“Our Calling”
(The following is an edited version of the sermon from May 7, 2023.)
We have been cooking on all our burners lately. The fundraiser for Camp Sunflower was a huge success in so many ways. We raised funds for camperships, and good will beyond measure. Last week someone who won a raffle came to the office to claim the prize. I heard her tell Anne, “I don’t usually go to fundraisers. I don’t like them. But this was different. It was really fun and everyone was nice.” Good food and good fellowship for a good cause. We fed people body and spirit.
Then we jumped from the spaghetti dinner right into the garage sale, another outreach to the community. We needed a lot of people to volunteer a lot of hours and donate a lot of things for this annual event. And it was a great success.
Today we are honoring graduates. When I think about this day, Dr. Seuss comes to mind. He had it right when he said, Oh, The Places You’ll Go, and the things you will see. Today’s graduates are tomorrow’s pioneers and prophets of our time. They know much more than I’ll ever know. Margaret Mead wrote a little book called Culture and Commitment. She said in that book that change is coming so fast and at such a fundamental level that it is now up to the younger generation to teach the elders instead of the other way around. In traditional cultures the elders were the teachers. But now the elders are learning from the new leaders who are shaping the future.
For me, the Letter of First Peter fits into this context. It is a letter about living in the present and shaping a new future, a new culture and a new future. The opening verse tells us that it was written to “exiles in the diaspora,” and the author names five cities that are located in today’s Turkey. The thought is that this letter circulated among those congregations. It must have been written by someone who knew them well. Some scholars believe that it was read to the congregation during a time of worship, most probably at a time of baptism or when the congregation was receiving new members. Maybe the author was an elder of the church who visited each city and congregation two or three times a year. The letter is instructions to new Christians who have faced persecution and been forced into exile. In the first verse of Chapter Two, the author counsels, “You have to put away all malice and guile and insincerity and envy and slander.” You have to leave the worldly house behind and build yourself into a spiritual house. Your task now is to live as free people, a people free to show and share God’s love.
We need to hear this word. Many of us feel like strangers in our own land. We see corruption in high places, and we feel powerless to stop it or do anything about it. Gun violence and murder walk the streets with impunity. It is a uniquely US problem. In no other country in the world has an armed citizenship like ours. Anyone can buy any kind of weapon at any time. I’m preaching to the choir. Just for this reason we need to be reminded that we “are called to declare God’s wonderful deeds… to tell your story of how you have been called out of darkness into God’s marvelous light. Live as aliens and exiles if you must, but live as free people (that’s in verse 16). Live as free people who ““use your freedom for love.”
We do use our freedom to increase the love of God and the love of neighbor. We know how to do that with the Backpack project, volunteering at the Lord’s Diner, and support for Camp Sunflower, the garage sale, and so many ways we can name. Last week I heard Louis Goseland was with us cheering us on. I heard him tell us to keep up our good works of mercy. But he also challenged us to think about justice–systemic change. I’ve been turning this challenge over in my mind.
We are Matthew 25 Christians. You know the verses. I was hungry and …. I was naked and you . . .. I was sick and you . . . I was a stranger and you . . . . These are all acts of mercy, acts of kindness, acts that relieve suffering and stress in the here and now. This is a good thing. Deeds of kindness make us human. They keep us in touch with our own humanity. There is an old saying that teaches there is no one smaller than the person who is wrapped up in themself. But it only takes a spark to start a fire glowing. I think of Greta Thuberg. She’s twenty years old now. She was just 15 or 16 years old when she staged a one-person protest outside the Swedish parliament calling for a school strike for climate. It became a global movement for climate change. We don’t hear about it in the news but the movement she started is still going strong. She is an example of a new generation of leaders changing consciousness and building a global movement for change. That’s how I read First Peter. It is a manual for change. But we have to decode it. We have to read between the lines.
In Chapter Two, verse 13, we are told that we are to be, “Be subject to every human institution.” Verse 17 says, “Honor the emperor.” The next verse says, ““Servants be submissive to your masters.” Our ancestors fought the Civil War over those words. Things don’t get any better in Chapter Three. Verse One says, “Wives be submissive to your husbands.” And then to cap it off in verse seven women are described as “the weaker sex.” Hardly an endorsement of the Equal Rights Amendment. These verses are part of what’s called the “household code.” But let’s remember the letter is written to exiles, members of the diaspora, people who have experienced persecution.
I think the author was giving advice that hopes will help the people in these congregations just survive. Resist where you can, but conform where you must. In Chapter Two, love for the community and for God have priority over honoring the emperor. In Chapter Five, Peter writes, “humble yourselves” not before the emperor, but “before God.” He goes on to say that “your adversary is prowling about like a roaring lion,” “resist him.” Then in verse eleven, God has dominion forever and ever.
The tone of this letter is a call for the church to be a contrast community. In a time of persecution, conform where you must, resist wherever and whenever you can. This is our calling. I was reading The Book of Joy (New York: Random House, 2016) this week. It is a conversation between the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu. In a passage the Dalai Lama tells of a time when he was in the Norbulingka Palace in Tibet. The Tibetan people had been resisting the Chinese occupation. This was in 1959. This was on March 10th, the Dalai Lama knew something had to happen or the people would be slaughtered. So he planned for his escape on March 19th. As he describes the situation, he was on one side of the river, walking in complete darkness, and the Chinese soldiers were on the other side of the river.
The Dalal Lama says as they walked along there was too much fear and too much that could go wrong, and too much anger, and nothing they could do to change the situation. So at that moment he told himself no matter what happens, it would be ok. He had to face the facts. Then he thought, these are his words: “Many people on this planet worry about going to hell, but it isn’t much use. . . While we remain on this earth worrying about all the things that could go wrong, we will have lots of anxiety, and we will never find joy. . . You need to live your life for some purpose, especially through helping others. So,” the Dalai Lama concludes, “I prefer to go to hell than to heaven. I can solve more problems in hell. I can help more people there.” (243-6)
The household codes that I referred to earlier can be interpreted legalistically, or maybe some kind of social and biological determinism. But I chose to think that Peter is wrestling with the question of how we create peace in our families and in our primary relationships. If we can bring joy here, in these relationships, we can create joy in our community, and through this community bring joy to others. When Peter was writing his letter, there was no concept of human rights, and no right of self-determination. There was no awareness of an environmental crisis. There was no mushroom shaped cloud. But the community had endured persecution and faced real threats. Peter is saying that if we are to create the change needed now, we have to begin with acts of kindness that bring joy to ourselves and to others. We need to look for ways to be in right relationship with one another. As we seek to find ways to live a meaningful life for ourselves, we meet others who are on a similar journey in their life. And then we will learn that by working together with purpose, and there can be no greater purpose than to increase love for each other and love for the earth itself, we will learn how to create economic and political and social systems that express and embody this good news of God’s love.