the Power of the Meek

This week we returned to the portion of 1 Peter where Peter exhorts his brothers and sisters in how they are to conduct their lives in relationship to those outside the Christian community. There is no hint in 1 Peter that Christians are to shrink away from the roles they play in the cultures in which they live and work. They are not to regard themselves as a sect, separated from the rest of the world; they are not to head for the hills and live in seclusion. They are now a people set on a mission. They are to mediate God's presence in their communities - through words and in good works performed for the common good. And, they are meant to mediate God's presence by living in the pattern of Jesus' cruciform life, particularly in relationship to submitting to authority within the Roman social-political order.

Peter's words on submission are difficult to hear. For one thing, they are difficult to hear because Jesus' call to discipleship, to take up his cross and follow him, is difficult to hear. But they are also hard for us to hear because of how these verses have been misused by Christians. For instance, many a Southern pastor used these verses on submission to argue for slavery in the 19th century. And, many a pastor has misused these verses to wrongly advise women to remain in abusive relationships. This is a spot on the church's record which must be acknowledged and mourned. There must be repentance of using these passages in this way. Regrettably, one of the sad results of the misuse of these verses in the history of the church is that not many Christians today really have a good understanding of Peter's original intention in calling his flock to imitate Jesus' suffering in their submission to authority. Consequently, we don't have a good understanding of how to apply his exhortation to our lives and situations.

The first thing to understand along the way to a fuller understanding of Peter's pastoral intention in all of this is that Christianity contains at its core a revolutionary message about social relationships. The gospel truly does turn things upside down in the world, and the community that arose around the resurrection of Jesus was a community that quickly applied the gospel to social relationships. Early on we hear this reflected in Paul: Galatians 3: 27: "As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. 29And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring,* heirs according to the promise." A community which is nourished on words like these and the stories of Jesus' partnerships with women, social outcasts, etc. - this is a community that understands that the world's way of using power, in this case the Roman social order, is warped by sin. There is a political component to the gospel that must not be ignored. As usual, Miroslav Volf is a big help when thinking about the gospel in this light. Here are his remarks regarding our passage at hand:

"To be “subject” means to act in the freedom of the slaves of God (2:16) and, instead of provoking additional acts of violence, to curb violence by doing good (knowing all along that suffering will be one’s lot, because one cannot count on the victory of good over evil in this world). To be “subject” in a situation of conflict means to follow in the footsteps of the crucified Messiah and to refuse to take part in the automatism of revenge [34] — “evil for evil or abuse for abuse” (3:9) — and to
break the vicious circle of violence by suffering violence. If the injunction to be subject appears at first to function as a religious legitimation of oppression, it turns out, in fact, to be a call to struggle against the politics of violence in the name of the politics of the crucified Messiah. How blinded must one be by the prejudices of one’s own liberal culture to see in this demanding way of suffering only accommodation to the dominant norms of the Hellenistic world!

We should keep in mind, however, that the call to follow the crucified Messiah was, in the long run, much more effective in changing the unjust political, economic, and familial structures than direct exhortations to revolutionize them would
ever have been. For an allegiance to the crucified Messiah — indeed, worship of a crucified God — is an eminently political act that subverts a politics of dominion at its very core."
- Volf from his essay, Soft Difference

Basically, what Peter is saying to the sisters and brothers is this: you are now free from the Roman social order. The political ramifications of the cross have established you in a community gathered around the crucified one, who is now risen from the dead. The very existence of this community, a community where there is neither slave nor free, etc., is a confrontational challenge to the socio-political oppression of Rome. So, live revolutionary lives but don't forget for a second that your revolution is always in the "the name of the politics of the crucified Messiah".

In many ways Peter's exhortations in 1 Peter 2:11- 25 are expansions upon and applications of Jesus' teaching on the Sermon on the Mount. We saw this last week when we noted that verses, 11 and 12 echo the Lord's challenge to "let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven." This week, in this passage on submission, we hear clear echoes of Jesus' admonition to resist not an evil person and to forgive those who persecute you.

From a pastoral perspective, I think this is how we should think of applying this in our context. Our lives must be cruciform in shape so that, with regard to those who exercise authority over us and those who set themselves up to be our adversaries, we might leave for them a trail of question marks in the shapes of the cross.

Of course who knows if something like this actually happened but imagine if it did. Imagine the question mark left in the mind of a Roman centurion who conscripted a Christian to carry his bags for one mile, only to be told by the Christian that he would be happy to carry them another mile. Imagine the Christian going on and on about how he feels compelled to do this because this was the way Jesus lived, serving others, even to the point of dying for his enemies on the cross. Powerful question mark to leave in one's wake.

Questions for discussion:

1. Have you ever heard these passages used in favor of keeping the powerless powerless. Have you ever heard these passages used to encourage people to remain in abusive relationships? What would you say to someone who was using these verses in that way?

2. Are there examples that are current, or from your past, wherein you are or have suffered abuse, while sharing in the sufferings of Christ. What role should your Christian community play in helping you discern how you should respond to abuse of authority? What role should prayer play in your response to the abuse of authority?

3. In our socio-political context we have lots of opportunities to fight the abuse of power on behalf of those being abused. How do we fight for justice and remain cruciform in our pattern of activism?