1 Peter 3:13-22; Acts 17:15-31; Psalm 66:8-20; John 14:15-21
Who of us hasn’t used ketchup? There’s hardly a restaurant of modest presentation that doesn’t already have ketchup on the table or offers it with the meal. We use it on eggs and fries, burgers and wieners. My mother had a friend who put it on watermelon. The thicker the ketchup the better. As one ketchup jingle years ago sang, “Anticipation.”
Ketchup has a history, the early part of which is not nice. Some coal tar was added to make it redder. Sanitary conditions around its preparation and preservation often made it all the more toxic. As late at the turn of the 20th century 90 percent of commercial ketchup was found to have ingredients which were injurious to health. That’s makes today’s Big Macs positively healthy.
Almost a century and a half ago Henry J. Heinz was committed to bottling pure unsullied ketchup. He pioneered sanitary conditions for making ketchup and led the way for training his employees in health and wellness. His efforts resulted in a perfect environment for making a ketchup that would not kill you. It was so good that it became a staple on American dinner tables.
Heinz was so focused on purity and transparency that he refused to bottle his ketchup in the opaque brown bottles that were common at the time. He used clear glass bottles as a way of demonstrating the product’s purity to the public. Heinz even opened his factory to 30,000 visitors a year so they could see that the company had nothing to hide. “It’s always safe to buy the products of an establishment that keeps its doors open,” he once wrote. By 1906, Heinz was selling five million bottles of preservative-free ketchup every year.
Henry Heinz built a lasting legacy based on transparency, earning the trust of consumers because he focused on purity and quality and hid nothing from them. That clear, quality bottle of ketchup, whether it’s the traditional glass design or the squeeze bottle, is still something that people trust well enough to take for granted, even in the red plastic bottles now sold. The transparent character of H. J. Heinz is still reflected in every one of his products since after his death in 1919.
Heinz made better ketchup and he wanted to make the world a better place. Are we as “zealous for good,” as Peter puts it in this week's reading? Are we living lives that are equally transparent, “because of righteousness,” no matter what it might cost us? Are we clear spiritual bottles which allow everyone who sees us to know exactly what’s inside us?
Distress and persecution for their faith were the order of the day for the people who received the Peter letters. They lived in a world where greed and fear and lust for power produced all manner of hidden and open agendas and schemes to beat down social and political threats. The righteousness and good works of Christians were perceived as a threat to the extractive system of the economy and rule which enriched the already rich and empowered at the expense of the already poor and disenfranchised.
Rather than retaliate or go into hiding, Peter encouraged the believers to live lives of purity in the midst of suffering, “maintaining a good conscience ... so that those who malign your good lifestyle in Christ may be ashamed when they slander you.” Peter urged, “Happy are you even if you suffer because of righteousness.” For Peter, the real test of the Christian life was the ability to stay pure and transparent, even when others were trying to demean your spirit and pollute your witness. Suffering is inevitable in the Christian life. Peter might go so far as to say that if we aren’t suffering because of our faith in Christ, we have given into or been absorbed by the culture around us. We are opaque bottles of toxic lives. What matters is how we react to the suffering that the world around us creates.
When the world pounds us, what comes out? Paul wrote the Roman believers (5:3), that “trouble produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope.” Jesus said that we should rejoice when we suffer, because it means that we are representing him and we are coming closer to the kingdom (Matthew 5:10-11). Somehow, in a counter-intuitive way, suffering can wind up producing the best in us.
We only need to look at a ketchup bottle to be reminded of this. We like thick ketchup, but then we get frustrated having to wait for it to make up its mind to come out of the bottle. The classic glass Heinz bottle doesn’t make it easy to pour out the ketchup. The thick tomato mixture is strengthened with xanthan gum, which makes it a “non-Newtonian fluid,” that is, one which changes its viscosity or flow rate under stress. That’s why you have to whack a bottle of ketchup repeatedly to get it to come out. The trick is to do it the right way. Pounding on the bottom of the bottle only causes the viscosity of the ketchup at the mouth of the bottle to get thicker. Instead of releasing the pent-up ketchup, we block it in. Instead, as every Pittsburgher knows, the way you get the ketchup to transform into free flowing liquid is to tap on the top of the bottle or, even more ideally, to tap two fingers on the raised “57” numbers on the bottle's neck. That’s the force that produces the good stuff.
The pounding of persecution and suffering can produce the same effect in us. It can either cause us to stiffen, or it can trigger a flow of the fruit of the Spirit in us that can season the world. Just as the spice and herb rack offer all kinds of possibilities, so do Spirit’s fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22).
Peter says that this is exactly what happened with Jesus, who suffered for our sins on the cross and yet produced the effect of bringing people to God. When we “regard Christ as holy” in our hearts and respond to the imposition of trouble in our lives by giving an account of this hope in Christ that is within us with “respectful humility,” we produce the kind of fruit that is transparently clear in conscience, and pure in heart, life and motive, the kind that will bring shame upon those who persecute us.
Jesus extended his own fruitfulness to the “spirits in prison,” those people who were disobedient in the days of Noah. Scholars debate what Peter actually meant here, but the main thrust of these verses is about baptism, which is the ultimate mark of purity, transparency and cleanliness for the Christian. As God saved Noah and his family “through water” during the days of the flood, so God saves us through baptism into the death and resurrection of Christ.
It’s a cleansing that goes much deeper than the removal of the dirt and crud that defiles the body and makes even things like ketchup to be lethal. Instead, it’s a cleansing that sterilizes and protects us from the long-term effects of death. Baptism reminds us that we are people who belong to Jesus and that we are to witness transparently to him in our conduct, our character, and even in our suffering.
Baptism is a sign and seal of salvation, But it is also a solemn oath made before God. The flood came as a judgment upon evil people, but for Noah it brought deliverance from their mockery and sin, ushering him into a new life. In baptism, believers identify with Jesus Christ, who separates us from the lost and gives us new life. Baptism is a sign of the new covenant, identifying the person baptized with the people of God and the community of Christ. Neither the ceremony, the water, or the removal of dirt from the body – the spiritual cleansing – saves us.
The water of baptism does not “wash away sin” literally. Baptism is the outward symbol of the inner transformation that happens in the hearts of those who believe. So the pouring of the water into the font as part of our words of confession and forgiveness is a visual reminder of what Christ has done for us.
What kind of suffering has been pounding at you these days? How can you allow Jesus to help you make it fruitful? In what ways are you living out your baptism, being a transparent witness for Christ in the world? As Jesus said, the true people of God will be known by their fruit, by what they produce. Are we presenting ourselves to the world as an opaque bottle of a vile and potentially lethal potion concocted of hatred, sin, and revenge?
Or, are we pure, inviting, and transparent? Does our living invite the world to see the vision of the one who loves us, cares for us and employs us?
The next time you pick up a bottle of Heinz ketchup and start to become impatient with the time it takes to receive its goodness, and prepare to pound the red delight out of it, remember where it came from. And remember where you came from, that Christ has made you a pure, transparent bottle of Spirit-filled joy to humbly strike fear and shame into the world that would declare you toxic.
General Resources:
“Consider the Ketchup Bottle,” Homiletics, May 25, 2014.
Life Application Bible Commentary, 1 Peter 3:13-22.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2017 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
Sunday, May 21, 2017
Sunday, May 14, 2017
The Roominess of God
John 14:1-14; Acts 7:55-50; 1 Peter 2:2-10
Most of the twelve disciples are tight-lipped. They apparently said nothing memorable. We know Peter, who frequently spoke before thinking. Thomas was at the very least skeptical, if we judge him by his questions. He speaks several times, including being resigned to go to death in Jerusalem when Jesus decides to go raise Lazarus. We know Judas Iscariot more from his actions than his words. Philip gets about three lines and Andrew has one. The remaining disciples are walk-on roles.
According to John’s gospel, when Jesus was on the cross, he looked down on his mother who was standing near the disciple whom Jesus loved. Many serious readers of the scripture assume that this is a quiet reference to John, the author of the gospel. If this is the case, then the most beloved of the gospels was written by the most beloved of the disciples. And what we have in today’s reading, placards in sports arenas notwithstanding, is perhaps the one of the most beloved passages.
I would guess that I use the opening verses of John 14 in four out of every five funerals and memorial services I lead. I suspect that my colleagues in ministry do much the same.
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house there are many dwelling places [mansions]. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” (NRSV)
The image that comes to mind heavenly real estate. Real estate is not something Paula and I have paid much attention to during the course of our marriage and ministry. The houses attached to churches have picked us out so to speak. We have loved and cared for the manse the Waverly Church owns. It needed a fair amount of attention when we first saw it. As Paula famously said when we first toured it, “It has potential.” Ralph and Sally Preble took charge of getting it in shape for our move in. We have been privileged to live in it for one quarter of its existence. It was built 120 years ago.
In retirement we get to pick out the house we hope to spend the next twenty or thirty years in. We will actively look and hopefully find that house the end of the month. Where we are looking, Bowie, Maryland, has thousands of houses built in the 1960s. There are sub-divisions after sub-divisions of homes, with all the streets in a sub-division beginning with the same letter of the alphabet, Bs, Ss, Ks, Ts, Is, etc. There are three basic designs, which owners have added onto over the years. The other major housing style in many of the surrounding areas are townhouse condominiums.
These are not the mansions or dwelling places that Jesus is referring to. Nor is Jesus referring to some great campus of dormitories, as if heaven were akin to Ohio State University or the like. Lots of preachers have acted like real estate salespeople when it comes to this verse. They have mapped out all sorts of accommodations, including some sort of gated community for a certain branch of Protestant Christianity that thinks that the rest of us have little or no business being in heaven. And as some one put it in a serious but flip way, “I’ll be more surprised by who is there than by who is not.”
And if that isn’t tacky enough, what about Jesus going there to prepare the place for us. Who is he? The head of housekeeping? Is he making the beds, fluffing the pillows, lining up the little sample bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and lotion, and making sure the complementary coffee packs are in place?
On a more serious note, the activity he speaks of is a lot like the situation that Luke recounts in chapter 14 of his gospel. Jesus was invited to a dinner at the home of a Pharisee. He noticed how some of the guests were jockeying for the best seats, Jesus remarked that when people issue invitations, they should do so without expecting invitations in return. Then he told a parable about a man who issued invitations to a large dinner party, Then when the time came to tell the guests that the dinner was prepared, the guests came up with all manner of excuses why they couldn’t attend. So the host sent servants out to bring the poor, crippled, blind, and lame to the dinner.
So Jesus will tell his people when things are ready in the dwelling places that he has gone to prepare. This is where the idea of Christ’s second coming finds a lot of support. But like the parable, the excuses begin with Thomas saying that he doesn’t know where Jesus is going.
That’s a another sermon for another day. What I want us to think on today is his word that there are many dwelling places. I like how our Common English Bible has chosen to word the translation: “My Father's house has room to spare.” The translators of the New Living Translation put it this way, “There is more than enough room in my Father’s home.” Eugene Peterson similarly says, “There’s plenty of room in my Father’s home.” While the Greek original uses a word for “abodes,” it seems to me that the key theological concept that Jesus is putting forth is not one of real estate, but the roominess of the capacious love of God. As far as God is concerned, there is always room for one more. Space in the kingdom is not limited. Unlike Jesus’ entry into humanity, there will never be a “No Vacancy” sign posted.
The roominess of God is one way of looking at an image that Paul often uses: The Christian is in Christ. The Father’s house is not a heavenly mansion, but Christ himself in whom reside all who believe in him, “trust in him,” to use his own words. Again, Paul would expand this to say that the Father’s house is Christ and the church.
“Don’t you know that you are God’s temple and God’s Spirit lives in you” (1 Corinthians 3:16)
and
“As God’s household, you are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone....Christ is building you into a place where God lives through the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:20, 22).
That brings us to what Peter wrote:
“You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people who are God's own possession. You have become this people so that you may speak of the wonderful acts of the one who called you out of darkness into his amazing light” (1 Peter 2:9).
Believers don't have to wait until the second coming to live in this house; once Christ rose from the dead he brought them into a new, living relationship with God. Jesus would be the means by which believers come to dwell in the Father and the Father in them. If this is the case, the fellowship of the kingdom is corporate and is possible through Christ’s departure and return in the Spirit. So the “many rooms” would be the many members of God’s household. Christ went to prepare a place for each member in God’s household—the preparation which was accomplished by his death and resurrection.
When Jesus says, “Don’t be troubled; trust in God, trust also in me,” Jesus means to reassure his disciples that his death is not the end but the beginning of the “way,” whose destination is the room he is making for them in God. He tells the disciples that the God in whom they are to trust, on whom he invites them to hang their hearts, “has room for them.” Robert Jenson writes about God’s roominess in relation, not to the space, but to the time God has for us. When asked, "What is time?” Jensen says that “created time is room in God’s own life. If creation is God’s making room in himself, then God must be roomy…. this roominess of God should be thought of as his ‘time,’ that God’s eternity is not immunity to time but his having all the time he needs.”(1)
The metaphor of God’s roominess as God's eternity is our opportunity to trust more deeply in the grace God has shared with us in Christ. By confessing Christ as our Lord and Savior, we have already accessed the way. We don’t need to ask Thomas’ question. As we approach Pentecost and the outpouring of Christ’s Spirit on believers, the tongues of fire which the first believers experienced are already licking at our spirits, and the roar of the wind is already whispering grace and peace in our ears.
Friends, the roominess of God is God’s joy at including us in the chosen race, royal priesthood, holy nation, the people who are God's own possession. Spread out in God’s roominess so you may “speak of the wonderful acts of the one who called you out of darkness into his amazing light.”
Thanks be to God.
(1) Robert Jenson, “Aspects of a Doctrine of Creation,” in Colin Gunton, ed., The Doctrine of Creation (London: T. & T. Clark, 1997), 24; cited by Cynthia A. Jarvis, “John 14:1-14 – Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), Year A, vol. 2, 469.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2017 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
Most of the twelve disciples are tight-lipped. They apparently said nothing memorable. We know Peter, who frequently spoke before thinking. Thomas was at the very least skeptical, if we judge him by his questions. He speaks several times, including being resigned to go to death in Jerusalem when Jesus decides to go raise Lazarus. We know Judas Iscariot more from his actions than his words. Philip gets about three lines and Andrew has one. The remaining disciples are walk-on roles.
According to John’s gospel, when Jesus was on the cross, he looked down on his mother who was standing near the disciple whom Jesus loved. Many serious readers of the scripture assume that this is a quiet reference to John, the author of the gospel. If this is the case, then the most beloved of the gospels was written by the most beloved of the disciples. And what we have in today’s reading, placards in sports arenas notwithstanding, is perhaps the one of the most beloved passages.
I would guess that I use the opening verses of John 14 in four out of every five funerals and memorial services I lead. I suspect that my colleagues in ministry do much the same.
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house there are many dwelling places [mansions]. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” (NRSV)
The image that comes to mind heavenly real estate. Real estate is not something Paula and I have paid much attention to during the course of our marriage and ministry. The houses attached to churches have picked us out so to speak. We have loved and cared for the manse the Waverly Church owns. It needed a fair amount of attention when we first saw it. As Paula famously said when we first toured it, “It has potential.” Ralph and Sally Preble took charge of getting it in shape for our move in. We have been privileged to live in it for one quarter of its existence. It was built 120 years ago.
In retirement we get to pick out the house we hope to spend the next twenty or thirty years in. We will actively look and hopefully find that house the end of the month. Where we are looking, Bowie, Maryland, has thousands of houses built in the 1960s. There are sub-divisions after sub-divisions of homes, with all the streets in a sub-division beginning with the same letter of the alphabet, Bs, Ss, Ks, Ts, Is, etc. There are three basic designs, which owners have added onto over the years. The other major housing style in many of the surrounding areas are townhouse condominiums.
These are not the mansions or dwelling places that Jesus is referring to. Nor is Jesus referring to some great campus of dormitories, as if heaven were akin to Ohio State University or the like. Lots of preachers have acted like real estate salespeople when it comes to this verse. They have mapped out all sorts of accommodations, including some sort of gated community for a certain branch of Protestant Christianity that thinks that the rest of us have little or no business being in heaven. And as some one put it in a serious but flip way, “I’ll be more surprised by who is there than by who is not.”
And if that isn’t tacky enough, what about Jesus going there to prepare the place for us. Who is he? The head of housekeeping? Is he making the beds, fluffing the pillows, lining up the little sample bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and lotion, and making sure the complementary coffee packs are in place?
On a more serious note, the activity he speaks of is a lot like the situation that Luke recounts in chapter 14 of his gospel. Jesus was invited to a dinner at the home of a Pharisee. He noticed how some of the guests were jockeying for the best seats, Jesus remarked that when people issue invitations, they should do so without expecting invitations in return. Then he told a parable about a man who issued invitations to a large dinner party, Then when the time came to tell the guests that the dinner was prepared, the guests came up with all manner of excuses why they couldn’t attend. So the host sent servants out to bring the poor, crippled, blind, and lame to the dinner.
So Jesus will tell his people when things are ready in the dwelling places that he has gone to prepare. This is where the idea of Christ’s second coming finds a lot of support. But like the parable, the excuses begin with Thomas saying that he doesn’t know where Jesus is going.
That’s a another sermon for another day. What I want us to think on today is his word that there are many dwelling places. I like how our Common English Bible has chosen to word the translation: “My Father's house has room to spare.” The translators of the New Living Translation put it this way, “There is more than enough room in my Father’s home.” Eugene Peterson similarly says, “There’s plenty of room in my Father’s home.” While the Greek original uses a word for “abodes,” it seems to me that the key theological concept that Jesus is putting forth is not one of real estate, but the roominess of the capacious love of God. As far as God is concerned, there is always room for one more. Space in the kingdom is not limited. Unlike Jesus’ entry into humanity, there will never be a “No Vacancy” sign posted.
The roominess of God is one way of looking at an image that Paul often uses: The Christian is in Christ. The Father’s house is not a heavenly mansion, but Christ himself in whom reside all who believe in him, “trust in him,” to use his own words. Again, Paul would expand this to say that the Father’s house is Christ and the church.
“Don’t you know that you are God’s temple and God’s Spirit lives in you” (1 Corinthians 3:16)
and
“As God’s household, you are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone....Christ is building you into a place where God lives through the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:20, 22).
That brings us to what Peter wrote:
“You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people who are God's own possession. You have become this people so that you may speak of the wonderful acts of the one who called you out of darkness into his amazing light” (1 Peter 2:9).
Believers don't have to wait until the second coming to live in this house; once Christ rose from the dead he brought them into a new, living relationship with God. Jesus would be the means by which believers come to dwell in the Father and the Father in them. If this is the case, the fellowship of the kingdom is corporate and is possible through Christ’s departure and return in the Spirit. So the “many rooms” would be the many members of God’s household. Christ went to prepare a place for each member in God’s household—the preparation which was accomplished by his death and resurrection.
When Jesus says, “Don’t be troubled; trust in God, trust also in me,” Jesus means to reassure his disciples that his death is not the end but the beginning of the “way,” whose destination is the room he is making for them in God. He tells the disciples that the God in whom they are to trust, on whom he invites them to hang their hearts, “has room for them.” Robert Jenson writes about God’s roominess in relation, not to the space, but to the time God has for us. When asked, "What is time?” Jensen says that “created time is room in God’s own life. If creation is God’s making room in himself, then God must be roomy…. this roominess of God should be thought of as his ‘time,’ that God’s eternity is not immunity to time but his having all the time he needs.”(1)
The metaphor of God’s roominess as God's eternity is our opportunity to trust more deeply in the grace God has shared with us in Christ. By confessing Christ as our Lord and Savior, we have already accessed the way. We don’t need to ask Thomas’ question. As we approach Pentecost and the outpouring of Christ’s Spirit on believers, the tongues of fire which the first believers experienced are already licking at our spirits, and the roar of the wind is already whispering grace and peace in our ears.
Friends, the roominess of God is God’s joy at including us in the chosen race, royal priesthood, holy nation, the people who are God's own possession. Spread out in God’s roominess so you may “speak of the wonderful acts of the one who called you out of darkness into his amazing light.”
Thanks be to God.
(1) Robert Jenson, “Aspects of a Doctrine of Creation,” in Colin Gunton, ed., The Doctrine of Creation (London: T. & T. Clark, 1997), 24; cited by Cynthia A. Jarvis, “John 14:1-14 – Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), Year A, vol. 2, 469.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2017 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
Sunday, May 7, 2017
Voluntary or Involuntary Poverty
1 Peter 2:19-25; Acts 2:42-47; John 10:1-10
Our texts for today revolve around the word “shepherd.” The fourth Sunday of Easter is always Good Shepherd Sunday, and over the three-year cycle of the lectionary we share with a number of denominations we hear all of John 10. We hear how Jesus is the gate and the gatekeeper, the only way to salvation and how he is willing to lay down his life for his sheep. In the end he provides proof of his authority to be the Good Shepherd. His sheep are those who believe who have been given to Jesus by his Father.
The psalm for this day is always Psalm 23. We sang a metrical version of the psalm as our opening hymn. The Scottish Psalter version was sung a week ago at Maryanna Cassady’s memorial service. My personal favorite is the Isaac Watts paraphrase set to the American folk melody “Resignation,” number 803 in our Glory to God hymnals. The psalm is a song of the sheep who is praising the goodness of the Shepherd who is the Lord. The Lord provides. The Lord directs. The Lord leads. The Lord restores. The Lord guides. The Lord protects. The Lord comforts. The Lord feeds. The Lord anoints. Life under the Lord’s care is good. Life in the presence of the Shepherd is blessed.
We get a very different picture of life from the 1 Peter reading. The passage is under a cloud because the verse which opens the paragraph and underlies the included thoughts is omitted. The verse tells household slaves to submit to the authority of their masters, whether the masters are kind or harsh.
We are 21st century Christians and slavery in any form is not to be tolerated. Before we jump of the rails and throw a fit at the letter’s author, let us reflect on the context of the people to whom the letter was written. Many, if not most, of the new Christians were slaves in pagan households. They were often harassed for their beliefs. They lived in a world which required them to jump to the master’s every whim. They would be severely punished if they didn’t obey their master’s requests. Having to endure insults about their religious beliefs and practices was more than the fledgling Christians could bear.
The author of 1 Peter attempts to offer a pastoral word to these folk. He makes a distinction between suffering for a just cause and suffering for an unjust cause. The author seems to suggest that suffering under certain circumstances may be acceptable. Reasonable discipline for mistakes and wrong-doing is appropriate. However, the writer does not say that suffering is a legitimate condition for those who are abused, coerced, or oppressed. Nor is he condoning a stoic tolerance for violence against anyone. And nowhere does he suggest that God’s name be invoked as the hand strikes or the belt comes out. But also note that the author does not say that Christians should seek out and revel in suffering as an acceptable way to live out their faith.
The 1 Peter author urges believers to seek to live out an ethic which was an alternative to the pagan culture of which these fledgling Christians were a part. Such an ethic was also different from the culture of their own backgrounds before coming to Christ.
These new Christians have the model of Christ, a radical disinclination to return fire when under attack. That is more than any of us can imagine, yet that is how Christ lived his ministry. Abuse must not produce more abuse. Suffering must not produce more suffering. Giving hurt is not the knee-jerk response to being hurt.
To trust God in the midst of suffering was considered the high calling to which these new believers should aspire. That is the model of the psalmist’s sheep. “You set a table for me right in front of my enemies. You bathe my head in oil; my cup is so full it spills over!” That’s a hard lesson for any of us under any condition. For slaves it must have been brutal.
The idea that Christ’s sheep know his voice when they hear it and that they follow him suggests a different kind of servitude. But it is a servitude of grace rather than abuse, of desire rather than necessity.
We live in an either-or world. Everything seems to be extremes. The middle ground between extremes is where all the verbal and ideological grenades fall from the opposing sides. Compromise is a dirty word. Our author wrote to the struggling Christians and suggested that their world may not be as restrictive and enclosed as they thought. To suffer ridicule or abuse from their master does not ultimately determine their own self-worth. God will exercise just judgment on both master and slave. In the midst of all the ways in which life is frightening and dangerous, God offers a way.
In solidarity with our first brothers and sisters in the faith, we understand something of what it means to be boxed in or even enslaved. While we are not in the situation of first-century slaves, we have plenty that makes us feel less than free. People in all generations have to deal with bosses, spouses, parents, children, diseases, political cultures, neighborhoods, cultural practices, idolatrous sports teams, celebrities, media stars, religious spokespersons, and all manner of narrow-mindedness. Everything seems to be geared towards an us/them opposition. Fears and dangers in our own world enslave and limit our creativity for solutions. Anxieties about health and work and the next paycheck or pension payment can enslave our instincts for hope in the future. How do we learn from these early believers about trust in the midst of our own suffering?
We are like a ping pong ball paddled back and forth in an never-ending volley. The paddles care nothing for us except to send us back across the net in hopes that the other paddle will hit us out of bounds or miss us completely. We shrink from the continual batting about. Yet we see ourselves locked into system of living which offers no other option. We have involuntarily impoverished ourselves seeking what the world calls riches, rather than voluntarily giving ourselves into the fullness of God’s shepherding care, a care that the world scorns as poverty.
We need Jesus to come the gates of our prisons and call our names so that we may go out with him. We need God’s Spirit to burst open the tombs of our dead lives and liberate us into the fullness of God’s grace in Christ. When go out with Christ we can enter into a life that might actually mean something, might actually have grassy meadows and restful waters, where we truly lack nothing.
A shepherd always has more than one sheep. Hearing the shepherd’s voice, the flock moves in the shepherd’s direction. For the most part they work as a community. From the beginning, the church was more than a group of people who got together for an hour or so a week to hear the Word and receive communion. They prayed together. They studied the scriptures together. They ate meals together. They gathered in their homes as well as at the synagogue. They shared with one another. If someone needed something, someone else supplied it. This was a community that knew each other so well that they knew what everyone needed and offered it without thought.
Yes, we will often suffer sneers, barbs, or shunning from the world. But our cup will overflow with God’s goodness and faithful love and we will live in God’s house as long as we live and breathe.
Thanks be to God.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2017 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
Our texts for today revolve around the word “shepherd.” The fourth Sunday of Easter is always Good Shepherd Sunday, and over the three-year cycle of the lectionary we share with a number of denominations we hear all of John 10. We hear how Jesus is the gate and the gatekeeper, the only way to salvation and how he is willing to lay down his life for his sheep. In the end he provides proof of his authority to be the Good Shepherd. His sheep are those who believe who have been given to Jesus by his Father.
The psalm for this day is always Psalm 23. We sang a metrical version of the psalm as our opening hymn. The Scottish Psalter version was sung a week ago at Maryanna Cassady’s memorial service. My personal favorite is the Isaac Watts paraphrase set to the American folk melody “Resignation,” number 803 in our Glory to God hymnals. The psalm is a song of the sheep who is praising the goodness of the Shepherd who is the Lord. The Lord provides. The Lord directs. The Lord leads. The Lord restores. The Lord guides. The Lord protects. The Lord comforts. The Lord feeds. The Lord anoints. Life under the Lord’s care is good. Life in the presence of the Shepherd is blessed.
We get a very different picture of life from the 1 Peter reading. The passage is under a cloud because the verse which opens the paragraph and underlies the included thoughts is omitted. The verse tells household slaves to submit to the authority of their masters, whether the masters are kind or harsh.
We are 21st century Christians and slavery in any form is not to be tolerated. Before we jump of the rails and throw a fit at the letter’s author, let us reflect on the context of the people to whom the letter was written. Many, if not most, of the new Christians were slaves in pagan households. They were often harassed for their beliefs. They lived in a world which required them to jump to the master’s every whim. They would be severely punished if they didn’t obey their master’s requests. Having to endure insults about their religious beliefs and practices was more than the fledgling Christians could bear.
The author of 1 Peter attempts to offer a pastoral word to these folk. He makes a distinction between suffering for a just cause and suffering for an unjust cause. The author seems to suggest that suffering under certain circumstances may be acceptable. Reasonable discipline for mistakes and wrong-doing is appropriate. However, the writer does not say that suffering is a legitimate condition for those who are abused, coerced, or oppressed. Nor is he condoning a stoic tolerance for violence against anyone. And nowhere does he suggest that God’s name be invoked as the hand strikes or the belt comes out. But also note that the author does not say that Christians should seek out and revel in suffering as an acceptable way to live out their faith.
The 1 Peter author urges believers to seek to live out an ethic which was an alternative to the pagan culture of which these fledgling Christians were a part. Such an ethic was also different from the culture of their own backgrounds before coming to Christ.
These new Christians have the model of Christ, a radical disinclination to return fire when under attack. That is more than any of us can imagine, yet that is how Christ lived his ministry. Abuse must not produce more abuse. Suffering must not produce more suffering. Giving hurt is not the knee-jerk response to being hurt.
To trust God in the midst of suffering was considered the high calling to which these new believers should aspire. That is the model of the psalmist’s sheep. “You set a table for me right in front of my enemies. You bathe my head in oil; my cup is so full it spills over!” That’s a hard lesson for any of us under any condition. For slaves it must have been brutal.
The idea that Christ’s sheep know his voice when they hear it and that they follow him suggests a different kind of servitude. But it is a servitude of grace rather than abuse, of desire rather than necessity.
We live in an either-or world. Everything seems to be extremes. The middle ground between extremes is where all the verbal and ideological grenades fall from the opposing sides. Compromise is a dirty word. Our author wrote to the struggling Christians and suggested that their world may not be as restrictive and enclosed as they thought. To suffer ridicule or abuse from their master does not ultimately determine their own self-worth. God will exercise just judgment on both master and slave. In the midst of all the ways in which life is frightening and dangerous, God offers a way.
In solidarity with our first brothers and sisters in the faith, we understand something of what it means to be boxed in or even enslaved. While we are not in the situation of first-century slaves, we have plenty that makes us feel less than free. People in all generations have to deal with bosses, spouses, parents, children, diseases, political cultures, neighborhoods, cultural practices, idolatrous sports teams, celebrities, media stars, religious spokespersons, and all manner of narrow-mindedness. Everything seems to be geared towards an us/them opposition. Fears and dangers in our own world enslave and limit our creativity for solutions. Anxieties about health and work and the next paycheck or pension payment can enslave our instincts for hope in the future. How do we learn from these early believers about trust in the midst of our own suffering?
We are like a ping pong ball paddled back and forth in an never-ending volley. The paddles care nothing for us except to send us back across the net in hopes that the other paddle will hit us out of bounds or miss us completely. We shrink from the continual batting about. Yet we see ourselves locked into system of living which offers no other option. We have involuntarily impoverished ourselves seeking what the world calls riches, rather than voluntarily giving ourselves into the fullness of God’s shepherding care, a care that the world scorns as poverty.
We need Jesus to come the gates of our prisons and call our names so that we may go out with him. We need God’s Spirit to burst open the tombs of our dead lives and liberate us into the fullness of God’s grace in Christ. When go out with Christ we can enter into a life that might actually mean something, might actually have grassy meadows and restful waters, where we truly lack nothing.
A shepherd always has more than one sheep. Hearing the shepherd’s voice, the flock moves in the shepherd’s direction. For the most part they work as a community. From the beginning, the church was more than a group of people who got together for an hour or so a week to hear the Word and receive communion. They prayed together. They studied the scriptures together. They ate meals together. They gathered in their homes as well as at the synagogue. They shared with one another. If someone needed something, someone else supplied it. This was a community that knew each other so well that they knew what everyone needed and offered it without thought.
Yes, we will often suffer sneers, barbs, or shunning from the world. But our cup will overflow with God’s goodness and faithful love and we will live in God’s house as long as we live and breathe.
Thanks be to God.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2017 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
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