Imagine
you missed out on a great night out last night.
All your friends had an amazing banquet and raised their cups several
times in toasts. But, you knew there’d
be toasts to the gods so you didn’t go.
Since becoming a Christian, your social life has really suffered. And it’s not just that, or that your old
friends think you’ve gone crazy for thinking that a crucified Jew could have
come back for the dead, they think you’re selfish and mean-spirited because you
won’t offer meat to be sacrificed to the local deity. At times even you wonder if this year’s
harvest will be that much worse because of you. Every time you go to the market
(which you’re not really sure you should be at anyway, because of all the idols
on display), people look at you funny, you’re sure whispering behind your back
is about you and occasionally an insult does reach your ears. And the Christians who welcomed you? They don’t live like the teacher said they
would: they bicker, they’re proud.
If you
were one of the people addressed in this letter, you’d probably have received
evil and abuse since you became Christian.
How would you be tempted to respond?
Reading this letter as a whole, we see Peter acknowledge their situation,
acknowledge the alienation from the world they must feel, and still look them
straight in the eye and say what we just heard: “do not repay evil for evil or
abuse for abuse, but repay with a blessing.”
Don’t reply in kind, and don’t run away either and isolate yourself
either: bless.
We do
feel alienated from the world. Our true
citizenship is in heaven. Our native
land is not our home, because we’ve been reborn anew from above. But we’re living here now. We’re all exiles. That’s the identity we claim for ourselves in
the song to Mary we sing at the end of this service each week. We’re exiles longing for return to true peace,
true rest. We long for the kingdom. Peter paints a picture of what that looks
like: centered on love and humility.
That’s not the world we live in, that’s not even the earthly church. If you long to live in a kingdom of love and
humility, but you find yourselves living in this world: humbly love it. Bless it.
What
makes me so confident, church, that we can do that? It’s because God has forged a genetic
relationship with us. We are reborn, we
are claimed anew. We are God’s heirs. We have been made children of God and we’re
growing into the likeness of our heavenly father. That rebirth that makes us all exiles is a
rebirth that makes us blessers, because our God is a God of blessing.
Moreau
wrote to his religious suffering estrangement working in Algeria that “Jesus
crucified is to be your mirror.” “Jesus
crucified is to be your mirror.” See our
God on the cross. See what fixed him to
the cross – not nails, but sin… our sin.
The evil and abuse we render still.
The nails didn’t put him there, and the nails didn’t keep him there – Do you really think that the man who
raised the dead, who walked on water, calmed storms, fed multitudes and gave
sight to the blind could be held to the cross by mere nails? His love for us kept him there. He was pierced by the worst sin, the worst
abuse and he repaid with the greatest blessing.
That’s your mirror: that’s your true likeness.
Bless us O Lord, and bless the world through us.
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