Newport Presbyterian Church, Bellevue, WA

Sermon – All Wet

Newport Presbyterian Church, Bellevue, WA

February 22, 2015

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First Sunday in Lent – Year BNewport Presbyterian Church

Genesis 9:8-17Bellevue, Washington

I Peter 3:18-22 February 22, 2015

ALL WET[1]

I really didn’t plan it this way. Honest. Truly.

When the lectionary for this first Sunday in Lent offered up this passage from I Peter dealing with Noah, I didn’t plan for us to have experienced a very insightful rendition of the story of Noah and the Flood in the “Children of Eden” performance here last week courtesy of the Westminster Youth Choir of the First Presbyterian Church at Caldwell, New Jersey. Really. Scout’s honor.

And I didn’t select this passage based on the fact that I had just preached two weeks ago on whether or not humankind exercises any free will over their salvation, only to have a huge translation controversy from this very passage of Scripture impact that very question. No kidding. I swear.

And I didn’t plan on getting us all bound up in theological questions this month only to have a passage of Scripture that raises a whole bunch more in just a very few verses, so much so that Biblical scholars believe that there are easily any number of sermons that can be preached from this one set of verses of I Peter. I’m not lying. Believe me.

Don’t blame me. Blame God. Or better yet, blame the New Revised Common Lectionary Committee for assigning this thorny, dense, and just outright weird passage from I Peter to this first Sunday in Lent. We begin our journey to the Cross with more questions than answers, struggling to hear God’s Word to us in the midst of competing ideas and complex syntax. Maybe that’s the point of this exercise: we begin in a place of confusion and lack of clarity, just like any educational endeavor. It’s only as we progress forward in study and reflection do we begin to get a sense of the themes and patterns of the message God has in store for us. For now, here at the beginning, we need to journey in the wilderness for a bit, tempted to go down some treacherous paths, and praying that God can be with us long enough to keep us on the narrow path that leads us straight to Calvary. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Consider that a preview of coming attractions. For now, we have I Peter and a few of its verses that point us in the general direction God wants us to go. So let’s delve deeply into the book and see what might be in store for us.

I Peter is one of the books of the New Testament that singularlyperplexes New Testament academics. The book is a one of the “catholic” or “general epistles” in the New Testament, which were intended for distribution to a broad number of Christian churches throughout the Roman Empire. That’s about where the academic consensus ends, because few scholars can agree on just about any other subject matter involving these letters, including their origin. I Peteristhe first of two letters ostensibly authored by the apostle Peter while he was in Rome and directed to Christian churches located in Asia Minor or modern-day Turkey. The events described in the letter, however, appear to point to a level of Christian persecution in that region that did not occur until after the apostle Peter was martyred in the mid-first century AD. For this reason, some New Testament scholars theorize that the letter was actually authored by a Christian leader other than Peter who sought to use Peter’s name as a way of grounding his commentary within the apostolic tradition.

Pseudepigraphy, the practice of the claiming someone else’s authorship of your own work (a type of plagiarism in reverse, if you will), was quite common in the ancient world and was seen as a way of honoring the ministry of the original twelve apostles and commanding their authority. Claiming Peter, Christ’s heir apparent, as the source of your authority certainly would have held sway within the new Christian communities scattered throughout the region.

Compounding the authorship problem are the textual issues that arise in the ancient documentary sources of the Book of I Peter. Not surprisingly, because the original letter was intended for several churches scattered throughout a wide region, copies of that letter had to be made. In the era before email, copy machines or even printing presses, the multiplicity of these hand-made copies resulted in numerous transcription errors and variations. The New Revised Standard Version (which isthe Bible version located in our pews)outlines in small print at the bottom of each page the many different readings that are found among the ancient source texts of the book.

As if that’s not enough, even when the various versions agree on the text, the translation of the ancient Greek can be hotly disputed, and in ways that have serious theological implications. One of these is found in verse 21, where the Greek word for “appeal,” “ἐπερώτημα,” can be variously translated as “pledge,” “demand” or “craving.” Dr. Barbara Brown Taylor, a noted Biblical scholar, notes that the way this word is translated has some serious import on the significance of this morning’s text. She notes that the passage “may be rendered as ‘an appeal to God for a good conscience’ or ‘a pledge of a good conscience toward God.’” She further notes, “Does God confer [the good conscience] at baptism, or is it a prerequisite?[2]” There goes that Calvinism/Arminism debate again. Who is ultimately responsible for our salvation: the grace of God, or human free will? The NRSV uses the former translation; and the New International Version – favored by evangelical Christians – uses the latter.

Finally, I Peter is fraught with all sorts of spiritual counsel that many progressive Christians today would find disturbing. Much of the ink in I Peter is spent on a single subject: the issue of suffering and persecution on account of one’s adherence to faith in Christ. Earlier in the book, slaves are advised to be accept the authority of their masters, and wives are to obey their husbands, all with the less-than-comforting thought that their suffering will eventually result in their inheriting blessings in heaven, as demonstrated by the suffering of Jesus on the cross and his eventual resurrection in triumph. Western history is fraught with examples of churches – some of which persist to this day – that preach just this type of so-called “Christian obedience" to advance and maintain systems of oppression. (Thankfully, we part company with them!)

So what do we make of I Peter? Is this epistle really “all wet,” devoid of any applicable meaning for Christians today? Is the content and context of the message of the letter so dense or far off the mark that we cannot legitimately find a suitable use for its sentiments? I wouldn’t rush to so harsh a judgment, so let’s unpack some of these thorny issues.

First, let’s deal with the lack of agreement on the precise text of I Peter. Remember that this letter was intended to be shared among multiple churches in different localities, each confronting their own unique set of problems and challenges. The fact that there isn’t a single, agreed-upon fixed text is not a problem when you realize that the overarching message of the epistle is to be pastoral. When one is serving a community of souls, no one would ever expect that the spiritual leader of that community would address every individual’s spiritual needs in exactly the same way, using exactly the same words and phrases. What may be comforting to one person, may be deeply troubling to another. Effective communication always tailors the message to the audience. Likewise, different churches in a region would merit having messages tailored for their circumstances. The fact that there are slight variations in the ancient texts should not be seen as a challenge to itsauthority or legitimacy within the canon of Scripture. On the contrary, its variations should add pastoral weight and authority because it acknowledges the diversity of circumstances that people of faith encounter. What makes this epistle a pastoral communication is not its fixed permanence, but its gracious fluidity.

Second, we should be cautious when dealing with I Peter’s approach to oppressive social institutions like slavery and patriarchy. Merely because the author of I Peter mentions and acknowledges these institutions – and advises placating conformity with them -- does not mean that these evil institutions are to be otherwise accepted, or worse, advanced by people of faith. After all, Jesus was put to death by the tools of societal oppression and evil empire. No, Paul proclaimed in Galatians[3]that baptism in Christ rendered all the worldly social hierarchies of Jew and Greek, slave and free – even male and female –void and meaningless. For the author of I Peter, however, no one need place themselves at any greater risk than necessary while living out their faith. When I Peter counsels slaves and wives to be obedient and acknowledge their oppressors’ authority, it is a resignation to the realities of the era, looking forward to a more fortuitous time when the tyrannical trappings of human construct will be washed away and a new, more egalitarian order within God’s Creation can be established. Just because the Church of Peter’s era could not effectively confront the systems of societal oppression does not mean that the Church of today must refrain from doing so.

Finally, there’s Noah, and I Peter sees Noah’s experience of redemption in the face of the Flood akin to the experience we all receive in our baptism. Like Jesus, we receive the promises of God in our being touched by water, both physically and spiritually. We may experience suffering, and if we do, Christ shows us that suffering will not prevail in the end. God’s loving promise to us, as so beautifully and universally memorialized in the rainbow, is clear, unwavering, and eternal, just like Christ’s sacrifice.

I Peter sums it all up: “For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God.” In this, there is comfort this first Sunday of Lent. Wherever our life journeys take us, whatever suffering we endure, whatever hardship we bear, Christ is with us through the baptism in the faith that draws us here together this morning.

And lo, when the storms clear, a rainbow beckons. Amen.

1

GENESIS 9:8-17

8Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9“As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, 10and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. 11I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” 12God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 17God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

I PETER 3:18-22

18For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, 19in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, 20who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight people, were saved through water. 21And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you — not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.

[1] I am indebted to the following works of New Testament scholarship that have inspired my comments herein: David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor (eds.), Feasting on the Word, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, KY, 2008, pp 38-43; and David L. Bartlett, “The First Letter of Peter” inThe New Interpreter’s Bible, Abingdon Press, Nashville, TN, 1998, pp. 229-242 and 288-298.

[2] B. Brown Taylor, Feasting on the Word, p. 41.

[3] Galatians 3:28