Sunday, April 13, 2008

Sermon: "Following Jesus - For Real"

I Peter 2: 19-25

Reverend Larry M. Gerber

Someone do you wrong? New technologies now let us use gadgets to get even. Of course, that is not what our faith is all about.

But there's a good chance this has now happened to you: You're having dinner in a nice restaurant with your significant other when the evening is marred because some inconsiderate individual at a nearby table is carrying on a long cell-phone conversation at a volume level that nobody within 50 feet can ignore.

You're irritated, but given that people today sometimes become explosive in public - giving rise to terms like "road rage" and "going postal" - you know that it's probably unwise to confront this person. But wouldn't it be cool if you had in your pocket some sort of electronic jamming device that would allow you, without the yakker's knowledge, to instantly shut down his cell phone with the touch of a button? Indeed it would, and what's more, you may soon be able to purchase just such an implement for a few bucks at your local electronics store.

According to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, titled appropriately "Revenge by Gadget," there's an emerging subcategory in the realm of electronics that is churning out devices designed expressly to neutralize inconsiderate behavior. The people driving this field include freelance inventors, basement tinkerers, savvy entrepreneurs, AND students at MIT's Media Lab, where such devices are collectively dubbed "annoyance-tech."

Such devices include:
 
- A $50 device that shuts up other people's dogs by answering their barks with an electronic squeal that humans can't hear. It's disguised as a birdhouse so the dog owners won't know that you're silencing their mutts.

- A luminescent screen that fits in your vehicle's rear window that, at your command, will flash any one of five messages, along with matching emoticon faces. The messages include phrases like "Back Off" and "Idiot." 

- A product called "the Mosquito" that emits high-frequency sounds that particularly irritate teenagers, usually causing them to move along and congregate elsewhere. The rest of us can't hear the noise because, by the time we reach adulthood, we have lost the ability to detect sounds that high.

That leads us to today's Scripture reading from 1 Peter. It says that Jesus, when he was abused, did not return abuse. It says that when he suffered, he did not threaten.

Admittedly the suffering of Jesus went way beyond the little irritations of daily life that the annoyance-tech products are aimed at countering, but there's a common principle.

It's hard to see at first though, because this reading starts by addressing slaves, (go back to v. 18 - Slaves, submit to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate". It advises them to accept the authority of their masters, even if those masters are harsh with them. Thus, we may expect not to find much in this passage for ourselves, but if we make that assumption, we're wrong. In fact, we would argue that this passage in its entirety has as much to do with following Jesus as does any reading from the whole New Testament. And that's because Peter has developed his specific advice for Christians who are slaves from a larger principle that broadly applies to all Christians and is based ultimately in the behavior of Jesus himself.

After instructing slaves who are followers of Jesus, Peter explains his thinking behind it in a way that we can all identify with. "For 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" (vv. 19-20).

Wow! God approves suffering even when I don't deserve it!! Of course that was nearly 2000 years ago. That was Jesus. Surely God does not expect that of me today. Does He? Does He?

Of course, our society is different from Peter's. Slavery is not a legal part of our society, so few of us have had the experience of being flogged by someone who owns us. We know, of course, what it means to be held responsible for our actual mistakes and failures, but most of us have also been treated unjustly in some other way at some time. We've been blamed for things we didn't do, accused of bad motives when our intentions were quite the opposite or smeared as an opportunist when we were unselfishly trying to help someone. We've had reason to understand the saying, "No good deed goes unpunished."

Thus, Peter's logic makes sense to us. If you accept blame when you mess up, why should you expect credit for that? You should take responsibility; it's the right - and only - thing to do. 

And, of course, today we have the phrase: "It is politically the right thing to do." That puts another twist on "the right thing" to do. If it is not right, but is politically right, then I must suffer the consequences because it appears to be the right thing in order to gain voters approval. Is politically correct an oxymoron?

The scripture doesn't go there. Sticking with the scripture - if you suffer for doing the right thing, then you've done something noteworthy - and, Peter adds, "you have God's approval."

But Peter's not done with his explanation yet. He now brings it to the source of Christianity itself, Jesus Christ. Peter says, "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" (v. 21).

 Today's lectionary reading starts at verse 19, omitting the reference to slaves in verse 18, probably to emphasize that Peter's words have universal application for Christians.  This message is not for slaves only!

So, what is the application for Christians? Is it hat we should seek occasions for suffering unjustly? Should we be glad for the rude guy in the restaurant yakking on his cell phone because it provided an opportunity for us to not retaliate? Peter says that when Jesus was abused, he did not return the abuse. So, if we'd actually had an electronic jamming device in our pocket, should we get some sort of credit in heaven for not pushing the button?

The problem is, when we focus the question on a single incident such as the restaurant situation, where at most it involves a minor inconvenience, the matter can sound silly. But what Peter's talking about is anything but silly. In effect, he's saying that Christians must not divide life into compartments where each section has different, and sometimes incompatible, principles of behavior. What guides us in our relations with fellow Christians ought also to come into play in our relations with irritating strangers, and both situations should be guided by the example of Jesus.

Now quite aside from the example of Jesus, there are plenty of reasons why payback can make things worse. When we're responding to someone else's troublesome action, whether it was driven by thoughtlessness or deliberate selfishness, our line of thinking is apt be something like, "Well, he/she started it." Thus we think our retaliation is merely a matter of "getting even."

 Being reared in a family of 6 children I quite often was in the middle of "He started it" "Did not" "Did so."  Quite often my mothers response would be something like this: "Well, if he/she started it, why don't you finish it." What she was trying to tell us is that it takes two to keep an argument going. Many issues would subside if there were no retaliation.

Weather it is siblings at home or world leaders at the bargaining table - discussions, debates, and arguments have the same development and outcome. We know where we are in a given situation and if the discussion or argument doesn't go our way, well?the other party started it. It isn't my fault! Did you expect me to sit back and take that garbage?

When we're reacting to someone else's affront of us, we may be overlooking altogether our own contributions to the clash.

So, for purely behavioral reasons, it's wise to think twice about our attempts to put others in what we think is their place.

But Peter isn't thinking about behavioral psychology. He's thinking about Jesus as the model for Christians to follow.

That has always been the basic message of this passage. One of the things that brought that sharply into view more than a century ago was a novel by Charles Sheldon titled In His Steps, which is a phrase right out of verse 21 in this biblical passage. In fact, the book begins with the pastor of a fictional congregation working on a sermon from that very verse. Sheldon's book was written in 1897, and it became a blockbuster, selling over eight million copies, and it never has really gone out of print since. It tells the story of what happened in the lives of members of a church after they committed themselves to approach the decisions in their workplaces and other arenas of life by asking themselves what Jesus would do and then trying to do that. The results were life-changing for the members of that congregation and also had a positive impact in the community.

That was only a story, of course, but the spark for it came from the author's personal experience. At the time he wrote the book, he was a minister in Topeka, Kansas, but before that, he had been in social work, and as an experiment, he once disguised himself as an unemployed printer. He then walked the streets of Topeka to see what would happen. What he discovered was indifference among many professing Christians toward those in need. That shocked and saddened him, but it also led him to imagine how different things would be if Christians did not compartmentalize their lives and allowed their Christianity to be equally applied to all situations. The book, In His Steps was the result.

Do you remember the WWJD campaign that was popular a few years ago, and still is used by some today? That stood for "What would Jesus do?" It was an outgrowth of both the In His Steps book and Peter's statement that "because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps" (v.21).

The real subject, then, of this passage is not turning the other cheek, or saying no to revengeful acts. It is about following Jesus ? for real. It means looking at his footsteps as revealed in the Bible, and then trying to place our feet in the same places.

Some of us had the opportunity recently to walk where Jesus walked - for real. I can't speak for others, but when I physically walked where Jesus walked on his way to the dungeon the night before his crucifixion, I wondered about myself. I asked myself if I was spiritually walking where Jesus walked. I wondered at that moment if it was really within me to be able to walk where he walked. I walked today where Jesus walked and felt his presence there????Are ye able said the Master to be crucified with me? Yeah the sturdy dreamers answered, "to the death we follow thee", Lord we are able, or spirits are thin, remold them, make us, like thee divine?...now as then in Galilee, Lord we are able."

Sooner or later we will come to someplace where we cannot see his footprints, simply because we are in a situation Jesus did not specifically address. We still have to walk through it, but we can do so taking what we know of Jesus, and trying to step as we think he would. He will help us find the right path, too, for as Peter also said in this section, before we followed Jesus, we "were going astray like sheep." Now, however, in following in his steps, we have "returned to the shepherd and guardian of our souls" (v. 25).

Have you returned to the shepherd and guardian of your soul?

 Let us not merely talk about Jesus, or merely admire him, but let us follow him - for real. I invite those who want a closer walk with God, those who need to get back into the footsteps of Jesus, those who want to be remolded like Him, to come forward as we sing our closing song: Are Ye Able. Will you come? Will you come?

Sources:
Gilbert, Daniel. "He who cast the first stone probably didn't." The New York Times, July 24, 2006.
Saranow, Jennifer. "Revenge by gadget." The Wall Street Journal, August 17, 2007, W1