Text: 1 Peter 1:17-23
If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile. You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake. Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God. Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart. You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.
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What a week this was in the marketplace! Gold was down 7% in 3 days and a silver ETF called ZSL was down 50% in just 5 days. It is amazing how material objects such as gold and silver coins that you get see with your eyes and hold with hands and feel against your skin, can lose half their value in one week. This is a current example of what our text refers to as "perishable things like silver or gold." When it comes to real life, the really important things in life, what matters is our soul's ultimate destiny and how well we love those people who are riding shot-gun with us on this unpredictable journey called life.
The Bible says we were not ransomed from our futile ways with perishable things like silver or gold. Instead, we are ransomed through the sacrifice of Christ. That is an important point. Yet there are many churches that focus almost exclusively on personal salvation through faith in Christ. The call to repentance rings loud and clear each Sunday from the pulpit. The preacher seems unaware that 98% of the listeners are already there, already eternally secure through faith in Christ. So what? What is next? What comes after our assurance of salvation through Christ? Our reading answers that question by saying the next step, after salvation, is to "love another deeply from the heart."
We speak of love so often in the church and I sometimes wonder if we know what we mean. Our English word "love" carries so many meanings from friendship to lust. Our Epistle today speaks of love as deep and genuine. The literal Greek translation of deep and genuine would be "not hypocritical" and "not feigned." The Buddhists differentiate between love and compassion. Perhaps they may help us here. Buddhists describe love as wanting others to be happy. Love is characterized by unselfish interest in others welfare.
Similar, but distinct, from love is the Buddhist concept of compassion. Compassion is wanting others to be free from suffering. Compassion is not sentimentality. The opposite of compassion is cruelty. Imagine a person being tortured and you will see the opposite of compassion. The Hebrew Bible, our Old Testament, has a special word for love. It is called chesed, which means loving kindness. Chesed is sort of a conjunction between the Buddhist words love and compassion. Chesed is an active verb that implies we will do something for one another beyond thinking good thoughts. We will take action on behalf of one another. I know you have that kind of love for one another because I have seen it in action. I have seen you take care of one another physically, emotionally, financially, mentally, and spiritually. I see it in the funeral luncheons that we provide for families who have just walked out of this sanctuary still in shock from sitting through a memorial service in memory of their mother or another loved one. The family of Lee Shoemake will have that experience this Tuesday at 11:30 am in this sanctuary. After the service they will walk across the courtyard into McPhail Hall for a reception featuring some finger foods and punch, some hugs and smiles and yes, even some laughter.
Jesus said the greatest commandment from the Hebrew Bible is that we are to love God with all our heart, all our mind and all our strength, and love our neighbor as ourselves. I have witnessed you loving one another and having compassion for one another with all your heart, all your mind and all your strength. We are living out this text in the life of this congregation.
We need that kind of support from one another especially in times of sorrow. We need to be there for one another because according to our text we holy resident aliens. This journey by faith motif has deep Biblical roots all the way back to Father Abraham who journeyed by faith from his home in Ur, modern day Iraq, to Egypt. Along the way he became the father of Isaac, father of the Hebrew people, the people of Israel. He also became the father of Ismael, the father of the Arabic peoples who eventually would follow the Prophet Mohammed. The image of the wandering pilgrim goes all the way back into the deep roots of our faith history, as Abraham says, "My father was a wandering Aramean …" We are pilgrims in this land. I've always loved that old classic book called The Pilgrim's Progress. It presents the Christian life as a journey through rough terrain with challenge after challenge and grace upon grace. As the old gospel song puts it, we are poor, wayfaring strangers, traveling through this world of woe.
That image of holy resident aliens may have felt more right to the initial readers of 1 Peter in the generation after Jesus and Paul. They faced trials and tribulations that included physical endangerment. If one of their Christian brothers or sisters were to betray them the dire consequences could include death. So their love for one another had to be real and their trust level had to be extraordinarily high. What Ben Franklin said to John Hancock under threat of persecution for signing the American Declaration of Independence, could also have been said about the first Christian readers of 1 Peter: "We must all hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." I wonder if that is still true for us today and if so, how? After all, we live in a land of religious pluralism where churches such as ours proudly study other faith traditions. There seems to be no imminent threat to our health or livelihood due to our Christian faith. Even so, I still believe there is a place for what Augustine called a "single pilgrim band."
Augustine's City of God admonishes us to take delight in learning and to carry the burden of charity. Augustine would challenge us all to live as contemplatives who delight in learning and balance that with action by carrying the burden of charity. After all, balance is the key in this pilgrim journey. Balance is the vehicle that gets us from here to there. We must balance our physical and spiritual nature, our minds and our bodies, our hearts and our heads. The Christian life is all about balance. Sometimes we get out of balance when we live upright lives but are not willing to take the next step which is to return good for evil and blessing for slander. When we take the extra step the light really shines through and we may draw people to Christ by being Christ-like. God calls us to live faith filled lives as resident aliens of an unbelieving world. Even harder, God calls us to live as brothers and sisters to those in our congregation, in our faith community. Like Christ, we are to live holy lives in an unholy world.
Let's be holy as Christ, the lamb of God, is holy. Let's be courageous as Christ, the Lamb of God, was courageous. Let's be willing to sacrifice for others, as Christ, the Lamb of God, was willing to sacrifice himself for us. Let's demonstrate by our actions the love for others we profess with our mouths. Let be what we are. Confirmands, that is all we expect of you. Be what you are. People of God, that is all God expects of any of us. Be what you are. At times it seems impossible but we know that when we set our intention on being holy God will meet us more than halfway and take us the rest of the way. We are indeed pilgrims in this unholy land. We are merely passing through. Blessed are those who realize the transient nature of existence even in their youth, for they are on the holy road to wisdom. At times the way is rough and steep. Yet beauteous fields lie just before us. Where God's redeemed, their vigils keep. We're going there to see our mother, she said she'd meet us when we come. We're only going over Jordan. We're only going ... over home.
Cyndi Lauper sang a hit song in the 1980s called True Colors.
I see your true colors
Shining through
I see your true colors
And that's why I love you
So don't be afraid to let them show
Your true colors
True colors are beautiful,
Like a rainbow
Silver is not our true color and neither is gold. Some of you saw our true colors when you gave blood in the Blood Drive this morning. Others of you are wearing our true color in the form of a carnation in honor of Mother's Day. Red is our true color. The blood of Christ, shed for you. As our text today puts it:
You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart. (1 Peter 1:17-23, selected verses)
Red is the color of the liquid of life in all God's creatures. When we dig deeper into the nature of reality we discovery red is our true color, the color of our salvation and the symbol of our love for one another. In these perilous times, let's stick together, or separately we will hang.
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The Rev. Dr. Jon Burnham preached this sermon at St. John's Presbyterian Church on May 8, 2011.
