June 5, 2011

Seventh Sunday of Easter: I Peter 4:12-14 & 5:6-11.

Fiery Trials & Realistic Surprises

Do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that comes upon you! 

When really bad things happen, when our pet projects not only fail to make a big splash but shatter in pieces on the ground, when our efforts to move forward in constructive ways are blocked from every angle, not only by identified enemies but by people we might have expected to be friends and allies… let’s be honest, aren’t we taken aback, bewildered, more than a little bit surprised?  Even if we’re old hands, even if we’ve been around the block more than a few times, even when not many would count us naïve, don’t we have to blink and look again, don’t we have to pinch ourselves to make sure that we’re really awake, that such bad things are not a nightmare but are really happening?  The question ‘why’ is wrenched from our lips.  The Bible, First Peter gives more than one answer.

Surprise itself should not be astonishing.  A kind of cosmic optimism is built into our genes or at least into our psychological defenses.  Surely the universe runs on the principle ‘good for good; evil for evil’.  This conviction promises a certain amount of control over whether we have happy and satisfying lives: ‘do good that good may come!’  We need to believe that what we do can make a difference.  Parents, preachers and teachers use this maxim to stir up the lazy to take responsibility. ‘Good for good; evil for evil.’  If bad things happen, you only have yourself to blame!

And so, when really bad things happen, the principle ‘good for good; evil for evil’ sets us teeter tottering.  Our initial ‘why is this happening? I didn’t do anything wrong!’ crashes into the counter question ‘what did I do to deserve this?  Our need to believe that the universe is not morally chaotic thumps us down into self-blame and self-condemnation: ‘I didn’t think so, but I must be radically wrong or people wouldn’t be treating me this way!’

Do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that comes upon you!

First Peter is written to cheer the troops.  They were living in neighborhoods where Christianity was no more popular than Islam is in some parts of the United States today.  More than once, First Peter warns readers to be on their good behavior.  So far as possible, to be peaceable, law abiding citizens: don’t murder, steal, commit adultery, don’t get into drunken brawls; don’t do anything to bring the community negative publicity!  First Peter even counsels confidence in the fairness of the local authorities: ‘good for good; evil for evil’.  Fear God, honor the emperor!’  They will punish you only if you do something to deserve it.

Yet First Peter equivocates, because First Peter knows what we all know: this is not universally true.  Lying low isn’t always enough to quell suspicions.  Ethnic tensions splatter across our newspapers.  Even in the U.S. prisons can be brutal and the police sometimes make fatal mistakes.  Likewise in our social and work worlds, people have their own reasons for ‘getting us’.  When they find us inconvenient they are quite capable of exaggerating or twisting the facts, worst of all, of representing our good points as bad.

First Peter knows, ‘good for good; evil for evil is too simplistic.  Sometimes there is a plot complication.  Well-doing, loyalty to principle, faithfulness to Christ may bring on evil.  We should not be surprised because Christians are called to be like Christ.  Christ did good and died on a cross.  Really bad things happened to him precisely because he was doing good.  Christ took it patiently and persevered faithfully.  For that reason God vindicated him by raising him from the dead and exalting him to God’s right hand.  Christian realists should not be surprised by a Christ-shaped plot sequence; not ‘good for good’ evil for evil’ but ‘really bad for the really good; immeasurable good for enduring the really bad’!

The stakes are higher, the reversals more dramatic than we had imagined!  First Peter burrows down for an even deeper optimism: the really bad can actually be good for us.  We can be confident that the universe is not morally chaotic.  Everything happens within the framework of God’s providential plan.  God has chosen us to identify with Jesus, assigned us a common destiny.  When the really bad threatens us for doing what is right, this brings on ‘the hour of decision’: will we stick to our principles and stay the course, or will we give in, recant and ‘go with the flow’?  Our persevering honors Christ because it testifies that Christ and his purposes are worth it.  Persevering makes us more honorable because more Christ-like.  Persevering is good in itself because it admits us into the deeper intimacy of sharing Christ’s suffering.  God will do more to make it worth our while in the long run: just as we have shared Christ’s suffering for righteousness sake, so will we share in his heavenly glory.

Do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that comes upon you!

Retrospectively, this second plot seems obviously to fit Christian martyrs, people like Martin Luther King, for instance, in their non-violent struggle against oppression and their faithfulness in speaking truth to power.  But when our words and deeds are unwelcome, when our efforts are greeted with mounting resistance, even decisive opposition, the picture seems clear.  Both of First Peter’s plot schemes open doors to spiritual temptations.  ‘Good for good; evil for evil’ drives the conclusion that we are wrong and counsels repentant submission.  But to apply the Christ-shaped plotline – ‘really bad for the really good; immeasurable good for enduring the really bad’ – to ourselves is to cast ourselves as the ‘good guys’ and to demonize our opponents (as First Peter in fact does: ‘Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour’).  The first seduces us into muting or at least muddying our testimony, to betraying or equivocating on the causes we have been supporting.  The second fosters self-righteousness of the sort that got the Pharisees into trouble.  How often do we hear it these days in church controversies: ‘Feel sorry for us!  We are the innocent victims of the faithless who have seized power!’

First Peter knows this.  Its writer is one of the more savvy elders with long experience of shepherding God’s flock.  He knows how emergencies confuse our thinking and expose our divided hearts.  His advice may still be applied with profit if contextualized by three more things.

To begin with, First Peter declares, we are ‘chosen by God and sanctified by the Spirit for obedience to Jesus’.  When our sense of what Jesus is doing collides head-on with what others think he is doing, we have to listen hard and pray hard and – with the Spirit’s help – try to second-guess our motivations.  We know all too well: we are sinners; very probably our perspective is out of focus in some way.  We need to remain flexible and teachable.  But that should not make us timid.  Within that discipline of prayer, listening, and self-examination, we are called to ‘sin boldly’, not to muddy our testimony but to live up to the light that is in us.

Second, First Peter urges ‘love covers a multitude of sins’.  Non violent resistance movements take to heart Jesus’ command to love our enemies.  Gandhi’s interpretation of this was so extravagant: resisters were to enter into their oppressors’ perspective, to understand where their enemies were coming from so well that they would not attribute to them any unworthy motive.  Recognizing opponents as alter-egos, as people with hopes and fears, trying to make the best of their limited resources is an antidote to self-righteousness, a guard against ruthlessness, and a check against complacency that ‘writes the other off’.

Finally, First Peter reminds us, we must everywhere and always ‘entrust ourselves to a faithful creator’.  Everything – our victories and defeats, our good works and our disastrous missteps – occurs within the framework of Divine providence.  God is resourceful to make good on everything, especially on the worst that we can suffer, be or do.  God is not aloof.  God cares about us.  God came in Jesus to identify with us, to experience our weakness from the inside.  In the midst of our doubts and confusion, we are always welcome to cast our cares on him!  Amen.