Sermon-of-the-Month for April, 2008
REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE!!
1 Peter 2:2-10
Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation- if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God's sight, and 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. 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.' _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', _and_'A stone that makes them stumble,_ and a rock that makes them fall.'_They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. _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.
This letter purported to be written by Peter to Gentile Christians who had been only recently converted to Christ, who once participated in the cultural and social life of their communities but now have found a new community, the community of faith. He likens them to newborn infants who are just beginning to be nurtured by the spiritual milk of Christ, early on their faith journey. He says that they are to grow into salvation, which suggests that faith is not a status attained but an "on-the-way" life of growing, seeking, stretching, deepening, learning, and discerning. They have left behind an old life and taken on a new identity, "God's own people."
But this new identity has created problem for them vis-à-vis their old society - the people with whom they hung out...the practices and pleasures they enjoyed...the outlooks and attitudes they embraced...the priorities they pursued. All this has changed, and now they have become marginalized by their former society, regarded as an unwelcome, dangerous sect. So Peter writes to them to encourage them to keep the faith amid the surrounding hostility... to hold on to their new identity, to know themselves as "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people." He is saying to the something similar to what urged the Romans: "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds..." Build your life upon the reliable cornerstone of Christ, but recognize that this is a stone the builders rejected...rejected as too weak, too out-of-step with the values of the world...too compassionate and forgiving of those who merit condemnation...too ready to cross boundaries and engage outsiders...too focused on the poor and the outcast. Not the cornerstone a respectable, upward mobile Greek of the day would want to build upon.
And so, the people of God draw strength from their unique identity and strengthen that identity in their common life together, scorned by those who choose the more traveled, conventional roads of conformity and cultural acceptance.
How unlike our situation today, where the church of Jesus Christ is embraced by society and accepted one of its pillars, where politicians have to pay homage to their faith or else be regarded as unworthy, where legislatures have chaplains to invoke God's presence, where very conservative, evangelical Christian leaders influence political platforms. How unlike our situation today - or is it really?
Much has changed in the relation of Christianity to society in the last sixty years. The Church no longer calls the shots as it did as late as the 1950's in many areas of life. There is much more diversity of belief, a great plurality of religions as close as our own community and at the same time there is an increasingly secular perspective in the land. While Christians are not scorned or abused by the society around us, the church has been marginalized in many respects; at least it no longer dominates the public square as it once did.
Is this a bad thing? An unfortunate development over recent decades? Not necessarily. For often the faith that was embraced by the culture was a watered-down version of Christianity, a civil religion that came near baptizing "the American way of life" as God's way. The new opportunity that this change in our status from established to disestablished has brought us is that it invites us, constrains us to rediscover our true identity as the people of God, just as the writer of 1 Peter implored the new Gentile Christians to build on the cornerstone rejected by society and its builders. We do have something unique to bring to a wounded, starving world because we are "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people." We are chosen not to enjoy privilege but to enjoy serving God and proclaiming God's mighty acts. We are a priesthood, a priesthood of all believers, in that every one has been given a ministry to take up, no matter what our job, our means of employment, we all have a vocation of being the light in the darkness and the leaven in the dough of life. We are a holy nation, not in the sense of a church-dominated state, but more in the sense of the original French meaning of nation...a people bound together by common loyalties, shared history, and mutual ties. When we reclaim our true identity and remember who we are in our daily comings and goings, we discover how unlike so many of the conventions of society we are called to be.
Stanley Haurwaus wrote a book some years back lauding our more recent status as outsiders called "Resident Aliens," suggesting that we take quite seriously Christ's call to be "in the world but not of the world." Sometime like secret agents working behind the scenes to transform an uncaring, self-absorbed society...sometimes out front on the battle lines for justice and peace and the more excellent way of love.
Where society seeks change by coercion, God's agents embody the transforming power of reconciliation.
Where society becomes blind or accepting of the unmanageable gap between rich and poor, God's agents live out of a Bible that has more to say about addressing poverty than anything else.
Where society is all too motivated by fear, seeking to close doors to people who are different in culture, color, or sexual orientation, resident aliens are committed to open the doors of love and justice to all.
Where society dances around the Maypole of the first person singular or a very limited first person plural, a royal priesthood works for the common good, abundance for all of God's children.
"Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people."
And it's all due to mercy, not our deserving:
"Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy."
So as we make our way through a dangerous and often cold, uncaring world, a world of spiritual poverty and enormous appetites for unhealthy things, let us remember who we are and hold fast to our adoption as God's own people. Amen
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