Living in the Story

Sermon for Sunday, May 24

1 Peter 2:18-25

Peter wrote this letter to Christians who found themselves at the bottom of the social order. As in many of Paul’s letters, Peter includes instructions on how people in a variety of roles should behave in the light of the gospel. But Peter’s instructions show us that his audience was mostly vulnerable people. Peter begins with instructions for slaves, then for wives of non-Christian husbands, then he turns briefly to instructions for husbands. Peter’s guidance focuses on people without power. He sees the Christian life as a sermon: 

with our actions we model Jesus Christ’s life to the world as we base our lives on his.

Unlike Peter’s audience, we occupy a place with some power in our society. As I’ve been pointing out over the past few weeks, we vote, we own property, we have rights recognized by our Constitution and government that Peter’s congregation couldn’t have imagined. Our temptation then is to take Peter’s advice to submit to authority and use it as an excuse to just go along with whatever is happening. Or we ask others with less power to submit to authority and don’t think of ways we ourselves can make sacrifices on behalf of others. Peter shows us a better way. Peter points us to his friend the Lord Jesus. It is by following Jesus’s model of submission and resistance that we bring the Kingdom to earth. We want a simple direction: “submit!” But instead Peter points us to a story- the story of Jesus’ life. Living faithfully to the story of Jesus can be difficult for Christians, but that is our calling.

In the early 1930s, as Hitler rose to power in the German government, the churches were at a loss about how to respond to him. Hitler believed in conservative values like the importance of the family, a return to traditional values, a rejection of foreign intervention in German life. Hitler also believed that the Jewish people were the source of all of Germany’s problems. A German pastor named Martin Niemöller struggled to make sense of the times and how to respond to Hitler. As a conservative Protestant, Niemöller believed in many of the things Hitler talked about. Unfortunately, he even shared some of Hitler’s animosity toward the Jews. But Hitler took things too far for Niemöller when he turned against Christians of Jewish descent within the Lutheran Church. Niemöller began to criticize the government and he eventually wound up in a Nazi concentration camp; narrowly escaping death, he survived the war.

After the war, Niemöller became famous for a poem that he wrote about his failure to speak up against the evil of Nazi policies. He wrote:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—

     Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—

     Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

     Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

This is where uncritical submission to authority brings us. One of the lessons we need to draw from life in Germany at the onset of the Holocaust is that Christians need to speak up to defend the rights of others. We should follow the example of Jesus, who spoke up so freely for others, but when the time came for the oppressive hand of Roman government to come down on his head, “he never said a mumblin’ word.” Christians use their power for the benefit of others.

Peter’s counsel to slaves, and to all Christians, is grounded in the sacrifice and example of Jesus. Christians can endure because our debts are paid. Christians can suffer because we’ve been shown how to suffer. The way forward is easier because Jesus walked it before us. Following Jesus means accepting his sacrifice for us and living his life for others.

Christians can endure because our debts are paid. We know that the trials of this present life do not compare to the reward that Christ has earned for us. This enables us to do right, even when we suffer unjust consequences. Consider for a moment the joy of homeownership. As a young adult, I was constantly told that the responsible thing to do is own your own home, instead of renting. You take out a mortgage and pay more than you would to rent. You take responsibility for maintenance of your home. You have to pay for taxes and insurance on top of those costs. But the benefit is that in thirty years, that place will be yours. The Christian gospel is that Jesus has paid off our souls. Our debts are taken care of, and we have a better life waiting for us at the coming of His Kingdom. The world we live in now is a world that still thinks sin owns it. It is a world that hasn’t accepted Jesus’s buyout of its debts. But we know that a better world is coming, when Jesus exerts his ownership, his authority. We can endure this present world because our debts are paid. Jesus’s generosity toward us shows us how to live generously toward others.

In his crucifixion, Jesus also shows us how to suffer. Think about the reasons Jesus suffered. When other people were oppressed, Jesus spoke up for them. When the blind and the lame and the deaf came to him, Jesus healed them, even when the religious rule-makers said it was the wrong time. When he saw people being cheated out of their money in the temple, charged exorbitant prices for their sacrifices, Jesus didn’t sit by and let it happen. Instead, he drove the sellers out of the temple, along with the livestock they were trying to sell. But when the Romans came for him, he accepted his crucifixion. In a Nazi prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “The church is the church only as it exists for others.” Years before he had written that it was essential to Christ’s identity that he was “for us.” We can be “for others” because Christ is “for us.” He was for us in his life and death. We can follow his example.

In his life and death and resurrection, Jesus blazed a new trail for us. He showed us a new way to live, which had seemed impossible. I remember being a small child when the blizzard of 1993 hit. My family was the only family at the church that Sunday, because we lived just a walk across the yard from the church door. On the way home from church, I decided to walk my own way back home. The snow was up above my waist, and it wasn’t very long before I fell. I couldn’t figure out how to get back up, and I felt helpless and couldn’t move. I learned that day that if you walk in the path of a more experienced person, you will have a much easier time getting through the snow. That’s what Jesus did for us. By showing us the way through, Jesus also made a way. We follow Jesus because otherwise we will get bogged down with the trials and uncertain footing of life’s journey. In the footprints of Jesus, we find a path through life that is easier to walk because Jesus has already walked it.

A couple of weeks ago, I talked about Peter being restored after denying Jesus three times the night of his trial. That story is in John chapter 21. Peter had failed to do the right thing, and had escaped punishment because of his denial of Jesus. So when Jesus asked him three times “do you love me?” Peter was hurt, and he cried out. Even in our failure, we still love Jesus. When Jesus restored Peter, he said to him: “When you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you, and take you where you do not want to go.” The next time Peter was questioned for his faith, according to the stories of the early church he stood firm. He accepted death for Jesus. According to the stories Peter was crucified hanging upside down because he didn’t believe he was worthy of the same death as Jesus.

I am thankful for Peter. In his story, we see what growth in Christ can look like. Peter goes from being someone who denies Jesus to save his own skin, to being someone who leads the church in witnessing to Jesus at great personal cost. At his best throughout his ministry, Peter used his power to open the church to more and more people. Peter presented the gospel to Gentiles— the ultimate “others” in his day. I think Peter could do that because he saw Jesus do it first. Following Jesus means accepting his death for our sins, but eventually in small ways and large ways we may have to follow him there. The author of Hebrews says that the cure to sin in our lives is to “Look to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2a). Peter says, “because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21). My beloved church, let us look to Jesus, thankful for his sacrifice, following his example, and walking in his steps.