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.
