God's Great Band of Beloved Nomads

This past Sunday at Grace we began a study of 1 Peter. There is good scholarship and tradition to support this letter as written by the same Peter we meet in the gospels as a disciple of Jesus. If Simon Peter is the author of the letter then it was written sometime before his martyrdom in 64 or 65 AD. We understand the letter to be a circular letter to the churches in Asian Minor, modern day Western Turkey. As a circular letter it would have been read in the different churches by those early church leaders who would have also helped unpack its meaning.

At the beginning of the letter Peter introduces the themes which will dominate the rest of epistle. This letter, perhaps more than any other in the New Testament, is concerned with how Christians are to understand their identity in relation to the culture in which they live. The words that Peter employs to help these relatively new converts to Christ understand their new identity are borrowed from the Old Testament. Aliens and sojourners of the diaspora is evocative of the period in the life of ancient Israel when God's people were dispersed throughout Babylon, after Babylon had defeated Israel in war. In this context, the designation of alien status did not carry a positive connotation but was a designation to get shed of as soon as possible. However, in Peter's hands, the status of alien becomes a positive metaphor of identity with Christ in his Kingdom and suggests a dignified vocation of living as Jesus' representatives to the pagan world: a world which Peter calls Babylon (his byword for Rome).

Peter's presentation of alien status as a position of honor would have been a gospel-paradox of tremendous encouragement to those pagan converts in the churches to whom he wrote, because upon their conversion they had lost their status, honor, and identity as Romans. This is difficult for us to understand from our point of view. Pluralism within Western Democracy has allowed many of us to suffer relatively little social ostracism as Christians even if we converted later in life. Also, many of us think of status in relationship to relative degrees of wealth which was not how status was meted out in the ancient social world in which Peter's flock converted. In Peter's Roman world, status and honor was wrapped up in being a good Roman citizen. But to be a good citizen meant that one must at least give lip service to worshiping Caesar and confess him as savior and lord. Refusing to take place in public confessions and civil worship would result in at least ostracism if not worse - eventually the worse would come in the form of the great persecutions. Once honor was lost through ostracism, there were no avenues left within Roman society to regain honor as confessing Christians. One was left to move on the periphery of normal society. This is why Peter's paradox - that the freshly minted alien status of his parishioners was actually itself a position of high honor - was such a profound word of encouragement. This is also, partly, why he begins his letter by talking about the issue of Christian identity.

Given our distance from Peter's world, what are some take-away applications for us?

* Because we are not ostracized in the same way these 1st century Christians means that we have to be careful to think imaginatively about how our basic personal identity is in Christ and not in any social category created for us by this world or our society. This is a tall order and there is not a simple, one-size-fits-all, description of what this looks like.
* We must be careful as privileged Western Christians to find ways to identify concretely with our sisters and brothers who are ostracized or persecuted by their societies in other parts of the world.
* We must take great care to find our identity in Christ and not in some manifestation of Christendom
* We must refuse to allow the status afforded to someone based on their socio-economic standing in this world to determine our relationship to them. Whether a fellow human being who does not share our faith or a sister or brother in Christ, we must always approach her based on our identity with Christ and from the point of view of our own alien status.


Questions for application:

1. Do you feel marginalized by others because you are a Christian? How can you tell if it is because of your faith or if it might be for some other reason? Is coming to understand your position of honor as an alien representing Christ to the world an encouragement to you? If so, how? If not, why not?
2. Can you think of an occasion when you alienated yourself from someone in the name of Christ but later came to realize that you alienated yourself for other reasons but blamed it on Jesus?
3. What is an example of mis-locating one's identity in some manifestation of Christendom rather than in Christ? What harm comes from this mistake?
4. How does this discussion challenge you when you think of those in our own setting and around the world who are marginalized from society because of their faith or for other reasons?