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Hope In Exile Series: The Triumph of Hope 1 Peter 1:17-23 4th Sunday of Easter, Year A A sermon preached at First
UMC De Queen/Gillham on April 13, 2008 by the Revd David S Williams Last week, we discovered that Peter opens this letter with a long
praise and blessing to God describing the reason why Christians can rejoice
in the midst of suffering. The reason for our joy is deeply rooted in God’s
self-giving love to us in the gift of his precious Son. Through the life, suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ
we have a living hope and when our Christian lives are rooted and grounded in
that assurance and gift, it transforms our tragedies into moments of triumph
and praise. Today Peter challenges us to respond to God’s call to live a
transformed Christian existence in a world that can be hostile to our faith,
often resistant to the values of Christianity and plain mean and hurtful to
us. Peter’s call is revealed in a sequence of five commands or
imperatives – in other words, this is what we are called to do as God’s
people living in the world, yet not of the world –who Peter calls exiles.
Today I want to speak to four of these commands and focus our attention on
the last two. First, we are called to live in the hope of Christ’s triumphal appearance
– looking forward to Christ’s faithful return in the near future (v. 13). As
Christians we have been waiting nearly 2,000 years for his return. However,
Peter’s focus is not on time-tables and how his coming will occur.
Rather his focus is on a deep conviction that we should continue to live
faithful Christian lives with hope as we anticipate the coming of our Lord
when ever that will be. Second, we are called to live a qualitatively different life set apart for
God’s purposes – to live a life of holiness rooted in a holy God (v.14).
Today, there is too much mediocrity in the church and a lot of shabby
Christian living. God is calling us to consecrate our whole lives wholly to
God’s loving purposes in the world. In our Wesleyan tradition we call this
“going on to Christian perfection.” If we are not going on to
Christian perfection, then where are we going? This is not an absolute
perfection. It is a perfection that reflects the image of our loving and holy
God. It is growing in Christ-likeness. Our lives should reflect the ethical imperatives of the gospel: to
love God and neighbor, to put away the selfish attitudes and ambitions of the
world and to have the mind of Christ, to do unto others as we would have them
do to us. We are called to a life of holy living that is subversive, winsome
and alternative to the way of our unloving, hateful, violent and self-seeking
world. Third, we are called to live in fear of God rather than our surrounding
culture (v. 17). In other words we should not insulate and isolate
ourselves from society. Rather we should engage society with a robust faith
and flavor it with the saltiness of God’s love and goodness. We should let
our light so shine that others may see our good works and glorify our
heavenly Father (Matt. 5:23). At its heart this is what it means to be exiles
or resident aliens in our world. We are called to live faithful Christian
lives in the world, even though we are not of this world. Fourth, we are called to embody God’s love in the way of Jesus as we live
together in Christian community – caring for one another unselfishly (v. 22).
Our lives ought to reflect the spiritual song, “They will know we are
Christian by our love ….” This morning I want to focus our attention on the third and
fourth imperatives and suggest that there are three reasons why we
can live as hopeful exiles (Peter’s words): first, because of
who God is (vv. 17, 21); second, because what God has done for us
in Christ (vv. 18-21) and third, because what God is and can do in
us by the gracious life-giving power of the Holy Spirit (vv. 22-23). First, we can be hopeful exiles because of who God is (vv. 17, 21).
Peter reminds us that God is none other than the same “merciful Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ that has birthed us to a living hope” (v. 3).
However, the same merciful God who loves us is also “righteous Judge” (v.
17). We recite that confession in our creed, “I believe … he will come again
to judge the living and the dead.” God’s loving kindness and tender mercy demands response and
accountability. Judgment is not a contradiction of God’s love. Rather
it is a function of God’s love for us. A parent’s discipline and
teaching of their children responsibility is actually a demonstration of
their love for their children. In a similar way, as God’s children we are
called to live in relationship to God with reverent fear and awe. This is not cowardice or a terrifying quaking-in-our boots
that God will “get us” if we don’t measure up. Rather this is living with a
deep sense of God’s holy love for us and God’s holy presence in our lives in
such a way that we do not get too cozy and casual about our faith and
live without the spiritual reality of obedience. Fearing God is simply
recognizing that the God who loves us unconditionally also chastises
us and commands our loyalty and obedience (v. 22). When Peter calls us to live in holy fear, he is calling us to live a
Christian life that reflects God’s holy character. It is the command similar
to Dr. Martin Luther King’s, “I Have A Dream” speech, when he said I have a
dream that people will not judge my children for the color of the
skin rather judge them for the content of their character. We can live as hopeful exiles because of who God is – a
merciful Father and a righteous Judge. His judgments are not based
on popularity polls or public opinion. Rather his judgments are rooted in his
loving and just character revealed in holy Scripture and in the face of our
Lord Jesus Christ. This leads us to the second reason we can live as hopeful
exiles; because of the work that God has accomplished for us in Christ
(vv. 18-21). Similar to last week, Peter reminds us that God “ransomed
us,” not based on our former lives, but through the precious “blood
of Jesus Christ.” Peter is alluding to the Passover lamb provided to Not only has God ransomed us in Christ but God has made provision
for us in Christ before we ever experienced his saving grace personally –
“before the foundation of the world.” This reveals the nature of what Wesleyans call prevenient grace
(the grace that goes before): God has made a way when their was no way, God
has been beating out a path, buying back our freedom, seeking to save that
which is lost, long before we ever made a move toward God. And because of God’s wonderful redeeming work in Christ on our
behalf, we can “trust God” in “the time of our exile” because,
once again, we have a sure and certain “hope” in the God who
vindicated his Son by raising him from the dead. This God will also see us to
the end through the times of trial and trauma the world inflicts on us. Emily Dickinson begins one of her poems: “I will die, but that is
all I will do for death.” Death has power. Yes. But as Easter people, the
good news is that death no longer has ultimate power. We have hope as exiles because of who God is and what
God has accomplished for us in Christ. And lastly because of
what God is and can do in us by the gracious life-giving power of the
Holy Spirit (vv. 22-23). This lies at the heart of the fourth imperative that I
mentioned earlier. God calls us to a mutual Christian love that keeps us
deeply connected with one another in Christian community. The work that God’s
Spirit wants to accomplish in us is to love as Christ loved us and gave
himself up for us. It is a life lived in such a way that the love embodied in Jesus’
life will become the normative pattern for our life together as a Church.
This love is possible because “we have been born anew, with an
imperishable seed, through the living and enduring Word of God.” What Peter is thinking about here, is God’s Spirit. The Word that
God breathed moving across the chaotic waters creating the newness of life at
creation; God’s Spirit breathing new life into a human being; God’s Spirit
breathing new life into dead dry bones in Ezekiel’s prophecy. In the same way, this life-giving creative Spirit is now creating a
community of mutual sharing and self-giving love. This love is not a
feeling. Rather it is embodied in the loving actions expressed in Jesus’
life: by serving others selflessly, by being hospitable to the stranger, by
accepting the outcast and unlovable, by extending forgiveness when the
religious option is throwing stones. Barbara Brown Taylor shares the story of her nephew’s first birthday
party. Her nephew, Will, was the center of everyone’s attention, and so he
happily did a little dance – until a jealous 7 year-old named Jason charged
over, put both of his hands on Will’s chest and shoved. Will fell hard. He
rear end hit first, then his head, with a crack. He looked utterly surprised at first. No one had ever hurt him
before, and he did not know what to make of it. Then he opened up his mouth
and howled, but not for long. His mother hugged him and helped him to his
feet, and the first thing Will did was to totter over to Jason. He knew Jason
was at the bottom of this thing, but since such meanness was new to him he
didn’t know what to do. So he did what he had always done. He put his arms
around Jason and laid his head against that mean little boy’s body. “What Will did to Jason put an end to the meanness in that room.
That is what love is … not a warm feeling between like-minded friends, but
plain old imitation of Christ, who took all the meanness of the world and ran
it through the filter of his own body, repaying evil with good, blame with
pardon, death with life. Call it divine reverse psychology. It worked once, and it can work
again, whenever God can find someone else willing to give it a try” (Taylor,
“It’s Hard to Hug a Bully,” Christianity Today, January 11, 1999, pg.
74). Church are we willing to give it a try? It is a holy, awe-inspiring, genuine labor of love that the world so
desperately needs. We can accomplish this holy work because God offers us a litany
of love, rooted in who he is, what he has done in Christ and what he
wants to accomplish through us by the work of the Holy Spirit. And
because of God’s promise and provision we can all live with a sure
confidence and joyful hope during our time of exile. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen. |
