creation’s.

Prayer

Humble Christ,

Whose little way

Of losing self

Turns heavy anxieties

Into graceful blessings,

And suffering

Into hope:

Teach us 

How to listen 

For the music of God

In our lives, 

And remind us to dance, too.

Amen.

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[1] Adapted from the paraphrase found in Belden Lane, “Antony and the Desert Fathers: Christian History Interview—Discovering the Desert Paradox,” http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-64/antony-and-desert-fathers-christian-history-interview.html, accessed on May 24, 2107. 

[2] Roberta C. Bondi, To Love as God Loves: Conversations with the Early Church (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 42. 

[3] Hans Urs von Balthasar, Two Sisters in the Spirit: Thérèse of Lisieux & Elizabeth of the Trinity (trans. Donald Nichols, Anne Englund Nash, and Dennis Martin; San Francisco: Ignatius, 1992), 49. 

[4] Balthasar, 297. 

[5] Balthasar, 296-297.

Longsuffering Love (1 Peter 3:13-22)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on May 21, 2017, Easter VI)

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Love “Suffereth Long”

“Love is patient, love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or rude….” (1 Cor 13:4-5). And so on and so on. This passage has become routine. We recite it everywhere. Often at weddings. Occasionally at funerals. Frequently at church.

The words roll off our tongues so quickly and easily that we risk forgetting what they actually mean. Just as a meal can become so routine that we no longer pause to savor the flavors and enjoy the company, so too these words can become so familiar that we no longer appreciate their full meaning. 

One way to guard against this overfamiliarity, is to read the words in a different translation. When we encounter something strange and different, we must take more time to look at it, to understand it. In the King James, love is not simply “patient.” Love “suffereth long” (1 Cor 13:4). This is actually closer to the Greek, which says that love is “long of mind or soul.” Patience here does not mean simply waiting for a pot to boil or someone to return your call. Patience means that the spirit is longer than any suffering or misfortune that comes its way. It will stay true to what matters, no matter how long it takes.

A Love Longer than Suffering or Shame

This reminds me of an ancient story. A man wandering in the wilderness stumbles upon a kind family. He falls in love with one of the daughters. Now in that time and place, the man was expected pay a dowry in order to marry. But the wanderer has no money to pay. So he sits down with the father of the family, and the two of them agree: he will give the father seven years of labor in order to marry his daughter.

Patience. Longsuffering. A spirit that is longer than any suffering that comes its way. A spirit that stays true to what matters, no matter how long it takes.

Well, seven years pass, and finally there is a wedding. Loads of folks, loads of food, loads of fun. Until the morning, that is. In the morning, the man wakes up. And there beside him…is the wrong daughter!

He confronts the father and demands an explanation. The father explains that in his culture the older daughter must get married first. But the father has a proposal: if the man agrees to work for another seven years, he can marry the younger daughter whom he loves.

Now on the one hand, it could be argued that the poor man has been unfairly treated. It would not be right for him to work another seven years.

But patience, or longsuffering, means a spirit that is longer than any suffering that comes its way, a spirit that stays true to what matters, no matter how long it takes. In the story of Jacob—this is the story of Jacob, after all—Jacob’s love for Rachel is longer than fourteen years of labor, longer even than the shame and injustice of trickery. If Jacob’s love were shorter, if he were ultimately more concerned with his own dignity than with Rachel, he would have fought back against Rachel’s father. But to fight for his honor would be to risk his love. In the end, Jacob stays true to his love no matter how many years of labor or how much shame he must suffer.

The Longsuffering God

Fast-forward a couple thousand years from the story of Jacob, and we get to the letter of 1 Peter. Our scripture today has a lot to say about suffering and patience. Five times the word “suffer” appears, and Christ in particular is held up as a model: as Christ suffered, our writer says, so you should be prepared to suffer (cf. 3:15-18). A little bit later, the writer talks about God demonstrating “patience” or “longsuffering” back in the day of Noah. Here 1 Peter is alluding to a Jewish tradition in the Mishnah that says, “There were ten generations from Adam to Noah to show how great was [God’s] longsuffering, for all the generations provoked him continually until God brought upon them the waters of the flood” (m. Avot 5:2). But I would argue that God’s longsuffering spans far beyond the first ten generations of creation. Is not the whole of human history a story of God’s longsuffering? If God were anything like us, creation would surely have been either jury-rigged or destroyed by now. 

We see God’s longsuffering most clearly in Christ. At the beginning of his ministry when he resists the quick-fix temptations in the wilderness and at the end of his ministry when he takes up the cross, Jesus would rather endure pain, suffering, and even death than to deviate from the way of love. He would rather turn his cheek and forgive his wrongdoers and pray for his persecutors, than compromise the way of love. Like Jacob, his love for the world is more important than power. Like Jacob, he stays true to this long love no matter how much suffering he must endure.

Love Is the Means

But what does this mean for us today, us who share very few of the sufferings that Jesus and the early Christ-followers endured? 

I think it means everything, because it means that love is not only the end but also the means. Whether we suffer or not, love is the way. Look, for instance, to what our scripture says about how we should respond to the world around us. “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet”—and here’s what interests me the most—“do it with gentleness and reverence” (3:15-16). In other words, how we respond to the world matters just as much as what we respond with. Love is not an argument we win, but how we talk with others. Love is not a triumph that we gain, but how we live amid difficult circumstances, even suffering. Love is not only what the kingdom looks like when it gets here. It is how the kingdom gets here. It is the means as well as the end. 

The Slow, Long Love of God

Earlier in 1 Peter, the writer warns us against the ways of the world that we have inherited (cf. 1:18). One of the ways that western Christianity has inherited, I think, is impatience. The church has too readily adopted the ways that predominate in the political and business worlds, where efficiency matters most, where practicality and convenience rule the day, where the ends really do justify the means. 

Although today’s scripture focuses a lot on something we experience relatively little—suffering—I believe its underlying message of patience speaks to us as much as ever. We are called to live out the love of Christ, a love that is long, a love that has all the time in the world for lengthy conversations and long-standing conflict and even loss. We are called to live in the kingdom of God, where love is not what a conversation achieves, but how a conversation happens; where love is not the resolution to a conflict, but how a conflict is gracefully outlasted; where love is not the absence of loss, but how loss is accepted—and transformed.

In the world of “quick and easy” that seeks first its own convenience, it is tempting to turn love into something that we achieve through a means, something that we buy with our money or accomplish with bigger buildings or better programs. But trying to fund God’s love through our pocket or to plot its triumph through programs is to renounce the way of love, the means of love.

The good news of 1 Peter is that God’s love is not a result that must be bought or a problem that must be solved. It is much simpler—and much more costly—than that. God’s love is itself the way. It is a long way, a slow way, and a sometimes-messy way. I catch glimpses of it here at Gayton Road, not in the big things but in the little things that are lived out lovingly. Like when Paul and Carol and others set aside an extra half-hour to give folks rides. Like when Emily dedicates her time and resources to our kids. Like when E.J. devotes the time to take our and the A.A.’s trash to the dump, when Cinda gives the time to change the paraments, when Judy consecrates her time to caring for a family of refugees. The list goes on and on…and would surely test your patience! 

To be sure, it’s a slow kingdom coming. But it’s coming. In all the little things that are lived out in the way of love—slowly, messily, longsufferingly—it’s coming.

Prayer

Longsuffering Christ,

Who does not deviate 

From the way of love

Even in the face of death:

As you embodied 

The long, slow love of God, 

So might we embody you

In our world.

Amen.

In the Hands of Another (1 Peter 2:2-10)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on May 14, 2017, Easter V)

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Jesus for President?

During the last election season, I often wondered: what would happen if Jesus ran for president? Of course, it is entirely the wrong question. Jesus, I believe, would never run for president. The power to make laws and move armies and modify the world by force, is not the way of Christ. Jesus does not seek the power of the world. He lives by the power of love, which is the only power that can really transform the heart.

Even so, I still wondered what would happen if Jesus ran for president. Imagine a platform built on turning the other cheek and loving the enemy. What would that mean for the defense budget? Imagine an agenda that privileged the nobodies and the nothings instead of big business. What would that mean for our economy? Imagine a policy that welcomed the strangers, wherever they came from. What would that mean for home security? Imagine “a politics of mercy and compassion, of lifting up the weakest and most defenseless people at home,…of welcoming the stranger and loving one’s enemies abroad.”[1] Oh, we love Jesus in the privacy of our devotions and maybe at church on Sunday, but let him loose into the real world and we see just how crazy he is! No matter if he sought the support of Republicans, Democrats, or independents, you can be sure this presidential Jesus would get nowhere near the ballot. He’d be a joke.

It’s worth noting, I think, why Jesus would really be rejected. It has nothing to do with what some of the world calls “Christian values.” His rejection would have little to do with his stance on sexuality or abortion or gun rights—though his stance on these things might frustrate people too. His rejection would have a lot more to do with the sheer madness of never-ending forgiveness and unconditional hospitality and a most inefficient generosity. We have domesticated acts like forgiveness and hospitality into tame, reciprocal gestures that we extend only to friends or people like us. But when such deeds are let loose into all the world, onto the risky playing field of strangers and enemies, they become as Paul once called them: foolishness and weakness. Who would possibly want to see their nation run by such policies?

Why Jesus Is Rejected

The funny thing about our history, of course, is that America has often proclaimed itself a Christian nation. The Puritans aspired to become the biblical “city on a hill,” a light to all the world. Not too long after the Revolution and the War of 1812, people were talking about “manifest destiny”—saying that God had chosen America to bring salvation to the world. Folks back then may have read today’s scripture with a triumphal, “Aha!” They may have found approval in verse 9, for instance: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.”

Fast-forward to today, and there remain echoes of this self-identification between nation and religion. In the recent “culture wars,” some Christians have postured themselves as the last stronghold of this nation’s Christian heritage. Only now, the tune has shifted from conquest to besiegement. The Christians that once trumpeted their triumph as a city on the hill, now broadcast their rejection as a sign of their righteousness. They might turn to today’s scripture with a proud, “Aha!” In verses 4 and 5, for example, Jesus is “a living stone…rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight,” and we are invited to be living stones like Jesus. In other words—some folks today might say, “Look, we are rejected just like Jesus was. We truly are ‘God’s own people,’ as 1 Peter says” (2:5, 9).

But unlike the Christians who claim rejection in today’s culture wars, Jesus and his early followers were not rejected on the battlefield of power, where competing parties fight to have their way. Jesus and his followers were rejected for refusing to play the game of power. Christ’s way of love—the weak and foolish way of forgiveness and hospitality and giving without return—was a threat to the game. Religious leaders and Roman leaders alike rejected him not because of his stance on the latest topics of debate, but because he overturned the world order, giving pride of place to the poor and the prostitutes, the blind and the lame, while not indulging the presumed authority and prestige of the men who wore long robes and liked to be greeted with respect (Mark 12:38). The powers that put Jesus on a cross were not misguided. If people actually lived the way that Jesus proclaimed, the way of selfless love, there would be no place left for the powers-that-be.

In the Hands of Our Mother

This vulnerable way of living—the way of welcome without question and forgiveness without end and giving without return—is what we celebrate today. At the heart of Mother’s Day is not biological motherhood, but selfless love. Some of us are blessed to have or to have had mothers who exhibited this spirit; others of us may have been blessed to find this spirit in another. In either case, today is a celebration of the precious individuals whose hands hold us as helpless infants, gently guide us as children, and build us up with love into the fullness of who we are.

And this celebration—this is the good news that our scripture proclaims today. Our writer addresses a persecuted community of Christ-followers, a community rejected by the world around it. But rather than saying, “God’s on your side—now gird up your loins, take matters into your own hands, and fight the heathen,” our writer says, “Be like newborn babies who thirst for milk,” and “Be like building blocks waiting to be built” (cf. 2:2, 5).

In other words, the writer is saying, “Let go.” Life is no longer in your hands. You are in the hands of another. You are the blocks in the hands of a builder, a baby in the hands of a loving mother. You are not called to triumph by the power of your own hand. You are called to grow by love in the hands of another. Thirst not for victory but for nourishment. Crave not control but to be built up. Rather than retaliate against the world’s rejection, remember that God, your Mother in heaven, loves you. Live according to that love, like your brother Jesus did. Remember that you grow not by victory or triumph over others, but by the love of God.

Growing by Love

When I was growing up, I nearly always had a soccer game on Saturday. Sometimes we won. Sometimes we lost. All the time, my mom was there. I remember her especially on the times when we lost. Those are the times when I grew the most. I grew then because my mom loved me just the same. I learned that winning and losing did not matter, that being faster or stronger or simply more skilled did not matter, that even the game itself did not matter. Only one thing mattered. Me.

I grew into salvation not by what I did. I grew into salvation by the love of another.

Prayer

Our Mother who art in heaven,
Our world thirsts for your love.
We have tasted its goodness,
And so we commit our spirits
Into your hands,
Becoming like children.
May we grow humbly and dependently
Into the salvation of Christ,
Who is the way and the truth and the life. Amen.

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[1] John D. Caputo, What Would Jesus Deconstruct: The Good News of Postmodernism for the Church (The Church and Postmodern Culture Series; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), ebook loc. 1386-1387.

Provoking One Another (1 Cor 14:26; Heb 10:24-25)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on May 7, 2017, Easter IV)

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Before There Were Christians…

Today we’re breaking with tradition. Normally at this point we read a scripture from the lectionary, the Christian calendar of scripture readings. Today’s lectionary scripture is in 1 Peter, where we were last week. A little bit like Columbus, who sailed west in order to go east, I’m going to read soon a couple of other scriptures in order to talk about the world of 1 Peter.

We don’t know too much about 1 Peter. It may have been written by Peter himself, or it may have been written by a personal friend or follower of Peter. In either case, it was written in the earliest of days, before Christianity had been systematized into a distinct religion. At this point in time, there were not card-carrying Christians so much as there were Christ-followers: people who had heard about Jesus and who decided that they wanted to follow him.

…There Were Christ-Followers

What were these Christ-followers like? How did people see them?

Imagine with me for a moment that we are just your typical, run-of-the-mill Roman citizens. And one of our friends, Marcus, has been acting a bit funny lately. In the past, we saw him a lot. If ever there were an execution, he’d be there to watch along with the rest of the town. On the festival days, when sacrifices were offered to the local gods and folks would gather around for a festive barbeque afterwards, Marcus would be there with everyone else. But now he’s nowhere to be seen at these events. He has been seen, however, going into the homes of people below his class, people he has no connection with—sometimes really early in the morning, before the sun has risen. Recently some of Marcus’ friends have started to spread vicious rumors about him. The remarkable thing is that Marcus hasn’t called them out or tried to avenge his honor as any self-respecting citizen would do. It’s really odd. It’s like he’s not one of us anymore.

A Most Curious Species

This imagined scenario affords us a brief glimpse into the world of 1 Peter. The earliest followers of Christ attracted suspicion and mistrust because they had stopped living like the rest of the world. They had thrown off their cultural inheritance and were starting to live differently. As the writer of 1 Peter says at one point, “[The rest of the world] are surprised that you no longer join them…and so they speak evil [about you]” (4:4).[1]

So we know a little bit now about what the Christ-followers are not doing. They’re not living like the rest of the world around them.

But the question remains: what are they doing? Of course, we have many letters in the Bible that tell us what they are doing. But before we go there, let’s remain a moment longer in the world, the Roman world.

Twenty or thirty years after the ink of 1 Peter had dried, there is a Roman governor, Pliny, who writes to the Roman emperor Trajan, asking how to deal with these Christ-followers. Pliny talks about the Christ-followers as though they’re exotic specimens, a newly discovered species around which there are plenty of rumors but few known facts. When I read his words, I imagine him speaking in the voice of a nature documentary narrator—you know, the kind who whispers in a sophisticated British accent, treating every detail like it’s the most curious thing in the world. Pliny remarks first upon the Christ-followers’ stubbornness and “mental instability,” for they did the unthinkable: they refused to sacrifice to the emperor. But beyond this, he sees little harm in them. “They insisted,” he says, “that this was the sum of their fault and error, that they were accustomed to convene of a given day before dawn and sing a hymn…to Christ as if to a god, and to bind themselves by oath not for the purpose of some crime, but so as not to commit theft, or [fraud], or adultery, or to betray an oath, or to withhold something held in trust. It was thereupon their custom to disperse and to join together again to breakfast, but on common and harmless food.”[2]

In other words, as far as Pliny can tell, these Christ-followers are guilty of nothing more than “mental instability” and a quaint habit of gathering, singing, promising to do good, and then eating breakfast together. A most curious species.

Gathering Because of Jesus Christ

What we find in the New Testament largely confirms this picture of the early Christ-followers. I’ve selected just a couple of texts as evidence.

Exhibit A is 1 Corinthians 14:26, in which Paul paints with one broad brush-stroke what Christ-followers do together: “When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.”

Exhibit B is Hebrews 10:24-25, in which the writer urges the Christ-followers to keep meeting together: “And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day approaching.”

As you may be guessing, there is no single blueprint in the Bible for how early Christ-followers should gather. What does not change, however, is this: from the first day, Christ-followers have gathered together. To sing, to pray, to read, to talk, to eat. But whatever they gather to do, they do it because of Jesus Christ. They gather in his memory, in his name, in his spirit, in his body, in the faith that Christ is risen and alive and reconciling all creation.

A Divine Twist on Provocation

I love the way that the writer of Hebrews puts it: “Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds” (10:24). In the Greek, that word “provoke” has the same negative connotation as it does in English. To provoke is usually to make angry or upset or hostile. When we look at our world today, we see people provoking each other all over the place. We see it in the media, where what matters most is making your point in a loud voice—if you offend a few people, so much the better. We see it in the workplace, where what matters most is asserting yourself and making sure you’re not lost among the competition. We see it in our relationships, where—as silly as it sounds—what matters most sometimes is simply being right or winning an argument or looking better than others.

In our world today, there is much provoking. But according to the gospel, Christ is doing something different, something opposite. Christ is reconciling all of creation—twisting you and me and everything back into goodness and love. When the writer of Hebrews says, “Let’s consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds,” he’s putting a divine twist on that word “provoke.” Whereas the world provokes towards division, Christ-followers “provoke” towards reconciliation. Paul talks about things a bit more plainly in 1 Corinthians, where he says that Christ-followers gather together in order to “build up.” In a world that brings others and us down in so many ways, Christ-followers gather with God to “build up.”

Whereas the world gathers to get ahead, these curious Christ-followers gather with the left-behind. Whereas the world gathers in an us-against-them mentality, these strange Christ-followers gather in an us-for-them mentality. Whereas the world gathers to feel good, these mentally unstable Christ-followers gather even amid difficulty and disagreement in order to do good.[3]

These Christ-followers are a most curious species, indeed.

Christ in Small Groups

During Lent, a few small groups from our church met weekly in homes and at church. They did different things. Some read the Bible. Some studied a book and discussed it. Some shared their lives and prayed together. The common thread in all these things is that they met because of Jesus Christ; in a world that provokes division and hurt, they met to provoke the love and goodness and reconciliation of Christ.

We see it the earliest Christ-followers and we see it today. Christ becomes alive and real in our world not simply through the bedside prayers of a privatized faith, but through our flesh-and-blood provoking of one another. Christ becomes alive and real where two or three are gathered, where bread is broken, where the least is loved.[4] In our families, here at church on Sunday morning, and in our small gatherings with one another, we learn and practice and are transformed by the most curious of way of Christ.

Small Group Questionnaire

I heard wonderful reports from our Lenten small groups, and so I am eager that we continue to offer space for such meetings. Worship happens for one hour in the week. But the week is long, and we long to be drawn together in Christ more often than this once. For some of us, we already have many opportunities to gather in Christ in our families and in other groups outside this church. But for others of us, there are few opportunities for life together in Christ. I’m keen that we as a church are always offering these opportunities.

In the middle of your bulletin, you’ll find a questionnaire regarding your preferences for small groups. For the next few moments, you’re invited to fill this questionnaire out. If you’ll leave it on your seat when you leave worship today, it will be collected then. Soon there will be more information about the possibilities of another round of small group meetings.

Prayer

Risen Christ,
In whom we live and move and become,
Whose body gathers us
Into the provoking movements
Of love and goodness and reconciliation:
Open our eyes to redemption;
Inspire us
In the steady and sometimes difficult work
Of blessing your world.
In the name of him in whom we gather, Jesus Christ. Amen.

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[1] The imagined scenario attempts to draw out a common theme of 1 Peter: the spiritual experience of “exile” in the world. Cf. Scot McKnight, 1 Peter (NIV Application Commentary Series; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), ebook locs. 373-486, in which McKnight remarks upon a certain “homelessness” of Christ-followers.

[2] Pliny, Epistles 10.96-97, tr. Richard Hooper.

[3] McKnight, ebook loc. 2841, locates the theme of “self-denial” in 1 Peter’s discourse on suffering. Self-denial helps to distinguish the way of Christ from the way of the world: one is giving, one is taking; one is oppositional, one is cooperative; one is self-concerned, the other is selfless.

[4] Cf. Tripp Fuller’s maxim as found in The Homebrewed Christianity Guide to Jesus: Lord, Liar, Lunatic, or Awesome (Minneapolies: Fortress, 2015), ebook loc. 2102-2103: “Christ explicitly promised to be in three places: in community, at the communion table, and among the oppressed.”