Not Yet

The scriptures referred to are 1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11.

This strict Calvinist pastor had just finished preaching about predestination. As he exited the raised pulpit, he slipped, fell down the stairs, twisted his ankle and hit his head on the end of the choir pew. As everyone rushed to where he lay, he was heard to say, “Well, I'm glad that's finally over.”

You don't have to believe in predestination to know that some things are inevitable. Death and taxes, of course, but also that we all will have troubles. Some of them, like this disease, come from circumstances outside our control as individuals. Some of them, like coming down with COVID 19 after not taking precautions like wearing masks and avoiding large gatherings, are a logical consequence of our decisions. Most of our troubles are a combination of both factors beyond our control and how we respond to them.

For instance, experts knew there was going to be an epidemic some time soon because they knew the conditions were there. They knew it would come from close contact with wild or domestic animals. They knew it would spread rapidly because of air travel. And they knew it would not be handled properly or immediately because historically governments don't like to admit such things are beyond their control. And it's not only totalitarian governments who don't want to hear such things. In 1918, trying to rally support for our troops in World War 1, the US government quashed newspaper coverage of the flu epidemic, which originated at an army base in Kansas and was being spread initially by US soldiers. So epidemiologists knew this pandemic was coming; they just didn't know exactly which zoogenic disease it would be and exactly when it would break out.

“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.” As we've seen, the subject of suffering is woven throughout the 1^st letter of Peter. Here he is saying, “Of course, you are suffering for following Jesus; what did you expect?” After all, Jesus was crucified for speaking the truth to those in power. And furthermore, Jesus never concealed the fact that if we are faithful to him, we will be persecuted as well. It is as inevitable as a pandemic.

The immediate cause of that persecution was an emperor who claimed to be a god. This letter may have been written during the reign of Nero, the first emperor to take note of Christians. Unfortunately he needed scapegoats. A fire had destroyed most of the city of Rome. Rumors were afloat that Nero, whom everyone knew wanted to rebuild Rome to suit his tastes, was behind the fire. Historians doubt this. Nevertheless Nero, to protect his image, singled out this weird little sect that was said to eat flesh and drink blood at their so-called “love feasts,” which were rumored to be orgies of some kind. So he blamed the Christians for the fire. Among other things, he had some tied to stakes and set ablaze, using them as human torches to light his imperial gardens.

So this was literally a fiery ordeal for some. In fact just a few verses after our reading ends, Peter says he is in Babylon, which may, as in the book of Revelation, be code for Rome. If so, Peter is not talking about persecution from any kind of distance, either physically or psychologically. He would die in this first imperial persecution of Christians, as would Paul.

We would be confused by a soldier who said when he signed up for the military he didn't realize he might die. Peter is saying that facing persecution and even death should not surprise the followers of the crucified Christ. However I guarantee you that it would surprise most American Christians if they were treated as our brothers and sisters in the faith are in some parts of the world where they are persecuted. Because we have a large number of churches that teach people that God's will is for all Christians to be wealthy and healthy, provided they have enough faith. And when people think they have a contract where God will protect them from all adversity, their faith tends to crumble when they come down with cancer or lose a child or suffer from a natural disaster.

We use the word “faith” primarily in two ways. The first that comes to mind for most people is that faith is believing certain things are true. Every human being has faith in this way, and it is not confined to religion. Scientists believe all kinds of things to be true, and unless they have personally redone every experiment themselves, they are accepting it on faith that the scientists on whom they are basing their work did everything properly and accurately and left nothing out. They also have to believe that the experimenters did not deliberately fudge their data. There is in fact a crisis in the sciences right now precisely because a good number of frequently cited experiments, especially in the social sciences and in medicine, can't be reproduced. Scientists are asking themselves, “Which things that we have been putting our faith in are good science and which things are bad science?”

Which brings us to the second meaning of faith. It can simply mean trust. When I was a kid there was a game show called, “Who Do You Trust?” hosted by Johnny Carson. As the title ungrammatically points out, trust needs an object in which it is put. When people are told, “Just have faith,” I'm surprised that the response isn't automatically, “Faith in what? Or in whom?”

Which brings us back to the first meaning of faith: specifically, what is the content of those things we believe concerning the object of our faith, the person whom we trust, the God revealed in Jesus Christ?

First off, we believe God created everything. And the more science discovers about our minds, our bodies, the particles of which everything is made, the forms of energy in the universe, the laws which govern the smallest things that exist and the laws that govern large objects, the more mind-blowing the contemplation of God's creation is. And rather than believe that this intricately connected system is merely the result of an unbelievable accumulation of fortunate accidents, we believe God is behind it all.

Now every child under 12 naturally believes that. And according to Genesis God pronounced everything he made not just good but very good. So why is it not like that now?

At this point I usually explain that we have taken God's good gifts and used them to harm rather than to help one another. And that is why God sent his son to deal with our evil choices and their consequences. But that only focuses on moral evil. What about what theologians call natural evil, things that have no consciousness yet have negative consequences for us?

In Genesis 1 God pronounces his creation good, which in Hebrew means “beautiful or pleasant.” What God does not say is that his creation is “perfect” which in Hebrew means “complete.” In fact in the Genesis 2 recap and close-up on the creation of humanity, it says God hadn't done certain things yet because “there was no man to work the ground.” Why? Because God created us in his image. Which means we too are creative. But if he left nothing for us to do, what would be the point? He didn't just want an audience for creation; he wanted participants. Man was meant to be the gardener in the garden of Eden. Back in Genesis 1 God commissions humanity to rule over and care for his creation. God did not put us in the middle of a completed project to sit around and do nothing with our gifts and tools and skills and resources. He wants us to contribute to creation, the way you let your child help in painting or building or cooking something. He wants us to use his good gifts to make things even better.

Rabbis call this tikkun olam, “repair of the world.” Originally we were to enhance the world, but we did the opposite. We have often used his gifts to make things worse. Some people are blessed with more strength than others. Instead of using that to help and protect those not given that gift, they have used it to dominate and bully those not as strong as they. Some people are blessed with more intelligence. Instead of using that to guide and teach those not blessed with that gift, they have used it to manipulate and exploit those not as smart as they. Some people are blessed with more resources. Instead of sharing with those not as blessed with as many resources, they have used them to coerce the people with less to help them amass more than they can possibly need. Some people are blessed with charisma. Instead of using that to lead and to inspire people to make the world better, they have used their charisma to get people to serve them and fulfill their desire to be admired and worshiped. Imagine how much better the world would be if Hitler had used his gift to get people to follow him to attack the problems Germany actually had rather than to attack Jews and the disabled and Slavs and gypsies and gays. Instead of reforming his country, he deformed it, turning it into an evil parody of a nation once admired for its achievements in the arts and sciences.

God gave us a good world and lots of gifts to use and said, “Let's see what you can do with it!” When we messed it up he sent Jesus to initiate a do-over, not only of people but of the creation we were supposed to be taking care of. And like the prophets before him, Jesus ran into opposition from people who didn't want to hear the truths they desperately needed to hear.

Recently I read about an ER physician who said he is testing people for COVID 19 and when he tells them they have it, some of these people are telling him it's a hoax! He never thought he would get opposition from the people he was trying to save. This guy now knows what Jesus was up against. And what Christians face when they try to be true to the gospel.

I started out talking about Calvinism. One of the things that Calvin taught was what has been called "total depravity." People think he meant that everyone is totally evil. But, no, what he meant is everything is affected by the evil we have unleashed on the world. One meme on Facebook tried to illustrate the spread of this virus by using a very local custom. They said if it's Fantasy Fest, and 9 people are in a room getting into their costumes, and one person is using glitter, how many of those people will ultimately have glitter on them? Those of you who have children will know the answer as well.

Humanity has a kind of reverse Midas touch. Even when we do good, we do some evil. A celebrity lost his aunt to the coronavirus and naturally he was upset. And on Twitter he raged about people eating bats in China. And then someone else pointed out they only do that because they are too poor to eat other things. Many of the people destroying the Amazon rainforest aren't mustache-twirling villains. Many are poor people trying to make a living by exploiting the land. But in the process they are harming the planet and the rest of us and ultimately themselves.

Actors who play villains say they can't do that convincingly if they think of themselves as villains. Everybody is a good guy in their own mind. I was surprised that terrorists watch Star Wars and see themselves as Luke and Han up against the evil empire, by which they mean us! Hitler thought he was the savior of Germany and indeed of the white race. As we've said before, one way of looking at evil is as a very narrow view of what goodness is. It's pretty obvious that if you think of goodness as what's good for you and to hell with everyone else, that's just selfishness. But it becomes harder to see when we expand that definition to “what's good for me and mine.” What's mine can mean my family, or my friends, or my race, or my class, or my party, or my country. But as long as it excludes some people, it is not true goodness. After all, Jesus died for the whole world.

He even died for his enemies. What got him crucified was that he both said and showed in his life that God loved tax collectors and prostitutes and the ritually unclean and the sick and the poor and the Samaritans and the Gentiles and even the occupying forces. He reserved his harshest words for those who thought they were perfect, who thought they didn't need to repent, who thought they were not sinners. And because they were in power and they didn't want to hear the truth, they had him killed.

So it shouldn't seem strange to us if we encounter opposition when we speak the truth people need to hear but don't want to hear. And especially when we speak it to people who have power. They don't think of themselves as bad guys. After all, didn't God bless them with strength and smarts and resources and charisma? It just never occurs to them them he did it not for their good but for the good of all. Even their enemies. And it never occurs to them that the system that allows things to stay that way is far from perfect.

If you think you're always right, you're wrong. If you think this world was once perfect, you're wrong. If you think you were blessed with certain gifts and resources in order to pursue your own happiness, you're wrong. If you think following Jesus means you are magically immune to suffering, you're wrong.

“Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you. Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering. And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you.”

God will finish the world he made good but not yet perfect. That's inevitable. We can be part of the solution or part of the problem. And we will suffer as we are opposed by those who are part of the problem. Because they don't see themselves as part of the problem. They see themselves as good guys, though their definition of whom they need to be good to is limited. We need to keep our eyes on the goal, the kingdom of God, where you will not find those who glory in their own strength or intelligence or resources or charisma, but rather those who realize their spiritual poverty, who mourn now, who are humble, who hunger and thirst for righteousness, who are merciful, whose hearts God has purified, who are peacemakers, who suffer for doing the right thing. And we must trust that, like any worthwhile endeavor, all the pain and hard work will be worth it, when we see what we have been a part of—what no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has imagined, the things God has prepared for those who love him.

Beyond the Law

The scriptures referred to are 14:15-21.

My wife was talking on the phone to someone when she mentioned an upside to our enforced sheltering in place 24/7. “At least we know that when we both retire we won't kill each other.”

And part of that is that we both enjoy watching other people kill each other. That is, British people. We spend most evenings consuming British entertainment and they either involve a person traveling through time and space in a blue box or one of the many British detectives tracking down that small island nation's innumerable murderers. And apparently it is a requirement that every person promoted to detective be (a) psychologically damaged, (b) have a dark secret in their past, and/or (c) be willing to break the rules to catch the killer. And apparently the laws in the UK do not throw out evidence obtained through illegal searches without warrants or confessions beaten out of suspects. At least that's what one would conclude from these shows.

The cop who breaks the rules is such a cliche in cop and detective shows that I find it refreshing when they present someone who can do the job while remaining within the law, like Deputy Police Chief Brenda Johnson in The Closer. In fact she knew the law so well, she could use it to snare otherwise very clever criminals on little known points of the law.

Let's face it: in real life we don't want the police or indeed any government officials to feel free to break the law when it suits them. Rule of law is essential to a society running smoothly and justly. We do not live in a time of kings who rule by divine right and whose will is the law. The framers of our Constitution specifically set up our government to avoid that.

That said, the people who put together our Constitution did not cover every possible eventuality. They gave Congress the power to set up a postal service but didn't specifically say they must do so, nor that mail needs to be delivered to every address in the US, however remote. Yet not to do so would favor those in urban areas and really hurt those of us who live in rural areas. Imagine if people didn't receive their Social Security checks or other payments or jury summons or other governmental notices or their medicine in the mail because it was not convenient or profitable to do so. Rigid adherence to what is federally mandated and not going one step beyond would be unfair to an awful lot of the people in this country.

Applying laws to certain specific circumstances can be tricky. In general, we don't want vehicles to speed on our roads. Yet we make exceptions for police cars and emergency vehicles. But what if a passenger in your car suddenly clutches his chest and says he is in pain and can't breathe? You might feel that as a matter of life or death this justifies you going over the speed limit provided you don't endanger your passenger or other vehicles on the road. And if a cop pulled you over and judged that your passenger was indeed having a heart attack, he might tell you to follow him and give you tacit permission to break the speed limit at that time without fear of arrest. Officers do have a measure of discretion in such matters.

The Bible contains a great many laws and commandments and we are enjoined to obey them. Yet even the Bible gives examples of instances when certain moral values override the law. When on the run from King Saul and hungry, David and his men took and ate the showbread in the tabernacle which only the priests were supposed to eat. Peter and John preached about Jesus even though the authorities specifically told them not to, the two disciples saying they must obey God rather than men. Jesus routinely healed on the Sabbath, which his opponents considered a violation of the fourth commandment. To be sure, he didn't consider healing others as work, which would be prohibited, but as acts of compassion, similar to rescuing an animal in distress. It seems common sense to us but to some people all laws are equal in value and must be obeyed whatever the consequence.

Paul wrote of he and his colleagues being “servants of a new covenant, not based on the letter but on the Spirit, for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (2 Corinthians 3:6) He is not advocating living without laws but if all laws must be observed strictly, you will fall afoul of them and thus technically be an outlaw. Have you ever gone over the speed limit when not transporting a dying friend to the ER? Have you ever failed to put on your blinker before turning? Have you ever ridden your bicycle on the wrong side of the road or failed to stop as a car must in the same situation? Have you ever downloaded music or printed copyrighted material without permission or compensating the creators? Our body of laws is so extensive that one civil rights lawyer reckons that the average person breaks 3 laws a day!

Jesus and Paul are not against following the commandments per se but are against extensions and interpretations of the commandments that get wrong the Spirit behind them. Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount does give interpretations and extensions that get it right. For instance, he feels it is not enough to merely prohibit murder but we should go all the way back to the root of violence, which is being angry with others to the point of diminishing who they are: your beloved sibling in the faith or a person created in God's image. And some thought that the corollary to the command to “love your neighbor” was “hate your enemy.” But Jesus says the logical extension is to love your enemy as well. Paul is not against Jewish Christians following their laws about diet and circumcision but against them expanding them to be mandatory on Gentile Christians. That goes against the whole purpose of Jesus dying on the cross for our sins and the Spirit of the good news of God's forgiveness and grace.

It's not that laws are inherently bad and should be gotten rid of. Jesus and Paul are not advocating anarchy or lawlessness. But the law needs something else: the Spirit.

In our gospel passage Jesus, on the very night he will be betrayed, talks about both his commandments and the Spirit. Because as his disciples we need both. We cannot hope to obey his commandments without the help of the Spirit. Conversely, Jesus' commandments help us know if we are being guided by the Holy Spirit or by our own natural inclinations. Urges to hate our enemies or the enemies of Christ or to use violence against them do not come from the Spirit of God. For that matter we mustn't use the law as an excuse not to help people. Jesus, as we said, did not let the Sabbath rules keep him from healing people or the disciples from preparing themselves a meal. The law should not be used to harm people or to avoid meeting their needs.

The Spirit not only helps us obey Jesus' commands to love God and love one another properly, he helps us when we have to go beyond the actual words of the commands. How do we show such love, especially in situations not covered by scripture? For instance, I have talked about how during times of persecution, especially under the emperor Decius, Christians were required to make a sacrifice to the emperor as a god or suffer imprisonment and even death. Some Christians defied this imperial law and suffered because of it. However, some church members tried to get around it, by paying someone to impersonate them and do the sacrifice in their name, or else they just bribed officials so they could have a certificate of sacrifice as proof. Some fled the cities where the sacrifices were required. But some did do the sacrifice so as not to suffer. After the persecutions were over, some of the people who did these things wanted to return to the church. But other Christians, who had been imprisoned or tortured, or who lost family in the persecutions, were adamant that these cowards remain excommunicated.

What should the church do? On the one hand, these people had not stood up as witnesses to Christ. Some had actually renounced the faith. Jesus warned the disciples about persecution and told them that the one who persevered to the end would be saved. (Mark 13:13)

And yet forgiveness is a defining characteristic of God, of Jesus and of his followers. Peter denied Jesus at his trial and after the resurrection, Jesus reconciled with him. (John 18:17-27; 21:15-17) Jesus told the disciples to forgive someone who had wronged them 70 times 7. (Matthew 18:21-22) He also said that only blaspheming the Spirit was an unforgivable sin. (Mark 3:20-30)

So a conflict arose. Some bishops would allow those who had merely bought a certificate without actually doing the sacrifice back into the church after a period of penance, usually 40 days. Those who had done the sacrifice could be readmitted to the church only when they were at the point of death. Lapsed clergy could be readmitted but were stripped of their offices permanently. Different bishops dealt with the problem in different ways, some harsher, some more tolerant. In some places, like Egypt, Rome and North Africa, the local diocese split. Eventually the position that people could be readmitted to the church after a penitential period of anywhere from 3 to 5 years prevailed.

Essentially the conflict was between those who wanted the church to be the pure bride of Christ in the present age (Ephesians 5:25-27) and those who looked to Jesus' parable of how the Kingdom of God is like a field where weeds are growing up among the wheat and which is which will be sorted out at the last judgment. (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43) One vision was of the church as the spiritually and morally elite and the other of the church as a community that welcomes and forgives repentant sinners and helps them grow into the likeness of Christ. The latter approach won out and I think the Spirit was moving the church in that direction.

That said, I don't think that means the bishops and priests and theologians on the other side were not hearing the Spirit. We don't want to condone immorality or moral cowardice among followers of Jesus. For instance, we don't want churches to shield pedophiles. What good is a church that does not hold us to higher standards? If you have diabetes, you shouldn't go to a doctor who says, “You're fine the way you are. You don't have to stop eating certain foods or exercise or consider taking medicine that will reduce your scarily high blood sugar.” On the other hand, you wouldn't want a hospital to refuse to admit you because you are too sick and will make its statistics on the health of its patients go down. As Jesus said, it is precisely the sick who need the doctor to call on them. (Matthew 9:12)

The word used of the Holy Spirit in our passage from John is translated “advocate” but it has a lot of other meanings, like “advisor,” “counselor” and “helper.” The law, with its description of how one should behave perfectly, is like a medical text telling you what your BMI and heart rate and blood pressure and blood sugar should be. But you need more than mere words to achieve that. You need someone like a doctor or health coach to help you get there. That's what the Holy Spirit is like. Or to change the metaphor, let's say the law is like a map of Mt. Everest. That's essential if you're going to climb it but that alone won't get you to the top. For one thing no map can show you all of the challenges and obstacles you will encounter on the way. You need a guide or sherpa to help you get to the summit. That's what the Spirit is like.

Jesus wants us to obey his commandments to love God and love each other. But we can't do that on our own. So he sends us his Spirit to help and advise and guide us, even when we must go beyond the specifics mentioned in the Bible. If we listen to him and trust him, he will show us how to get through dangerous and unfamiliar terrain. And when we do fail, he is our advocate. He knows our hearts and God's heart and intercedes for us. (Romans 8:26, 27) Of course we need to admit when we are wrong or have sinned. But, unlike what some people think, including a disturbing number of Christians, God is extremely forgiving. As it says in 1 John, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9) All unrighteousness, not just some. And, yes, God wants us to be pure, but we can't purify ourselves. Only he can.

The law shows us how we should act. It doesn't give us the ability to do so. That comes from God's Spirit. And that is the freedom Paul speaks of: freedom to do the right thing even when on the surface it looks like it goes against the law. It's the freedom Jesus exercised when a strict reading of the law would have kept him from meeting basic human needs, like restoring others to health. It is the freedom to put the good of people over everything that insists it is actually more important than people.

And Jesus knew we would encounter situations that the written Word of God doesn't explicitly cover. Like today, when we find ourselves trying to figure out how during this pandemic we can both make a living and go on living, how we can feed our family and serve others without endangering either. Which is why we need to listen to someone who is wiser, who has the good of everyone in mind, whom we can trust: the Spirit of God who made us in his image, who gives us life, who produces in us love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, which no law can provide and which no good law prohibits.

Toys, Trash and Holiness

The scriptures referred to are 1 Peter 2:2-10 and Acts 7:55-60.

My earliest memory is standing on a pew in church. Everyone is singing a hymn which I don't know and so I sing a song I do know: “Old MacDonald Had A Farm.” My mom, who could still hear in those days, looks down from her hymnal and smiles at me. So I was really surprised when a recent episode of Young Sheldon depicted the same situation and the same song! I guess I'm not the only kid who came up with that solution.

My mother is a large reason that I not only have gone to church most of my life but in a way, why I see Christianity as I do. When we were small my parents attended a Disciples of Christ church a block and a half from our home. At some point we stopped going to church at all. I don't know why. My mom did read the New Testament to us at bedtime. Then about the time my brother and I were approaching our “tweens” my mom felt we should be part of a church so we shopped around and ended up in a Presbyterian church. There my brother and I were baptized. We went to Sunday school and I sang in the choir and participated in the youth group. I got into theology, again thanks to my mother who lent me a copy of The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. His writings greatly influenced how I see God and the world. I decided I wanted to go into the ministry and again my mom guided me, finding Wheaton College. My path to becoming clergy got interrupted for a while by marriage and kids but I went into nursing, my mother's profession. A lot of what I am is due to my mother.

Mothers not only give birth to us; they have a large influence on our lives. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's mother was a natural storyteller, raising him on tales of brave knights and chivalry. Later, when he was a successful author, Doyle felt that the Sherlock Holmes stories was keeping him from writing greater, more important works but he delayed killing off the great detective because his mother really liked the character. The prayers and piety of St. Augustine's mother, Monica,was a big reason he didn't dismiss Christianity out of hand when he taught philosophy. He eventually did become a Christian and he wrote his great book, The Confessions, in response to her death. And of course, Mary was able to get a reluctant Jesus to save the wedding at Cana by turning water into wine. It's hard to say “no” to Mom.

According to data from the Pew Research Center, mothers are much more influential in shaping their children's religion than their fathers. More than half of all Americans raised in interfaith families follow their mother's faith; less than 1/3 practice their father's religion. Indeed women are, in the words of the Christian polling company Barna, the backbone of US churches. They keep things running. In fact, in view of how good having an active faith is for both one's physical and mental health, I wonder if that is a factor in women living longer than men on average. And conversely, do men's consistently lower involvement in religious activities have an effect on their lower life expectancy, not to mention their greater rates of criminal activity and incarceration?

That said, you can lead a child towards faith but you cannot make them partake of it. You can teach them the rituals but it is harder to impart the substance of belief. Bonnie and Clyde both had very religious mothers. One member of their gang was surprised that the infamous couple said their prayers before bedtime. That didn't stop them from violating most of the commandments, especially those against stealing and murder. And it didn't help that their mothers never refused gifts from Bonnie and Clyde, despite knowing they were bought with ill gotten gains that often cost lives. Did they never talk to their kids about the numerous Bible passages where Jesus and the prophets decry empty religious rituals that are detached from moral behavior? It doesn't look like they modeled or expected them to live lives where belief resulted in changed behavior.

Consistency between what you believe and how you live is a hallmark of holiness. Today's passage from 1 Peter twice calls us to be holy. In verse 5 it says, “like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” And in verse 9 we read, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” We are called not merely to worship and praise God but to be like God. You know, holy.

The Greek word for “holy” means “consecrated” or “set aside for God's purposes.” We don't use the communion chalice for coffee hour. We only use it for its sacred purpose: to contain the wine for the Eucharist. And in the same way we are to be holy in the sense of being set apart for God's purposes.

I found an illustration of this in, of all places, the Pixar movie Toy Story 4. The plot revolves around a new toy created by the little girl Bonnie during craft time in Kindergarten. She makes him out of a plastic spork and pipe cleaners and popsicle sticks. She calls him Forky and when she writes her name on his foot, he becomes alive. She gets upset whenever she can't find him. But Forky thinks that he is just a disposable piece of trash and keeps trying to throw himself away. Woody, the sheriff doll, must convince him that he is now Bonnie's favorite toy.

As 1 Peter says, “You are a chosen race...” God chooses us, not because of any obvious outward merit on our part, but because of his gracious love for us. And he has chosen us to be a “holy priesthood.” Now what does that mean? Priests basically connect people to God. When people are alienated from God, priests help reconcile them. They reassure them of God's love. They help them pray to God. They help them repent or change their thoughts and behavior so as to be in harmony with God's ways. They help them in their everyday walk with God.

At the time 1 Peter was written the Christian church didn't have priests. The first “ordained” order of clergy was that of deacons, like Stephen in our reading from Acts. Deacons were appointed to do frontline charitable work. They originally did the food distribution to the poor. (Act 6:1-6) The next order to be created was the bishops. They oversaw the house churches and presided over the Eucharist and baptisms. When Christianity spread to the point that a city would have several churches, more than the bishop could lead worship at on any given Sunday, from among the elders of a local parish one would be chosen to act in the bishop's stead. He represented the bishop to the people and represented the people to the bishop. It is from the Greek word for elder, presbuteros, that we get the word “priest.” You could be forgiven for thinking of the priest as kinda like the local branch manager of the church and the bishop as the district manager. Deacons are in charge of special projects and in some cases can act as assistant manager.

Unfortunately people came to delegate to the priest all their religious duties, aside from showing up on Sunday for worship. And, yes, it makes sense to have someone with specialized education and training in charge of certain functions in the church. And, no, you don't want everyone baptizing whoever they decide in whatever way they want or for everyone to preside over their own private Eucharist, so they need not meet with and commune with other Christians. But just because we reserve some things to the clergy that doesn't mean everyone else is off the hook in terms of serving other people in Jesus' name.

Luther called it “the priesthood of all believers.” We are to represent Christ to all we encounter. We have been adopted as God's children and people expect us to act like him. And they are quick to notice when we act in un-Christlike ways. In which case, we drive people away from God. That is the opposite of the purpose for which he called us.

As a priest presents the body and blood of Christ to us, we are to present Christ to others in concrete ways. God knew we needed more than mere words and so his Word became flesh and lived among us. (John 1:14) We need to show God's love with more than just flowery sentiments. As James says, “And if a brother or sister is naked and in lack of daily food, and one of you tells them, 'Go in peace, be warmed and filled,' and yet you didn't give them the things the body needs, what good is it? Even so, faith, if it has no works, is dead in itself.” (James 2:15-17) We need to show God's love and care in food pantries and homeless ministries and parish nurses and community gardens and addiction ministries and outreach to those who are sick or immigrants or in jail. Jesus didn't just preach but healed and fed people as well. We must not neglect the material needs of people. The physical gives form to the spiritual and the spiritual gives meaning to the physical. We must minister to the whole person.

In fact, at a recent video conference put on by the Humanitarian Disaster Institute, at my old alma mater, Wheaton College, they came up with a fairly comprehensive approach to this crisis. Their step by step manual for giving spiritual and emotional care during a disaster is based on what they call the BLESS method. They break down the 5 core needs as Belonging or relationships, Livelihood or health and finances, Emotional or mental health, Safety or issues of violence, self-harm, and suicide, and Spiritual or what they call meaning-making and religious behaviors. It gives practical ways to help remotely as well as agencies to contact should matters require what you can't personally provide. You can check it out at spiritualfirstaidhub.com. What I like is that it covers just about everything.

Another thing we should do as a royal priesthood is to intercede for all people with God our King. Prayer is no substitute for action as James pointed out. But prayer does things other than just let God know what is on our mind. It makes us look at what's in our hearts. And it reminds us that we are to not only pray for friends and loved ones but also that we are to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. (Luke 6:27-28). In the Lord's Prayer, Jesus taught us to say, “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” (Luke 11:4) Remember Jesus prayed on the cross for those who were in the process of crucifying him. (Luke 23:34) So, yes, God wants you to pray even for politicians and people on Facebook and Uncle Bob and Aunt Heather, with whom you disagree sharply. It's a good spiritual discipline.

Is that too difficult? Remember we associate priests with making sacrifices and sure enough our passage says that as a holy priesthood we are “to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” What kind of sacrifices? In Hebrews, we are told, “And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.” (Hebrews 13:16) But it goes deeper than that. In Romans, Paul says, “Therefore I exhort you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice—alive, holy, and pleasing to God—which is your reasonable service.” (Romans 12:1) Rather than offering a dead animal, we offer our living selves, body and soul, to God. As Jesus put it, we are to disown ourselves and take up our cross and follow him. We give up all rights to ourselves and dedicate ourselves to serving God.

There is an Old Testament precedent for this. When the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, God finally got Pharaoh to let them go after the death of the first-born. The Hebrews were to sacrifice a lamb, smear its blood on the doorframes of the house so that death would pass over the family. Thereafter, all the firstborn of Israel were considered God's. So each one had to be redeemed with a sacrifice (Exodus 13:2, 13) as we saw Mary and Joseph do with Jesus. (Luke 2:22-24) The firstborn was kind of living sacrifice to God, dedicated to his service.

We tend to think of sacrifice in terms of giving stuff up. But that is only part of the story. In English the word “sacrifice” comes from 2 Latin words that literally mean “to make sacred or holy.” That is why Paul talks of us being living sacrifices. We don't give up our lives as in giving up our existence but as in giving up our self-centered lives and letting them be made into Christ-centered lives.

The problem with living sacrifices, someone joked, is that they tend to keep crawling off the altar. In Toy Story 4, Forky keeps throwing himself in wastebaskets. At one point he deliberately gets lost while the family is on vacation and despite the possibility that he too will be lost and separated from Bonnie forever, Woody goes after him. Woody has to convince him to give up the idea that he is trash and accept that he is now a beloved toy whose new purpose in life is to play with and be enjoyed by Bonnie.

A lot of people in this world think others are trash and are not shy about telling them so. And if you hear it enough, you can start believing it about yourself. But no mother wants her child to think of him- or herself as trash. And the best way I can think of to change that is to bring them to a community where they are recognized as beloved children of God, created in his image to enjoy him forever and therefore having inherent worth. And that inherent worth is reinforced by the fact that, as any parent would, God paid the ultimate price to save us. Jesus gave his life to give us life.

We all want our kids to be the best that they can be. We want them to be good and do good. And so does God. He wants to make us “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people.” At the end of Toy Story 4, we see a group of toys who dedicate themselves to helping other toys find kids to love them. And that's what God wants us to do: to go into the world to find those who are lost, who consider themselves trash and reveal their true purpose and bring them to the One who made them and loves them and want to enjoy them forever.

Suffering

The scriptures referred to are 1 Peter 2:19-25.

A sadist and a masochist are talking about their fetishes. And the masochist is saying, “Pinch me! Slap me! Hit me! Please! I want to suffer!”

And the sadist says, “No.”

Aside from a few people like that, no one really wants to suffer. We spend much of our lives avoiding suffering. But sometimes you can't avoid it. Like now. Extroverts are suffering because socializing in person can be dangerous and they must stay home. Grandparents are suffering because they don't know when it will be safe for the grandkids to visit. Business owners are suffering because they are worried that their businesses might be closed for good. Their employees are suffering because paychecks have stopped and getting unemployment is both difficult and inadequate for their basic needs. People who are chronically ill with other things are suffering from fear of getting the coronavirus. People who are coming down with something are suffering because they are afraid they might have COVID-19. People with confirmed cases of the virus are suffering not only from the fever and breathing problems but also because they know they might die. The patients' families are suffering because they can't be at their bedsides. Chaplains and clergy are suffering because they can't be there for their people physically. Doctors and nurses and EMTs are suffering because they are overwhelmed and because they can't save everyone.

Suffering is a part of this life. And I've never understood the people who think that the fact of suffering somehow disproves the existence of God, because the Bible totally acknowledges the existence of suffering. In fact there is a whole book in the Bible about a man suffering without deserving it. Besides Job, the topic comes up in Ecclesiastes and Proverbs and the Psalms. All four gospels lead up to the horrific suffering of Jesus, during which he cries, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

And no facile answers are given. Yes, there are passages which, taken out of context, seem to imply that suffering is tied to sin. Which is sometimes true. Bad behaviors take a toll on us. Many of the leading causes of death can be tied to bad habits. Lots of lives are cut short by smoking, drinking, recreational drugs, overeating and not eating healthy foods. And most people spend the last years of their lives sick.

But that's not the only reason we suffer. Of a disaster, Jesus said, “Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower in Siloam fell on them, do you think they were worse offenders than all the others who live in Jerusalem?” (Luke 13:4) No, he said. And when his disciples asked him if a man was born blind because of some sin he or his parents committed, Jesus again said no, seeing it instead as an opportunity to use God's glorious power to heal him. (John 9)

If you ignore these sayings of Jesus, you might get the impression that all suffering is a judgment from God. Even Job wants to take up his cause with God, not Satan. And some parts of the Hebrew Bible seem to lay everything at God's feet. In Isaiah 45:7 it says, “I am the one who forms light and creates darkness; the one who brings about peace and creates calamity. I am the Lord, who accomplishes all these things.” More literal translations render the Hebrew word for “calamity” as “evil.” So does God create evil?

First let's look at the context. Isaiah is addressing Cyrus the Great whom God has chosen to release his people from their exile in Babylon. Cyrus is a Persian and thus believes in Zoroastrianism. In that religion there is a good god named Ahura Mazda, who is opposed by the destructive spirit Angra Mainyu. The good god knows all but is not all powerful. Isaiah is saying that unlike Ahura Mazda,Yahweh is omnipotent. He is ultimately in charge of everything. And he takes responsibility for everything, even things he didn't directly cause, the way shadows are caused by the presence of light.

Look at it this way. Falls are the leading cause of fatal injury and the most common cause of nonfatal trauma-related hospitalizations among older adults. Each year they result in 2.8 million injuries treated in emergency rooms, 800,000 hospital admissions, and more that 27,000 deaths. While poor vision, tripping over stuff, and unwise use of ladders are usually factors in falls, the ultimate cause of hitting the ground is gravity. Get rid of gravity and no one falls. Of course, gravity also keeps us from being flung into space from a planet spinning at 1000 miles an hour. Gravity is essential but it has some potentially unpleasant side effects. And ultimately gravity comes from our Creator. So if you eliminate all the intermediate steps you could say that the reason grandma broke her hip is because of God. But that would be grossly reductive.

In the days and culture in which the Bible was written, the true complexity of the world was not known. If Genesis 1 started with a rigorous description of creation according to our current state of knowledge, it would sound like gibberish to Bronze Age people and would not have been preserved. For that matter, if you talked about quarks and mesons and quantum foam to Isaac Newton he would stare at you as if you were barking mad. So in earlier times people tended to go right from an event to God as the ultimate cause of everything. The idea of impersonal causes and forces had not yet arisen. And the Bible has to work with that very basic understanding the way you would explain to a child why their cat died. Rather than launch into a scientifically valid but to them incomprehensible discussion of feline leukemia, you'd say. “Fluffy is with God now.” It's not wrong but neither is it an exhaustive explanation of exactly what happened.

As children grow they can handle more information and complexity. In the same way, the Bible reveals more about God as it progresses from Abraham and the nomadic tribes in Canaan around 2000 BC to the Greco-Roman civilization 2 millennia later. So, as we said, Jesus doesn't hold that all suffering is a direct punishment from God. And his approach is not to try to puzzle out why bad things happen to certain people but to help them. He sees people who are sick and he heals them. He sees people who are hungry and he feeds them. He sees people who are ignorant and he teaches them. Jesus is very practical.

And as his followers that is the approach we should take in the face of suffering. And that is the way the church has traditionally dealt with suffering. When plagues broke out in the ancient world, the rich fled the cities which were rife with the disease, but Christians stayed and took care of the sick and dying at a very real risk to their lives. This is one of the things that changed the way pagans saw Christianity. But of course, the knowledge of exactly what caused epidemics was nonexistent.

By 1527, it was understood that a person could spread disease to others, so when a plague hit Wittenberg Martin Luther wrote to a fellow clergyman, “ I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance inflict and pollute others and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me and I have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me however I shall not avoid place or person but will go freely as stated above. See this is such a God-fearing faith because it is neither brash nor foolhardy and does not tempt God.” Notice that Luther speaks of purifying the air. In that era the invisible agent that caused illness was thought to be bad air, miasma. They didn't yet know the cause but they acted on what they did know, just as the good Samaritan washed the beaten man's wounds with wine and olive oil, not knowing they had a mild antibacterial quality.

In 1665 plague was again sweeping Europe. In the village of Eyam in England, the church rector and the ejected Puritan minister got together and convinced the town to quarantine itself. They did this for 14 months and 273 people out of their population of 350 died. But they kept the plague from spreading to the surrounding countryside and neighboring towns. They made great sacrifices to do what is right.

The first several generations of Christians also made painful sacrifices to do what is right. In their case what was causing suffering and death was not a virus but an emperor who thought he was a god. That is why our passage in 1 Peter is talking about suffering unjustly. He is talking about the kind of suffering that comes from people deliberately harming others without good cause. It could be a bully or a criminal. But at the time of its writing 1 Peter is referring to official opposition to preaching and practicing Christianity. Those in power don't like rivals. Even though he never let himself be officially called an emperor, Augustus was ruthless in eliminating rival politicians. He wasn't declared a god until after his death. Eventually his successors did him one better. They proclaimed themselves gods in this life and didn't tolerate people who wouldn't worship them. They demanded sacrifices. Most polytheistic religions had no problem with this. They could just add another niche to their pantheon.

Jews absolutely refused to do this and so the empire reluctantly let them stick with their one God. It was an uneasy relationship that did not end well. But at first Christians were viewed as just another school of Judaism, like the Pharisees or Sadducees. However, as the two faiths began to clearly distinguish themselves from each other, Christians were seen as practicing an illegal religion. And by refusing to make a sacrifice to the deified emperor, they were regarded as traitors. And we all know what the penalty for treason is.

So Christians faced a stark choice: remain faithful to Jesus and undergo imprisonment and torture, or renounce their faith and make a sacrifice to the emperor. They would also be asked to name and implicate other Christians. If they refused, they could be executed. So our epistle tells them, “But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God's approval. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.”

“For to this you have been called...” The situation in which Christians found themselves was not a fluke. When Jesus said that those who choose to follow him must take up their cross, he wasn't being metaphorical. That was literally the ultimate penalty which those in power would impose on them. The Roman empire did not ban crucifixion until the 4^th century, when Constantine, the first Christian emperor, outlawed it. And even before that the Romans had other inventive ways of executing people, like feeding them to wild beasts as public entertainment. Christians who were Roman citizens, like the apostle Paul, were given the more humane death of beheading.

But crucifixion did not go away. In Japan in 1597 as part of the imperial effort to suppress Christianity, 26 Christians were crucified in Nagasaki. Hundreds more followed in the next century. Crucifixion is still legal in Saudi Arabia and has been used in 2012 in Yemen and in 2014 in Syria by ISIS, though the executed are not necessarily Christians. The idea has always been to cause a painful and humiliating death and to serve as a warning to others.

But let's go back to the fact that Christians are called to suffer for their faith. Imagine Jesus coming today and preaching that. How many megachurches do you think he could establish with that message? How often do prosperity preachers tell their congregations that God calls them to suffer if necessary for doing the right thing?

What's sad is how many Christians feel that not being allowed to be the dominant religion in the US anymore is somehow the equivalent of persecution. That disrespects our brothers and sisters in Christ who live in countries where they really are in danger of arrest and even execution.

Yet the fact remains that doing the right thing can lead to opposition even in our country. And Christians can't wimp out when doing what is right becomes hard or costly. I have a colleague who was arrested for being part of a ministry that feeds the homeless. The mayor and commissioners of Ft. Lauderdale tried to stop him and his coworkers. Volunteers for the faith-based ministry No More Deaths have been arrested and even convicted for leaving food and water in the desert of southern Arizona to prevent the deaths of hundreds of migrants by dehydration and starvation. Teresa Todd (no relation) of Marfa, Texas stopped to let 3 migrants, 2 brothers and their seriously ill sister, sit in her car while she texted a friend and lawyer who works for the Border Patrol for advice. The 18 year old girl was near death, suffering from dehydration and the resulting death of muscle tissue. Then a local police car stopped and the officer put Todd, a 4-time county and city attorney, under arrest. She is under federal investigation for human smuggling. Todd said, “It makes people have to question, 'Can I be compassionate?'” Imagine if Jesus' parable ended with the Good Samaritan being arrested for saving the life of the man he found left for dead.

Most people are not monsters. They will do the right thing most of the time...provided it's not too inconvenient or too costly. But if it takes too much of their time or their money or they have to give up some control over what happens to them, they will pull back. Compare this to what our passage says about Jesus: “When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.” We have to trust God to make things right, but not necessarily in this life.

Real change takes going beyond doing just a little. Teresa Todd is now working with elected officials from both parties to change the law so that good Samaritans are not punished for helping suffering people, regardless of their immigration status. Martin Luther King Jr. suffered jail and even death to change unjust laws. Women demonstrated, were jailed, went on hunger strikes, were force fed and worse till they got the vote in 1920. Women of color had to wait even longer.

When Jesus said, “If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me,” (Mark 8:34) he meant it literally. The church eventually adopted the cross, not as bling, but as a symbol of our faith in a God who suffered for our sins to save us from suffering. The early Christians followed in Jesus' steps and their compassion won people to a faith that meets suffering head-on. Let's not drop the ball on this. Whatever the cost to us, let us, in the words of the old hymn, “Lift high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim, till all the world adore his sacred name.”