|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Fear, honor, and Endurance
1 Peter 2:13-17 26 October, 2008
“Fear, Honor, and Endurance”
When we started our journey through the books of the Bible roughly
eighteen months ago I really wasn’t sure when we would get to 1st
Peter. What with special liturgical seasons and vacations, study
leaves, and just the unpredictable nature of events that alter our
plans, who would have thought that we would be exploring the
themes of this letter a little more than a week before an important
national election? It hadn’t crossed my mind, but I suspect it crossed
God’s mind. And I further suspect that that is because it is very
important to God that we get our relationship with our government
right. In order to do that, we don’t have to be political science majors,
but neither are we given free-rein to imagine that biblical theology has
nothing to say about worldly politics. So while (as I’ve said before) I
will never presume it to be my business to infantilize you by telling
you for whom to vote, I will insist that Christians carry a God-ordained
burden to wield their power as voting citizens with a biblically-formed
conscience and a determination to take up our responsibility to be
salt and light in the country in which God has placed us. I am saying
2
that it may be useless to expect our next president to move us in this
or that direction, if we don’t do our job of living by Kingdom values
and bearing witness to the truth of Jesus Christ and his profoundly
personal solution to the problems that beset every country and
culture. This first letter from Peter makes it very clear that we have
our work to do, and maybe in the largest sense, it wont’ matter who
we elect, if the church in America declines to pay the part we’ve been
called to play.
And I just want to underscore (once again) what I said in our October
newsletter, the idea that the church must beware of becoming the
property of a political party. I don’t think I am being cynical when I
say that both major political parties would love to have the church in
their pocket. Both the Republicans and the Democrats would happily
co-opt the person who votes with a Christ-formed conscience to
serve the needs of their party. And we become little more than the
“prayer wing” of any political party, when we elevate a party platform
to the level of God’s Kingdom agenda. When C.S. Lewis (who was a
military veteran) was addressing British Christians in World War II, he
wrote, “He who surrenders himself without reservation to the
3
temporal claims of a nation, a party, or a class is rendering to Ceasar
that which, of all things, most emphatically belongs to God; (which is)
himself”. We render unto Ceasar that which belongs to Ceasar. And
we render unto God that which only belongs to God.
How do we make the distinction? That is where Peter helps us to sort
things out. Listen again, closely, to what he says in verses 13
through 17 and then we’ll try to unpack what it is we hear him saying.
Beginning at verse 13: “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to
every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the
supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish
those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. For it is
God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of
foolish men. Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a
cover-up for evil; live as servants of God. Show proper respect to
everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the
king.”
So what are some of the “big-picture” principles that Peter lays out in
these verses? First fo all I think he wants us to remember that God is
4
intrinsically a God of order, not chaos. In the same way that God
rendered order out of chaos in the creation, God also sets in place a
structure of authority in what might otherwise be the formless mass
of human societies, with a view to bringing about a functional and
human infrastructure for our daily living. In short, God puts
governments in place for our good. Without some sort of functioning
system of governmental authority, it is hard to imagine how we could
have a consistent standard of monetary exchange, the maintenance
of roads and highways, a legal system that could be fairly applied to
all citizens, a regulation of goods and commence, and some structure
of police or military authorized to keep bad or dangerous behavior in
chick. If we didn’t have any of those kinds of authorities and
structures in place, we would notice it instantly, and we wouldn’t
waste any time trying to put some such structures in place. Law and
order might sound repressive to some people, but that hardly makes
a good case for lawlessness and disorder. Imagine trying to get
home after today’s service if all the traffic lights were out and all the
rules of the road were suspended. God puts governmental authorities
in place because he means to protect human life and to enhance the
conditions that make fruitful and peaceful human community
5
possible. And therefore, the thought here is, that ordinarily,
Christians should strive to “submit to all legitimate authorities,
whether or not the persons exercising authority are believers. The
recognition of properly constituted authority is necessary for the
greatest good of the largest number of people, and it is necessary to
best fulfill the will of God in the world.” (So says the study notes of
the N.I.V. Study Bible.) “Summit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to
every authority instituted among men.” So the sense here is that if
God set up governments and authorities to serve the best ends of
human communities, then when we disobey them, we might well find
ourselves militating against the purposes and plans of God. So
Christians most generally strive to observe and keep all laws, not first
because they fear punishment, but because they reverence God.
Now we may rightly object that that is all well and fine unless you’re
living in Nazi, Germany. Then to cooperate with such an evil regime
is to disobey the laws of God and common decency. And we would
be right. Biblically right. We think of the Hebrew mid-wives who
disobeyed Pharaoh’s command that they kill any male children born
to Hebrew slaves. And God blessed them for their disobedience. And
6
we honor the memory of Corrie ten Boom and her family who broke
the law by harboring Jewish citizen, and paid for their “disobedience”
with their lives. I hope we would have done the same. But keep in
mind, Peter wrote these words, when Nero was the Emperor – and
Nero was responsible for the worst atrocities perpetrated against
Christians in the early church. So, the word here seems to be that
while our obedience tot he government must never be in violation of
the laws of God, we must, as far as it is possible in good conscience,
render willing obedience to the authorities set over us. I would call it,
obedience within limits. What we must not co-operate with, would
roughly fall under the categories of whatever is, unjust, inhumane,
and indecent.
So why cooperate at all? We do it, Peter says, to silence the ignorant
talk of foolish men. There were people then as there are people now
who wanted to claim that Christians were the worst kind of citizens.
There were people in Nero’s day who wanted to spread the idea that
Christians were insurrectionists, cannibals, and atheists;
insurrectionists because they followed a leader executed for sedition;
cannibals because they said they ate flesh and drank blood in one of
7
their rituals, and atheists because they only believed in one God –
which meant not believing in thousands of other gods. Today it’s
easier. Today they just follow a line of logic that goes: Christians are
intolerant, intolerant people are fundamentalists, fundamentalists are
terrorists; therefore, every Christian is at heart a terrorist, and how
good of a citizen could you be if you ‘re the type that bombs clinics
and flies planes into buildings? Peter’s right: that’s foolish talk from
ignorant people. But how do you contradict that? You don’t do it by
getting red in the face and demoralizing your critics. You contradict
the ridiculous by being the best neighbor and citizen you know how
to be. You chose, in your God-given freedom, to be consistently
humane, and honest, and peaceable, and trustworthy, fair-minded,
forgiving and graceful. It is pretty hard to make a case that that kind
of person is a potential terrorist or a rotten citizen.
And then notice how Peter summarizes our way of interacting with the
world in verse 17. Verse 17 says, “Show proper respect to everyone:
Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king.” So how
are you and I to treat the world? Well, we start by showing proper
respect to everyone. Christians should be known for how well they
8
treat everyone: their waitress with a broken-accent, their atheist boss,
their Muslim next door neighbor, their homosexual medical
professional, their Marxist professor, and their Mormon real estate
agent. If each of these people could say, “The people who
consistently treat me with humanity and respect are the Christians,”
we’d have a lot more people wanting to explore what Christianity is all
about. The trouble is that far too many of us save our courtesy and
best behavior for fellow Christians. I have Christian in-laws who are
completely unembarrassed about showing dis-respect to non-
Christians. They brag about telling others off. And they don’t see the
contradiction. Secondly, Peter says, love the brotherhood of
believers. The issue here isn’t about being perfect. It is about making
a commitment an d disciplining our self to only and always interact
with fellow Christians as those whom we have been commanded by
Jesus to love. I will never understand how or why we give ourselves
permission to behave toward another brother or sister in Christ in an
unloving manner. We have never, ever, ever had Jesus’ permission to
do that but you know and I know that some people can’t seem to get
through a Sunday morning without giving someone some grief. I’ll
never understand it. To me, it’s the most depressing part for the
9
pastorate. And I love the pastorate. But folks, if we can show respect
to everyone because we recognize that all people have been made in
the image of God, how much more should we discipline ourselves to
behave in a loving manner toward those with whom we have been
made family forever? I’m not talking about a generally nice idea. We
are talking about a committed stance we must take, or brace
ourselves to hear Jesus saying on the last day, “I never knew you.” I
have been told by one of my relatives that one of our presidential
candidates is the antichrist. You know who the antichrist is? It is
anyone who knows what Jesus said to do, and doesn’t do it. So that
includes me. Jesus said, “This is my commandment, that you love
one another”.
Thirdly, Peter concludes verse 17, by saying “fear God, honor the
king.” My observation would be that when we get goofed up on this
one, it is because we do the opposite of what he says. Too many
Christians down throughout history have tended to honor God and
fear the king. That is to say, we know how to show God a general
courtesy, respect or honor. If we are Protestants we know when to
stand and sit or be silent in God’s presence. If we’re Catholics we
10
know when to kneel, or say “thanks be to God” or make the sign of
the cross. We know to take our hats off when we pray. It’s a gesture
of respect. A sign that we extend to God the courtesy of showing
public tokens of piety and honor toward God. That’s not bad. Not
bad at all. But the problem comes when we save our fear for the
state, the government, people who hold civil power over us. We may
not get too worked up about a page from the Scriptures, but a single
form letter from the I.R.S. can keep us awake all night. We might, as
Thomas Moore said of the bishops of England, have slept through the
Sermon on the Mount, but notice how we sit up and take notice when
we get a friendly war-time greeting from Uncle Sam. It may not
trouble our sleep tonight to know we broke at least one of the Ten
Commandments today, but just let me see those flashing red lights
show up in my rear view mirror on the way home, and you will have
my adrenaline flowing in buckets. For some reason we are more
afraid of being audited by the government than by God. We honor
God, but we fear the government.
And Peter says, it needs to be the other way around. And maybe
Peter knew that from his own and most painful experience. Maybe he
11
could never forget the horrible truth that when push came to show,
literally, he may have though he honored God, but he feared the
government. And in the spell of that fear he betrayed Jesus three
times. In fact, when the authorities showed up that night, every
apostle ran into the dark to save his own skin. And if we are not
careful, we could betray Jesus for far less dramatic reasons. Maybe
we just want to keep a good job or get a raise. So we go along to get
along,. Maybe we laugh at a racist joke, more afraid of appearing
stuffy, than of showing disrespect for one for whom Christ died. We
may speak well of God, but we save our fear for the people and
agencies that have authority over us in a more immediate sense. And
Peter pleads with us to get it right. Fear God, honor the king. The
good news is, Peter learned. By God’s grace, he was given the
chance to try it again. And this time he got it right. This time, he said,
“We must obey God rather than man.” And when Rome wanted to
crucify him he only asked that they crucify him upside down because
he did not feel worthy to die like Jesus. Brothers and sisters in
Christ, “Show proper respect to everyone: Love brotherhood of
believers, fear God, and honor the king.” Those are our orders.
Amen? Amen.
“Fear, Honor, and Endurance”
When we started our journey through the books of the Bible roughly
eighteen months ago I really wasn’t sure when we would get to 1st
Peter. What with special liturgical seasons and vacations, study
leaves, and just the unpredictable nature of events that alter our
plans, who would have thought that we would be exploring the
themes of this letter a little more than a week before an important
national election? It hadn’t crossed my mind, but I suspect it crossed
God’s mind. And I further suspect that that is because it is very
important to God that we get our relationship with our government
right. In order to do that, we don’t have to be political science majors,
but neither are we given free-rein to imagine that biblical theology has
nothing to say about worldly politics. So while (as I’ve said before) I
will never presume it to be my business to infantilize you by telling
you for whom to vote, I will insist that Christians carry a God-ordained
burden to wield their power as voting citizens with a biblically-formed
conscience and a determination to take up our responsibility to be
salt and light in the country in which God has placed us. I am saying
2
that it may be useless to expect our next president to move us in this
or that direction, if we don’t do our job of living by Kingdom values
and bearing witness to the truth of Jesus Christ and his profoundly
personal solution to the problems that beset every country and
culture. This first letter from Peter makes it very clear that we have
our work to do, and maybe in the largest sense, it wont’ matter who
we elect, if the church in America declines to pay the part we’ve been
called to play.
And I just want to underscore (once again) what I said in our October
newsletter, the idea that the church must beware of becoming the
property of a political party. I don’t think I am being cynical when I
say that both major political parties would love to have the church in
their pocket. Both the Republicans and the Democrats would happily
co-opt the person who votes with a Christ-formed conscience to
serve the needs of their party. And we become little more than the
“prayer wing” of any political party, when we elevate a party platform
to the level of God’s Kingdom agenda. When C.S. Lewis (who was a
military veteran) was addressing British Christians in World War II, he
wrote, “He who surrenders himself without reservation to the
3
temporal claims of a nation, a party, or a class is rendering to Ceasar
that which, of all things, most emphatically belongs to God; (which is)
himself”. We render unto Ceasar that which belongs to Ceasar. And
we render unto God that which only belongs to God.
How do we make the distinction? That is where Peter helps us to sort
things out. Listen again, closely, to what he says in verses 13
through 17 and then we’ll try to unpack what it is we hear him saying.
Beginning at verse 13: “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to
every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the
supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish
those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. For it is
God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of
foolish men. Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a
cover-up for evil; live as servants of God. Show proper respect to
everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the
king.”
So what are some of the “big-picture” principles that Peter lays out in
these verses? First fo all I think he wants us to remember that God is
4
intrinsically a God of order, not chaos. In the same way that God
rendered order out of chaos in the creation, God also sets in place a
structure of authority in what might otherwise be the formless mass
of human societies, with a view to bringing about a functional and
human infrastructure for our daily living. In short, God puts
governments in place for our good. Without some sort of functioning
system of governmental authority, it is hard to imagine how we could
have a consistent standard of monetary exchange, the maintenance
of roads and highways, a legal system that could be fairly applied to
all citizens, a regulation of goods and commence, and some structure
of police or military authorized to keep bad or dangerous behavior in
chick. If we didn’t have any of those kinds of authorities and
structures in place, we would notice it instantly, and we wouldn’t
waste any time trying to put some such structures in place. Law and
order might sound repressive to some people, but that hardly makes
a good case for lawlessness and disorder. Imagine trying to get
home after today’s service if all the traffic lights were out and all the
rules of the road were suspended. God puts governmental authorities
in place because he means to protect human life and to enhance the
conditions that make fruitful and peaceful human community
5
possible. And therefore, the thought here is, that ordinarily,
Christians should strive to “submit to all legitimate authorities,
whether or not the persons exercising authority are believers. The
recognition of properly constituted authority is necessary for the
greatest good of the largest number of people, and it is necessary to
best fulfill the will of God in the world.” (So says the study notes of
the N.I.V. Study Bible.) “Summit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to
every authority instituted among men.” So the sense here is that if
God set up governments and authorities to serve the best ends of
human communities, then when we disobey them, we might well find
ourselves militating against the purposes and plans of God. So
Christians most generally strive to observe and keep all laws, not first
because they fear punishment, but because they reverence God.
Now we may rightly object that that is all well and fine unless you’re
living in Nazi, Germany. Then to cooperate with such an evil regime
is to disobey the laws of God and common decency. And we would
be right. Biblically right. We think of the Hebrew mid-wives who
disobeyed Pharaoh’s command that they kill any male children born
to Hebrew slaves. And God blessed them for their disobedience. And
6
we honor the memory of Corrie ten Boom and her family who broke
the law by harboring Jewish citizen, and paid for their “disobedience”
with their lives. I hope we would have done the same. But keep in
mind, Peter wrote these words, when Nero was the Emperor – and
Nero was responsible for the worst atrocities perpetrated against
Christians in the early church. So, the word here seems to be that
while our obedience tot he government must never be in violation of
the laws of God, we must, as far as it is possible in good conscience,
render willing obedience to the authorities set over us. I would call it,
obedience within limits. What we must not co-operate with, would
roughly fall under the categories of whatever is, unjust, inhumane,
and indecent.
So why cooperate at all? We do it, Peter says, to silence the ignorant
talk of foolish men. There were people then as there are people now
who wanted to claim that Christians were the worst kind of citizens.
There were people in Nero’s day who wanted to spread the idea that
Christians were insurrectionists, cannibals, and atheists;
insurrectionists because they followed a leader executed for sedition;
cannibals because they said they ate flesh and drank blood in one of
7
their rituals, and atheists because they only believed in one God –
which meant not believing in thousands of other gods. Today it’s
easier. Today they just follow a line of logic that goes: Christians are
intolerant, intolerant people are fundamentalists, fundamentalists are
terrorists; therefore, every Christian is at heart a terrorist, and how
good of a citizen could you be if you ‘re the type that bombs clinics
and flies planes into buildings? Peter’s right: that’s foolish talk from
ignorant people. But how do you contradict that? You don’t do it by
getting red in the face and demoralizing your critics. You contradict
the ridiculous by being the best neighbor and citizen you know how
to be. You chose, in your God-given freedom, to be consistently
humane, and honest, and peaceable, and trustworthy, fair-minded,
forgiving and graceful. It is pretty hard to make a case that that kind
of person is a potential terrorist or a rotten citizen.
And then notice how Peter summarizes our way of interacting with the
world in verse 17. Verse 17 says, “Show proper respect to everyone:
Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king.” So how
are you and I to treat the world? Well, we start by showing proper
respect to everyone. Christians should be known for how well they
8
treat everyone: their waitress with a broken-accent, their atheist boss,
their Muslim next door neighbor, their homosexual medical
professional, their Marxist professor, and their Mormon real estate
agent. If each of these people could say, “The people who
consistently treat me with humanity and respect are the Christians,”
we’d have a lot more people wanting to explore what Christianity is all
about. The trouble is that far too many of us save our courtesy and
best behavior for fellow Christians. I have Christian in-laws who are
completely unembarrassed about showing dis-respect to non-
Christians. They brag about telling others off. And they don’t see the
contradiction. Secondly, Peter says, love the brotherhood of
believers. The issue here isn’t about being perfect. It is about making
a commitment an d disciplining our self to only and always interact
with fellow Christians as those whom we have been commanded by
Jesus to love. I will never understand how or why we give ourselves
permission to behave toward another brother or sister in Christ in an
unloving manner. We have never, ever, ever had Jesus’ permission to
do that but you know and I know that some people can’t seem to get
through a Sunday morning without giving someone some grief. I’ll
never understand it. To me, it’s the most depressing part for the
9
pastorate. And I love the pastorate. But folks, if we can show respect
to everyone because we recognize that all people have been made in
the image of God, how much more should we discipline ourselves to
behave in a loving manner toward those with whom we have been
made family forever? I’m not talking about a generally nice idea. We
are talking about a committed stance we must take, or brace
ourselves to hear Jesus saying on the last day, “I never knew you.” I
have been told by one of my relatives that one of our presidential
candidates is the antichrist. You know who the antichrist is? It is
anyone who knows what Jesus said to do, and doesn’t do it. So that
includes me. Jesus said, “This is my commandment, that you love
one another”.
Thirdly, Peter concludes verse 17, by saying “fear God, honor the
king.” My observation would be that when we get goofed up on this
one, it is because we do the opposite of what he says. Too many
Christians down throughout history have tended to honor God and
fear the king. That is to say, we know how to show God a general
courtesy, respect or honor. If we are Protestants we know when to
stand and sit or be silent in God’s presence. If we’re Catholics we
10
know when to kneel, or say “thanks be to God” or make the sign of
the cross. We know to take our hats off when we pray. It’s a gesture
of respect. A sign that we extend to God the courtesy of showing
public tokens of piety and honor toward God. That’s not bad. Not
bad at all. But the problem comes when we save our fear for the
state, the government, people who hold civil power over us. We may
not get too worked up about a page from the Scriptures, but a single
form letter from the I.R.S. can keep us awake all night. We might, as
Thomas Moore said of the bishops of England, have slept through the
Sermon on the Mount, but notice how we sit up and take notice when
we get a friendly war-time greeting from Uncle Sam. It may not
trouble our sleep tonight to know we broke at least one of the Ten
Commandments today, but just let me see those flashing red lights
show up in my rear view mirror on the way home, and you will have
my adrenaline flowing in buckets. For some reason we are more
afraid of being audited by the government than by God. We honor
God, but we fear the government.
And Peter says, it needs to be the other way around. And maybe
Peter knew that from his own and most painful experience. Maybe he
11
could never forget the horrible truth that when push came to show,
literally, he may have though he honored God, but he feared the
government. And in the spell of that fear he betrayed Jesus three
times. In fact, when the authorities showed up that night, every
apostle ran into the dark to save his own skin. And if we are not
careful, we could betray Jesus for far less dramatic reasons. Maybe
we just want to keep a good job or get a raise. So we go along to get
along,. Maybe we laugh at a racist joke, more afraid of appearing
stuffy, than of showing disrespect for one for whom Christ died. We
may speak well of God, but we save our fear for the people and
agencies that have authority over us in a more immediate sense. And
Peter pleads with us to get it right. Fear God, honor the king. The
good news is, Peter learned. By God’s grace, he was given the
chance to try it again. And this time he got it right. This time, he said,
“We must obey God rather than man.” And when Rome wanted to
crucify him he only asked that they crucify him upside down because
he did not feel worthy to die like Jesus. Brothers and sisters in
Christ, “Show proper respect to everyone: Love brotherhood of
believers, fear God, and honor the king.” Those are our orders.
Amen? Amen.
 sermon_10_26_08.pdf | [ ] | 45 Kb |
Last Updated ( Sunday, 14 June 2009 19:10 )
Subscribe to RSS Feed