May 5, 2002 -- SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
1 Peter 3:13-22
Color: White
Title: “Fear of God causes one to respond rather than react.”
The author is convinced that how a Christian behaves in the face of injustice, especially personal injustice done to that Christian, is so powerful an example that it has a good chance to cause the perpetrator to change and accept Christ. Because a Christian would respond to injustice so differently from a non-Christian, respond by patient endurance and non-retaliation, that in itself might be enough to get the unjust one to think twice. Absent that, it will certainly cause others who witness the Christian response to personal injustice to either convert to Christ or, at least, start asking questions regarding the power behind such a response.
Because the Christian knows that no real harm, no ultimate harm, can come to him or her at the hands of humans, the Christian bears the injustice with grace, knowing that it is temporary and that God will ultimately right all wrongs. The Christian can wait because the Christian hopes. Also, most Christians grow to realize that what God is doing is building the Christian’s character rather than changing others or conditions and circumstances.
In verse fourteen, “But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated.”
This is a quote from Is8: 12 where it reads, “Do not fear what they fear.” Here it means, “Be fearless because of your fear of God.” The first meaning of fear is the normal one, namely, that human emotional reaction in the face of one more powerful, provoking dread, impending doom or harm or cowering or shrinking and the impetus to either run or stay and fight. The author says that a Christian can be spared that experience, not have to “suffer” fear, if he or she is “conscious of God” (2:19) because that fear, fear of God, so much more powerful than an army of humans, leaves no room in the person for fear of anything else. When one is conscious of how awesome God is, capable of crushing, even annihilating, yet merciful, there is no more emotion left to be afraid of humans or of life. Fear of God, consciousness of him, fills one’s mind and heart, reveals how “small,” other threats really are, puts all things in perspective, and empowers a Christian to behave with courage. Where others might see threats, where others might be stymied by them, the Christian walks fearlessly right through them, or, if stopped, patiently puts up with them, and then continues walking.
In verse fifteen, “but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you.”
“Is8: 13 reads, “the Lord…you shall call holy.” The author replaces “Lord” with “Christ” here. “Sanctify” means “acknowledge as holy.” There is always a connection between “feelings of fear” and “the holy.” At first “the holy” provokes the emotional reaction of fear, but if the person stays with it and listens to the experience, becomes familiar with the experience, the fear subsides and awe rises. Recognizing Christ as just such an experience, recalling all he did and does, reduces fear of humans either to virtual non-existence or to such a degree that the fear does not significantly affect behavior. Fear of humans happens in the “profane” realm where they appear to have real power. Fear of God or God as Christ happens in the “holy” realm where the “profane” is canceled out.
“Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope.” By ‘hope’ the author means the same thing as Paul means by “faith,” the eternal vision and version of reality. Since this vision is invisible, but the behavior that flows from it is not, Christians walk around like big question marks. People want to know the “secret,” that is, how do Christians behave so confidently in very scary situations? They want and need answers. How Christians respond to those questions could be the deciding factor as to whether they will accept Christ or not. So, it is crucial.
But do it with gentleness and reverence: Any hint of feelings of superiority or arrogance will destroy the answer’s power. “Reverence” translates the Greek phobos, “fear,” here meaning “fear of God or Christ.” If a Christian loses that sense of awe, of otherness, of transcendence, the answer will come out as just another human explanation for success in or control of a situation, and not be an answer from and of the Spirit.
Keeping your conscience clear: This certainly would be “being conscious of God” as well as behaving in accord with that awareness, so that one’s conscience is good (Greek agathe).
So that when maligned: The author sees it as inevitable that Christians will be maligned, falsely accused of bad motives, if not bad actions. It is simply the nature of the confrontation of “good” with evil. Evil’s final tactic, after all else has failed, is to accuse “good” of being of the same nature as evil itself.
Those who defame your good conduct: In the Synoptics those who accuse “good” deeds of being evil, or done by and under the power of evil, commit “unforgivable” sins, sins which cannot be repented of since they cannot be recognized as sins. Those who accuse good actions of being evil, or done under the influence of evil, will be put to shame in the final analysis, shown to have been so wrong. Until that final judgment, the intervening conduct of Christians in the face of false accusations and vindictive and retaliatory actions serves to reveal the lie of their false reports. Accusations against Christians are to be refuted not by legal arguments but by conduct. Christians are to remain innocent of any charges. However, it is not only conduct before the charges but conduct after the charges that will reinforce the verdict of innocence. True, the innocence of the accused Christian is paramount, but the Christian’s behavior toward the false accuser is also a key factor.
“For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil.” This sounds like a truism or a proverb, quoted in Christian circles, to encourage those who are suffering simply because they are Christians. Everyone suffers the consequences of living in a sinful world, a world gone awry. The difference is that some are innocent and some are guilty. Some cause and or deserve what they suffer. Thus, the proverb would go, since everybody suffers anyway, it is “better” to be innocent than guilty, that is, to suffer because of doing good than to suffer because of doing bad.
In verse eighteen, “For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.” What happened to the “better,” the benefits, of Christ’s innocent suffering? It is as if Christ said to God, “Take the plusses of my innocent suffering and apply them to the plus column of my friends and family, since I do not need any points myself, having suffered innocently.” It is a bit mathematical and all too calculating, but that’s pretty much the point here.
Put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the Spirit: It is as if God was so pleased and impressed by Jesus’ act of generosity, his willingness to suffer so that others might be free, to be a kind of hostage to free not the really innocent, but the really guilty, that God said, “I’ll do better than that. I will both accept your death as a ransom and I will restore your life as well. Just as you took on the sins of others and took away those sins from them, now you can replace that void, that death, with life, my life and yours. The life I give you, you can now share with them. I am that pleased by what you’ve done and the example you’ve shown.” If God is pleased with Christ because of his behavior, he will also be pleased with Christ’s followers who behave in similar ways and with similar attitudes. They do this because of being “in Christ,” and not only their “fleshly” power. Moreover, only Christ can atone for sins by his generous sacrifice. Christian behavior can only inspire others to accept Christ; it cannot save others as such.
Sermon
One does not have to be a Christian to suffer abuse. Abuse is rampant. Fundamentally, abuse proceeds from an attitude of superiority and ownership. Some people seem to think that others are in the world at their pleasure and for their pleasure. No one needs proof that this attitude has resulted in pretty much most of the harm done to people. Fortunately, some people with this attitude are not also violent. Nonetheless, there is a sense in which all abuse is, indeed, a form of violence, certainly violation of the reverence, respect and rights of others. Even verbal abuse, whether cursing or condemning others, is violent in a way. Shaming others certainly hurts and harms the fragile human being. These forms of violence and abuse and injustice are rampant, epidemic, and happen to all, Christian or not.
Yet, Christians are or can be targets for such abuse. Why? Because of goodness. At the root of the superior attitude, the attitude that I am the master and all others are the slaves, that I really own everything and you are either poaching on my property or are merely using my land with my permission, retractable at my leisure, is evil. At the root of the Christian is good. The Christian attitude is that the arrogant are right in a way, for I am nothing in and of myself. But I have been “adopted,” by Christ, given a name, put in God’s will, have an inheritance, and am worthwhile because of Christ. I own nothing on my own. I am a traveler here, a renter not an owner, passing through. I will serve you, meet your needs, but not because you demand it and I have no other choice, given your superior power, but because Christ, the love of my life, demands it. However, I will not serve your false needs, your need to be preened, primped and propped up.
When those two attitudes meet, there is a clash, frequently a crash. They just do not mix. Since the Christian is non-violent, he or she wants to make peace. The other attitude wants to wage war and does. There are no rules and so any accusation, any tactic, any strategy that evil wants to use, evil uses. This is what any Christian faces- then and now. The author writes to encourage us to be faithful. In effect, he says that we are not to be surprised that this happens. Just because we love everybody does not mean everybody loves us back. Nonetheless, the worst and most ineffective thing a Christian could do is to adopt the tactics of evil. The Christian should fight back with example. Following the example of Christ and bolstered by the example of those who do follow Christ’s example, is the strongest weapon in fighting evil and has the best chance of converting the evildoer. It is not a guarantee, for sure. It does not always work, but violence never works, really.
When a Christian does not return unkind for unkind, the perpetrator will frequently become more angry because they sense he or she is losing, and step up the injustices. That alone should be a sign to the Christian, namely, the increasing of the pressure, that the Christian is making a positive impact. Otherwise, why the increased opposition? By now there are just too many examples of good example on the part of Christian martyrs, both red and green martyrs, to not know that Christ’s ways really do work in the long run. It required strong faith in the days of Peter when Christians were first starting out, but by now we really know that Christ’s way works, only when tried, not automatically. So, there is a cost to discipleship. Being Christian not only does not remove suffering in life, it increases it. Yet, paradoxically, at the same time, being a Christian also relieves suffering, not only the suffering of others but also one’s own suffering. For the eternal awareness, being “conscious of God,” reveals earthly suffering to be temporary, that is, limited in duration, but also limited in scope. The truth is that as we concentrate on God, the eternal dimension, we lose human fear, which causes so much more suffering than anything else. Losing that fear or isolating it, confining it to its proper size, we can face opposition with patient endurance and both express and explain our lives to others without superiority or arrogance. We can face grace, receive grace and share grace. That makes us both gracious and graceful, attractive question marks to the world.
Being conscious of God so fills the human psyche so that there is no room left for fear of anything or anyone else.
Everyone suffers, but Christians can turn suffering into redemption, thanks to Christ.
The most powerful defense of Christianity is not argumentation but good example.
Being maligned or persecuted by worldly powers is a good sign of being on the right side of truth.
Levels of Fear: There is the emotion of fear, fear coming from the lower brain perceiving threat or attack. Then, there is the attitude of fear, really awe, coming from the higher brain perceiving mystery, the mystery of God’s presence, what Peter calls here “consciousness of God.” Emotional fear limits us, causes us to escape or try to, and even may paralyze us, causing us to freeze. Spiritual fear stretches us, causing us to expand both our intake of reality and our very spirits, connecting us with the limitless realm of God. Emotional fear co-opts our energy as well as diminishes our vision. Spiritual fear taps into energy we never knew even existed and expands our horizons to consider possibilities for responding we would otherwise have no hint of. Emotional fear is really unavoidable. Because our lower brain has but one agenda, namely, survival, it is always on the lookout for threats, dangers, pitfalls, potential or real, real or imagined. When not under the stimulus of threat, the lower brain seeks comfort at all costs, homeostasis, which is really the same thing as survival, only minus the urgency. The lower brain transmits first one message, namely “run for your life,” flight or, failing that, a second message, namely, “stay and fight,” fight for your life. The message, the good news, in this text is that there is an alternative. We are not surprised that those who are citizens of the new creation would have a new approach to an old creation problem. Peter knew from personal experience that when he let his emotional fear dominate his vision of reality and when he came under attack for being a follower of Christ, he cut and ran. He denied; he lied in order to get out of a tight spot. Any tactic is justified when it comes to survival or comfort. However, Peter learned the remedy for this shameful loss of personal dignity and integrity. He learned that if he concentrated on the fundamental reality of the new creation, namely, if he remained conscious of God, there was little room left in his consciousness to allow the earthly threat, the old creation threat, to dominate. Thus, he could respond rather than react. He could let the forces of evil attack him and yet remain spiritually unafraid because he was aware of the divine presence. The divine presence does not promise to protect us from what the old creation would consider to be “harm,” but to protect us in the midst of that harm as well as protect us from real eternal harm. Some eastern religions, like Buddhism and Hinduism, offer this same remedy, but they emphasize human effort in order to achieve a state of “uncaring,” or apathy or nirvana. Christianity differs. It is the very divine presence that causes the fearlessness, not the fearlessness that brings about the divine presence. This, like Buddhism, Zen, and other eastern religions, also requires discipline, focus, daily meditation, constant recalling the consciousness back to its center. However, at the center, the divine presence has always been there and is the very cause for the believer to re-center. The recall-er does not make God present, only recognizes his presence. That awareness can be so captivating, more correctly, liberating, that physical and emotional pain pale into relative insignificance and empowers the sufferer to endure the pain.
Witness: It is almost impossible to not admire a person who endures pain without lashing out at others or without blaming God for it. Even those inflicting pain on others are almost always forced to admire their victim’s stamina. At first, it may cause the inflictor to increase the pain or pressure, but eventually the evildoer tires of the exercise and quits. That spells victory for the one suffering unjustly. A synonym for “eternal,” might be “everlasting,” but a better one is “outlasting.” Christians can outlast their enemies, take their onslaughts and actually gain strength from the pain. When an evildoer starts admiring his or her victim, he or she is starting to hear the gospel message of non-retaliation and not far from accepting it. Not guaranteed, but more likely. Amen.
