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Sunday, May 25, 2014

FIRST PETER: “Good Reasons to Hope”

A Sermon Based Upon 1 Peter 3: 13-22
By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 25, 2014

 There is a story about an illegal Bible study group meeting in a Russian Apartment building in Moscow back during the Cold War.   At that time Russia was officially ‘atheists’ and taking part in secret Bible studies was against the law and would be punished by death, or worse, a free ticket to a prison camp in Siberia.    On one occasion, as the Bible study group was meeting, there was a knock at the door.  A voice on the other side announced they were from the KGB and demanded the door opened immediately.  As the KGB agent entered, he closed the door behind himself, then told everyone to line up to declare themselves guilty of involvement in the Bible study so they could be arrested.  He gave them only one option.  They could renounce their faith and leave but never come back.  After each one answered they were guilty and ready to be charged, the KGB man answered “good”.  Then the told them to sit back down.  “I’m a Christian too” he said to their surprise.  I want to study with you, but just wanted to make sure you were sincere in your faith and would not turn me in.”

How would you prove your faith if your life was on the line?  Is there enough evidence of living faith to convict you?   This legendary incident, based on a very true events, reminds us of the situation for faithful believers when Peter once challenged his readers to  ‘be ready’ to ‘make a defense to anyone who demands it’.    Notice that the word here is not ‘anyone who asks’, but ‘anyone who demands’.   We’re not talking sharing your faith, but we are talking exposing or even defending your faith not just to skeptics, but also to accusers.   The situation facing the Christians Peter writes to is not simply one that demands them to explain ‘why’ they are believers, but it is more reflected in the question, “Are you prepared to die for what you believe?”  Would you put your reputation, your job, or even your life ‘on the line’ because of your faith?  “Always be ready,” says Peter, “to make your defense” (in court, he implies), for the hope that is in you.”  Are you ready?

HOPE IS NOT BEING INTIMIDATED
I don’t think many of us could have ever imagined the post Christian world we now live in, where churches are struggling to survive, and some are even dying?   You can see the loss of the privileged place Christianity once knew in our life, most everywhere.   In fact, as one Christian professor on one college campus said a couple of years back, “On our campus most every form of religion is treated with respect, except for those who say Jesus is the only hope.  If you make a claim like that, either you will be laughed at, ridiculed or most likely, completely ignored.”   But it’s not just in academics or politics, but also in local communities where faith is losing ground.  Now seminaries who train young people for ministry are advising students to get two degrees, not one.  They need one degree in a field where they can prepare for their calling in ministry, and another for prepare working to make a living.   The church of the very near future will probably not be able to pay them full-time salaries because the community and the church cannot afford to.

We all know this is true, but we don’t like to talk about it.  The church, as most of us have known it, is on the way out.  “Being a pastor on the old “ship of Zion” is like being the captain of the titanic,” one pastor has noted.   Churches that are surviving, at least for now, have to work with smaller budgets, fewer ministries, and smaller congregations.   A woman in the dentist office, recently shared her exasperation about her church just the other day: “We have a wonderful pastor, a great choir, and a loving church, but we just can’t grow.”   A denominational executive also told me he was using our ‘partnership’ as a model for other churches to consider, if they and their pastors are willing to ‘face the music’ of what’s really happening.  

What is happening is that the world we used to know has been pulled out from under us like ‘a rug from under out feet.’   The nice, safe, comforting, steady and promising world of the Christian Church has disappeared and now we are entering a ‘brave new world’ that dares to live without church, or perhaps is trying a whole new type of church, where those who attend demand that the church entertain them, razzle dazzle them, all to meet their needs.  If it doesn’t, they will take their children and go elsewhere, or if they don’t have children, maybe they will not go anywhere.   In this ‘new world’ many, if not most, younger people have already left or are leaving, and some of them wonder why are we still here, how can we still have hope.  It just could be that some of you might be secretly wondering that too.

Before we lapse into despair over the situation, we need to realize that it could be worse, as it is in other parts of the world where Christianity is still illegal or persecuted.  It might also get worse, because traditional forms of churches like ours are struggling everywhere.  And of course, it has been worse in the past and that’s what this text in Peter reminds us.   There have been times in Christian history, when it was not only unpopular, but it has been illegal and threatening to be a Christian. 

In places like this, Christians were and still are falsely accused and sometimes, even wrongly abused, for having faith.  This is part of the background behind today’s Bible passage from First Peter.   Surprisingly, as NT scholar Fred Craddock says in his commentary on 1 Peter, “We do know that because the Christians did not believe in and worship the array of Roman gods, they were called “atheists.”  That term carried with it a cluster of prejudices against Christians that questioned their character, citizenship, patriotism, and social responsibility.(See First and Second Peter and Jude, by Fred B. Craddock, Westminster Bible Companion, 1995, p. 58).

Some of us wrongly picture that the ancient world was made up of pagan people who wanted to kill Christians because Christians had faith in Jesus Christ.   The larger truth is that the ancient world was made up of many good, religious people who simply misunderstood the claims the Christian faith and looked down upon Christians as a negative influence for their world.  When Christians would not bow down to the emperor, they were considered ‘unpatriotic’.  When Christians would not eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols, they were believed to be boycotting and hurting the economy.  When Christians participated in worship and celebrated the sacrifice of the body and blood of Jesus or shared in a ‘love feast’, they were imagined as taking part in cannibalistic ceremonies, or communal and immoral orgies.   When Christians insisted on telling the truth and showing love and generosity, even showing hospitality to strangers and enemies while they also refused to in support of the war effort or fight in the army, they were seen as being a threat to the status quo because they did not join with the majority opinions or go the way of the crowd.   People saw Christians as being an insult, an affront, or an offense to their own political viewpoints, their own traditional religion, and their very well-established way of life.  As Dr. Craddock goes on to say, “love seems to stir hatred in those who refuse to love.” 

Has the Christian life become unpopular, or has it become undesirable, or maybe just impossible for most people?   Has the Christian hope or the Christian way of life become so offensive to our own American ‘way of life’ freedom and the pleasure of getting what we want, when we want it?   Maybe, there are those who still respect the Christian way as good for some, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of what I ‘want to do’, what ‘I want to be’ or what ‘I want to believe’?   This is more like the situation of why Christians were first asked to ‘give an account for the hope’ that was in them.  It wasn’t so much that there was great interest from others about becoming believers, but people were looking for some “reason” not to hate Christians, not to haul them to court or even worse, not to demand for their elimination and annihilation in society.  The point is that people were simply afraid of real Christians, and they still are.  They did not understand them then, and many do not understand the claims of true Christianity now.  Many still see the claims and teachings of true Christianity as a threat to their own way of life. 

The first thing Peter is saying to the Church of is day is that: Hope is not being intimidated by what other’s fear.     “Do not fear what they fear!”  Peter says.   Fear motivates so much of what humans did then, and still do now.  Fear controls how most people react to life and to each other, especially to anything that is different from what they know.   But what is it that people fear about Christians and Christianity?   

Back in my High School years, I was part of the Bible Club which met in a classroom of a ‘believing’ Biology Teacher.  I’ll never forget studying the Bible and praying in a room where there was a large image of a monkey becoming a human on the wall.   I once asked our teacher-sponsor, who taught Biology, how she could keep that poster on the wall, which represented Darwin’s theory of evolution which she taught, and yet, as she said, she also believed that God created the world.   Her answer was: “At school I teach Science and theories, but at Church and in Life, I live by faith.”   That settled it for me.  Here was a woman who didn’t let the ‘theories’ nor ‘science’ intimidate her faith.  She did not have it all figured out, but she didn’t have to.   As she also told us, “Everyone lives by faith…even Biology teachers and many Scientists.  She was an inspiring person who didn’t let anything, intimidate her faith.  She was also not afraid of the theories nor the facts,  because faith is not a theory and faith will always be more than ‘just the facts ma’am’, as Sargent Friday used to say on Dragnet.

The reason I’m telling you about that Biology teacher, is because of what happened one day, while we are all in our Bible Club meeting.   While we were sharing and praying with the door open, as a testimony to our faith, one of the popular, most intelligent students in the school, put his head in the door and shouted out, “There is no God!”  I’ve always wondered why he had to do that.   Later, I got to know him as we worked together on the Yearbook.   When I was injured in that terrible car accident, he came along with the student body president to visit me while I was in the hospital.   I was cautious not to impose my faith on him, but I did not let his ‘unbelieving’ intimidate me.  I was bound and determined not shout out to him that ‘there is a God’ like he shouted out to us, ‘there is no God’!   I didn’t want to tell him the difference between us, but I wanted him to see the difference.  Interestingly, he never personally questioned my faith nor did he ever ridicule me.  

As we might imagine it, Peter says to his readers and to us, “Don’t be afraid of what other people say or think!”  “Don’t let other people or never let life intimidate the faith and hope you have in Jesus Christ.   Don’t be afraid to learn all you can.  Don’t be afraid to live all you can.  Most of all, never be afraid of loving all you can.    As someone has said, “The truth is always the truth, and a Christian should seek, learn and serve the truth no matter how the truth turns out.”    We will never understand everything about faith, nor will we fully understand all people, nor will we ever fully know why people do some of the stupid things we do, but as Christians, we must remain courageously unafraid and ‘always ready to give an account for the hope that is in you’, as Peter puts it.    Peter says the ‘accounting’ of faith comes directly from the ‘the hope that is in you”.   This means that we show why we believe out of our own accounting of how ‘hope’ remains in us’ in spite of what happens in life.    Our confidence does not come from clever arguments, but from hope-filled and heart felt experience that we share with others who have no true hope.  As we have been made ‘confident’ in our hope, because we have been faced with the option of hopelessness, we will become fearless in the face of the all the opinions, the viewpoints, or even the actions of others. 

HOPE IS KEEPING YOUR CONSCIENCE CLEAR
Besides not being afraid of what others say, or what happens in life,  Peter speaks about “sanctifying Christ as Lord…in your hearts”.   He explains what he means as he goes on to tell his readers to share their hope with all ‘gentleness and reverence’, and then he says that by doing this, Christians will “Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame.” (3.16). 
            There is a lot that could be said about what Peter means by “keeping your conscience clear”.   Perhaps the best interpretation for us would be, that when we have an opportunity our best ‘defense’ of faith is not to become ‘offensive’, not to put our own foot in our mouths , and not to argue or try to prove our hope in ways we may come to regret later.  So often, the reason people don’t believe like we believe, is because they don’t have the same upbringing, experience, or knowledge that we do.   And the best way to get them to listen to us, is for us to first learn how to listen to them and their own story.   When you care and listen, you can ‘keep your conscience clear.”

This is very important to learn today, for when a church or people come under stress, either because we are being attacked by others, or when things are not going well for us, our greatest enemy is normally not those who are attacking us, but how we might respond to those attacks or how we start attacking each other.   When life becomes uncertain, because we are human, we Christians can be our own worst enemy. We can destroy our opportunity in how we share our faith, in how we show our faithlessness.   Pastor Adam Hamilton illustrates how this can happen in in a book he wrote entitled, “When Christians get it Wrong.”   And I think he answered very well how this can happen another book, “Seeing Gray In a World of Black and White”.    I believe Pastor Hamilton’s book title remind of exactly what Peter means when he say,  “Keep your conscience clear” when we witness to our faith.   Because we are people who believe in right and wrong, or ‘black and white’, it is very easy for us to fail to understand the ‘gray’ area where most of life happens.   Because we have hope and are eager to share it, if we are not careful we can become aggressive zealots who fail to represent the very heart of what our faith is about: love.   When we show love first and foremost, we can ‘keep our conscience clear’.   

I’ve share with you before about the Sunday School class in a church that was eager to express their disdain and disapproval of abortion.  On this Sunday the teacher lead their discussion on how to stand for their faith and that they should oppose and challenge those who would consider such a terrible thing.  There was nothing wrong with their belief and ethics, which were commendable, except for how they approached it.  For in the class that day, unknown to them, was a woman who was struggling with the fact that she had and abortion many years before.  When she broke down in tears, the class asked what was wrong and then she confessed to them.   She felt so horrible and so guilty, although she had already found forgiveness in a loving God who gave her a new start in life and faith.   Fortunately, the class no longer took such an aggressive stance against an issue, but now they saw a person, like them, who was troubled and was going through a difficult time.  I believe that that class learned the importance of being a witness in a way that they were not the judge of her as a person, but now trusted and allowed God to be the merciful and forgiving judge of us all.   That was the day they learned that few things are ‘black and white’, and most everything, if we will take long enough to understand, can be understood in some form of gray that will demand ‘gentleness and reverence’ even the worst situations.  

HOPE IS TRUSTING IN THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST
That last word ‘reverence’ means that we trust and hope in God, not in ourselves, not in our own opinions or our own viewpoints, no matter how ‘right’ we think we are.   We must show our hope in ‘gentle’ and ‘reverent’ ways that respects not only God, but also the respects the believes of the other person even the person we don’t agree with or doesn’t agree with us.   We do this because, as Paul said, “we only preach in part because we only know in part”.  This means that all of us live by faith and hope, and we because of this we need to show love because there is a sense that we are all in the same human situation.  But,  how do we share our hope to someone who does not understand us,  and how do we keep a clear conscience in our sharing, if think that if they don’t not believe, as John 3:16 suggests, after it says that God ‘so loved the world’ that they might ‘perish’ and not have ‘everlasting life’?   How can we let God do the very hard work of convincing people that our faith is true, especially when others don’t trust or believe in the hope we have, which we believe is the ‘only’ true hope.      I love where Peter takes us as he closes out this conversation.  It’s one of those places most of us would not dare to go, where even ‘angels fear to tread’ because it opens up all kinds of ideas that the Bible tells us nothing, if very little about.   But the direction Peter goes with his argument is clear.   Peter tells his readers they should ‘not fear what others fear” and should “keep a clear conscience” and even be willing to ‘suffer for doing good’ and doing “God’s will” so that they do not get lost in their own agenda in being a witness, or in sharing their hope, because, he continues, ‘after Christ also suffered’ he was ‘made alive in the spirit’ (v. 18).   In other words, because the Spirit is at work in Christ, we don’t have to do the winning, convincing, or the changing of human hearts.  

But it gets more complicated than that.   Now Peter goes on to open us up to the reality all of us Christian teenagers used to discuss in youth group.   Peter goes then on to suggest that after Jesus became ‘alive in the spirit’, then he “went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey…..”  (3.19).   However you want to interpret what Peter is saying here, because it is still up for interpretation, but the general consensus of what is being said here is that that Peter, in his faith, is dealing with some of the same problems we all have, when we say “Jesus is the way, truth and life, and that no one goes to the Father, except through him.” We all know that there are all kinds of people in this world who have either never heard, or never fully understood the truth about Jesus.  What will happen to those ‘good’ people?   If everything depends on Jesus, shouldn’t we ‘get in the face’ of others and force the truth on them?    And not only that, but Peter is wondering perhaps more about all those other people, who lived before Christ, especially those who ‘disobeyed’ God’s warning just like they did in the times of Noah?  What will happen to people who disobeyed then, and to people who disobey now?   


Some say that Peter opens up the door for belief in purgatory, where all will be given another chance after death as they face the final judgment of God.   I can’t go that far.  I can only tell you one thing that fits what he’s be saying all along.  Fairness of judgment, justice, as well as, forgiveness, grace and mercy belong to our God, and we can be very sure that this does not after death.  The God of Jesus is always the Father ‘is not willing that any should perish, but that all will come to repentance.”    I   can’t still can’t imagine how everyone will get the chance to have the gospel of Jesus proclaimed to them, but I am sure that this is a job that only God can do through the ‘spirit of Christ’ ‘made alive’ to speak to spirits, here and now, and also there and then, as Jesus does here, proclaiming the truth in a way that not one person will have any excuse to say, “I didn’t hear!” or “I didn’t understand”.   I don’t trust in our human ability to understand, but I do trust in Christ’s ability to get his point across, then, and now.   Amen.

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