Growing into Salvation (1 Pet 2:1-10)

“The Soul Knows…Only That It Is Hungry”

1    Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander. Just to remind us: Peter is writing to a community of Christ-followers who have been enduring some form of persecution, most likely social discrimination and ostracism, and sporadically imprisonment or even death. That Peter would urge them to abstain from the seemingly minor moral infringements that characterize much of our world, whether Wall Street or Hollywood or the White House, mannerisms such as slander or name-calling and guile or what we might even call approvingly “calculation,” is noteworthy. Peter’s audience is being name-called, judged, shamed, pushed to the margins, but Peter urges them not to fall into the same sort of behavior themselves. We might remember from last week how Peter refers to his audience as “exiles” or strangers in their own land and how he calls them to live differently as Jesus Christ lived differently. Here he’s reminding them of one key difference: how they treat the people who are mistreating them; how they relate to one another amid conflict and difference.

2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk—a more direct translation would be “the pure milk of the Word”—so that by it you may grow into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

Elsewhere in scripture, writers like Paul refer to milk as an early stage of spiritual development. “I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food” (1 Cor 3:2). But here Peter uses the metaphor differently. Here, Peter is not telling his audience to grow up, but to be always like a newborn infant, hungry for milk.

I’m reminded here of Simone Weil, a Christ-follower in the mid 20^th-century who helped to hide Jewish children in France during the Nazi occupation. Simone wrote this: “The soul knows for certain only that it is hungry.” She pointed out that while many people get hung up on the concept of belief, on whether or not they really believe in God, that is actually a secondary concern next to the reality of our spiritual need. She points out: “A child does not stop crying if we suggest to it that perhaps there is no bread. It goes on crying just the same. The danger is not [that] the soul should doubt whether there is any bread [i.e., God], but lest, by a lie, it should persuade itself that it is not hungry.”[1]

There is a saying in the 12-Step tradition, “The only step you have to get right is the first one”; and the first step is acknowledging our powerlessness, our need—or we might say our “hunger.” The real danger, as Simone observes, is not that we doubt God’s existence or believe the wrong things about God, but that we persuade ourselves we’re not hungry. And it’s perhaps easier than ever to forget our hunger in this world. In our time and place, we are surrounded by just about everything we could want, so much so that we forget what we need. People can have whatever they want with the click of a button, delivered to their doorstep within hours, and yet our world is lonelier and more depressed than ever before. Buried deep beneath the many things that are acquired…is a forgotten hunger.

For Peter, always being hungry means always seeking out real nourishment. And for Peter, real nourishment is in the Word, which is to say Jesus Christ. The earliest communities of Christ-followers understood this nourishment in an almost literal way. That is, they steeped themselves in the words of Christ. The earliest manual of instruction for new Christ-followers, the Didache, is filled with the sayings of Christ. I’ll read just a portion of it, which is almost entirely verbatim from Jesus’ words. Imagine how a person might be changed, how might they grow, if they consumed these words every day: “Bless those who curse you, and pray for your enemies”; “love those who hate you”; “if someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles; if someone takes your cloak, give him your tunic also; if someone takes from you what belongs to you, do not demand it back”; “give to everyone who asks you, and do not demand it back”; “do not become angry, for anger leads to murder”; “do not be jealous or quarrelsome or hot-tempered, for all these things breed murders.”[2]

Who Does the Building?

After beginning with the metaphor of hunger and growth, Peter makes a hard pivot to a rather different metaphor: building and construction. As I read these next verses, however, I would invite you to pay close attention to who is doing the building and what our role is in it.

4    Come to him, a living stone—now, “living” is not a normal description of stones; it seems that Peter takes liberty in order to stress that this stone is characterized by vitality and the life it imparts—[come to him, a living stone] though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and 5 like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For it stands in scripture:

        “See, I am laying in Zion a stone,
                a cornerstone chosen and precious;
        and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame”—from Isaiah 28:16.

7      To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe,
        “The stone that the builders rejected
                has become the very head of the corner”—from Ps 118:22—

8 and

        “A stone that makes them stumble,
                and a rock that makes them fall”—from Isa 8:14.
They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

9    But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people—here Peter employs a host of descriptions that originally describe the people of Israel; the implication is that Christ-followers are now a part of the same story, now employed with the same mission, which is essentially one of ambassadorship for God’s kingdom; or as Peter puts it: —in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. The gospel of John explains the mission of Jesus in remarkably similar terms, first saying, “He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him” (John 1:7), and then later reporting that Jesus himself said, “For this I came into the world, to testify to the truth” (John 18:37). In other words, Jesus came not to control and conquer, but to care and give witness to a better way.

Peter concludes with some words drawn from the prophet Hosea, which celebrate the experience of entering into God’s mercy and becoming part of God’s family.

10        Once you were not a people,
                    but now you are God’s people;
            once you had not received mercy,
                    but now you have received mercy.

Church Growth

Today, in our corner of the world, it is not uncommon to hear churches describe their struggles in terms of “church growth.” They might describe the problem as a matter of diminishing attendance or membership. They might describe the solution as a matter of strategy and calculation oriented toward attracting people: different programs, a new building, more advertisement, slicker presentation, and so on.

In his time and place, Peter also perceives a struggle for the church. We could even call that struggle “church growth”—except that for Peter that would have meant something very different. For Peter, “growth” is spiritual, not institutional. For Peter, the problem is not numbers but forgetting our hunger and falling back into old habits—like malice (or identifying enemies), like slander (or name-calling), like guile (or the win-at-all-costs thinking that justifies lies and deceit). For Peter, the problem is not whether the community adds or loses followers, but whether the community stays true to the words of Christ. Likewise, for Peter, the solution is not a blueprint or something we design and build. In his understanding, we are not the builders. We are the blocks. What is more, we are blocks that must align with the cornerstone, Jesus Christ, who is a stumbling block to many in the world.

“Let yourselves be built into a spiritual house,” Peter says (1 Pet 2:5). This paints a very different picture than the idea that we are building God’s kingdom (or much less our own church). Our role as Peter sees it is focused not on changing others, but on being changed ourselves; on always drinking the pure milk of the Word and on being fitted or dressed as stones that will align with our cornerstone.

Peter’s metaphors suggest that, as “a spiritual house,” we—not a building, but we ourselves, wherever we are, wherever we gather—we become for others a transformative space. That is, a space where God might dwell and where others might encounter God for themselves; a space where others might be captivated by the strange beauty of the architecture, by the stark difference of these stones and their cornerstone. We become a sort of safehouse, where others can learn a different way, just as we ourselves (newborn infants) continue to learn a different way.

Prayer

Merciful God,
Whose word is pleasing to our taste
And nourishment for our souls—
Attune our inner heart
To its deep hunger for you
…
So that we might feed regularly
On the words of Christ
And grow into salvation,
And into a spiritual house
Where others might encounter you.
In Christ, our cornerstone: Amen.

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[1] Simone Weil, Love in the Voice: Where God Finds Us (ed. Laurie Gagne; Walden, NY: Plough, 2018).

[2] The Two Ways: The Early Christian Vision of Discipleship from The Didache and The Shepherd of Hermas (trans. Michael W. Holmes; ed. Veery Huleatt; Walden, NY: Plough, 2018).

"A New Inheritance" (1 Peter 1:1-9, 13-21)

Scripture with Light Commentary

1   Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,

To the exiles—that is, strangers or foreigners—of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 2 who have been chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with his blood—sprinkling with blood is an Old Testament image for confirming a covenant, a special relationship, which is how the early Christ-followers understood the cross; it confirmed the depths of God’s love for us:

May grace and peace be yours in abundance.

The recipients of Peter’s circular letter were not exiles in any literal sense. They were mostly lifelong residents of what today is western Turkey, law-abiding inhabitants of the Roman empire. Yet Peter calls them “exiles,” or “strangers,” implying that their residence or citizenship is not Roman but otherwise.

Imagine receiving a letter today from our brothers and sisters in Christ in Europe, addressed to “the exiles of the Dispersion in Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia.”

3   Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Our “Lord” Jesus Christ. It is a quietly revolutionary title. In the Roman empire, people were regularly invited to pledge their allegiance by proclaiming, “Caesar is lord.” But Peter proclaims otherwise.

By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance—remember this word!—that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, 7 so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Peter opens his letter by celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In the Jewish tradition, resurrection refers to the inauguration of God’s new world order, when God’s love will reign and God’s justice will prevail. For Peter, the resurrection of Jesus Christ shows that he is indeed “lord.” For Peter’s audience, who seem to be in the midst of some persecution—quite likely finding themselves socially discriminated against, ostracized, and perhaps on more rare occasion imprisoned or even put to death—the resurrection is encouragement to stay faithful amid their trials. The resurrection is a reminder that, although the old world order has not yet disappeared, although it is violently hanging on and flailing about in its death throes, God’s kingdom is already arriving and followers of Christ are called to live as citizens in it.

13   Therefore prepare your minds for action; discipline yourselves; set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed. 14 Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance. Remember how Peter said that Christ-followers are born into a new inheritance? Here, he hints at their old inheritance. “Desires you formerly had in ignorance.”

15 Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; 16 for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” When God delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and formed a special covenant relationship with them, God set them apart and instructed them: “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” This instruction comes in Leviticus amid a series of other instructions that call Israelites to live differently than their neighbors. Peter here is saying, “Be different as Christ is different.”

17   If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile. There’s that idea of “exile” again, the idea that we are strangers or foreigners in the world.

18 You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors—this is to say, our old “inheritance” is empty and did not actually bring us life…[you were ransomed] not with perishable things like silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. Here Peter compares Jesus to the Passover lamb, through which the ancient Israelites were delivered from death and slavery in Egypt. The implication is clear: our old inheritance, the futile ways we inherited from our ancestors, is like slavery. It leads to death, not to life.

20 He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake. 21 Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God.

“Outside it’s America…”

I remember the first time I traveled overseas. I was visiting my brother, who was living in Cologne, Germany. My neighbor on the flight was a serviceman. He was quite loquacious, a chatty guy. I stayed quiet and listened. He spoke proudly, almost gleefully, of his travels all over the world. The common thread that tied his stories together were the various women he had met in each corner of the world. The rather crude impression that emerged from his storytelling was that the world was a buffet, and he had enjoyed it all. I did not receive the sense that he had ever felt like a true foreigner or stranger in the world. It seemed, on the contrary, that he saw the world as his for the taking.

Later, as I visited my brother, I quickly learned that my fears of not knowing a lick of German were unfounded. Everywhere I went, there was always someone who spoke English—quite often enthusiastically, happy to have found a native English speaker to practice with or impress. I felt increasingly comfortable as I walked the streets. I began to notice familiar landmarks all around, the golden arches of McDonalds, even Colonel Sanders.

My next trip overseas took me to Argentina, as part of a missions emersion experience in seminary. There I noticed the same thing. Everywhere, there was someone happy to speak English with me. The churches that we visited sometimes even included English worship songs in their service.

My last overseas adventure took me to England. Although English was the native language there, what I first noticed were all the differences: the distinct accents, cars on the left side of the road, a pub on every street corner. But over time I began to observe the fingerprints of America, particularly in the realms of business and entertainment. For example, there was a little grocery store across the street from where I lived, ASDA. (It was quite a convenience. If I woke up one morning without eggs or milk, I could walk there in my pajamas!)  I’d never heard of ASDA before, but its advertisements seemed awfully familiar. Later I learned why. ASDA was owned by Walmart.

All of this to say, I have traveled several places across the world, and yet in a sense, I have never left America. Bono, the lead singer of the rock band U2, used to quip: “Outside it’s America…” Meaning, wherever you find yourself, just walk out the door and you’re in America. Its influence is everywhere. Businesses, Hollywood, the military…I’m not sure there’s a place on this globe that does not have its fingerprints on it.

I don’t say this as an indictment or a charge, but rather as an observation. Peter repeatedly refers to himself and other Christ-followers as “exiles” or strangers in the Roman empire. Yet I wonder if I haven’t felt the opposite. Wherever I go, I’m almost always at home. “Outside it’s America…”

Outside It’s Rome…

It was a similar situation in which Peter wrote, except back then, outside it was Rome. In the area of western Turkey, to whom he addresses the circular letter of 1 Peter, “[a]rcheological remains are extensively Roman: baths, theaters, stadia, and fora.”[1] As a thoroughfare in the Roman empire, this area would have been especially cosmopolitan and would have been subjected to “heightened pressure toward social integration into Roman ways."[2] For example, to enter the marketplace, one may well have been required first to offer a sacrifice and proclaim “Ceasar is lord.” To gain face and reputation in a community, one would have needed to sponsor Roman projects and give generously to civic development.

Make no mistake, much of what the Roman empire accomplished in its time was impressive and represents beneficial advancements in engineering, transportation, city planning, to name just a few areas. The problem for Peter—the reason he begs his audience not to be conformed to their old desires and not to return to the futile ways they had inherited from their ancestors, the reason he repeatedly identifies them as “exiles” or strangers—is that these Roman advancements are built through Satan’s means, whether through outright violence or through the subtler mechanics of an honor-shame system that segregated society into social classes and relegated the vast majority to a life of poverty. The old inheritance of Peter’s audience is a constellation of desires and assumptions founded on greed, competition, and violence, on fear, judgment, and hatred. (Or to put all those old ideas into a nutshell, most Roman inhabitants just wanted to be on the side that was going to win. It was safer that way.)

Jesus in Congress

To put this another way, we might ask ourselves, “Why was Jesus crucified?” It was not for preaching against the greed of tax collectors or the dissolute living of prostitutes and drunkards. (Remember, these are the folks he befriended!) If Jesus had simply proclaimed a conventional morality of civic responsibility, if he had just come preaching family values, no one would have batted an eye. Everyone, priests and governors alike, would have assented to that and said, “Amen!” The problem with Jesus was that he forgave these people and showed them grace, all the while preaching radical ideas like enemy-love and non-retaliation and a lifestyle of simplicity and sharing. The values he proclaimed would have upended society, from the temple to the governor’s palace. How could you possibly build or maintain an empire with principles like “Bless those who curse you” and “Do good to those who hate you” (Luke 6:27-28)?

Pastor Brian Zahnd proposes a provocative thought-experiment: “Imagine if Jesus went to Washington, DC. Imagine that he is invited to give a speech to a joint session of Congress. … Imagine that the speech Jesus gave was his most famous sermon—the Sermon on the Mount. Can you imagine that?

“Jesus is introduced. (Standing ovation.) He stands before Congress and begins to deliver his speech. ‘Blessed are the poor…the mourners…the meek.’ ‘Love your enemies.’ ‘Turn the other cheek.’ After a few perfunctory applauses early on,” Zahnd says, “I’m pretty sure there would be a lot of squirming senators and uncomfortable congressmen. The room would sink into a tense silence. And when Jesus concluded his speech with a prophecy of the inevitable fall of the house that would not act upon his words (Matt. 7:26–27), what would Congress do? Nothing. They would not act. They could not act. To act on Jesus’s words would undo their system. The Sermon on the Mount doesn’t work in Cain’s system—no matter how noble or sophisticated. In the end, the US Congress would no more adopt the policies Jesus set out in the Sermon on the Mount than they were adopted by the Jewish Sanhedrin or the Roman Senate.”[3]

“The Genuineness of Our Faith” 

Peter knows this. If he had known about our time and place, he could have prophesied what kind of reception Jesus would have received. It’s the same kind of reception Jesus received in his own world, the same kind of reception that Peter and his audience were receiving too. To be clear, they are not being judged or persecuted because of what they’re trying to impose on others. They’re not fighting a culture war with Rome. They’re not trying to impose anything on anyone else. They’re just living their lives in Christ, as odd as those lives may be in the world’s eyes. Peter and his audience are being judged and persecuted not for trying to seize power or trying to change others, but for being different and not propping up the system—for the ways their rich and poor address each other with the intimate “brother” and “sister,” for their abstaining from attendance at the local coliseum to see people ripped to shreds, for their refusal to pledge allegiance and sacrifice to Caesar to gain entrance to the local market, for their choice not to serve in the Roman army. They are being judged and persecuted for their values and habits, things like patience and forgiveness and hospitality, all of which indicated weakness in the Roman empire. They are being judged and persecuted more for who they worship, a God who was crucified rather than a god who conquers, a God who rules over his kingdom not with a sword but with love. “What kind of weak god rules like that?” they ask.

But what Peter emphasizes in the opening of his letter is not only that following Christ makes us “exiles” and strangers in our own land, but also that it means we are “chosen and destined by God” to be a part of God’s kingdom (1 Pet 1:2). In other words, he refocuses from the difficulties that are being endured to the reason they are being endured. We are ambassadors of God’s kingdom. If we are being tried and tested, he says, then let us hold firm and show the world “the genuineness of our faith” (1 Pet 1:7)—let us show the world what it is missing. Let us show the world the difference of God made known in Christ.

Prayer

Merciful God,
Who has ransomed us through Jesus Christ
From the futile ways
That we have inherited from the world—
Grant us hope in your steadfast love
That endures forever,
That endures through all testing and trials
…
So that we might be different
As Christ was different
And live as ambassadors of your kingdom:
In Jesus Christ, crucified and risen: Amen.

 

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[1] Joel Green, 1 Peter (Two Horizons New Testament Commentary series; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), ebook loc. 2602.

[2] Green, 1 Peter, ebook loc. 2603.

[3] Brian Zahnd, A Farewell to Mars: An Evangelical Pastor’s Journey Toward the Biblical Gospel of Peace (Colorado Springs: David Cook, 2014), ebook loc. 1035-1050.

Stuck (Ps 13 Haiku)

stuck Inside my mind,

worry accelerates. love

leads me Out to life.

Language (Ps 12 Haiku)

our tongues can conquer

what? patience? peace? the poor?

teach us Your language.

Endures (Ps 11 Haiku)

"what if we don't win?"

...what if we're not meant to? what

if Love endures all?

Gain (Ps 10 Haiku)

"those greedy for Gain

curse and renounce" Christ, who waits

for them nonetheless.

The Way of God (Gen 12:2-4; Exod 19:5-6; Num 23:9; Isa 49:6; 52:13-15; 53:5; Jer 29:5-7)

An OT Field Guide

Next week, we will begin a short journey through the book of 1 Peter. This week, we will prepare for that journey. We will consult our map to familiarize ourselves with the territory we’ll be covering, and we’ll check our inventory to be sure that we can handle the various obstacles of interpretation that might arise.

To put this metaphor into plain terms, we will review a selection of passages from the Old Testament today, because 1 Peter frequently alludes to concepts drawn from the Old Testament. Peter maps the gospel of Jesus Christ onto the story of God and Israel, showing how God’s purpose has not changed—but perhaps our understanding of it has. If we are handy with the Old Testament stories and concepts that Peter employs, then we will better be able to handle the terrain of his letter and to appreciate that the way of God has always been the same—or, as pastor Brian Zahnd puts it so well:

“God is like Jesus.
God has always been like Jesus.
There has never been a time when God was not like Jesus.
We have not always known that God was like Jesus—
But now we do.”

“Leave Country, Kindred, and Father’s House”

Gen. 12:1   Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

People of faith, whether Jewish or Christian, regularly trace their heritage back to Abraham, the father of faith. These verses tell the origin of his faith. It all begins with a call to leave everything he knows—his country, his people, even his family. Faith in God requires the same from us all—to leave behind our cultural inheritance, to leave behind what we have been taught by our nation, our people, even our family. Faith in God will make us like strangers in the world, outsiders, people who identify with a different kingdom and a different way of living. And it is precisely here, in this state of exile, that we find God’s blessing. And as God’s promise to Abraham makes clear, this is a blessing intended for “all the families of the earth.”  

It may be worth noting that when God called Abraham, God’s good creation had already suffered several setbacks, all of them linked with civilization. The first city is founded in blood—that is, by Cain, who murders his brother and then lies about it (Gen 4:8-9; 17). (Jesus will refer to Satan himself as a murderer and a liar, perhaps implying that the demonic influence that touched Cain also touches the roots of civilization.) As civilization grows, violence fills the earth until a divine flood wipes it out (cf. Gen 6). A little later, humanity is gathered together once more in a city that is built on back-breaking labor and the pretension of dethroning God (Gen 11:1-9).

All of this to say: God calls Abraham out of a world of violent, organizing impulses, to found a new world where families are not cursed or crushed or torn apart in the grinding machine of human civilization but rather are blessed.

“You Will Be Different”

We fast-forward to God’s call and promise to Moses and the people of Israel, which is but a reaffirmation of God’s call and promise to Abraham.

Ex. 19:5 Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, 6 but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.”

Here God is speaking shortly after having delivered the people of Israel from slavery in the world’s greatest empire, Egypt. God is offering the people a covenant, a special relationship, in which they will become “a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.” Which is fancy language for saying, “You will be different.”

Like priests, you will show the world a good way to live. You will draw the world into a closer relationship with God. As a holy nation, you will be distinguished from other nations, unique among them. “Holy” means something like “set apart for God.” Holy space is space set apart for God, like a temple. Holy time is time set apart for God, like the Sabbath. So Israel will be a people set apart for God, a canvas for God to show the world what it could become.

Not Just Another Nation

This next verse is rarely found on the “greatest hits” lists of the Old Testament, but I think it is quietly crucial. When the Moabite king Balak begged the famous prophet Balaam to curse Israel, Balaam refused. How could he curse whom God had blessed? And so Balaam only prophesied blessing for Israel. Amid one of his blessings, he utters this short description of the people of Israel:

Num. 23:9         For from the top of the crags I see him,

                              from the hills I behold him;

               Here is a people living alone,

                              and not reckoning itself among the nations!

In light of the New Testament, I interpret this short blessing—“here is a people living alone, and not reckoning itself among the nations!”—as an indication that Israel is not just another nation, a nation “among nations.” Which is to say, it’s not identified by all the things that normally identify a nation, like land and a flag and a king and an army. It’s not a competitor in the tournament of nations. It doesn’t play that game. As we saw in Abraham, and as we saw in the wilderness outside Egypt, and as we will see years later when the people have been exiled, the people of God are ultimately not defined by the land in which they live but by the faith through which they live. Their homeland is not a bounded territory that needs to be protected; their homeland is the boundless love of God, which needs to be shared.

When Jesus tells Pilate, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over” (John 18:36), I think he’s referring to the same idea upon which Israel is originally founded. God calls Israel to be a different kind of nation from the other nations in the world. God’s kingdom is not “from” this world. Everything about God’s kingdom seems different. Its king is not crowned conqueror but crucified a convict. Its followers do not fight but forgive. But while God’s kingdom is not “from” this world, it is most assuredly “for” this world. Which is why Jesus prays, “Your kingdom come…on earth…!” Jesus is praying for a fulfillment of God’s promise—a promise that originally showed itself in the people of Israel.

God’s Suffering Servant

But God’s promise eventually founders upon the rocks of Israel’s desire to be like other nations. The people of Israel clamor for a king who will lead their army, a king who will protect them. Even though God feels the sting of rejection, God sees that there is no changing the people’s mind. God allows them a king, and they become more and more like the other nations around them. Finally, their greed and injustice catches up with them, and the fabric of their society starts to fray and tear, and they are ripped to shreds by the more powerful nations around them. Their temple is destroyed, and many of the people are enslaved and displaced, sent to live in foreign lands. Some of them begin to question whether God is even with them anymore.

It is in this context that we hear from the prophets, once more, a reaffirmation of God’s promise to bless all the earth through a people who are faithful to God.

I read here from Isaiah, who refers repeatedly to a “servant” of God, a mysteriously unidentified individual who will lead the people of Israel—and ultimately—the world into God’s kingdom.

Is. 49:6                He [God] says [to his servant],

               “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant

                              to raise up the tribes of Jacob

                              and to restore the survivors of Israel;

               I will give you as a light to the nations,

                              that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

Here God promises that his servant will restore Israel. But his servant won’t stop with Israel. He will become a “light to the nations,” so that God’s “salvation” spreads throughout the earth. If this seems surprisingly universal for a Jewish faith that often seems particular to one ethnic group, we need only remember that God’s original promise to Abraham was blessing for all the families of the earth and that God hinted to Moses and the people of Israel that their role was not to withdraw but to be priests unto the world, to show the world a different way to live and to draw them closer to God. This servant is taking the baton and doing just that.

Is. 52:13                  See, my servant shall prosper;

                              he shall be exalted and lifted up,

                              and shall be very high.

So far, this is what we might expect of God’s servant. He will be  exalted and lifted up.

This picture seems to portray a man who is admired and well-respected. It seems obvious God’s favor rests upon him.

But the next verses change the picture dramatically.

14           Just as there were many who were astonished at him

                              —so marred was his appearance, beyond human semblance,

                              and his form beyond that of mortals—

In other words, this exalted servant of God was actually so disfigured, that he hardly looked human at all.

If we thought that his exaltation had anything to do with his honor and his reputation, this picture of events compels us to reinterpret the situation. For God’s servant here is marked with humiliation and shame. God’s servant is repulsive to the eye.

15           so he shall startle many nations;

                              kings shall shut their mouths because of him;

               for that which had not been told them they shall see,

                              and that which they had not heard they shall contemplate.

God’s servant startles nations and silences kings, presumably because of his difference. “That which had not been told them”—I wonder if this is things like, “Love your enemy” and “Forgive unconditionally”?—things that had not been told the nations and their kings, “they shall see.”

“And that which they had not heard”—I wonder if this is things like “do good to those who hate you” and “turn the other cheek”—that which they had not ever heard before, “they shall contemplate.”

All of this to say, God’s servant is a shock to the system. A shock to the world’s many nations and kings.

God’s servant shows them a radically different way to live in the world.

Is. 53:5 But he was wounded for our transgressions,

                              crushed for our iniquities;

               upon him was the punishment that made us whole,

                              and by his bruises we are healed.

Perhaps most shocking of all, this disfigured, so-called servant of God, is ultimately vindicated.

His wounds do not fester. They heal.

His suffering does not debilitate. It saves.

The way of God—the difference of God—is what the world would consider weakness and foolishness. A man who does not fight back. A man who bears the wounds of others. And yet, Isaiah prophesies, this weakness and foolishness is what will save the world.

Fight, Flight, or…?

This broad story that we’ve traced so far through the Old Testament is crucial to Peter.

But it’s not the end of the story. For Peter, the servant’s example is not just something to gawk or wonder at. It serves as a model, a pattern, a road—a way for the people of God.

Peter and his audience are grappling with a difficult question (that we still face today). How should they (we) live in a world that is mired in the old values of competition, violence, and might-makes-right? How should they (we) relate to the empire whose violence crucifies the people who get in the way, people like their savior?

The two popular responses in any situation of difficulty or conflict are “fight” and “flight.” To “fight” would mean becoming more like the world. It might mean trying to infiltrate the empire’s government with good Christians who could change it from the inside. Or it might mean trying to fight it in a more literal way, with swords and daggers. Either way, “fighting” entails a dreadful compromise. It jettisons the values of Christ, values like love, gentleness, humility, noncoercion. It says, “No, we need to fight fire with fire; only after we’ve ‘won,’ can we live like Christ.”

The other response, “flight,” would mean to separate from the world. It might mean setting up an alternative community in isolation from the world, a safe haven where Christians can live in peace among themselves. But again, this path entails a dreadful compromise. It jettisons the desire and mission of God to bless all the families of the earth. It writes off the people whom God longs to embrace. It judges as unworthy or expendable the people whom Christ came to forgive.

Instead of “fight” or “flight,” Peter will opt for an alternative third way, a way that we already see outlined in the Old Testament (because, remember, the way of God has always been the same). Our last text comes from the prophet Jeremiah. It must be remembered that Jeremiah is writing to Israelites in exile, who are now living as second-class citizens, if not slaves, among the very people who conquered their homeland and destroyed their temple. They are living among the enemy.

Jer. 29:5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

According to Jeremiah, the way of God is neither “fight” nor “flight.” It is, rather, to be a light.

“Seek the welfare of the city” where you are in exile (Jer 29:7).

To be clear, I don’t think God is calling the Israelites to become Babylonian, to accept the Babylonian culture as their own, to prop up the Babylonian empire. Because the Babylonian empire is depicted elsewhere in scripture quite vividly as an evil empire, a wicked beast, a civilization steeped in blood. It is just like the Egyptian empire that enslaved the Hebrew people. It is just another empire founded in the violence and lies of Cain, in whom civilization itself was founded. So, I  don’t think God is calling the exiled Israelites to assimilate to Babylon. They belong not to the kingdom of Babylon, but to God’s kingdom.

But they are called to bless the Babylonians as indeed they would be called to bless their neighbors wherever they found themselves. For that is the way of God. We saw it first in God’s call to Abraham to be a blessing to the families of the earth. We saw it next in God’s call to Moses and Israel to be a holy nation, set apart from the other nations, a priestly kingdom that would show the other nations how to live with God and draw near to God. And finally we saw the way of God in God’s servant, who came not to inflict injuries but to bear them and heal them, who came not to impose suffering but to endure it and to redeem it.

All of this to say, Peter discerns within the Old Testament a clear line back to the very beginning, showing that God’s way has always been the same. It is neither a way of domination nor of separation. It is neither winning nor withdrawing. Neither fight nor flight. But rather, to be a light.

To put it simply, the way of God is to be the difference that God wants to see in the world. And that difference is Christ.

Prayer

Loving God,
Whose way we see most clearly in Jesus Christ
And catch glimpses of
In the story of Israel
Going all the way back to Abraham—
Inspire us by the servant
Who came as a shock to the system
…
Inspire us to live as your difference
In a world caught up
In cycles of hurt and despair.
In Christ, our teacher by example: Amen.

"Children of God" (Acts 2:1-4; Gal 4:1-7)

This morning I will continue with the practice of interspersing some commentary among the scripture. If you’re following along on the insert or in your Bible, just know that I will be pausing periodically to elaborate on what we’ve read.

“A Wind from God”: God’s New Creation

Acts 2:1   When the day of Pentecost had come, they [the disciples] were all together in one place. Pentecost was another name for the Jewish Festival of Weeks, a pilgrimage festival that originally celebrated the first fruits of the wheat harvest and later came to be identified with the day on which God gave Israel the law. As we will see shortly, there’s a poetic reversal at play in the Christian celebration of Pentecost. The day that once commemorated the receiving of the law, has become for us Christ-followers a day that commemorates our graduation from the law into the freedom of the Spirit.

2 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. In Hebrew, the word for Spirit is the same word for “wind.” We are told in Genesis that when God created the heavens and the earth, a “wind from God” swept over the waters. God’s spirit was brewing something, stirring up new life. We can see Pentecost in a similar way. God’s spirit is brewing something, stirring up new life, amid the followers of Christ who are gathered together. They are going to become the church, a distinctive witness to God’s new creation in Christ.

3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. I must confess, I have trouble imagining people suddenly speaking languages they have no knowledge of. Is this just an inexplicable miracle, nothing more than a sign of God’s power? Maybe so. But in the context of what we’ve already noticed—namely, that Pentecost is reminiscent of creation, where God’s wind-spirit sweeps over the elements, stirring up new life—in this context, I can’t help but notice the emphasis on words and speech. Creation began with God speaking the world into existence. Or as John puts it, in the beginning was “the Word.” God’s new creation in Christ begins in a similar way, with the Spirit inspiring people to speak. In the rest of the book of Acts, the Christ-followers proclaim the story of Christ. Which is to say, they begin to change the story. The story that the world tells, which is a story of gods of power, a story of competition, a story of winners and losers. They begin to proclaim a different story, a countercultural story, a story of a crucified God, a story of an alternative way, the Jesus way of forgiveness and generosity and peace.

Stories shape our world. We live into them. By proclaiming the story of Christ in word and deed, the church is speaking God’s new creation into existence.

Graduating from the “Basic Principles”

Now we pivot to Paul’s letter to the Galatians, which we’ve been reading the last few weeks.

Just to refresh before we begin: in the last couple weeks, we’ve heard Paul proclaim that followers of Christ have been fully received into God’s fellowship, not by virtue of anything they have done but by virtue of Christ’s love for them and faith in them. Paul’s proof for this claim is simple: people’s experience of the Holy Spirit. He reminds the Galatians about how they experienced the Spirit of God in some amazing ways—which we can only imagine refers to the kinds of life-changing events that we see elsewhere in scripture and in early church history, changes like the personal divestment of wealth and honor, and the breakdown of the social class system at a common table, and the healing of diseases.  Paul’s point is that all of this happened not as the result of following some rules, but as the result of trusting in the love of Christ and receiving the Holy Spirit. For Paul, the free and unconditional love of Christ becomes our new center of gravity, our new identity. It’s like putting on a different set of clothes, living with different habits. It also means taking off our old clothes and setting aside our old cultural identities, based in things like our nationality, our gender, our race, our religion, and so on.

Today, Paul  elaborates on the experience of the Holy Spirit, on what it feels like and how it changes us. He uses the rich metaphor of growing up.

Gal. 4:1   My point is this: heirs, as long as they are minors, are no better than slaves, though they are the owners of all the property 2 but they remain under guardians and trustees until the date set by the father. Last week, Paul compared the law—meaning the traditions and dos and don’ts of our culture, Jewish or otherwise—to an old-fashion school-teacher. Here he’s riffing off the same idea. When we are children, subject to that old school-teacher who’s keeping us in line, we are held back from the fullness of life. We have not graduated. We have not come yet into our full inheritance.

3 So with us; while we were minors, we were enslaved to the elemental spirits of the world. Another translation is “enslaved by the basic principles of the world,” which is to say, the customs and laws that ordered life in our culture. These basic principles (back then as well as now) might include things like, men should be strong, women should be pretty, time is money, money is power, and so on. These principles told us how to live, and in some ways they might have been helpful. But they also limited us and held us back from the fullness of life.

4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. “Adoption” may be a misleading translation. Earlier in Paul’s metaphor, he suggests we are already children awaiting an inheritance, but we are kept under the guard of our teacher-disciplinarian—that is, the law of our culture. In other words, the moment of change or transformation to which Paul refers is not a matter of space but a matter of time. It is not a matter of us being outside God’s household and then being brought in, but a matter of us being adolescents and then graduating or growing up into our full inheritance. We graduate from the “basic principles” and enter into the freedom of love.

If you think for a moment of the parable of the prodigal son, consider the character of the older brother, the one who stays at home and is a dutiful servant of his father. When his brother returns home and his father throws a homecoming feast, the older brother refuses to join them. Why? He has not graduated from the law. He has not grown up into an appreciation of his father’s love. He still lives according to the basic principles of good and bad, deserving and undeserving, winning and losing. He sees himself as a dutiful servant of his father, someone who deserves reward, and his brother as a wrongdoer, a failure, someone who deserves to be kicked out.

Beyond Teenage Rebellion

6 And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.

I’m fascinated by Paul’s metaphor of growing up and graduating from the law.  In the past, when I’ve read the verse about the Spirit crying, “Abba,” I’ve thought of a little child crying out to God, “Daddy!” And I don’t think that is invalid. Jesus teaches us that to enter the kingdom of God we must become like little children. But as I read these last couple verses today in the context of Paul’s metaphor, I think they are painting a different picture.

Think for a moment about the idea of “teenage rebellion.” Perhaps you went through this stage yourself. Or perhaps you’ve seen it in others. It is undoubtedly a complicated time in anyone’s life, and I wouldn’t want to reduce it to a simple lesson. For some people, there may be very good reason to rebel. For others, it’s just a part of differentiating ourselves from our parents. In either case, a teenager who is in active rebellion probably does not see their parents as loving guardians but as something more like a slavemasters. And yet at some point down the road—it might be in their 20s when they get their freedom and encounter the hard knocks of life on their own, or it might be in 50s or 60s as they care for their aging parent—but at some point, they begin to acknowledge and appreciate their parents’ love for them.

Of course, that love is not always expressed in healthy or helpful ways. I remember hearing once a woman speak about her abusive upbringing, and how her  mom was constantly on drugs and wrecking whatever residence they had found to live in. When the daughter grew up and left home, she determined never to see her mom again. But as it would happen, one day she received a phone call to inform her that her mom had dementia and was dying. With great trepidation, she went to meet with her. The daughter was in a much better, much healthier place herself, and she felt strong enough to face her past. She says that when she saw her mom on the nursing home bed, it was like seeing the sun for the first time. She said she realized that all her life, her mom had loved her, but that love had been hidden behind the clouds of addiction and bad habits and a long history of hurt. But finally the clouds had lifted. Not everyone with abusive parents is blessed with such a moment, but I have to believe the truth holds. Love is always there, however much it is buried underneath disease and dysfunction.

All of this to say, when I read these verses in the context of growing up, what I see in my mind’s eye is not an infant crying out, “Daddy!” but a mature son or daughter outgrowing their rebellion and finally recognizing God for who God is: not a taskmaster, not a disciplinarian, but a loving father, a loving mother. I imagine the prodigal son’s older brother having a moment of clarity, waking up to what he’s been missing his whole life. His father loves him. Would give him the world. Even if he didn’t deserve it. Even if (like his brother) he’d done everything not to deserve it.

And that is a profoundly different kind of story than the one our world tells. Which is why Pentecost is pivotal. It marks God’s new creation, when God’s wind swept over the waters once more, when God’s Spirit filled followers of Christ with a new story to share with the world, a story of a father’s unconditional love.

Originally Pentecost marked the receiving of the law. But in Christ, it marks a growing up beyond the law, a graduation into the freedom of love. Through the Spirit of God that has come to us through Christ, we realize we are beloved children of God, forgiven and free to love others as we have been loved.

Prayer

Tender God,
Who cares deeply for us,
Whose Spirit broods over all creation—
Today we celebrate your Spirit,
A spirit of fierce love and forgiveness,
Meant for us, but not only us
…
God, sometimes we have trouble believing
We are your children,
Truly forgiven, truly free.
Open our hearts to receive
This good news,
So that we might share it with others,
And enter more fully into your new creation
In Christ: Who taught us to say, “Our father,” “Abba.” Amen.

Caught (Ps 9 Haiku)

caught up in my plans,

"in the work of [my] own hands" -- 

or, caught up in Grace.

Underneath (Ps 8 Haiku)

who are we that you

should make our home here your own,

underneath the gods?