Printer Friendly VersionIt is going to require a little bit of a holy imagination for
us to hear this text well today. The worldview that shaped this passage in
1 Peter is far from our own. We will have to first listen to this text in
its own culture in order to hear what it might say to us today.
The lectionary attempts to generalize this text and remove some
of the discomfort for modern audiences about this passage by eliminating verse
18 from today’s reading. However challenging it may be for us to deal
with the issue of slavery and to be keenly aware of the long history of silence
regarding the institution of (or even worse, the defense of) slavery in our
cultural context, it is important to read this passage as part of 1 Peter’s
“house rules” directed to slaves. Paul and Peter both contain
sections of what scholars refer to as house rules in their epistles (see Ephesians
5:21-6:9 and Colossians 3:18-4:1). Although virtually absent from Hebrew writings,
rules for various roles in the household are found frequently in Greek writers
such as Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, Plutarch, and Seneca. It appears that
both Peter and Paul adopted this Greek practice but with significant differences
as we shall discover.
One of the major differences between the pre-modern culture
of the first century and our own has to do with the way we view social location
and identity. Our modern worldview tends to see a person’s social location
as the result of some combination of ability and work. When we have children
we generally believe that this child can become whatever they want to be and
achieve whatever degree of success or social standing they are driven or gifted
to achieve.
Those kinds of assumptions were completely foreign to ancient
cultures. For most ancient cultures the social location of a person was determined
exclusively by outside divine forces. The reason, for example, that systems
of monarchy worked for centuries was because a person was considered to be
a ruler because that was where divine forces placed that person. You became
the next king or queen because you were born into the royal family not because
you were elected by the people based upon your intellectual or leadership
capabilities.
Most of our family names, our last names, came from this premodern
period. If you were born to the Smith family, for example, you could keep
that name because you were most likely going to become the town’s next
blacksmith. The same would be true for Bakers, Tanners, Weavers, and so on.
Premodern people tended to believe their place or role in the
world was selected by God or by fate. If a person was a slave, it was because
God chose for them to be a slave. The life of Christ, however, turned many
of those social assumptions on their head by challenging the culture’s
presuppositions regarding the “blessed.” Jesus taught that it
was the lowly who were the divinely blessed, the last were to be considered
first, and the slave was really the ruler of all. The apostle Paul even stated
that in Christ Jesus there is now no longer the standard social categories
of “Jew or Greek; slave or free; male or female” for all people
are made one through Him (Galatians 3:28).
Yet even though in faith unity among classes of people was the
goal, socially and culturally slaves were still slaves, wives were still wives,
and children were still children. How should those who are now disciples,
especially those who find themselves in places of social subservience, react
and respond to those in power above them?
Sin is almost always understood in the Scripture as a violation
of relationship. For example, the Ten Commandments deal exclusively with our
relationship with God and with others. The first three commands are about
how we can keep our covenant relationship with God and the last seven articulate
ways to keep our relationship with others holy. To sin is to break or violate
relationship either with God or with one another. It could be argued that
the ultimate embodiment of sin is violence demonstrated in the angry rejection
of God or in the abuse and killing of one another.
Peter acknowledges the reality that there will be times when
people of power will commit acts of sinful injustice against a believer. If
one suffers for doing something wrong, there is no credit in that (2:20),
but how should a believer respond when they are treated unjustly? It is interesting
that Peter acknowledges the terms of justice in this text, because in ancient
Greek culture a slave had no rights and so they could be treated any way the
master wished. There was no such thing as justice or injustice for a slave.
Peter, on the other hand, recognizes that they have the dignity of rights
in Christ and thus are being treated unjustly. Nevertheless, how should they
respond to this mistreatment?
Peter’s simple answer is that the one who is being treated
unjustly should look to Christ as a model for how to respond. But in what
ways can we or should we respond like Christ?
For Peter, there are four ways in which Christ is the model
for responding to anger and abuse (2:21-24). First, Christ suffered as the
innocent one (vv. 21-22). Peter quotes Isaiah 53 as a reminder of the unjust
suffering endured by Jesus. In this sense Jesus not only “suffered for”
us (v. 21) but He suffered because of us. He died not only for, but because
of the unrighteous.
When we look at the Cross we must always remember human responsibility
for placing Christ there. A number of years ago I was singing in an Easter
musical and like most Easter musicals this one included the scene when Pilate
asks the crowd, “What do you want me to do with this man?” The
first night of the musical we were all kind of nervous and so we responded,
“Crucify Him . . . Crucify Him . . . ,” in a less than mob-ish
kind of way. The choir director scolded us severely after the first performance
and so the second night we really got into it. I will never forget the woman
next to me contorting her face and at the top of her lungs screaming, “Crucify
Him!! Crucify Him!!”
In that moment a huge wave of emotion passed over me as I realized
that if I had been there that day, I would have been in the mob shouting for
His crucifixion. The scripture again and again affirms that in our own way
we have each rejected Christ. I have often heard the phrase, “If you
were the only person in time and space, Christ would have died for you.”
I believe that. But I also believe, “If I had been the only person in
time and space, I would have crucified Christ, and He would have allowed me
to.”
Whenever we suffer, we must remember first the suffering we have caused others.
Secondly, Christ did not retaliate (v. 23). On the Cross Jesus
embodied all that He proclaimed in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5). In
dignity He turned the other cheek and went the second mile. Even though He
could have claimed all authority and been just in meting out retribution against
His enemies, He refused to repay evil with evil.
It is in this way that we believe Christ reveals the heart of
God. Because He did not claim all authority as His own but instead took on
the form of a slave, He revealed himself as God’s Son and is therefore
given the name that is above every name (See Philippians 2:6-11). Christ calls
us to loving non-retaliation because it is the very nature of God to be full
of steadfast love and forgiveness.
Third, Christ bore our sins upon the Cross (v. 24). By not retaliating,
Jesus exposed the sin of those who sat in judgment over Him. He was crucified
with criminals as a criminal, but in His reaction He not only carried the
sins of His abusers but He exposed them as the true lawless, the real criminals,
and the blatantly sinful.
It is often said that the civil rights movement in the United
States was officially won on March 7, 1963 as marchers crossed the Edmund
Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. The group of peaceful civil rights protesters
were met by police and state troopers, some on horseback, with orders from
Governor George Wallace to stop the march. The police attacked the protestors
by firing tear gas into the crowd and severely beating many. They whipped
people all the way back to the church where the march began and even came
up into the yard of the church hitting people. That night television stations
interrupted their normal programming to show clips of the violence at Selma.
ABC was showing a documentary on Nazi war crimes. Many viewers thought the
clips of the violence at Selma was part of the film on the Nazis. The images
of violence juxtaposed to the attitude of peace demonstrated by the protestors
revealed in a single moment, to a national audience, the ugliness of racism.
In that moment racism was exposed for the evil that it is and received what
many historians consider to be the beginnings of its death blow.
In a similar way the death of Christ exposed the heart of violence
that is at the base of all forms of legalism, nationalism, fundamentalism,
and self-centeredness. In His suffering Jesus exposed the life of the principalities
and powers as a complete and utter lie.
Finally, Jesus brought healing through His suffering (v. 24).
By trusting God the Father to both judge and set things right, Jesus not only
did not repay evil with evil, but He overcame that evil with good. Christ
is the model for what it means to break the cycles of violence and sin that
are continually passed on to one another in creation and in His own body He
brought healing and peace.
So as we look at Jesus, how should we respond to those who so
often mistreat us?
There are two radical and unique aspects to the house rules
contained in the New Testament. The first is that usually both parties, those
in power and in subservience, are called to mutual love and subordination
in relationship. Interestingly, in this passage Peter does not even address
masters. This may be because there were so few from the upper classes that
were part of the churches Peter was addressing. It might also be that in an
important sense all believers are servants or slaves of one another.
The second important difference between the New Testament house
rules and other Greek models is that the “lesser” of the two parties
is consistently addressed first as the primary moral agent. Given the way
subservient people are virtually ignored in the Greek forms of house rules,
it is very radical that they are addressed at all, but most significantly
it appears that in the eyes of the New Testament writers it is always the
culturally subservient person who carries the greater responsibility and possibility
of transformation.
The gospel seems to call us to see our moments of subordination,
even our moments of suffering subordination, as radical opportunities to demonstrate
the transforming love and grace of God to others.
I want to be very careful today not to excuse or justify inequity
and abuse by those in power. Certainly the goal of the gospel is for mutuality
and respect to be the norm. And it is important people not hear this text
as a call to accept abuse from others. The gospel calls the abuser to see
his or her sin and repent for his or her sake as well as for the sake of those
he or she is abusing.
Nevertheless, it is a reality that there are times when we will
be in a position of power but also in positions of subordination and subservience.
At times in our positions of subservience we may face moments when we are
mistreated by others. The question is how can we respond in ways that not
only glorify God but hold out the possibility for healing to come? Peter’s
answer is simple and yet profound. We must look to Jesus as our model.
It is critical that we not just proclaim the Cross as something Christ did for us but also as a model of reconciliation that Christ calls us to participate in. Each of the synoptic gospel writers includes the call of Jesus for disciples to “take up their cross and follow him” (Matthew 10:38, 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23). The Cross is a constant reminder of the depth of God’s mercy and love. It is also the model of subversive subordination that calls disciples to dare to believe that evil can only ultimately only be overcome with good.
