The Waking Dreamer: Book of 1 Peter

Showing posts with label Book of 1 Peter. Show all posts

Thursday, June 11, 2026

Casting Our Cares on God

1 Peter 5:6-7[1]

Life brings us all kinds of unexpected experiences. Some of them are better than we could ever possibly imagine. I can still remember holding my oldest son Derek on the day he was born. He’s pushing 40 these days, and there’ve been a lot of wonderful memories with him and with my other children since then, but that memory stands out. It was fulfilling and awe-inspiring at the same time to hold my firstborn son. Other experiences in our lives are worse than we could ever possibly imagine. I never dreamed I would be divorced on that day when I was holding my son. It just wasn’t something I could have even wrapped my head around. I can’t say that I was ever a perfect husband, but I gave my all and my best to my marriage. Unfortunately, the sad truth is that these things just happen to us sometimes.

Of course, there have been a lot of experiences that fall somewhere in between “the best day of my life” and the “worst day of my life.” Many of them have been good and wonderful. Others have been stressful, hurtful, discouraging, and even frightening. Through it all, like many of you, my testimony is that God has always been faithful. Always! And through it all, I’ve continually tried to follow the instruction of our Scripture reading for today from 1 Peter to “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you” (1 Pet 5:7, NLT). Those of us who first learned this Scripture verse decades ago will remember it in the older Bible translations: “casting all your cares on him, for he cares for you.” However you translate it, it’s an important part of the life of faith that Peter was trying to teach to the believers of his day. We learn to trust God precisely by entrusting to him the cares and worries of our lives.

In those older translations, it may be easier to see that enacting our faith by entrusting all our cares and worries into God’s care is connected with our overall approach to life. In the preceding verses, Peter makes that connection clear: “all of you, dress yourselves in humility as you relate to one another, for ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor” (1 Pet 5:5-6, NLT). And then he goes on to say, “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.” In the context, Peter is addressing relationships within their community of faith. But he’s talking about principles that apply generally to the life of faith. The faith to entrust all our cares and worries into God’s care is inherently connected to the attitude of humility Peter encourages them to practice. You really can’t have one without the other!

I’m not sure that we always make that connection these days. Part of the problem is that we need a working knowledge of the Bible do so. And there are a lot of those connections in the Psalms. That’s why the Psalms have been viewed by the faithful throughout the ages not only as an important source for learning to pray, but also for learning faith. The passage I think of when I read our lesson from 1 Peter is Psalm 55:22, “Give your burdens to the Lord, and he will take care of you” (NLT). Again, many of us may remember that verse in a more traditional version: “Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you.” What we may not know is that assurance in the Psalm was set in the context of a prayer for deliverance from friends who turned out to be enemies. If you’ve ever experienced that, you may know how deeply unsettling it can be, and how hard it can be to entrust your “burdens” and your “cares” to God when it happens to you!

I’ve mentioned before that John Calvin connected this passage to a different Psalm. He saw it as a reflection of Psalm 38. That Psalm has a similar setting. The Psalmsinger is at wit’s end because he’s being attacked by those who were “foes without cause” and who had repaid him “evil for good” (Ps 38:19-20). His suffering was so great that he could say, “I am utterly spent and crushed” by the turmoil he was undergoing (Ps 38:8). It was so great that even his friends and family kept their distance from him, likely only increasing the burden (Ps. 38:11). It was in that setting that the Psalmsinger reminded himself and us that God sustains us even in the most difficult of times, even in times that are harder than we could ever imagine. He says it this way, “For I hope in You, O Lord; You will answer, O Lord my God” (Ps 38:15, NASB).

One of the challenging twists in this Psalm is that the Psalmsinger sees all of this turmoil and hardship as “discipline” from the Lord! Psalm 38 opens with a plea: “O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath” (Ps 38:1). We’re familiar with the idea that God “disciplines those he loves” (Prov 3:12). But associating that with God’s anger and wrath may not only be unfamiliar, it may be troubling to us. I know when I was in college, and I read Jonathan Edwards’ sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” which is widely considered to be one of the great American sermons of all time, I found the image of God portrayed there to be disturbing to say the least. It was as if God took delight in dangling “sinners” over the “open fires” of “hell.” When we read about God’s anger and God’s wrath toward his people in the Hebrew Bible, it may cause us to wonder how much we can really trust that God’s love for us never fails!

But here’s where it all ties together. In the Hebrew Bible, God’s “anger” and “wrath” are a kind of “last resort” response when God’s people stubbornly refuse to follow God’s ways. Paul says that when anyone refuses to honor God as God, he “hands them over” to the consequences of their choices (Rom 1?). The language the Bible uses for that is “pride.” I don’t think the Bible is talking about a natural human sense of satisfaction we gain from a job well done, or from seeing someone we love succeed. I don’t think it refers to the “pride” we may feel when hold our newborn children and grandchildren. I think “pride” in the Bible refers to when we know what the right thing to do is, and we simply refuse to do it. It refers to a deliberate rejection of God and God’s ways. “Pride” is a deliberate refusal to honor God as God by humbling ourselves enough to not only hear God’s truth but also to repent when we’ve gone astray. Simply put, “Pride” means intentionally rejecting God’s will for our lives.

That brings us back to the connection between humility and faith in our lesson from 1 Peter for today. Peter reminds us that we cannot practice the faith to entrust all the cares and worries of our lives into God’s care without humility! And that’s the lesson that John Calvin draws from this passage. He reminds us that those who are humble are those who recognize that they cannot rely on their own abilities or insights or resources alone, but rather they seek their refuge and help and strength “from God alone,”[2] especially in times of trouble. I’ll be the first one to admit that’s easier said than done! But it seems to me that’s the heart of the challenge that our lesson from Peter presents to us today. It’s a challenge to set aside our natural inclination to believe that we know what’s best, to think that we can fix things ourselves, or to insist that if we could just get everything under our control, it would all work out fine. Rather, learning to cast all our cares on God, as Peter instructs us, requires us to learn the lesson of the Psalms, that we can only entrust our lives into God’s care when we humble ourselves enough to recognize that only God can sustain us through the twist and turns this life can bring our way!

[2] John Calvin, Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles, 148.

Wednesday, May 13, 2026

Doing Good

1 Peter 2:13-25[1]

Many of us know the Scripture verse that says, “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord” (Rom 12:19). But I would say that we can be obsessed with taking our own vengeance. In some segments of our society, “getting even” is just what you do. If you doubt that revenge is something that infects our culture, I would challenge you to take a look at how many of the most popular movies are based on the premise of someone taking revenge. It’s always justified, of course, but it’s still revenge. And do we enjoy watching those movies because we like to see the “bad guys” get what’s coming to them at the hands of the “good guys” who’ve been wronged. Somehow it reinforces our ideas about the way life “ought” to be.

But life doesn’t always work the way it “ought” to. There are all kinds of ways in which we can find ourselves wronged. More than that, in our violent world, there is no shortage of harm that gets inflicted on people who don’t deserve it. But revenge never solves anything. Those movies we like to watch always end with the one who is wronged walking away from vengeance that’s completed. And that’s the end of the story. All’s right with the world again, supposedly. But what they don’t show is what happens in real life. Revenge, especially when it involves violence, only breeds more violence. Revenge only leads to more revenge. As many have said it, “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind”!

In our Scripture lesson for today, Peter calls believers to “follow Christ” by enduring the wrongful suffering they may have to face in the same way that Jesus did. Peter calls them to entrust their lives to God’s care. He says it this way: “For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps” (1 Pet 1:21, NLT). And Peter illustrates what that looks like, especially when someone does you wrong, by the way Jesus responded when he was wronged. He says that Jesus “did not retaliate when he was insulted, nor threaten revenge when he suffered. He left his case in the hands of God, who always judges fairly” (1 Pet 1:22, NLT).

Now, there are some other things Peter says in this Scripture lesson that may sound confusing to us. He talks about submitting to “human authority” in a way that may not work for us. We know that we’re all responsible to obey the rule of law, but in a Democracy we all have the privilege and the responsibility of voicing our disagreement with the authorities when their actions seem unjust. Perhaps more troubling is the way Peter talks about slaves obeying their masters even if those masters are “cruel,” even if they’re beaten by their masters! I would say that we believe it’s never acceptable for anyone to undergo mistreatment for any reason. And we certainly don’t believe people should be “beaten for doing wrong.” So some of Peter’s language may sound confusing, if not offensive.

What we have to remember is that there really was no such thing as “human rights” in those days. Those first Christians lived in an empire, not a democracy. They were subject to the “powers that be”, and those powers exercised their rule absolutely and with violence. The believers Peter was addressing really had no choice but to submit to those who held power over them. That applies even and especially to those who were slaves. Slavery was a long-established feature of the ancient world. Many have wondered why Jesus and the early Christian leaders like Peter didn’t do more to overturn slavery. But we have to remember that the church was a fledgling movement on the margins of society. Their power to effect that kind of social change was limited.

Rather than risk the violence that would be the inevitable response of any empire to those who resisted, apostles like Peter encouraged Christians to endure whatever mistreatment they had to face with patience, looking to Jesus’ example. That brings us back to our focal verse for today: “God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps” (1 Pet 2:21, NLT). And Peter specifically refers to the example Jesus set by dying for us on the cross! When Jesus bore that undeserved suffering, he did it because that’s the way God brings wholeness and new life to this world. And so the cross was not just Jesus’ path; it’s the path that he marked out for all of us. When we respond to the wrongs and hardships of our lives with patience, our suffering “joins with and continues the sufferings of Christ” (Col 1:24). Our willingness to follow Jesus’ example and suffer patiently without taking revenge contributes to the healing work God is doing in the whole world to this day!

But equally, how we respond when someone provokes us or attacks us unjustly also shapes who we are. When we take revenge on others in any form, the bitterness that drives that act takes root in our lives. Taking revenge by attacking someone verbally is especially challenging. Especially when we’re talking about others behind their backs. In all too many cases, we can do it and get away with it without any apparent consequences. But when we give in to the impulse to take revenge in that way, we’re not only harming the one we’re attacking. We’re also harming those who hear and ourselves as well. That’s because we’re reinforcing the pattern of getting even as a habit, both in our lives and in the lives of those who hear us. It just makes revenge and bitterness take root more deeply in our lives. And we’re all more likely to continue taking revenge in that way.

But our Scripture lesson calls us to a different way. It calls us to follow Jesus’ example and to obey God’s call to “do good” and not do harm. When we do that, we not only contribute to the fulfillment of God’s work in the world. We also learn what it means to truly entrust our lives to God’s care. When our lives are in God’s care, we don’t have to take revenge! We show that faith when we learn be grateful for all that we may have to undergo in this life. As one of my heroes in the faith, Henri Nouwen, puts it, when we can “look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God,” then we can find the gift in every experience of our lives.[2]

I know that may sound crazy. How can some of the things we have had to endure ever be a “gift”? It comes back to truly entrusting our lives to Gods’ care, the way Jesus did. When we do that, we can affirm that somehow, someway God takes everything that happens to us and uses it for good in our lives. That can be especially hard when we might believe we’ve been “wronged.” That kind of faith is what gives us the strength to respond to everything in this life, even and especially when we may be wronged in a way we don’t deserve, the way Jesus did. We can not only refrain from taking revenge, which can be so easy and so habitual for us, but maybe we can take a step further and actually learn to forgive as Jesus did. Jesus forgave those who crucified him. That’s a high level of faith. I don’t think we’re going to learn that easily or quickly. But our Scripture lesson calls us to follow Jesus’ example. By entrusting our lives to God’s care we develop the strength to do just that, to “follow in Jesus’ steps” and obey God’s calling to “do good” and not harm in this world.

[1] © Alan Brehm 2026. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 4/26/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Henri J.M. Nouwen, Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith, January 12: "The Spiritual Work of Gratitude."

Tuesday, May 12, 2026

A "Living" Hope

A “Living” Hope

1 Peter 1:1-12[1]

People sometimes make outrageous claims. Social media, podcasts, YouTube, and the internet all makes it very easy to put your message out there, no matter how outrageous it might be. The truth of the matter is that people have made outrageous claims throughout the ages. In previous centuries, they did so in published tracts or books. That made the invention of the printing press a “dangerous” new technology to the institutions that were in power at the time. It was “dangerous” because eventually, printed tracts would lead to the reshaping of the church, politics, society, the family, and our whole view of life. From the invention of the printing press in the 15^th century to the rise of radio and television in the 20th century, the printed word was viewed by some as a dangerous technology that would undermine the conventional norms and practices of both church and state, both society and home. It changed everything!

The rise of radio and television in the 20^th century changed everything as well. It created a whole new means of getting the “word” out. I’m sure there were some who cautioned against the danger they posed. But at the same time, many embraced the new technology and used it for good. Some of us remember Walter Cronkite as a voice you could trust. But there were other voices that made outrageous claims. Of course, the rise of the internet, email, social media, podcasting, and streaming services has led to vastly more ways of getting your message out there. Some of it is very helpful. If you need to fix just about anything, there’s probably a YouTube video for it. And I subscribe to several YouTube channels for insights into playing guitar more effectively. But again, there’s a lot of content out there that continues to be outrageous.

In the days of the first Christians, there were likely many who would have view Peter’s declaration that believers had been “born anew into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Pet 1:3, CEB) as outrageous. For one thing, most people in the Greek and Roman world would have scoffed at the mention of anything like a “resurrection.” They believed that there was no return from death. Death was final, and that was that. Talk of a resurrection would have literally sounded like nonsense to them. It would have been outrageous!

More than that, the whole question of the afterlife was just as confused then as it is now. The prevailing view in those days was that everyone, both good and bad, died and went to “hades.” It wasn’t exactly the same idea as the notion of “hell” that has developed over the centuries. Everyone went there, not just those who “deserved” punishment. It was just the place of the dead. Good and bad, rich and poor alike, all went there at death. But it was a place of fires and ash, a kind of perpetual purgatory where you lived in regret for your mistakes forever. Not something to look forward to at all!

Into that world came the Christian gospel. As our lesson from 1 Peter puts it, “you have been born anew into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3). There were several aspects of that claim that would have been viewed as outrageous. First of all, the claim that Jesus had been raised from the dead would have been rejected outright. Because death was final, there was no returning from it. At least that was what most people believed. But that’s precisely the point of the death and resurrection of Jesus in the Christian gospel. As another Christian teacher put it, by dying and rising again, Jesus freed “those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death” (Heb 2:15). So it is that Peter could call the hope that we have through Jesus a “living” one because it stems from the fact that Jesus is alive to this day. I think the Contemporary English Version does a good job of bringing out this emphasis when it says, “by raising Jesus from death, [God] has given us new life and a hope that lives on” (1 Pet 1:3). Our hope is a “living” one because Jesus “lives on” to this day.

More than that, the hope that God has given us through the death and resurrection of Jesus is a “living” one because it points us to our own future. Peter says that “You have a pure and enduring inheritance that cannot perish—an inheritance that is presently kept safe in heaven for you. Through his faithfulness, you are guarded by God’s power so that you can receive the salvation he is ready to reveal in the last time” (1 Pet 1:4-5, CEB). I like the way the Good News Translation puts it: Jesus’ death and resurrection “fills us with a living hope, and so we look forward to possessing the rich blessings that God keeps for his people. He keeps them for you in heaven, where they cannot decay or spoil or fade away” (1 Pet 1:3-4, GNT). The main idea is that the “new life” that we’ve been given through Jesus’ death and resurrection is one of the “rich blessings” that God is keeping for us for the future. And there’s nothing and no one powerful enough to take that future away from us. As Gene Peterson puts it in The Message translation, “God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you’ll have it all—life healed and whole” (1 Pet 1:4, MSG). Our hope is a “living” one because it points us to our future life in the fullness of God’s blessings.

There are still a lot of people in our world who believe that death has the final word. When you die, you just die, and that’s it. Maybe some of you believe that. But the clear message of the Gospel is that Jesus died and rose again to give us something more to hope for than life that ends at death. Jesus died and rose again to give us a “living hope,” as Peter puts it in our lesson for today. That hope is a “living hope” because Jesus lives at God’s right hand and in our hearts and lives. It’s a “living hope” because it points us to the promise of new life with Jesus in the fullness of God’s presence. And I would add that our hope is a “living” one because it gives us a reason to live our lives differently. If life definitively ends at death, there are some who would think you better grab all you can while you’re here. Not everyone believes that, but some do. But if Jesus’ resurrection from the dead points us to our new life with him after death, then we have a unique reason to do all the good we can do while we’re here. At least in part that means, as Peter says later in this chapter, we’re to “Love each other deeply with all your heart” (1 Pet 1:22, NLT).

[1] © Alan Brehm 2026. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 4/12/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

Tuesday, December 23, 2025

Practicing Love in Community

Matthew 1:18-25; 1 Peter 2:21-23[1]

On this fourth Sunday of Advent, we celebrate the love that we have received through Jesus Christ. We just sang it together: “Love is the gift of Christmas.” As our Gospel lesson puts it, Jesus was born to be the one to “save us from our sins,” and to be “God-who-is-with-us” (Mt 1:21, 23). That’s what “Immanuel” means: “God-who-is-with-us.” That shouldn’t come as a surprise to us. We know that the heart of our faith is about sharing God’s love with others. We know that Jesus came to embody that love in a way that would empower us to put that love into practice. The idea isn’t a new one. And it wasn’t even a new one for Jesus. In our faith tradition, Moses taught it three thousand years ago: “you shall love your neighbor as yourselves” (Lev. 19:18). Throughout the centuries there have been many who have taught the practice of compassion. What was new was the way Jesus embodied it, not just as a human being, but as the one who is “God with us.” He put God’s love for us on display in the way he loved all those he encountered, both friends and so-called “enemies.”

Yes, Jesus embodied love even for his so-called “enemies.” Perhaps the most dramatic way he did that was by praying from the cross, “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Lk 23:34). But he also embodied it by never giving up on anyone, even his “enemies.” And he taught us to do the same. Others have also taught that. They taught their followers to practice compassion for all people and embodied that compassion even for those who could have been considered their “enemies.” However, I believe it’s true that Jesus was the first to say explicitly, “you shall love your enemies” (Mt 5:43-44). It’s probably an understatement to say that’s not an easy path to take. For Jesus, loving even his “enemies” meant giving up his life on the cross. Because showing God’s love even for one’s “enemies” cuts against the grain of everything we do by instinct.

As we continue to make our journey through Advent to the celebration of Christmas with Henri Nouwen as our guide, I think we might find his ideas challenging on this day. He described the kind of love Jesus embodied by saying, “Whenever, contrary to the world’s vindictiveness, we love our enemy, we exhibit something of the perfect love of God, whose will is to bring all human beings together as children of one Father. Whenever we forgive instead of getting angry at one another, bless instead of cursing one another, tend one another’s wounds instead of rubbing salt into them, hearten instead of discouraging one another, give hope instead of driving one another to despair, hug instead of harassing one another, welcome instead of cold-shouldering one another, thank instead of criticizing one another, praise instead of maligning one another… in short, whenever we opt for and not against one another, we make God’s unconditional love visible; we are diminishing violence and giving birth to a new community.”

Nouwen gets uncomfortably specific about what it means to follow Jesus by loving our “enemies.” It means forgiving instead of holding onto anger. It means healing wounds instead of rubbing salt into them. It means hugging instead of harassing. These are all incredibly counterintuitive. When someone hurts us, we instinctively want to protect ourselves. We do that with anger. When we rub salt in the wounds of someone who has wounded us, we’re protecting ourselves. When we criticize and turn a cold shoulder and speak of them in hurtful and harmful ways, we’re protecting ourselves. But, following Jesus, Nouwen invites us to take a different path. He invites us to “opt for and not against one another,” to choose to be on the side of those whom we perceive to be against us. It’s an astounding thing. And he says that when we make that choice, we are doing something that’s nothing short of miraculous. We’re making “God’s unconditional love visible; we are diminishing violence and giving birth to a new community.”

I think we could be forgiven for thinking that this is all far too much to expect from an ordinary human being. But also I think Nouwen is onto something important here. The love that we celebrate at Christmas is a wonderful gift to us, and we enjoy it. But it’s not just about making ourselves feel better. The love we celebrate at Christmas calls us to take the love that we’ve received from God and turn around and put it into practice for all those around us. Both “friends” and so-called “enemies.” That’s what Jesus did. He didn’t do that to prove that he was so much better than us. He did that to leave us “an example, so that you should follow in his steps” (1 Pet 2:21). And the way he did that was “When he was insulted, he did not reply with insults. When he suffered, he did not threaten revenge” (1 Pet 2:23, CEB).

Perhaps we should all take a moment to let that sink in. When Jesus was insulted, he did not reply with insults. When he suffered, he did not threaten revenge. To borrow Nouwen’s words, when Jesus was met with anger and curses, he did not respond in kind. Instead, he forgave: “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing”! And he did that to leave us an example that we should follow in his steps. When Jesus was not only maligned but also falsely accused of the worst they could throw at him, he did not respond with hurtful and harmful accusations in reply. And he did that to leave us an example that we should follow in his steps. When Jesus was subjected to violence, when he was beaten and spat upon and crucified, he did not threaten to get even. He forgave those who were literally stripping his life away. And he did that to leave us an example that we should follow in his steps.

When you think about it that literally, I don’t think we should be surprised if we’re wondering whether Jesus really wanted us to follow his example and practice love like that. It’s understandable. That’s a hard thing to ask, for us to follow that path. But I would say the answer to the question is, “yes.” Yes, indeed. Most definitely. Jesus was “making God’s unconditional love” visible in every way possible, not only by healing the sick and caring for those who were suffering, but also and most particularly by loving his so-called “enemies” enough to forgive them. Enough to give his life for them. That’s a high standard for love. Perhaps the highest the human family has ever seen.

In fact, it’s such a high standard we may want to let ourselves off the hook. After all, can one really expect all this from an ordinary human being? We assume that Jesus loved even his “enemies” because he was much more than an ordinary human being. And we assume that no one would ever expect ordinary human beings like us to live up to such a high standard. But that phrase from Scripture in 1 Peter reminds us that he did all that he did precisely to leave us an example that we should follow in his steps. Yes, I believe Jesus expects us as those who claim to trust in him to literally follow his example and practice love like that toward everyone, even and especially toward those we may consider “enemies.” In fact, I would say that if we truly grasp the extent of God’s unconditional love for us, and the extent to which Jesus calls us to share that same love with everyone, then we really cannot look at anyone as an “enemy.”

When Jesus said, “you shall love your enemies,” he was talking about people who could literally come and take everything away from you by force, including your life. Most of us don’t have to learn to love “enemies” like that. We don’t have to fear that someone will come and invade our home, drag us out, and take our lives away from us. We find it hard enough just to love the people who spread false rumors behind our backs. Or those who rub salt in our wounds or turn a cold shoulder to us instead of standing beside us when we’re struggling. But if that’s where we perceive our “enemies” to be, then that’s where we can begin. We can begin to transform every so-called “enemy” into a friend by extending to them the same unconditional love God has given each one of us in Jesus Christ. When we do that, as Henri Nouwen said, we are not only “making God’s unconditional love visible,” but we’re also “giving birth to a new community.” Think of it: a community where even “enemies” are turned into friends. A community where we don’t even look at anyone as an “enemy,” rather we consider all to be friends. A community where we extend to one another the same unconditional love and acceptance God has given to us. That’s a whole new kind of community. That’s what the love we celebrate at Christmas is about: creating a whole new kind of community where people turn even so-called “enemies” into friends, just like Jesus did.

[1] © Alan Brehm 2025. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm, PhD on 12/21/2025 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Henri Nouwen, Letters to Marc About Jesus, 55.

Tuesday, May 23, 2023

Humbling

1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:5-7[1]

I have a confession to make. Actually, I think it’s a confession I’ve made to you before: it’s not easy for me to trust God. It’s never been easy for me to trust God. Some of that has to do with my life experiences. But then I would say that it’s not easy for anyone to really trust God. I mean trusting God when your life is going in the completely opposite direction from the path you thought you were headed down. I think to some extent that has to do with a fear that we all share: the fear of being vulnerable. These days, we’re all vulnerable in ways we may never have expected, nor could we even imagine. Being vulnerable is a scary thing, and when we are scared, we don’t have much head space or heart space to trust God. In my experience, the opposite of faith is not doubt, but fear! Fear is the greatest obstacle to trusting God.

One of the challenges with being in a vulnerable place in life is that it can be humbling. I don’t think we’re any more comfortable with being humbled than we are with being vulnerable. We often associate being humbled with humiliation. And for that reason, the humbling experiences of our lives can be painful. I think most of us would rather do just about anything to avoid going through an experience that humbles us. But I would have to say that it has been the most humbling experiences of my life that have led to the most growth in my ability to trust God, and to entrust my life into his care, as our lesson from 1 Peter for today calls us to do.

As you may remember, 1 Peter was addressed to people who were undergoing painful hardships because of their faith. Our lesson for today tells us that they were going through “fiery trials” that made them “partners with Christ in his suffering,” and for no other reason than they “bore the name of Christ” (1 Pet 4:12-14). As I’ve mentioned before, while there was at this time no official ban against practicing the Christian faith in the Roman Empire, the trials believers experienced in the churches Peter was writing to were wide-ranging. They faced the loss of their livelihood, the loss of their families and homes, and at times the loss of their very lives due to the actions of violent mobs.

It was in that setting that Peter called them to practice humble faith. The humility Peter called for not only applied to the way they saw themselves and to the way they approached God, but also to the way they related to one another. Peter quotes the wisdom of Proverbs: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (1 Pet 5:5, NLT). That humility also applied to their hardships. In the face of their sufferings, he called them to “humble yourselves under the mighty power of God,” and promised that “at the right time he will lift you up in honor” (1 Pet 5:6, NLT). Just exactly what that might mean is hard to say, but I think the point of it was to remind them that God was very much aware of all they were going through. More than that, God was actively involved in helping them get through every hardship.

And so Peter called the believers turn to God in every situation with humble faith: “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you” (1 Pet 5:7, NLT). In this, Peter was probably also quoting the wisdom of the Psalms. John Calvin suggests that Peter was referring to Ps 38:15: “it is for you, O Lord, that I wait; it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer.”[2] This was the Psalmist’s response to a situation very similar to the one Peter’s audience was going through. He described the many foes who hated him, saying that they “repay me evil for good and oppose me for pursuing good” (Ps 38:20, NLT). I think that’s probably one of the hardest times when we may be called to “give all your worries and cares to God”!

But I think that the language of the psalmist might help us here. When he says that “it is for you, O Lord, that I wait,” he’s using a “loaded” word. Some English Bibles translate this as “it is in you, O Lord that I hope” (NKJV). Some English Bibles translate it as “it is in you, O Lord, that I trust” (CEV). I would say it takes all three to get at the full meaning of what the Psalmist was saying: waiting, hoping, and trusting. Trusting in God, especially in the face of hardships, places us in a situation where we do a lot of waiting and hoping. And it takes all three—waiting, hoping, and trusting—for us to truly “cast our cares” on the God whose love for us never fails.

What enables us to do all that trusting and hoping and waiting is the assurance that God cares for us. I think an image from the Gospel of John can help us here as well. When Jesus spoke of himself as “the Good Shepherd,” he contrasted his willingness to lay down his life for us with one who is like a “hired hand.” He said that the “hired hand” doesn’t care for the sheep because they don’t belong to him, and so he abandons them when danger comes (Jn 10:13). But Jesus Christ is our true shepherd, and he will never abandon us, no matter what we may have to endure in this life! That’s one of the most important demonstrations of God’s care for us!

In my experience, learning to trust God to care for me, come what may, has been the direct result of the humbling experiences in life. With the Psalmist, I have to confess that it was “good for me that I was humbled” (Ps 119:71). I’ve been “humbled” by painful events several times. There was one time in particular that I was humbled by something joyful. It was the first time I took the risk of admitting to a friend the one thing that was most difficult for me to say out loud to anyone. I was afraid to tell him, because he was my best friend at the time, and I worried that he might think less of me. What happened is that he had a new respect for me. That was an important lesson in the connection between humility and trust. When we take the risk of humbling ourselves, we may learn that there are people whom we can trust to share our burdens. More importantly, when we go through experiences that are humbling, we have the chance to really learn that we can trust God. When we realize that we cannot rely on our own strength or wisdom or goodness, we learn to “cast your cares” on God, trusting that “he cares for you” (1 Pet 5:7).

[1] © Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm, PhD on 5/21/2023 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] John Calvin, Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles, 148: “But he calls those humble, who being emptied of every confidence in their own power, wisdom, and righteousness, seek every good from God alone.”

Wednesday, May 03, 2023

Following in Jesus' Steps

Following in Jesus’ Steps

1 Peter 2:11-25[1]

I think most people who identify themselves as Christians would say that means they are following Jesus. The language of “following” Jesus goes back to the fact that he called his first disciples to “follow me.” The focus of Jesus’ ministry was proclaiming the “good news of the kingdom of God”: that God had definitively entered this world in and through him to bring wholeness and new life to all people. And when the people whose hearts led them to seek that loving transformation in their own lives came to him and asked, “what should I do,” his answer was “follow me.” And many of them did. There were the women who provided for Jesus and the disciples. And there were 120 of them in the upper room after the cross and resurrection. And there were many more scattered throughout Galilee and Judea.

Even in that day, not everyone who followed Jesus literally left everything and accompanied him. And the same thing holds true today. When it comes to defining what “following Jesus” looks like, the answers have been all over the page. Some believe following Jesus means to separate oneself from the world, and they do that literally by joining a monastery or a convent. Some believe following Jesus means actively fighting the “enemies of Christ,” through crusades of all varieties, from evangelism to social justice to literal wars. Some believe that following Jesus means living in a way that is completely different from the cultural norms, while others believe it means living in a way that is completely in line with those same cultural norms.

I don’t think you could blame anyone for throwing up their hands when it comes to trying to figure out what following Jesus is supposed to look like in real life. I do think it helps when we place the call to follow Jesus in a specific context. That’s what our lesson from 1 Peter for today does for us. Peter was writing to Christians who were struggling because of their commitment to Jesus. In those days, a person who had a trade belonged to a kind of “union,” and every trade had their own “god” whom they worshipped to prosper in business. Those who became Christians were kicked out of the union. In many cases, those who made the decision to follow Jesus were cut off from their families because they broke with the “family gods.” Following Jesus could mean leaving behind one’s livelihood, one’s home, and perhaps even one’s family.

Those first Christians lived in an empire, not a democracy. They were subject to the “powers that be”, and those powers exercised rule absolutely by using force. The first Christians really had no choice but to submit to those who held power over them. Perhaps one of the more troubling aspects of this situation was slavery. The fact of the matter is that slavery was a long-established feature of the ancient world. We might wonder why Jesus and the early Christians didn’t do more to overturn slavery, but that would be to assume that they lived in a world that was more like ours than theirs. We have to remember that the early church was a fledgling movement that was on the margins of society. Their power to effect that kind of social change was limited.

Rather than risk the violence that is the inevitable response of any empire to those who resist, the apostles encouraged Christians to endure whatever mistreatment they had to face with patience, looking to Jesus’ example. So it is that Peter could say in our lesson for today, “God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps” (1 Pet 2:21, NLT). And Peter specifically refers to the example Jesus set by dying for us on the cross: “He did not retaliate when he was insulted, nor threaten revenge when he suffered.” (1 Pet 2:23, NLT). Yes, the example Jesus set for us to “follow in his steps” was by suffering on the cross!

I don’t think this was a coincidence. From the very beginning, Jesus called his disciples to follow him on a path that would take him to a cross. Following Jesus meant they were going to have to embrace a life of sacrifice and suffering themselves. It is the way of the kingdom of God. It is the way God brings about the loving transformation that brings wholeness and new life to all people. The cross was not just Jesus’ path; it is a path that he marked out for all of us. And as we recognize that our sacrifices and sufferings are part of something bigger than our individual lives, it helps us to see that the hardships we may have to go through can become part of what St. Paul calls the “sufferings of Christ” (Col 1:24) for the sake of others.

I think what that means is that we look at our suffering and sacrifice, our trouble and pain in this world, as part of our commitment to following Christ. When we do that, what we may have to go through in this life can contribute to the healing work that God is doing in everyone. I think that’s especially true when we look at our experiences through the lens of the example Jesus left for us at the cross. As one of my favorite authors, Henri Nouwen, puts it, the cross “invites us to see grace where there is pain.” That means viewing everything in our lives, even the pain and suffering, as part of our following in Jesus’ steps on “the way of the cross that leads to new life.”[2]

At the same time, we no longer live in an empire. We live in a democracy where we say we believe that it’s never acceptable for anyone to have to suffer mistreatment for any reason. And we certainly don’t believe that anyone should be “beaten for doing wrong” as Peter put it. Of course, one of the “inconvenient truths” of our society is that there are some who are systematically denied the rights we say we believe in every time we recite the pledge of allegiance. The myth of America’s “greatness” stumbles on the reality that we are all fallen and fallible.

For some, this means that this passage sends the wrong message about tolerating abuse or mistreatment. But I think we have to view it not only historically and realistically, but also in light of our faith. When viewed historically, we realize that the early Christians had no power to change the structure of their world, at least not immediately. When viewed realistically, we have to admit that we still don’t live up to the ideals we want to believe are the basis for our society. When viewed in the light of our faith, we recognize that in a fallen world, we’re going to experience suffering and pain, sometimes unjustly. And while we have the right to do something about the structures of injustice, there are some things we are still powerless to change.

Pain and suffering are inevitable in this life. When we can view our painful experiences in light of Jesus’ example, when we can see that our suffering for “doing good” is a part of what it means to follow Christ, we can find meaning in knowing that it’s part of something bigger. It’s part of what God is doing through us in this troubled world to bring wholeness and new life to all people.[3] And that means what we may have to endure in life, whether justly or unjustly, can contribute to the healing work that God is doing in everyone. I believe that’s at least a part of what it means to follow in Jesus’ footsteps.

[2] Henri J. M. Nouwen, Turn My Mourning into Dancing, 18.

[3] Nouwen, Mourning into Dancing, 11: In Christ we see God suffering—for us. And calling us to share in God’s suffering for a hurting world.”

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Faith in Community

1 Peter 1:17-23; Luke 24:13-35[1]

I think many of us are discovering how important community is in this strange time. It’s wonderful to be able to stay connected through technology. But it’s not the same as gathering together with families and friends. And this is true as well for families of faith. We miss seeing faces, shaking hands, giving and receiving hugs. And it is stressful to us all when we have to do without those person-to-person contacts that we were so used to.

While we all have probably heard someone say “I can worship God better on my own than at church,” the fact of the matter is that our faith thrives in community, because we thrive in community. We experience the wholeness of the new life through our community of faith. Something about the way we’re put together as human beings makes it so that we just cannot grasp the high and holy truths of our faith unless someone is there to show us the grace and mercy and love of God in action. We need our community to enable faith to truly live in our hearts.

Unfortunately, I think our present crisis has exposed to us how “futile” our way of life has become. We have closed in ourselves as a society, isolating ourselves by engaging in a reality that is “virtual” as we stare at one kind of screen or another. While the “futile ways” that Peter mentions in our lesson for today were very different from ours, I think the message applies to us as well. We have given ourselves over to a way of life that is draining, hopeless, and empty. And yet, the good news of Easter is that we have the freedom to change, the freedom not to stay stuck in the same old ruts, the freedom to find new life in our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ.

Part of the reason for this is, as Peter says, we have been “ransomed” from those “futile ways.” Because of Jesus’ death on the cross, we are now free to make the change from a way of life that essentially drains the life out us to a way of living that is whole and truly alive. We have been set free from everything that would keep us stuck in a rut that leaves us feeling drained and empty instead of fulfilled, joyful and whole. This transformation happens best in a community.

The simple truth is that faith has always been a community endeavor. From the very beginning, we find Christians gathering together to share with each other the experiences they have had with the risen Christ. As our Gospel lesson illustrates, when the disciples discovered that Jesus was alive they immediately went back to the rest of the group to tell them what had happened. It’s one thing for them to race from Golgotha to the upper room in Jerusalem. It’s another thing altogether for the disciples on the road to Emmaus to run 7 miles back to share the good news with the others! The cumulative effect is that in the sharing they were supporting and encouraging and strengthening each other’s faith! As one contemporary prophet puts it, “The resurrection is not a fact to be believed, but an experience to be shared.”[2]

I think this is true for all of us. Faith simply does not flourish in a context where we think we can be spiritual “lone rangers.” Faith flourishes in a community. I like the way Henri Nouwen puts it:

“Christian community is the place where we keep the flame of hope alive among us … . That is how we dare to say that God is a God of love when we see death and destruction and agony all around us. We say it together. We affirm it in each other.”[3]

It takes a community for us to make the journey of faith if for no other reason than we need human flesh and blood, skin and bones to translate the truths of our faith into new life. We need the experience of living out our faith in a community where we “love one another deeply from the heart” (1 Pet. 1:22) if we’re going to thrive. Especially in this challenging time, we need a community to hold on to the faith that God is working to bring grace and peace and mercy and love and life to every life in the midst of all the suffering and heartbreak that are going on right now. That doesn’t happen well when we try to go it alone. Faith is something that thrives and grows when we share it with a community.

[2] Walter Wink, “Resonating With God’s Song,” The Christian Century (March 23, 1994).

[3] Henri Nouwen, Finding My Way Home, 105.

Hope is Alive

1 Peter 1:3-9[1]

Sixteen years ago my son Derek and I visited two canyons in the Southwest. We spent a day at the Grand Canyon with about 12,000 other people. The sight of the canyon was truly impressive; it is one of those places on earth whose grandeur cannot be captured by photography. We also spent a day at Chaco Canyon in Northwestern New Mexico. You may not have heard of it. It is the site of the oldest ruins in the U. S. It’s about 20 miles off the pavement along a bumpy dirt road.

Archaeologists think that Chaco Canyon was first occupied about the year 500 by farmers. By about the year 800 they were building the crescent-shaped pueblos for which the site is famous. The pueblos were built along lines marked out by the sun and the moon, as well as perfect East-West and North-South lines. The discovery of many pre-historic roads that fan out to the surrounding area suggests that Chaco Canyon may have stood at the center of a fairly large and well-developed culture, known today as the Early Puebloan People. They flourished there for another 350 years, until they were forced to leave by an extended drought. Most historians would agree that they founded the Pueblo Cultures that still thrive in the desert Southwest.

If you’ve ever been to the Grand Canyon, you can perfectly understand why so many people go there. But if you visited Chaco Canyon, you’d have to ask yourself why in the world anyone would want to visit, let alone live there. It’s a stark and barren landscape. There’s really nothing much to commend it as a place to build a fairly sophisticated complex of pueblos. We can only speculate at this point, but some have suggested that the unique geographical and astronomical alignment of the canyon may have related to ancient Puebloan religious beliefs.

As Derek and I wandered the ruins of Chaco Canyon that day—with about 12 other people as opposed to 12,000!—I found myself wondering what it was that enabled men and women to do what it took to survive the harsh conditions of that time and place. It’s hard enough to survive what life has to offer in the relative comfort of what we call “civilization.”

If we took the time to study what life was like for the early Christians, we might ask the same question. As Peter says in his letter, they suffered for their faith in a wide variety of ways—ranging from ridicule to hostility, and from ostracism to lynching! In the midst of their hardships, the Apostle Peter reminded them that the Easter faith offered them a “living hope.” Their hope was “alive” because it is a hope that comes from the life of the risen Christ who defeated death. Their hope was alive because it is a hope that comes from the promise of never-ending life in God’s new creation and “brand-new” life here and now through God’s Spirit. Their hope was alive because it is a hope that nothing can quench—not doubt, not hostile enemies, not even martyrdom, which they suffered on occasion. I believe they were able to endure their hardships because their hope was alive!

But there had to have been times when those First-Century Christians asked themselves why they had to suffer so much if all that was true. I think part of the problem is that our faith in the resurrection and our hope of new life simply exceed our ability to really and truly understand. But the fact that we may not be able to get a handle on them doesn’t mean that our faith and hope are not just as alive today as they were in Peter’s day.

Even though we may not be able to fully grasp our “living hope,” the good news of Easter is that the new life of the risen Christ is something that takes hold of us and changes us forever. That’s the basis for our hope and faith—not that we can grasp everything there is to know about God and faith and eternity, but rather that God has grasped us through the living presence of our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ. The hope of Easter, that new life will one day transform everything and everyone, keeps our hope alive.

And as Peter assured those first Christians doing their best to live their lives in the midst of the struggles of their world, he continues to assure us that the experience of being “grasped” by God is one that cannot be diminished by time, or doubt, or even death. It is an experience that transforms us for good because we are from then on “kept safe by the power of God” (1 Peter 1:5, TEV). We can face our hardships with a hope that is alive!

Tuesday, March 03, 2015

At Any Cost

1 Peter 3:18-22[1]

From my perspective, I’d have to say we are a people who don’t like to suffer. Most of us prefer our lives to be as comfortable and as pain-free as possible. And we expend huge amounts of money to secure for ourselves a life that is as free from suffering as possible. From medications, to entertainment, to other less healthy forms of relief, we find all kinds of ways to try to free ourselves from the pain of suffering. And yet this presents a curious paradox for those of us who profess to be Christians. We follow a Savior whose life was defined by suffering, and who called us to follow him in a life of suffering. I wonder how we who spare no expense to avoid pain can really claim to follow a Savior who gave himself for us at any cost.

In my opinion, this is a question that American Christians in general have not given enough attention. As we enter the season of Lent, I think it is no coincidence that many of our Scripture lessons for this season have to do with suffering—both on the part of Jesus and on our part. The fact of the matter is that the suffering of God’s love permeates the Bible. And suffering is a very real part of life that we all have to face at one point or another. We may try to avoid it by any means possible, but we will not succeed. We need a better hope than our various means of escape to sustain us in the face of suffering.

Our lesson from St. Peter for today addresses this, although in a very curious way. This text is one of the most difficult passages in the New Testament, with its talk of preaching to “spirits in prison”[2] and Baptism being likened to Noah’s ark. And yet, despite those thorny interpretation difficulties, this passage begins with suffering and ends with victory. St. Peter makes a declaration that Jesus suffered for our sakes, saying that “Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God” (1 Pet. 3:18). And at the end of this lesson, he affirms that in his resurrection Jesus won the victory over all the powers in this world that would try to inflict suffering on us (3:22).[3]

Elsewhere in Peter’s letter, he talks about the lengths to which Jesus was willing to go to suffer on our behalf (1 Pet. 2:21-24).[4] He speaks about Jesus’ experience of being insulted and yet not insulting back. He speaks of Jesus suffering and not retaliating in anger or with violence of any kind. Rather he was willing to suffer for our sakes at any cost to himself. Peter says it this way, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross” and “by his wounds you have been healed” (1 Pet. 2:24). He accepted the cup of suffering that was placed before him. And in doing so, he made it clear that God’s love is a love that seeks to redeem us at any cost.

This is a very different approach to suffering than what we’re used to. Instead of avoiding it at any cost, the love of God in Jesus Christ sought us out and spared no expense to set us free from all the forces that can turn our lives into a living hell. What an incredible display of love. I think sometimes we may take all this for granted. But if you really think about it, who in this world would do something like that for you? We may have a handful of people who might seriously consider it. But at the end of the day, it really is amazing that someone would seek us out and embrace suffering at any cost in order to rescue us from the dark places into which we wander.

Perhaps the most difficult thing Peter says about all this is that we have been called to follow Jesus in this same kind of life![5] In fact, Peter says that Jesus suffered in this way to “leave you an example, so that you should follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21). How could it be different for those of us who follow a Savior who was executed in a most de-humanizing way? Jesus himself told his disciples that his path, the path of obedience to God’s will, the path of seeking God’s kingdom and God’s justice, was going to lead him to suffer and die. He was willing to accept that ultimate suffering in order to “bring us back to God.” He was so intent on that goal that we was willing to see it through at any cost. And he warned his disciples that if they followed him, they would have to be prepared for the same kind of suffering.

I’m not sure we’re ready to hear that. We think of those who passively accept suffering as in some way weak or powerless. But if you look at the way Jesus suffered, there was nothing weak or powerless about it at all. His willingness to suffer for us at any cost was a demonstration of a level of strength that is hard to imagine. And his suffering was not simply a passive surrender to the forces that oppress us. In fact, his willingness to accept suffering and even death on our behalf was the most powerful response possible. He allowed them to do their worst, and then he rose up from the grave to show them that they had failed to defeat him.[6]

I think there’s a dimension of our suffering that’s like that. When we follow Jesus’ example and accept our suffering—whether it makes sense or not—it becomes a kind of witness to those around us.[7] In a very real sense, when we embrace the suffering that may come our way, or even go the extra mile and take on the suffering of others, by our very lives we make a powerful statement to the world.[8] We are saying that we are not afraid of the powers in this world that may try to inflict suffering on us. We are saying that we trust in the one who paid the ultimate cost and won the victory over all suffering to deliver us safely in the end. We are saying that we are willing to follow Christ at any cost.

[2] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, In the End—The Beginning: The Life of Hope, 149, where he comments on this difficult text, “We are not told how that can come about, whether the dead hear the gospel of Christ and, like the living, can arrive at faith. For us, it is enough, after all, to know that death can set no limits to the saving gospel of Christ, and that in faith in Christ there is hope for the dead too.”

[3] Cf. David L. Bartlett, “The First Letter of Peter,” New Interpreters Bible XII:297, where he says, “To be sure, Christ suffered as Christians suffer, but in his resurrection he not only overcame suffering but he also raised his flag of victory over the evil forces that bring suffering on the just and the faithful.” Cf. also Paul J. Achtemeier, 1 Peter: A commentary on First Peter, 251, where he says that the point of this passage is to emphasize “the objective ground and cause of salvation that is the basis of the readers’ confidence that despite any unjust suffering which might seem to point to the contrary, Christ by his passion and resurrection has emerged victorious over all opposing powers, a victory in which faithful Christians will also share.” Cf. similarly Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4.3.2:211.

[4] Cf. Mary H. Schertz, “Radical Trust in the Just Judge: The Easter Texts of 1 Peter,” Word & World 24 (Fall 2004): 232: “For the communities to whom this letter was written, the crucial meaning of the cross is Jesus' two-step decision, articulated in 2:23. His first decision is not to retaliate, not to revile in return for reviling. But his second decision is even more important because it grounds his first decision. His second decision is to entrust himself to the just Judge.”

[5] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 97: “The whole church lives from Christ’s self-giving and in self-giving for the reconciliation of the world.” See also ibid., 284: “The way of life of the messianic era is stamped by messianic suffering.” See also Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.3.2:636-40, where he talks about this in terms of suffering “under the shadow” of Jesus’ cross.

[6] Cf. Schertz, “Radical Trust,” 232, 234: “This is not suffering for the sake of suffering. This is not condoning suffering. This is not giving up to suffering. This is not God making Jesus suffer. Rather, the life and ministry of Jesus, what he has been moving toward since at least the temptations, culminates in this testimony that reconciliation—between God and people as well as among people—is not a matter of containing evil but of transforming evil. It is a freely chosen, decisive action. It is a simple but powerful decision to break the cycle of violence.”

[7] Cf. David L. Tiede, “An Easter Catechesis: The Lessons of 1 Peter,” Word & World 4 (Spring 1984): 198, where he suggests that 1 Peter 3:14-15 “may sound the keynote for the passage: ‘Have no fear of them nor be troubled, but in your hearts reverence Christ as Lord.’” The idea is that when they do that they will be able to bear witness to the new life they have experienced through their faith in Christ. Cf. also Bartlett, “The First Letter of Peter,” NIB XII:296, where he says that when Christians suffer for their faith, “They join the struggle against oppression by speaking honestly and powerfully of what they hold dear, making their defense unapologetically.”

[8] Cf. Schertz, “Radical Trust,” 240, where she says that when we follow Christ’s example in this way, “there is an indestructible theological power in this obedience.”

Monday, May 26, 2008

“Bearing the Name”

Acts 1:6-14; 1 Peter 4:12-19, 5:6-11; John 17:1-11[1]

There is a curious diversity among Christians these days. If you asked a random sample what it means to “bear the name” of Christ in the world, you would get a wide range of answers. For some, bearing the name means essentially being a good, upstanding member of the community. For others, it’s about adopting a unique culture—you dress a certain way, you talk a certain way, etc., etc. For many, it has meant sacrificing everything and everyone in your life to go overseas and work with a primitive group of people to convert them to Christian faith. For others, it’s a matter of getting out there and promoting certain causes that are associated with social justice and compassion for the needy.

Most Christians would probably point to scripture as the basis for their versions of what it means to bear witness to Christian faith. Interestingly, most of these answers don’t reflect what I would suggest is the central theme of “bearing the name” of Christ in the world: suffering. The Bible plainly shows us over and over again that those who would live in our world as God’s people and bear witness to Christian faith must be prepared to suffer.[2] In fact, it is precisely by our willingness to embrace suffering for the sake of our faith that we “bear the name” of Christ in this world.

Peter calls this “sharing the sufferings of Christ” (1 Peter 4:13). That’s a strange idea. We have been taught that Jesus suffered death on the cross so that our sins might be forgiven. So how is it possible for us to share his sufferings? It seems to me that when the Bible speaks of sharing Christ’s sufferings, it’s talking about how we bear witness to our faith in this world. The Apostle Paul says it this way: “Our bodies show what his death was like, so that his life can also be seen in us” (2 Corinthians 4:10, CEV). What he means by that is that God sustains him in his sufferings, and that becomes a witness to others so that they too may share in the new life in Christ. In other words, our most effective witness is what God does in and through us as we embrace suffering, rather than anything we say or do!

I think that’s the idea behind Peter’s message to the Christians of Asia Minor. He has said this in different ways throughout his letter: they suffered “various trials” so that the character of their faith might shine through (1:6-7); they endured hostility so that their “honorable deeds” and “good conduct” would glorify God (2:12; 3:16); they were bearing witness to Christ by following in his footsteps (2:21). In our text for today, Peter tells them that when they suffer the Spirit of God rests on them (1 Peter 4:14) and that God would be with them through everything they had to suffer and would strengthen them to be able to endure (1 Peter 5:10). It’s that sustaining presence that becomes a powerful witness to others.

As we endure suffering for the sake of Christ, we are “bearing the name,” essentially by being willing to undergo the experience of “sharing the sufferings of Christ.” This becomes a witness for Christ because it provides a golden opportunity for God to display his power in our lives, just as he did when he raised Christ from the dead.[3] This may seem like a strange twist on the “Easter faith” that looks to Christ’s resurrection and the new life he gives us. But if you think about it, what better way to demonstrate that new life than by making each of us walking billboards, bearing the name of Christ to our world, testifying to our “living hope” in spite of what we may have to endure.

We don’t face suffering in the same way Peter’s audience did. They were rejected by friends and family, they had their livelihood stripped from them, they were sometimes beaten and sometimes even killed for their faith. But in another respect, maybe our situation isn’t all that different. The people around them didn’t understand why the Christians didn’t just “go along to get along.” I think that’s probably going to be our greatest area of potential suffering.[4] The decision to follow Christ in our world means that we will inevitably have to “deny ourselves” and “take up our cross”—and that means suffering losses. We face many pressures to conform to “the way things are”—to do what everybody else does, to compromise our principles, to avoid being “different” at all costs! We are constantly tempted to go back to those “futile ways.” But our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ calls us to “march to a different tune”—to “act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). And as we do so, God’s Spirit within us presents to those around us a powerful testimony to Christ’s new life.

[2] Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 360-61, argues that the church is “apostolic” to the extent that it participates in the mission of Christ and the Apostles, and that “inescapably” entails suffering. He says, “the church is apostolic when it takes up its cross.” See also Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith, 424: “Words that do not cost anything and deeds that are meant to make us popular have nothing to do with the [apostolic] character of the people of God.”

[3] Cf. Moltmann, Church in the Power, 355: “When believers take up their cross, the kingdom of God is manifested to the world.”

[4] See Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith, 468, where he enumerates potential forms of suffering for Christian faith in the modern world; he defines this as “any form of Christian abstinence, …, if it is a withdrawal, for the sake of faith, from the powers that dominate our world.”

The Waking Dreamer