Sermon for April 13th

Did you know that there is a group of people who have decided what readings we are going to read each week? We don’t have to take their suggestions of course, but I normally do. Anyway, they plan out these readings and call it a lectionary, a group of lessons from the Old and New Testament. Most of the time, I think they do an alright job, but sometimes I don’t. This sermon is going to be about the second reading today from the book of 1st Peter. The problem is that the people who picked this reading left out the verse that starts the passage and, I think you’ll figure out why. The thing is, I don’t want to pretend this verse doesn’t exist because, if we do that, I think it puts us in very real spiritual danger.

The reading today, printed in your Celebrate insert, starts with verse 19, but I’m going to start with verse 18. Are you ready, well then, here we go, starting with the verse that was left out, “Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. It is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? 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. ‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.’ 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. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; for by his wounds you have been healed. For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.”

Now, I wonder why they left out that verse? Probably because this verse was one of the huge reasons many Lutherans didn’t speak out against slavery. And it wasn’t just Lutherans, of course. In fact, many, if not most, slave owners in America were devoted Christians. Some of the greatest leaders in our nation’s history had plantations with slaves on them. And, have no doubt, this reading today from the book of 1st Peter was read countless times by slaves, slave owners and pastors who believed that they were acting justly and righteously all in the name of God.

The tragedy does not just end there, of course. Because I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist, or for that matter a very sophisticated sinner, to change a couple of words in our minds and see the possibilities. For instance, though this is not written, what about this? “Wives, accept the authority of your husbands with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. It is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval.”

Or, of course, there is another possibility, “Children, accept the authority of your parents with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. It is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. 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.” It is quite upsetting, but true, that these verses have been used countless times as justification for staying in abusive relationships, keeping people quiet as well as continuing racial inequalities in America.

And yet, still, we read it in church! Many people would argue that we shouldn’t. But I am thankful that we do, even if the first verse was left out intentionally. Why is this such an important passage from the Bible? Why do we dare to read it when we recognize the abhorrent ways it can be and has been utilized against innocent men, women and children? Because it is still a true word from God that can strengthen our faith in the face of sin and suffering. We are correct to harshly judge abusers and slave owners; however, we too easily forget the courage people had who escaped slavery or abuse and had to get dirty. Who had to choose to sin one way or the other. This passage can equip us to deal with the very real spiritual danger we face in our lives of believing we can make a perfect choice and stay clean in all situations. Sometimes there is no righteous choice.

The problem is that we can’t keep clean. No matter how hard we try. We want to, sometimes we really do want to! We want to stay clean and sinless in God’s eyes so that he will find us attractive and worth saving. But the problem is that at every turn, there is sin upon sin upon sin. And as long as we look at what we can do, as long as we try and follow the rules of God and of society, we cannot help but get dirty and fail in our attempts at righteousness. For this is also the truth, written in the book of Romans, “There is no one who is righteous, not even one; there is no one who has understanding, there is no one who seeks God. All have turned aside, together they have become worthless; there is no one who shows kindness, there is not even one.”

You can’t stay clean keeping the law. Is it best to divorce your beloved husband who is abusing you or better to suffer the abuse in silence as a testimony for your children who are watching? Is it better to work yourself to death fifty or sixty hours a week to support your church, your retirement fund and the family that you never see, or better to spend that time with your husband and children while you receive welfare and food stamps? Is it best to let people in other countries suffer from oppressive dictators who are murdering and torturing them by the thousands or to remove those dictators from power while killing soldiers and innocent civilians by the thousands. You have to make choices, there may be better choices than other, but you just can’t keep clean keeping the law.

A pastor I know from the Midwest told me about a family he met once as a chaplain in an emergency room. There was a mother, father, four or five kids (I can’t remember which) and the mother was pregnant with another child. She had gone into labor much too early and her life was in very real danger. The doctors treating the mother and child believed that either the mother would die or the baby. The parents were defiantly against an abortion or anything option that would not attempt to save the baby’s life at all costs. They sought support from the pastor who told me this story.

He did not know the family. He was just as defiantly against abortion as they were and perhaps more so. However, as their pastor, he could not give his stamp of approval on their choice to save the baby at the mother’s expense. Why not? Because they could not keep clean from the accusations of the Law. Allowing the mother to die, leaving her husband alone, with five or six kids now, was not a righteous choice made without sin. She was called to be a wife and mother, not only a mother to this one child in her womb, but to the other ones already born. This pastor could not approve of either decision, they were both bad. He could only call a sin a sin and offer God’s forgiveness for these sins—each and every one. He could support and counsel the family in their difficult decision recognizing the sins covering each and every choice. With many prayers and tears, and much suffering, the family drove away a week later after a death. Not clean, but sinners. Forgiven sinners.

You don’t usually choose what suffering is going to come your way. You find yourself in the suffering, trying to figure out how to live through it. Like African American slaves who had to decide whether to obey the law and the authority of their masters, or break the law, leave behind children, mothers, or husbands in search for freedom on the underground railroad. You find yourself called into suffering with sin facing you on either side. Like an abused wife and mother who risks her marriage, her security, her life and the life of her children by trying to escape to a woman’s shelter in the middle of the night. There is just no way to keep clean.

There is no way to keep clean by following the law. You need to be equipped with how to handle the suffering in your life. That’s why we read this passage at church. The suffering will come, it always does, but what do you do when it comes? You run. You run to the cross and nail your sins into Jesus. Rub them into his flesh so that they will die up there with him. He already promised that he has done it, “He himself bore your sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness.” So run to the cross and demand that he keep his promise to you. Take your sins and stuff it in his side so that they can’t come and threaten you anymore.

Run from the Devil who threatens to destroy you. Run from God who demands that you keep the law or else! Run from the voices in your head telling you to keep clean or else! Run to Jesus Christ and slap your sins on his skin so that they die with him once and for all. You are free to lay your sins on Jesus and trust that even while you live a life of sin on this earth, God has promised that your sin will die, but you will with Jesus in heaven with God. Not because you kept clean, but because Jesus has washed you clean from your sins. Amen.