Walking With The Grain Of the Universe

The Following is an excerpt from the sermon preached at Grace by Dr. Aaron Kuecker.

The sections of 1 Peter that comprised our readings this morning are marked off by a set of bookends. Listen to how similar these texts from 2.12 and 3.16 sound:

1 Peter 2:12 12 Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that, though they malign you as evildoers, they may see your honorable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge.

1 Peter 3:16 - Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame.

There’s no question that the communities receiving this letter from Peter are undergoing some sort of suffering because of their identification with Jesus. In this section, Peter creates a set of bookends that say, basically, do honorable deeds/good conduct so that those who are against you might see something of God. In other words – and this seems pretty incredible to me – in the midst of very real social pressure, Peter imagines that the orienting posture of the community should be a posture that is missional – concerned for the sake of the other, even the dangerous other.

Within these missional bookends, we can think of five little books:

* On the outer edge, instructions to all people to treat everyone honorably (oh, even the emperor), and to do acts of enemy love rather than retaliation.
* One move inward are two other books that give particular examples of just how to live honorably in a hostile environment and just how to love enemies – those are instructions to slaves, wives, and husbands.
* At the center of the bookshelf is the book that (if I can mix metaphors) forms the center of gravity for the books around it. That book tells us that Jesus’ righteous suffering both set people free from the power of sin and death and formed an example to be followed in hostile contexts.

The way this sort of literary construction works in the ancient world is that the center point – Jesus’ cruciform life, in our case – gives meaning and content to the rest of the section. So all I want to note is that, at the center of this section detailing concern for enemies in the midst of persecution, the definitive clue is the cross-shaped life of Jesus. This is the community shaping practice to which Peter will call his community. This is the posture the text presses us toward.

Here already we can make a fundamentally important point about our more particular text: the core concern of this part of the letter – with regard to those who do not know Jesus – is to seek their good. Thus, we can categorically rule out readings of this text that suggest that the faithful response of wives to husbands is to endure abuse. And here is the reason, it is never for the good of my neighbor to enable their pathologies or their endurance in a twisted and broken way of living. So, where emotional or physical violence enters into marriage relationships, the loving option is clearly not just to enable the aggressor to persist. That isn’t really the issue Peter is dealing with here – but I think it is clear that Jesus doesn’t love by allowing people to remain broken. There is much more to be said here – but it should at least be said strongly that allowing someone to abuse you does them no favors, it is not love, it only allows them to further diminish themselves.

Reading the Text:

When Peter addresses the household here, it is clear that he is addressing households in which only the wife is a Christian. Just as was the case with Jesus’ ministry, it appears that here, too, women were the quickest to see and understand the truth of the gospel. As people whose identity as ‘strangers’ and ‘sojourners’ is deeply evident in their own homes, women here – for Peter – are primary examples of how one should “live honorably” for the sake of the Gentiles. In this way, it becomes somewhat apparent that these instructions are not based on Peter’s ideas of inherent differentials in status between men and women. Instead, Peter is helping his community deal with the social structures of power.

Peter’s first word to wives is “in the same way…” And the most immediate point of contact is with the story of Jesus situated just prior to this section. Just as Jesus exercised his freedom and power in self-giving love for the sake of those who were against him (and even though it came at great cost), in the same way – wives – submit to the authority of your husbands. That “submit” word is a hard word – and it takes real care to read it. Here’s what it does not mean: Submit – hupotasso – does not mean unquestioned obedience by virtue of one’s inherently inferior position. Peter actually has another word for that – and we usually translate it “obey” and it is this word that describes our response to Jesus, to the Gospel, to truth. Peter is not reinforcing Roman household ideals here – but rather subverting them in careful and cagy ways. New Testament scholar Joel Green suggests that “submit” here is best considered as the opposite of “withdrawal.” That is, wives – don’t withdraw from the social structure that gives authority to your husbands. The word carries connotations of "a voluntary attitude of giving in, cooperating, assuming responsibility, and carrying a burden." We might say it this way: the call to wives with unbelieving husbands is to give up the rights that come with their identity as members of God’s household – and to give those rights up for the good of their husbands. This is the reconfiguration of freedom that the Gospel brings – that our freedom is not to be exploited, but leveraged for the good of others – even our enemies. That Peter has this in mind seems clear from earlier in this section, where he teaches people to “submit” to authority of human institutions – but where that submission is qualified not by inherent status differential, but because his hearers act “for the Lord’s sake,” “as slaves of God,” and “as free people” in which the Gospel does not pluck people out of the culture, but sends them back in with new identities.

Peter’s vision of the Christian life is not one in which the new identity of believers calls for a sectarian existence at the margins of society – but one in which believers enact a new and greater reality in the midst of society. The pattern is the pattern of Jesus and the cross. And the point for wives here is that refusing to opt out of the social structure – but rather living within it in a new way – with honorable conduct toward husbands – is a posture that seeks the good of husbands. From this cross-shaped posture – a posture concerned with the good of even the enemy – there are many appropriate gestures. Again, the orienting force of love is precisely the reason that this text is not urging men or women to simply grit their teeth and bear with abusive situations in marriage. Instead, the idea is that somehow, as ‘sojourners’ in the household, women would live the story of God’s family. This is not easy, and giving up ones rights is often difficult, but this is the pattern set by Jesus. And maybe this is the time to note the quote by now deceased theologian John Howard Yoder has written that “those who bear crosses are walking with the grain of the universe.” This is a remarkable claim. Yoder’s suggestion, in a nutshell, is that those who use power exploitatively, those who organize the world around their own needs, and those who use violence or coercion are actually fighting against the deep structures of God’s world. But those who give themselves away for the sake of the other – those who live the pattern of life by which Jesus set the whole world free – are actually walking with the grain of the universe. This is a remarkable – and perhaps a wholly counterintuitive claim.

This cross-shaped pattern is extended toward husbands – precisely in the Roman rendering of the household. “Husbands, in the same way show consideration for women in your life together, paying honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they too are heirs of the gracious gift of life.” Two points to note – first, husbands are commanded – in the Greek, to honor not only their wives but all the women in their household. The translation in our bulletin betrays us here. And that honor is precisely because women hold a position of little power in the social structure of the day. So again, we do not hear Peter making a Christian distinction in which male = strong & superior and female = weak & inferior. Instead, within the Roman story in which this community is sojourning, Peter activates the Jesus story. Husbands, your position in society is never to be exploited for your own benefit. Instead, leverage your privilege for the sake of the powerless – for this is what Jesus did. The word honor is powerful here, as Peter has already said that the way to live in this overlap of stories is to honor everyone – and even the emperor. So now, Peter has changed the game. Women are not the Aristotelian “natural born slaves” – but rather women are to be treated in the same way you would treat the emperor – with honor.

We can extend this just a little further. Peter finishes this section by saying that it is the gift of all Christians, for the sake of their enemies, to return hate with love – to live the pattern of the cross. And we can begin to see that Peter’s primary concern is not the ontological differences between man and woman, but with the Gospel reality that – in the face of the shadow power of empire and status division and social coercion – true power is exercised in love. And because Peter is addressing the power of Rome and its order with the power of the cross, we can see that these texts apply not discreetly to males or females, but to people of any gender or status who find themselves either marginalized or empowered by the structures of the culture. And when you are weak, you don’t use your identity in Christ as an excuse to leave your relationships (though I say that with all the caveats I’ve given above). And when you are in a position of power, you don’t use that power to exploit – but to bless. This is the posture of the cross.

And, these sorts of deeds of radical self-giving are only can only be done for one reason – because of the radical self-giving love of God in Christ. We saw this care in the Sermon on the Mount, we have seen it in Jesus, and we hear it again at the end of this section: “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer.” -- this is the reason we can live a cruciform life that orients itself toward God and toward neighbor – even when the neighbor is our enemy. And, when we do that together, the household of God exists as an alternative pattern of truly human community.

Questions for discussion - drafted by Bob Reid:

1. Can you think of someone who has set themselves up in an adversarial relationship to you? What would it look like to seek their good? Can you think of a tangible example?

2. Can you think of a relationship where you don't want to submit, but where God may be calling you to submit - in the way of the cross; and, for the missional reasons outlined above? What can help you see these opportunities of submission rightly? What role does your Christian community play in helping you tell the difference between submission and enabling an abuser?

3. In Aaron's remarks leading up to communion he said this: "Our habits and practices shape us in profound ways. Philosopher Jamie Smith says it this way: our practices – whether they are sacred or secular – 'shape and constitute our identities by forming our most fundamental desires and our most basic attunement to the world.' Our practices, 'make us certain kinds of people, and what defines us' [and is both revealed by our practices and shaped by our practices] 'is what we love' (Desiring the Kingdom, 25)." Question: in daily worship, what sorts of habits and practices should we be performing regularly so that we will be in a posture from which we may more successfully love our enemies?