"Resident Aliens"
Sermon Presented April 6, 2008
I Peter 1:13-23
Recently a friend expressed her desire to begin renovating her home. She has considered it for years, but now is ready to make the move. Her dreams are written on paper and in her mind. She plans to call an architect this month, and, after formal plans are completed, to get bids from contractors. She is determined to carry her plan to completion!
Last Wednesday First Baptist Church of Oconomowoc and two rental properties next to the church burst into flames and were destroyed. The church has been steadily declining in membership and attendance, and Sam Brink has been working with them as they discuss their options. Discussions of meeting elsewhere, disbanding, renovating, and selling the building were all on the table. NOW they must make a decision with one less option - no possibility of renovation. As they prayerfully consider what to do, they must fully engage their minds. Then they can make a decision.
We all need to make decisions of one kind or another. Some are easy to make and others more difficult - some are crucial and shouldn't be avoided and others are less significant. After considering the available options in light of our circumstances - cost in time and money, positive and negative repercussions and ethical consequences - we decide. We prepare our minds - we use our mental facilities - so that we can act wisely.
This morning, we are again looking at I Peter. Last Sunday we considered the authorship of this letter and decided that Simon Peter - Jesus' disciple - couldn't have written it. This is a pseudonymous letter written by someone who wanted to add "prestige" to the letter by signing Peter's name - a common practice in those days. It was written in Greek to Gentile Christians in Asia Minor - a place where the gospel hadn't spread during Peter's lifetime and was written in a language Peter didn't use. Last Sunday we looked at the first part of the first chapter - the introduction to the letter. Today, we move to the body of the letter - the part that begins with "therefore". What comes before - the reason for "therefore" - refers to the nature of God and the hope that God provides through Jesus. I'm reading I Peter 1:13-23.
The recipients of this letter are marginalized from their culture and their friends because of their faith in Jesus. Because they aren't Jewish, they didn't know the God of Israel before their conversion. They are true novices to the faith, so they have much to learn. The author wants them to replace their former ancestral ways with the holy ways of God.
The first step is to put their minds in gear. Prepare your minds for action! Think! Plan! Until we know what to do - which path to take - we flounder and sink deeper and deeper into the pit of inactivity. When we come up with a plan, we must be disciplined to carry it out. Without discipline, we return to our former ways. My mom always said: "The road to hell is paved with good intensions." We must not only make plans, we must diligently work to carry them out.
The recipients of the letter are called to be obedient to God as they live out their salvation during this time of exile. Their former life is characterized by Jews and Jewish Christians as pagan, ignorant and futile. Their former lives aren't described as wicked but as misguided and godless in their commitments. When they converted to Christianity, they abandoned the past and now live in relationship with God as aliens or strangers in their homeland.
Most of us became Christians as youngsters. Our families were Christian and most of the people we knew were Christian. We don't know any other faith. However, today the Christian faith is no longer the dominant force in our culture, and if we follow Jesus faithfully, we, too, can consider ourselves resident aliens.
The text makes clear that once they commit to Christ, there is no going back. As Christians, they are now accountable to God, which creates tension, because they no longer live as their neighbors live.
The admonition to be holy is scary, to say the least. Most people think that being "holy" means avoiding everything that might be considered fun - or "holier than thou". Here the author doesn't advocate avoiding the negatives, but practicing the positives - like exhibiting genuine love for one another. The object of the new life is to be holy as God is holy - NOT perfect - moving from the old way of doing things to God's new way. Because these new Christians are in exile because of their faith in Jesus, they need the Church to provide an oasis in the midst of their desert existence.
The author speaks of obedience as a major concern for this congregation. The first manifestation of obedience is love for other believers. Benjamin Franklin is reported to have said to John Hancock: "We must indeed all hang together or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." We are to love and support one another because we need one another. According to I Peter, truth requires obedience, and is manifested in love, not just in knowledge.
When the author speaks of being born again, he isn't referring to a private religious experience; he refers to the beginning of a new life. Verse 22 admonishes believers to love one another deeply from the heart. Those who have experienced the new birth belong to one another as surely as we belong to God who grants us new birth. The test of a person's Christian experience has social implications in our relationship with one another in a community where love is deep and genuine. The Church is to be like an ideal home where we learn and perfect love for one another.
Anne Lamott tells the story of a 7-year-old girl who became lost when she wandered away from home. She ran up and down the streets, but couldn't find a single landmark. A policeman saw her and stopped to help. He put her in the car and they drove around until she finally saw something familiar. She said: "You can let me out now. This is my church, and I can always find my way home from here" (Barbara Rossing, New Interpretation: Easter to Christ the King, 2005, p. 30.) A Christian church should be a familiar place where we find the support to live in the world.
The resurrected life is a counter-cultural, resident alien lifestyle. Complacent Christians should be troubled and challenged to move away from compliance with our culture. However, it's difficult to live alternatively from the culture. There is tension between exile and the status quo. Thus the passage says we need committed relationships of love to sustain us in an alternative lifestyle. We need to love one another deeply.
How do we live as resident aliens in our culture? We can speak up and share our Christian values of equality and social justice in organizations to which we belong - or with friends and neighbors. (I already have the reputation for being a social activist in my Rotary club.) We can write letters to the editor of our newspapers in support of Christian values. We can give money to organizations that support the causes we believe in. In yesterday's Journal Sentinel I saw that the bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is urging church members to donate 10% of their tax rebates to churches or charities that help the poor. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, April 5, 2008 B 1) This kind of giving is counter-cultural in this day and age where most people are more concerned about self than the less fortunate.
We need to support one another when we go against the grain of society's norms. This is where we learn to love one another - to practice an alternative lifestyle. Here we learn and practice relationships of love with those we might never know except for the church. Here we learn to mediate God's love to one another and sustain faithful discipleship in an alien world that does not, by and large, actively or eagerly embrace the good news of the gospel. We can't talk love! We act love! We do loving things for one another - even if it is just listening to another. Love means supporting economic justice and social inclusion.
However, we can't act without being informed. We can't convince another of our point of view unless we use our mental resources to learn about the issues. It does no good to become upset by an intolerant message if we can't refute the argument cogently and factually.
God has re-birthed us, and for that we are grateful. May we show our gratitude by living faithfully into that place of perfect love!
