Preached by Michael Cheuk
April 13, 2008, Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year A
1 Peter 2:18-25
“Christianity is for sissies!” I overheard someone say years ago. He saw Christianity as a religion that encourages followers to be doormats by letting others run all over them. “And what’s this about Christianity that teaches: ‘Blessed are the meek’? Isn’t that just a way to teach people to become sacrificial lambs rather than to fight for their rights and go for the gusto?” “Karl Marx was right,” he asserted, “religion, and Christianity in particular, is an opiate of the people, sedating them into submitting themselves to unjust systems and institutions.” When I first heard him ranting and raving about this, I wasn’t sure how to respond to him. And boy, if he had only read our New Testament lesson this morning about slaves submitting themselves to their masters, both good and bad, he would probably have gone ballistic, since this passage seems to affirm everything that he disliked about Christianity.
But let’s face it, for most of us who live in twenty-first century America and who try to take the Bible seriously, verses like 1 Peter 2:18 that exhort, “Slaves, submit to your masters with all respect,” are problematic. After all, the South fought and lost a war that some say was about slavery, and verses like this have been used by Baptist preachers to justify the institution of slavery. Verses like 1 Peter 2:18 is so problematic, in fact, that the compilers of the Revised Common Lectionary omitted this verse and started the assigned passage with verse 19. But without verse 18, we lose the full context and meaning of this passage, even though it makes my job as preacher harder!
According to biblical scholars, Peter was addressing people who were most probably household slaves.[1] They lived in the house of their masters and were at their mercy. These believers were faced with the challenge of trying to garner the respect of the surrounding hostile, oppressive society while at the same time trying to live as faithful followers of Christ. It was a challenge then, and it is a challenge today. Just because we now live in a society where slavery is outlawed doesn’t mean that we have not been wronged by individuals and by those who have authority over us like our bosses, supervisors, teachers, professors and parents. It also doesn’t mean that we have not suffered injustice at the hands of our institutions, our governments and our society.
In the face of injustice, people typically react in two ways. On the one hand, some seem to embrace or resign themselves to their victim status. Their victimization becomes a part of their identity. They may say: “I’m a part of a minority group so you have to treat me in a special way.” “I have this or that disability and I can’t do such and such, so you’ll have to do everything for me.” “I was born on the wrong side of the tracks to alcoholic parents so I’m just going to resign myself to my fate.” “I was mistreated or abused by so and so, and it’s their fault that I’m so messed up.” “I’m just a cog in the company, so who am I to stand up to my boss?” On the other hand, others react to injustice inflicted upon them by flying off the handle and plotting to return evil with evil, by retaliating with greater force and violence, and by exacting “sweet” revenge.
While on the surface, Peter seems to be advocating the path of embracing their victim status-submit and respect your slave masters even though they may be abusive-, in reality, Peter is not advocating that at all. His is a more nuanced and even subversive teaching. You see, in the Greco-Roman world, slaves were on the very bottom rung of the social ladder. They were the mere property of their owners, and they were given no human rights or respect. Roman citizens saw slaves as not being capable of “morality,” so it would be a waste of time and breath to try to teach them moral conduct. It would be like us trying to teach an oven not to burn a roast. You don’t teach the oven, you teach the owners on how to work the oven. That’s why ancient Stoic writers like Seneca did not directly address slaves in their moral teachings. They addressed their teachings to the dominant man in society.[2]
What’s so surprising and subversive about Peter’s teaching is that he was addressing the household slaves in those fledgling Christian communities. Now, Peter couldn’t just go right out and say, “Household slaves unite! Revolt against your masters!” If he did, Christians and the Christian religion would have been squashed like a bug right then and there. But the mere act of teaching those slaves assumed that they were not just someone’s property, but they were a redeemed people purchased by God to be His children, divinely endowed with human dignity, moral agency and noble worth! Yes, on the one hand, Peter did not openly challenge the institution of slavery. But on the other hand, by addressing those slaves and giving them moral teaching, Peter undermined the very intellectual foundations that undergirded slavery-notions that assumed that slaves were mere property of their masters and not full human beings. For us, what Peter did doesn’t seem like a big deal, but in the Greco-Roman world, what he did was very significant. Let me try to give another example taken from popular culture. For us, it’s no big deal for a master to give an article of clothing to a slave. But in Harry Potter’s world, what happens when a master gives an article of clothing to a house elf like Dobby? Yes! That very act liberates the house elf from having to serve as a slave in his former master’s household.
But you might say, “That’s all fine and good for the house elves in Harry Potter’s fictional world, but for the Christians in Peter’s world, they were still household slaves!” And you would be correct, and many of these slaves suffered for doing the right thing, and they were beaten and wounded even when they did no wrong. But here, Peter tells these suffering Christians a remarkable thing: “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.” For these household slaves who were now in Christ, Peter tells them that Christ had already gone before them in experiencing the suffering that they were now facing. Christ suffered and died in order to redeem and liberate them from spiritual slavery, and now Christ becomes a moral example for them to follow.
Jesus Christ was not a doormat and He did not go to a cross as a victim. In John chapter 10, Jesus describes himself as the Good Shepherd who loves and lays down his life for his sheep. But in verse 17-18, Jesus says, “The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life-only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” Friends, this is not the language of a humiliated victim. Instead, this is the language of a humble victor confident in the ultimate power of His heavenly Father. Jesus was meek, but He was not weak. And the remarkable thing is that, in Christ, God gives us the power to follow in Christ’s footsteps.
Sitting in the pew, you might be thinking that in theory this sounds good, but in reality, what does this look like? Let me tell you a story. Before my parents met, my dad lived with his mom in a small government-assigned apartment in Hong Kong. When my parents married, the three of them lived together in a slightly larger government-assigned apartment, and as you might suspect, three was a crowd. In Chinese culture, some parents feel a very strong sense of loss when a son or daughter gets married - and for my grandmother, I think the reality of seeing her oldest son get married and devote himself to another woman was very hard for her. (Living in that tiny apartment together couldn’t have helped, either!) My grandmother began treating my mom almost like a household slave, picking on her, criticizing the way she dressed, cooked, or cleaned. Nothing was good enough. My mother could have retaliated, right? Or she could have seethed on the inside while playing the victim. She could have turned to my dad and issued an ultimatum, “Choose your mother or choose me!” My mother had all these choices - and more. But she chose to submit herself to her mother-in-law. Though it wasn’t easy, she tried to listen and learn from her mother-in-law’s criticisms. She did her best to live in peace with her husband and his mother. She learned to cook her mother-in-law’s favorite dishes, she took extra pains with the laundry, and she redoubled her efforts to be respectful, not to change her mother-in-law, but only to do what’s right. My mother understood that she could not control her mother-in-law’s behavior; she could only control herself. But over time, there came to be a real change in their relationship. My mother’s faithful service and constant respect wore out her mother-in-law’s animosity. In the Chinese language, there is a specific term for almost any family relationship: older brother, maternal cousin, paternal grandfather, maternal grandfather. For years, my grandmother bitterly addressed my mother as “daughter-in-law.” But by the time of her death, my grandmother intentionally called my mother by the wrong term-or maybe it was the right term, really. She called her “my daughter.”
One last story: last Sunday afternoon, forty ministers, black, white and one Chinese gathered at Farmville United Methodist Church and shared a meal together. In that communion, there were pastors from both sides of the racial divide, like Pastor Sylvia Meadows and Minister James Lyle who were both deeply wounded by the racial unrest and the closing of the schools here in Prince Edward County almost fifty years ago. But by the grace of God, something amazing is happening in this county as local pastors are bridging the racial divide and establishing friendships among one another. And in that Fellowship Room last Sunday afternoon, I saw no victims and no victimizers, only children of God coming together and joyfully experiencing healing wounds.
In this broken and fallen world, people, institutions, political and economic systems will wound us and sin against us. But we also wound others and perpetrate injustice against others every time we ignore their full humanity and dignity by demeaning, insulting, and discriminating against them on the basis of their race, ethnicity, social-economic status, sexual orientation, and political affiliation. Jesus himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, not so that we might be victims or victimizers, but so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness. By His wounds we all have been healed to follow in Christ’s steps. And this morning, we come to the communion table to share a meal together that our Good Shepherd has prepared for us even in the presence of our enemies. And we come to partake of Christ’s broken body and shed blood so that we may experience wholeness brought about by the healing wounds of our Shepherd and Overseer of our souls. Amen.
[1] The Greek word here is oiketes, one who lives in the same house as another, spoken of all who are under the authority of one and the same householder.
[2] In other words, while Peter’s teaching here seems, on the surface, borrowed from the Haustafeln or “house hold codes” in circulation in the Greco-Roman world during that time, in reality, Peter’s teaching is fundamentally Christian and actually subverts those codes. John H. Yoder in The Politics of Jesus, writes: “Stoicism addresses man in his dignity and calls upon him to live up to the highest vision of himself. This call is addressed to the dominant man in society, especially to the prince or freedman or father. . . . [However], the admonition of the Haustafeln is addressed first to the subject: to the slave before the master, to the children before the parents, to the wives before the husbands. . . . The subordinate person the social order is addressed as a moral agent” (p. 171). For a lay person’s review of Yoder’s argument, see http://fadingwords.blogspot.com/2006_07_01_archive.html .
