1 Peter 3:18-22, March 8, 2006 -
First in the Lentern series: The Ways and Mean of Grace
In the Academy Award-winning film Gandhi, the nation of India is struggling to emerge from the womb of colonialism. The labor pains of independence are severe. Hindus and Muslims are tearing each other apart in an effort to gain power over the other. The slaughter goes against everything Gandhi had worked for, everything he had learned, ironically, from his study of Jesus. Gandhi believed that nonviolence was the way of grace, if not the means of it. Yet his efforts were failing, it seemed.
Against the advice of everyone, Gandhi went on a hunger strike until the violence ceased. Many days passed, and Gandhi, already weak from his simple diet and strict discipline, was losing strength rapidly. One morning a ragged Muslim man found his way into Gandhi’s bedroom and flung some bread at him. Here; eat this! I am going to hell, but I don’t want your death on my conscience too! Gandhi quietly asked the man what he wants. The man explained: Last night, my only son was killed in the riots by a Hindu. And I was so full of grief and rage that I went out and took a baby Hindu boy, and I smashed him against a wall until his head broke open. I know I’m going to hell. But you mustn’t die for us, or we will have twice the torment.
Gandhi thought for a moment and then asked him, You are a Muslim? The man admitted it. Then what you must do, Gandhi said, is to go out and find a Hindu boy whose father was killed last night. Take him home and adopt him to be your only son, and raise him to be a good Hindu. [Anna Carter Florence, “At the River’s Edge,” in Best Sermons 5 (Harper, 1992), pp. 174-75.]
It may seem odd to use a story from a non-Christian to begin the Christian season of Lent, but sometimes we need to get outside ourselves in order to see into ourselves. And just that is the point of this season. We spend the 40 days before Easter looking at the whys and wherefores of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for us. What is it in us that caused Christ to suffer on our behalf? And what should be our response to what Christ has done in bringing us to God?
First, Peter says that Christ suffered for sins once and for all. So the answer has to do with suffering, with Christ, with sins, with the suffering of Christ for sins once and for all, and all that for the purpose of bringing us to God. We are so victimized by the power of sin—whether our own sins or those of others—that we are incapable of bringing ourselves to God. Someone has to bring us to God. Someone, therefore, someone who is capable of approaching God himself, must bring us with him. The rest of the passage is enigmatic, to be sure—what with spirits in prison being preached to, Noah and the flood, baptism that seems to save us, a clean conscience that is better than a clean body, and Christ sitting at the right hand of God with angels and powers all subject to him. We won’t understand it all, but we need to walk our way through this as we begin our walk toward the cross with Jesus.
The cause of Christ’s suffering and dying is sins, Peter says. And we know that if we have been in church or around one any time at all. But can we be more specific about why sins should cause Christ’s suffering and death? What sins?
If we can go back to the Gandhi story, we can find a clue. At the base of all sin is violence. That violence begins with misplaced desire. We want what someone else has, and when we don’t get it, we decide to take it by force. This deep disobedience, which is the opposite of love, lives at the core of our hearts. It is what keeps us from being authentically ourselves. This is what separates us from God and others, whereas love binds us together.
When Adam and Eve desired the forbidden fruit, what they really wanted was the power to be as gods. They were unhappy with their limited created nature and their simple dependency upon a generous God. They wanted to take life into their own hands. They didn’t want to be brought to God by God’s ever-present grace; they wanted to bring themselves by their own worth. And in doing so, they violated their own nature, and in doing so they violated the nature of all relationships, too.
When the Hindus and Muslims slaughtered each other in India, they saw their neighbors as enemies who stood in the way of their happiness. If they could just eliminate the competition, all would be well. But it never is, is it? All that happens is an escalating cycle of violence that brings everyone down and raises no one up. The Muslim man could imagine no other way to handle his rage and grief than to get revenge by killing a Hindu boy.
And isn’t this what happens to all of us? Sunni and Shiite in Iraq today. Arabs and Israelis today and every day for as long as we can remember. Star-belly sneetches and plain-belly sneetches in Dr, Seuss. And Christians, too. Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. Moderate Baptists and conservatives in our own churches. I know that this is how I prefer to handle my own private wars. When a fellow Baptist pastor to the far right of me speaks against me and our church, calling us names like liberal, I consider it open season. My turn. Target practice. He’s a sitting duck, and I’m an expert shot. And the reason I am so good, don’t you know?!, is that I am so well practiced. But where does that get me? We are caught in a pattern that requires a victim in order to feel better about ourselves.
But Peter says that Christ suffered as the righteous one for the unrighteous. He did not participate in that sinful game. And they killed him for it. Correction: We killed him for it. But because he was righteous, the righteous God vindicated him by raising him from the dead and giving him power over all powers. Christ willingly suffered injustice in order to expose the system of sinful violence for the fraud that it is. And in doing so, he broke its power over the world. He made possible a new world into which we may all enter, a world ruled by self-sacrificing love, a world in which peace is possible at last.
And just this is what is symbolized by our baptism. We acknowledge that we are all part of this fraud. We are all sinners who cannot save ourselves any more than those in Noah’s day could save themselves. If the choice is sink or swim, we all sink because the flood finally gets us all. And so in baptism we accept that we are sinners and get into the ark, so to speak. We climb on the back of Jesus in a way. We ride out the storm of death with the only one who can bring us to life.
Will Willimon is a Methodist bishop in Alabama now, but some years ago, while he was serving as Dean of the Chapel at Duke University, he came upon a resident working at the Duke Medical Center. The young man told him that working in that hospital made him give thanks to God every day that he was a Lutheran. Willimon wondered why being a Lutheran was such a cause for thanks. The man said, Well, I’m not just a Lutheran. I’m a Missouri Synod Lutheran. And one thing Missouri Synod Lutherans are real big on is sin.
“Why does that help you be a medical resident?” Willimon asked. The young man explained that each day, lots of good will be done in the medical center, and some bad will be done in the name of good. In the midst of all the good and bad, he has learned just to say Lord, forgive us. “And you’re thankful for that?” the chaplain asked.
Yeah, thankful. Because I meet people here who’re not Lutherans. Who think that they have to get everything right. That every case has to be successful, that everyone must get well or else be blamed on somebody. Because I am a Lutheran, I don’t have to get it right. That’s up to God. [Pulpit Resource (Feb. 16, 1997): 29.]
That’s up to God, the Lutheran said. I don’t have to get it right. He’s right about that, even if there’s no excusing not getting it right; there’s only forgiving. And just that is what God has done in Christ. Christ has battled the foes of right and won the victory. He did it not just for him but also for us. And he did it once and for all.
Since he did it ONCE and for all, we do not need to fight this fight by ourselves day after day. The war is won, and our daily battles against evil around us and in us are always winning efforts if and only if we commit ourselves to Jesus’ ways and means. That is, if we refuse to fight with the weapons of the world, if we stand nonviolently for what is right and live with the same active patience God showed in the days of Noah. That means we will not act in ways that claim that the end justifies the means. We will bless those who curse us, pray for those who abuse us, and seek to overcome evil with good.
Because Christ suffered and died for us all once and for all, we do not have to achieve things on our own, we can instead live out of his achievement. It’s like the family of siblings and grandparents who this week moved into their new house in Dallas. The four children—Elvia, David, Isaac, and Rebecca Macias—lost their parents in a fire three years ago. The children alone were saved. The grandparents have been granted visas from Mexico to care for the children. But 75 Highland Park United Methodist Church volunteers worked to build the family a Habitat house. This week they moved into the new house, which was all paid for. They could not have built it themselves or paid for it themselves. It had to be done for them. All they have to do now is to live in it thankfully and prove they are worthy of it. The proving worthy comes after, not before.
Once and for all, Peter says. FOR ALL. Who are the all? Well, here we have to ask if all really does mean all. And the answer could be hidden in the oddest words of this text. Jesus, after his resurrection, goes to preach to the spirits in prison, Peter says. They are those who were disobedient in the days of Noah. In other words, somehow Christ’s victory must have an effect so total that it works backward as well as forward. And it works not only backward on those who were obedient like Noah and his family, but also those who were disobedient. It appears that God does not divide up the world in the ways we do. Christ died for all, whether they accept that or not. Whether that means that all will be saved in the end is yet uncertain. We certainly cannot say with certainty, and we certainly would not want to make the real choices of people irrelevant in the work of salvation.
But the other possibility here is that the spirits in prison are those heavenly beings who incited rebellion in humans during the time of Noah. Christ declares his victory to them in such a way that we need never fear that there are unseen powers that may defeat the people of God. The all here is the all of seen and unseen reality. When Peter claims that Christ sits at the right hand of God now and that all powers are subject to him, he means to free us from the fear that if we live his way, we may still be thwarted by the dark powers of the unseen world. We have nothing left to fear, for Christ has won the victory for all and over all in the visible and invisible worlds both.
Of this we can be certain: if you are here today or listening to these words, you are included in the once and for all. But will you acknowledge your inclusion? Will you accept your acceptance? Will you trust in the sufficiency of Christ by walking in his way? As the hymn says, there is no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.
under the chosen Sunday to hear audio of sermon (mp3 format) (beginning March 11, 2007).
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