CALVARY
BAPTIST CHURCH
Rev. Fred Weimert April 6, 2008
“In Reverent Fear”
The text from the
letters assigned for today
was only to be the 17-23 verses of 1
Peter chapter 1…
for me that was a
problem
because the confluence
of ideas in this baptismal letter.
In
fact, if you were to look at last weeks reading
in
the Greek…
You
would see,
as Bo Reicke’ commentary indicates
verses
3-12
are
a single long sentence.
In most of the
commentaries I have
I Peter 1:
13-25 are all taken together
and
in those commentaries the verses are
under titles like…
You
are Called to Holiness…
or
Admonition to Holy Living.
I
have become convinced that you need to hear
all
this material together….
I Peter 1: 13-25
Therefore
prepare your minds for action;
discipline
yourselves;
set all your hope on the grace
that Jesus Christ will bring you
when he is revealed.
Like
obedient children,
do not be conformed to the desires
that you formerly had in ignorance.
Instead,
as he who called you is holy,
be holy yourselves
in all your conduct;
for it is
written,
"You shall be holy,
for I am holy.
"If
you invoke as Father
the one
who judges all people impartially
according to their deeds,
I want to break
into the text here…
Martin Luther must have hated this
line
“according
to their deeds…”
far too works righteousness oriented.
I look at this saying
in the same paradoxical
way that Rabbi Akiba
looked at
judgment
back
in the beginning of the second century:
“Everything is foreknown,
but
freedom of choice is given,
And
the world is judged by grace,
but
everything is in accordance with works.”
back to the text.
live in
reverent fear
during the
time of your exile.
You know
that you were ransomed
from the
futile ways inherited from your ancestors,
not with perishable things
like silver or gold,
but with
the precious blood of Christ,
like that
of a lamb
without defect or blemish.
He was
destined
before the
foundation of the world,
but was revealed at the end of the ages
for your sake.
Through
him you have come to trust in God,
who raised
him from the dead
and gave him glory,
so that your faith and hope are set on
God.
Now that
you have purified your souls
by your
obedience to the truth
so that you have genuine mutual love,
love one another deeply
from the heart.
You have
been born anew,
not of
perishable
but of
imperishable seed,
through the living and enduring word of
God.
For
"All flesh is like grass
and all
its glory like the flower of grass.
The grass
withers,
and the
flower falls,
but the
word of the Lord
endures
forever."
That word
is the good news
that was
announced to you.
Here
ends the reading.
Remember this is
was a letter
probably read to new baptismal
candidates,
and certainly new
Christians…
and all
Christians…
need
to be reminded that
holiness…
purity…
are
important goals…,
but
what is the role of that goal
to be in our life?
Holiness as a goal
can become an obsession.
I had a friend who
was a Catholic Priest
He served for a time at a parish
near by.
He
told me that while he was there
the one thing that
bothered him most in his work there…
was the fact
that some people
were
continually in the confessional,
and their
confessions
were of these trifling little sins…
so
petty.
He said he wanted to yell at them…
Why don’t you go out and
do something…
worthy of
Christ…
or worthy of
confession.
He
was later transferred over to a parish over on the east side…
He said he loved the
people over there…
They seldom
came to confession,
because
they were too busy
doing
things… together…
and
for others.
Holiness, can
become an all consuming desire…
Holiness was the driving issue for
some of the Jewish community
particularly the ones
that Jesus argued with…
over Sabbath
laws,
or hand
washing rituals,
or eating
with sinners.
The minutia of the law
The
multiplication of laws
the
fence around the Torah,
as Jewish people call it,
was a
product of this obsession with holiness.
They
made all the little laws
to
make sure you didn’t break the big ones…
And
in doing this they turned holiness into
this
bizarre dance…
with
hundreds of little
right and left shoe prints
scattered
over the floor…
So
many that the dancers
were more concerned with the steps,
than
they were with the melody…
and
the joy of doing the dance.
I think that is what the
text meant when it said:
You
know that you were ransomed
from the futile ways inherited from
your ancestors,
Besides, when you
get right down to it,
who among us is holy?
The Psalmist said:
If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities,
Lord, who could stand? (Ps. 130: 3)
Isaiah said:
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have all turned to our own way,
(Is. 53: 6)
Paul said:
For there is no distinction,
since all have sinned
and fall short of the glory of God;
(Ro. 3: 22b-23)
And Jesus intimates it
in the story of the woman caught in
adultery.
Let anyone among you
who is without sin
be the first to throw a stone at
her." (Jn. 8: 7b)
So I guess we can say
that striving to achieve
perfection in the area of holiness
isn’t going
to happen.
But the passage gives us hope
when it reminds us
that we were ransomed
not with perishable things
like silver or gold,
but
with the precious blood of Christ,
like that of a lamb
without defect or blemish.
Which is good news…
but for
whom?
Was Jesus’ sacrificial
death
Just for
these baptismal candidates?
Just for us
Christians?
Just for
those who believe or confess the right things?
Or
do the right things?
Does
Peter and his Holy See hold
the
keys of the Kingdom…
As
Matthew intimates? (Mt. 16:19)
Or
do all Christians hold
the keys to the Kingdom
as
John intimates? (Jn. 20: 23)
And what the heck are
the Keys to the Kingdom?
If you forgive the sins of any,
they are forgiven them;
if
you retain the sins of any,
they are retained."
(John 20: 23)
I get such a kick
out of all of this medias pious pandering
About Barack Obama’s pastor
Jeremiah Wright…
If you run for
office
Are you going to be judged
for listening to 31 years of my sermons…
Does
your presence indicate
your total agreement with me?
I am pretty sure I
have said some things in the past 31 years
that might look quite foolish
when taken out of
context…
or out of
the moment.
I have heard a
story about a conversation between
the very liberal pastor Harry
Emmerson Fosdick
and his very
conservative parishioner John D Rockefeller Jr.
Fosdick said:
“Do you have any idea
how
hard it is for me to explain to my fellow clergy
that
you are my parishioner?”
to which Rockefeller is suppose to
have responded:
“Do you have any idea
how hard it is for me to explain to my friends
that
you are my pastor?”
Besides have we
looked at the sermons of Hillary Clinton’s Pastor?
or John McCain?
Hillary is Methodist…
I think I
remember some articles about her DC pastor
During
her husband’s presidency…
John is Episcopal I
think…
I don’t know
any thing about where he goes to church.
Getting back to the
issue of holiness…
Certainly we can’t have lived
through this past week
and not heard that
Friday was
the 40th anniversary
of the assassination of Dr. Marin Luther King
Jr.
Most of us in here can remember when
that happened…
You who lived in
can remember the fires and rioting.
I can remember it from
the concerns of my College,
outside
And that summer in
Certainly those of us who lived
through those days…
can remember accusations
leveled against Dr. King
by the FBI
and its director J. Edgar Hoover…
about
Dr. Kings lack of holiness
his sexual sins…
Not that Mr.
Hoover didn’t
apparently
have some interesting sexual edges…
and
then there was his bigotry.
I think our personal behavior is
important,
because we live as the
text indicates as exiles
Or like
Judaism in the Diaspora.
We live among people who
consider us to be different…
they want us
to be better…
and
we need to strive to be
as our church covenant says…
exemplary in our deportment.
but
we are not going to be perfect.
Or
holy,
except
by God’s grace.
More importantly
the things which Dr. King stood for…
the National sin which
Dr. King stood against…
far over
shadow the issues if personal sinfulness.
How could we sit in
this sanctuary
and muse over our personal holiness
without recognizing the significance
of news last week…
that 20 or
30 blocks south of here
only 35% of the high school aged students
graduate…
While in the
surrounding suburbs
80%
graduate…
how could we sit here and not
recognize that something
quite unholy is still
going on.
Last week I got to
give a talk to the Baltimore Jewish Council’s
Jewish, Christian, Islamic dialogue
on the subject of Church
and State separation.
During my preparation for that talk
I found a quotation from 1965
by Dr. Jerry Falwell
about ministers
who were involved with civil rights movement:
“Believing the Bible
as I do, I would find it impossible to stop preaching the pure saving gospel of
Jesus Christ and begin doing anything else—including fighting communism, or
participating in civil rights reforms…Preachers are not called to be politicians
but to be soul winners…Nowhere are we commissioned to reform the
externals. The gospel does not clean up
the outside but rather regenerates the inside.”
Obviously Dr. Falwell’s orientation
was toward personal holiness…
salvation was a personal
individual
matter.
At least that was true for Dr.
Falwell in 1965.
Last week I also
had an opportunity to hear Dr. Michael Gorman
The Dean of St. Mary’s Seminary
Ecumenical Institute
speak, and in the talk
he mentioned salvation…
as something
personal and beyond…
Reminding
us that the Greek word for salvation sodzo
is
not just about delivery or ransom,
but
also healing and wholeness.
In his book Reading Paul, Dr. Gorman
writes of “the Power of God for Salvation” these words:
“Many
in the modern or post modern world claim, contrary to their actual experiences,
that religion or spirituality and politics can and should be separated. Religion is supposedly personal and private,
while politics is obviously public. That this divorce of religion from politics
does not exist and does not work is clear from the daily news. The ancients did not try to mask the
connection. They saw God or the gods as
deeply interested in human affairs; so too with Jesus and then Paul. Jesus was not crucified for preaching a
search for God within…” pg. 41-2
I don’t think Peter was calling us
to a self imposed exile
from the world.
I think the idea of having a: ”genuine mutual love”, as the text says,
is for the community of faith
but
it is also for the world beyond that community.
So
that even though our flesh is like grass…
and
we will one day pass away.
The
word of God
and
the love of God we know in Christ
will
continue
to
light the world.
So may we live in holiness
and hope.
Amen.