Sermons

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Suffering in the Best Sense of the Word
June 30, 2002
Fifth in a sermon series on Peter and his letters
Pastor Dan Baumgartner
1 Peter 3:13-18, 4:7-11

The apostle Peter says Christians are people who have been given a new birth. They are new people …but they’re living in the same old world. And so the question: How are these people to encounter the culture they are a part of? Are they to survive it? To combat it? To influence it? And what about when the culture is less than enamored with this faith?

In this morning’s texts, Peter addresses the issue of suffering. Not just the suffering of the hardships that life brings to everyone, but for what I’ve called “suffering in the best sense of the word”: suffering for having faith in Christ in a hostile environment. We want to read two sections, one from 1 Peter 3 (13-18) and one from 1 Peter 4 (7-11).

I received an e-mail from a friend this week. He told me the story of a friend of his named Moses. Moses was a church leader in China during the 1950s, and was asked by the Chinese government to become the leader of the government controlled church. Moses declined the position, because he felt he would be unable to preach the gospel in a church controlled by an atheistic government.

He continued to preach in an “unregistered” church, but was arrested for that in 1956. He was imprisoned for 12 years in labor camps, and always called on to renounce his faith, which he always refused to do. At one point, he had tight metal bands on his wrists which cut into his flesh for almost six months. Though Moses would not renounce his faith, he became so tired and discouraged he wanted to commit suicide. Three times in those dark days, God’s voice came to him and said, “Moses, my son, my grace is sufficient for you.”

Moses wept before God, and his faith was restored…though it would be ANOTHER 12 years before he would be released. Today Moses is in his 80s, and still providing leadership for Chinese house churches.

I don’t know about you…but when I hear a true story like this, I read the words of 1 Peter with a great deal of humility, and even a bit of embarrassment. In comparison, the “suffering” that we in the American church endure is nothing. Perhaps a bit of discomfort, or awkwardness, but not suffering.

Granted, our situation has changed somewhat in the last few decades. Our culture in the States is NOT as supportive as it once was, and it continues to change in discernible ways. Many of these changes involve our children, and the influences they will experience when they are young: Prayer has been eliminated from public schools. Christian groups have an increasingly difficult time meeting on school property, though that has been open to many other types of groups. This week the California Appeals Court declared the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional because it contains the words “under God.” (If the ACLU and the Atheist Societies have their way…we will eventually have all reference to “God” removed from the public vocabulary (ala Harry Potter and the evil villain always referred to as “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named!”).

The point is that, particularly through the legal system, there is a growing pressure to move the Christian faith out of the public realm…and confine it to a private one.

It’s interesting that what Peter talks about here is really the opposite. Peter talks here about our faith in Christ engaging the public realm…not just via public institutions, but touching individual lives around us.

I stumbled across two things this week in my reading which relate to this question of how Christians are to encounter an unreceptive culture. The two are radically different from each other…and I’m not proposing that one is always right or wrong…we live in a complicated world which demands different responses at different times.

The first was a newsletter from Focus on the Family, the ministry of Dr. James Dobson. Dr. Dobson is well known for his conservative theology and politics. Though he is a person I often disagree with, I also have great respect for some of the stands he has taken on behalf of families and children, and especially in working against pornography in our country. Dobson is extremely active in political circles, and his approach to impacting the culture is to muster political influence, and confront and combat where he sees the culture veering towards dangerous and unhealthy patterns.

The other article I read was by the theologian Miroslav Volf, a professor at Yale. Volf’s interpretation of I Peter revolves around what he terms the “soft difference” that Christians are to initiate within the culture. Volf strongly argues that there must be an indisputable difference in the life of a person who has been reborn in Jesus Christ. But the difference is, in his words, to be a “soft” one. Not soft like weak. Rather, “soft” as a description of Christians engaging the culture rather than rejecting it. Volf would call this anything BUT weakness, but instead the strength of living out of one’s security in Christ rather than fear. People who practice “the soft difference,” Volf says, are able to converse and affect rather than coerce and battle. Their lives, he says, take the form of “witness and invitation.”

I want us to think this about these this morning, especially on the idea of witness, and then come back at the end to invitation. Peter says here in verses 14 and 15, if you DO suffer for your faith (and it is implied that you will), “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you.” This sounds like the language of a court of law, doesn’t it? “Make your defense,” “give an accounting.”

Now, for you and me, we will probably not be doing this accounting in front of a judge. More likely, it will come in the form of a question from your neighbor…the one who recently lost a parent, and as you talk one day on the sidewalk she blurts out, “This is so painful. I know you are a Christian…but how can you even believe in God when there’s so much unhappiness?” An accounting is being asked for. How are you to respond? “Be ready to make your defense…for the hope that is in you.”

Earlier in this letter (2:15, 3:1, etc.) Peter talked about a Christian lifestyle as the primary witness to other people. But now, very specifically, he talks about when a verbal response is called for. The very idea is enough to make some of us get a pit in our stomach.

But notice: Peter does not ask you to have all theological answers to every conceivable issue at your disposal. He does not tell you to be an expert, nor call for your ability to prepare irrefutable counter-arguments to other philosophies or religions. He merely says…be ready to explain YOUR hope. What is YOUR story? Where has God encountered YOU in life? It is YOUR story, or at least the place where your story intersects with God’s story in Christ…that you are to be ready to explain.

For me, that means not just spouting Bible verses or theological truisms. In fact, it means not getting bogged down in talking about “religion.” It always makes me laugh when I meet someone new, like at a party or something…and we get in a conversation, and eventually they say, “What do you do for work?” And I say I’m a pastor…Talk about your conversation stopper! Usually they say something profound like: “oh.” Many times, the next statement from them is “Oh, I’m not really religious.”

And sometimes I like to say, “Oh, I’m not really religious either.” My hope is not in religion…it’s in knowing Jesus Christ…it’s in knowing that Jesus will never leave me or forsake me, not even when I don’t feel his presence, not even in difficult times, not even at death. And my whole life is different as a result. That’s what I want to talk about. I believe that that’s really all I CAN talk about.

And however it is you articulate your hope…the only thing that’s going to matter if we are put in a situation where there is a cost to witnessing to our hope, whether that cost is extreme suffering, or mild discomfort. No one is going to put themselves on the line for pain or ridicule or loss…merely to talk about religion or Presbyterianism or tradition. It is only if we have encountered the Living God… that it will be worth it to us.

The reality is, though, that we need to not just be READY to talk about our hope…but WILLING to. Faith in Christ is NOT a private spiritual matter, not when Peter says it’s time to “account for the hope that is in you.”

I still remember a time in college. I had a yard care business, and I had one elderly couple I had worked for since junior high…about 4 or 5 years. Over those years, I’d told them many things about my life, including my growing faith in Christ. One day, I was trimming near the front door, and a couple of people knocked at their door…my memory says it was a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses making the rounds. I heard my employer say firmly and curtly, “No, we have our own private faith. Good-bye.” And the door was slammed shut.

I remember being shocked. Not that my boss had shut the door in their face, but that she said she had a faith herself! Never in five years had they even hinted about their own faith. Maybe that wasn’t the time. But, Peter says, the time will come…be ready, be willing…and share why you live as a person of hope.

Yet, Peter adds…yet do this “with gentleness and reverence.” Don’t let your hard edge, your combativeness…be a barrier to those you are speaking to. Why not? Our task is not to win an argument…but to win other people, to walk them closer to God. How can you share in a way that invites conversation, that builds an ongoing relationship with other people, that doesn’t erect NEEDLESS barriers?

I talked to a friend last week who had moved into a new neighborhood eight years ago, and is just now feeling that relationships with some of his neighbors are breaking below the surface. Many of the people shut him out of their lives because of old resentments against Christians, or the Church. After eight years as he has tried to enact and speak the word of hope, even when receiving nothing back except mistrust and suspicion…he feels he’s seeing change. I suspect that the way we speak and act in those hard situations, in adversity…will be a more powerful influence than anything else we do.

I watched a movie called “Agent of Grace” Friday night, really a wonderful video on the life of Dietrick Bonhoeffer, the German pastor who stood up to and was eventually executed by Hitler at the very end of WWII. Bonhoeffer’s ability to model out his hope and God’s grace even under trying times in prison is almost legendary now. The movie depicts a beautiful scene just after Bonhoeffer has been arrested and thrown into a cold prison cell. There in the dark, he hears through the wall a condemned young prisoner in the next cell, weeping.

Bonhoeffer speaks to him through the wall, and invites him to pray. The man’s muffled voice says, “I am not religious.” But Bonhoeffer continues on, telling him that he is going to put his hands on the wall and pray, and inviting him to do likewise on his side. And eventually, the young man’s hands go onto the wall. Bonhoeffer prays, honestly and fervently. One of the things that happens is that a guard who is outside the cell…hears this, and gets interested in what Bonhoeffer has to say.

What we say and do in times of great adversity and suffering…speaks so loudly of the hope that is in us. And when it is hard, when we wonder if it is worth it…Peter says simply, “Remember Jesus. Remember that Jesus knows about suffering, about being scorned, about people turning away. Christ ALSO suffered…in order to bring YOU to God.”

The first word was witness. The second is “invitation.” It is the word I thought about as I read the second paragraph we looked at: 4:7-11. “The end of all things is near"; so…run and hide? No. The end of all things is near; so…eat, drink and be merry, the days are short? No. Interestingly, Peter says “The end of all things is near; so live fully with the community of God.”

And Peter gives this exhortation, this invitation to simply be the church: Practice discipline, pray, let love cover a multitude of sins, be hospitable, don’t complain, serve one another out of grace, speak God’s words…” Be the community of hope, the church of Jesus Christ…function the way you are meant to. The days are short, you may be suffering… make sure you are busy being Christ’s family, accept this invitation.

The church, as we know all too well, is not perfect, sometimes not even very good…yet for those who are thirsty…it is an amazing invitation to drink deeply. The invitation is important for those who have been putting themselves on the line, in ministry, with people…to come and be surrounded, and affirmed and loved and forgiven, and pointed towards grace. When it works…it is such a beautiful thing.

A group of people met with Al and Sue Anderson to pray before they left for Indiana for Al’s cancer surgery. During the time of prayer, God used the gifts of every single person in that room. Some sang, another prayed, another a word of wisdom, another a prayer of great passion, another asked the timely question, another brought a scripture…and on around the room. When I realized what was going on, I thought, “My God! It’s happening. This is the church.” What a thing to be invited into in time of trouble.

But the community of faith is a living invitation of another kind as well. It’s an invitation to people outside of the hope of Christ. Imagine your life if you encountered these things in your environment regularly: hostility and abuse, scorn, addiction and disappointment. Imagine that you have lost the ability to trust or look beyond mere survival…and let me assure you that these words describe the lives of many, many people.

Imagine, then, being invited into a community represented by these words: love, grace, serving, speaking truth, celebration, grace, covering of sin. It would seem to be an invitation to something so outside your reality, to someONE so different than anyone else in your life…It would overwhelm you. It might even draw you towards a new birth.

No one longs for hard times or suffering. Yet somehow, God brings growth and depth out of them. In the first book of Tolkien’s "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, the hobbit Frodo listens to his friend, Gandalf the Wizard, talk about the difficult and dark times that lay ahead. Frodo sighs and says, “I wish it need not have happened in my time.”

“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But it is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

Peter says that even in the dark times, especially in those times…live as both witnesses and invitations. Be ready to witness to the hope inside of you…and receive the invitation…to be the family of Christ. Amen.