“…for the hope that is in you”

(1 Peter 3:13-22)

Now, who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good?  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, 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, yet do it with gentleness and respect.  Maintain a good conscience so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame.  For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil.  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, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight lives, were saved through water.  And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.

              There are those who would read this scripture text and call it Pollyannaish.  I prefer to call it “taking the high road.”

              The author of the book of 1^st Peter is clearly interested in giving his community encouragement and guidelines for living.  Though it’s difficult to date the writing, it seems as though it could have been penned around the end of the first century, a time when the early Christians were getting tired of waiting for the end times.  They were waiting for Jesus to return, and it wasn’t happening.  They needed to know how to be in this business of being Christ’s followers for the long haul.  They needed words of encouragement to continue co-existing with one another.  They needed to be reminded to take the high road even when there were those who didn’t understand, those who would cause intimidation and suffering.  Sounds a little bit like today….

              So, we are asked in this reading and, then, answered, “Now, who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good?  But even if you suffer for doing what is right, you will be blessed.  Do not fear what they fear nor be intimidated…” 

These words tell us clearly that 50 or 60 years after Jesus walked the earth, the brothers and sisters in this community of folks who were influenced by Peter’s ministry, were remembering the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount.

“Who would harm you if you are eager to do what is good?”  Think, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”  “But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you will be blessed.”  Think, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.”  “Do not fear what they fear, nor be intimidated.”  Think, “Turn the other cheek.” 

These are difficult sayings to internalize, don’t you think?  Our ancestors in the faith had to be reminded of these teachings because the behaviors that we are being called to exhibit are almost unnatural to us human beings.

WE have to be reminded too.  1900 years later this is still very hard work.  We need to be nudged to take the high road in all our contacts with people.  It’s so much easier to go along in this world as they, the people in charge, want to throw every person whom “they” think of as “the other” in jail, as they call for an eye for an eye, as they get down and dirty, wanting revenge, screaming for blood. 

Let’s face it, it’s more natural for us humans  to live in fear than to reach out in love and concern for others, including strangers.  It’s a knee-jerk reaction to condemn someone without the facts, to refuse to do righteous acts because we’re afraid that we and our loved ones will be harmed.  It’s easier to sit on our hands rather than stand up for what is right.

Now, the thing is, we are not always going to agree on what we ought to stand up for.  We’re not going to always agree on what our nation ought to be doing or not doing in the world.  We’re not going to stand together on all things that this church and the larger Church does or does not do.

So, what CAN we agree on?  We can agree to honor Jesus Christ.  That’s what our author tells us: to defend to anyone his call on us to love and be compassionate, to hold out the hope that dwells within us because of the Gospel of Christ, and to do all this with gentleness and reverence.  These days, that’s hard. 

…I have told you about my brother.  He and I are what is left of the 4 children in my family.  He has been recently diagnosed with ALS.  He and I have been close over the years, and we also have had our differences.  We do have similar senses of humor and ways of loving people.  I do love that guy.

He is more conservative, perhaps even fundamentalist when it comes to our Christian faith, which I am not.  Some 40 years ago he questioned my call to ministry because I am a woman.  We used to argue about all the stuff that Christians can’t agree on such as creationism versus evolution.  All one of us had to do was drop a line and the other would take the bait, and we would be debating, one trying to best the other.  Then we would feel bad because the other was mad, and, since we loved each other, that didn’t feel right.

Things have been up and down for us, though back in the early 2000s we took a trip together, driving a vehicle to my son, Dylan, in Mississippi, and Dave and I didn’t have one disagreement on that trip.

As I seek to live a life dedicated to doing no harm, the words of today’s passage ring true for me: “…even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed.”  Now, the truth is that we CAN be hurt by others, but that’s not an excuse to go about doing harm to them, either pre-emptively or in return for their behavior.  Taking the high road, refusing to play dirty, will be a blessing in the long haul.  We won’t be living with the poison of resentment. Now, this is funny. ..Have you heard that resentment is like taking poison and expecting the other person to die?  If we take the high road, then, we will not be living with the guilt and shame of our own ugly behavior.

But, you may say, they deserved it.  And that can be true, but, if we read and spend some time with the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew, we will hear that Jesus said to turn the other cheek, to do no harm, to not live in fear or intimidation, to always hold on to the hope for transformation, our own and for those around us.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ has given us hope—hope for ourselves—that there is nothing that can separate us from God’s love in Christ.  But the Gospel gives us hope not only for ourselves, but also for others and our relationships with them.  We can witness to others by sharing our own stories of hope that are within us because the Jesus story has changed our lives.

And we will often find that our lives are enriched by allowing others to get close without our always thinking we have to push and shove folks toward Jesus.  Through our open-heartedness toward others, God’s love may just shine through brilliantly.

A story from our recent trip to Florida.  The groom’s father was a guy who talked all the time and put many of us off, finding ways to avoid him.  …This is a story about Rick.  He engaged this guy, Keith, in conversation and was able to find a topic that Keith wanted to talk about at length—fish and fishing.  Rick reports that he truly was interested and learned a lot, also reaching across the aisle to the other family, taking the high road….

So, these days my brother and I are doing as well as we can given the circumstances.  I am trying to reach into the deep well of God’s love in Christ.  I pray so, and, daily, I send my heart’s love to Dave.

Now, you may say, these days it’s next to impossible to take the high road.  I would agree with you when it comes to the decisions and behaviors that we see in our nation’s capital.  In those cases we need to stand up for justice and push back against laws and policies that harm “the least of these,” policies that are clearly motivated by hatred of “the other.” 

Today’s lesson for me is about how we conduct ourselves one on one or with other groups with whom we come in contact.  We are so divided these days that when we hear a buzz word that tells us someone is of a different persuasion than us, we immediately turn away and don’t try to connect.  We allow fear of the other to send us to our little caves with people who are like us.  Still, it is possible, I believe, to take the high road and conduct ourselves with gentleness and reverence while still holding our morals and ethics firm.  We can show those around us the hope that is within us since we belong to Christ.

Now, you can see that all this applies to Mother’s Day and the Festival of the Christian Home.  We know that no mother is perfect, as much as we would like to say so on this day.  But let’s own our ideal, and that is that a woman, parents, a family, takes seriously their responsibility to model love, not just for their immediate family, but for the whole human family.  We want our families to be built on God’s love!  We want to take the high road.  May it be so.                     

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