Dave Burke

“God that’s not fair!”

1 Peter 2:18-25

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Peter was writing to a group of churches in the Anatolian peninsula, the land we now call Turkey. Against the background of paganism, the worship of dozens of Gods, the Christians had begun to be a little conspicuous. Some were beginning to experience low-level persecution.

According to Peter this took two forms:

Unjust talk (15 and 3:16)

Unjust actions (20)

When Christians have the protection of the law they should use it. But what if we don’t have such rights, or have no recourse to the courts? What do we do then?

You have to remind yourself as you read these verses that Peter was an eye witness to these events, looking on in amazement at Jesus behaviour as he was beaten senseless, stripped naked and nailed hands and feet to a wooden cross (22-23) you can almost hear the awed amazement in his voice.

Jesus tolerated his unjust judicial murder with incredible patience and restraint. Peter makes it clear that his behaviour is to become our model when we are at the receiving end of unjust abuse (21).

Let’s look at Jesus teaching on how we are to behave when we find ourselves under this kind of pressure.

Matthew 5:11-12 – tells us to rejoice and be glad that we are the target of persecution. Jesus also says that people will say all kinds of evil against us. When the low level persecution of Christians in Anatolia became more violent, it is interesting that no-one was killed for being a Christian, they were persecuted for atheism and cannibalism! Refusing to worship the emperor was atheist, and eating the flesh of the Son of God was held to be a secret baby-eating ritual, on these falsehoods people were executed.

Matthew 5:38-42 – tell us to ‘turn the other cheek’, do not resist personal violence. By the way, I do not think that this applies when you see violence being done to others; we do not have the right to turn other people’s cheeks (which is what pacifists, in effect, are asking us to do). We need to defend the weak and sometimes the bullies just don’t listen to reason.

Matthew 5:43-48 – tells us to go out of our way to bless and to love those who cause the trouble. He also gives us a reason; because God blesses those who hate him as well as those who love him.

When Jesus was arrested, he didn’t respond to insults, or make blood-curdling threats, he left it to his Father to mete out justice on his behalf (and even then, he prayed for their forgiveness). Can we rise to that challenge?

Today we are going to see two important thinge about Jesus. Here’s the first; Jesus taught what Jesus did – his actions matched his words. What about you?

If this is what the gospel does to us, people will notice!

Good Christian = Great Doormat?

But is it ever right to resist this kind of attack?

Yes it is. Check out these stories in the Bible. Abraham pursues the raiders that attacked his family [1] , Moses leads the slaves out of Egypt [2] , and Jesus attacked the rip-off merchants in the temple [3] . He even challenged one of the soldiers who hit him during his trail [4] .

That last incident is worth a second look; the soldier’s action was illegal and Jesus pointed it out. Paul once had a bit of bother with the authorities in Philippi – they had him flogged. When he was brought to trial he pointed out that they had violated his rights as a Roman citizen. That changed their tune; suddenly they were falling over themselves to make it up to him! Paul would not let the Philippian officials off the hook they had to escort him personally out of the city [5] .

This is an issue when we must listen to the Bible as a whole, not just our favorite verses. The word Christian and doormat should not be used in the same sentence.

We need to realize that this is necessary today. This year, three student Christian Unions in the UK have experienced serious problems with their universities. Birmingham has been forbidden to use university premises for their meetings and their back account has been frozen. This is an attempt to pressurize them into having non-Christian people on their leadership team. Exeter has experienced the same, and in Edinburgh a course in sexual ethics has been banned because the university says it is anti-gay.

These are unjust actions, no other society has these pressures put upon them, and they are an attack on freedom of speech. These attacks are, of course, trying to pick off an easy target – Hindu or Islamic groups would present a much fiercer target - people expect the Christians to roll over and play dead.

Now God is passionate about justice and fairness. There are so many statements about this in the Bible – here’s one I picked at random; Psalm 103:6, “The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed”. One of the ways he does this is to give us a society where people have rights and there are such things as courts and lawyers. These student groups are not lying down and playing dead, they are going to stand on this hill, dig their heels in and fight!

Christians must stand up for themselves whenever we have to. But it is important that we do this in a way that reminds people of Jesus. That means taking Peter’s advice (3:15-16) – when we oppose the oppressor the key words are gentleness, respect and integrity.

To summarise briefly; the word doormat and Christian do not belong in the same sentence.

There is a second impressive thing about what Peter says here. As he describes the example of Christ’s suffering he slips seamlessly into talking of Christ’s sacrifice (24).

It is common today to speak of Jesus as a great example, and indeed he is, but he is so much more than that. The first Christians were adamant that, when Jesus died, something deep inside us was healed. Peter’s simple sentence needs careful examination.

First, all of us are fatally flawed. Have you ever wondered why human beings are so disappointing? Despite our technical brilliance, we seem stuck with destructive behaviour; selfishness, pride, greed, anger, that kind of thing. We usually blame others, if only other people would gat their act together, but the problem is as much within me as it is within you.

It is within you… and the Bible calls it sin. Jesus’ death dealt with the pollution that is inside us.

Second, do you remember the Old spiritual, “Where you there when they crucified my Lord?” It is a very important question; was I there? Now, physically I wasn’t, I didn’t come along for another 1900 years, but in a spiritual sense, I was there. But where was I?

I was not in the crowd, yelling and jeering. I was not among the platoon of soldiers throwing dice for Jesus’ clothing. I was not among the Pharisees, smugly watching their enemy die. I was on the cross with Jesus.

You don’t believe me? Why not turn to Romans 6:6-11 where Paul, another leader of the early church, explains this powerful idea. This is an idea that lies at the heart of the New Testament, but that we don’t often talk about; when Christ died, my ‘old self’ died, and when Jesus rose from the dead, I was resurrected with him.

It is as though, when God became man he did not become just one man, he became a man who was able to represent every man and woman on the planet. So when you see Jesus on the cross you see someone who represents you; because Jesus was there you were there [6] . By the same token, we share in his resurrection and our new life is a life lived in righteousness. Paul puts it powerfully in Galatians 2:20:

“I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live but Christ lives in me, the life I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Third, who benefits from this? Was every human being crucified with Christ, are we all saved? One of my favorite newspaper columnists is Poly Toynbee, who writes for the Guardian. Recently, she had this to say about what we are discussing:

“Of all the elements of Christianity, the most repugnant is the notion of the Christ who took our sins upon himself and sacrificed his body in agony to save our souls. Did we ask him to? [7]

Now I would love to be able to say that Poly Toynbee will be dragged kicking and screaming into heaven because Jesus died for her, whether she likes it or not! I really would like to be able to say that, but I cannot. Peter is writing to a community of people who have faith in Jesus as their good shepherd, as their Lord (1 Peter 2:25); he says, “… you have returned”.

On a hillside in Palestine you will get a huge number of sheep just wandering about. When the shepherd shows up and whistles, they all fall into line and follow wherever he wants to go. That is the picture here; this only works for those who have returned to the Shepherd.

This raises the question, have you returned?

[1] Genesis 14

[2] Exodus 12:31-42

[3] John 2:13-16

[4] John 18:22-24

[5] Acts 16:35-40

[6] We often speak of Jesus being our substitute and of his dying in our place. The New Testament certainly affirms this. But the idea of Jesus being our representative adds something seismic to the Bible’s explanation of the cross. A substitute dies instead of me, a representative is me! You see the difference? Classic Protestant creeds speak therefore of Jesus being both our representative and our substitute.

[7] The Guardian, Monday 5th December 2005