Printer Friendly VersionI can say with relative certainty that during my ten years as
a college professor the passage of scripture I heard quoted most often from
students was Jeremiah 29:11: “For surely I know the plans that I have
for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you
a future with hope” (NRSV).
Usually, they would quote this verse as a way of saying, “I
know that God has the right person for me to marry.” Or, “I know
God has a great job for me someday, even though I can’t figure out what
to major in today.”
Although, with some conditions, I do think God has hopes and
desires for nineteen-year-olds in the areas of love and work, there are two
ways that those college students misused or misquoted Jeremiah 29:11. The
first is that these words of hope from the prophet were given communally and
not individually. Although I do think God cares deeply about our lives as
individuals, these words of hope are given to all of Israel as a people. God’s
hopes and plans are for the way they will live out their life together as
His people.
Secondly, Jeremiah 29 is spoken into a time of exile and despair.
Looking at their life of captivity in Babylon, the people were ready to give
up on God. Given the way life was going it would be easy to understand if
they began to believe God had simply given up on them. But these words of
hope come as a reminder that the current circumstances are not the end of
the story. God has a hope and future for them.
The epistle text before us for the fifth week of Easter is filled
with other references to Old Testament passages and themes. In just this handful
of verses Peter quotes Isaiah 28:16; Psalm 118:22; Isaiah 8:14; and Hosea
1:6, 9-10, 2:23. Like Jeremiah 29, it is the theme of exile that sets the
backdrop for all Peter has to say to the early Christian church. The story
of God’s activity with Israel is re-narrated here for first century
believers by using three significant titles used for Israel in the Old Testament:
a chosen race, a royal priesthood, and a holy nation.
Having escaped Egypt only to find they were left wandering through
the wilderness, the Israelites wrestled with questions like: what is God’s
plan for us? Is God truly dwelling among us? Now that we are free from the
bondage of slavery, how should we act and live? Peter continues to find ways
to link the historical struggles of ancient Israel with the very contemporary
questions facing the harassed, persecuted, and marginalized followers of Christ.
When everything is falling apart, people begin to wonder if
God even has a plan for life. Again we see a text addressed to people who
Peter can only describe as “exiles,” people who have been rejected
and left out of the primary cultural systems of value and identity. Is there
some plan for their life together as a community that God is bringing to fruition?
If God is bringing about something that can even remotely be considered redemptive
it seems invisible to the Christians in Asia. What hope do they have in continuing
their life with Christ?
To understand God’s response, let us look at the text
in reverse. Verses 9 and 10 remind us that God’s purposes have always
been to form for himself a people. The people of God are not formed from a
common culture, race, ethnicity, history, or political philosophy. God’s
people only share one thing in common, “once (they) had not received
mercy, but now (they) have received mercy” (2:10). This quote is taken
from the book of Hosea. In Hosea, Gomer the prostitute is redeemed and loved
by the prophet. He takes a broken, sinful, and destitute woman and by his
love redeems her as his beloved. In the same way, God’s people are comprised
of poor, excluded, and sinful humans who are now made into a unique and special
people.
Secondly, we see that like Israel, the community of people God
is forming in the world can be described as a chosen race, a royal priesthood,
and a holy nation (v. 9). They are chosen not in terms of being selected or
predestined for relationship with God instead of others, but they are chosen
in the sense that it is God’s will to reveal himself through this community
of people. How we understand the term “election” has been very
divisive between some Protestant traditions, in particular the Wesleyan and
Calvinist branches of Christianity. For Wesleyans, like ourselves, divine
election is not God selecting or electing some people for eternal relationship
with Him and not choosing others. Rather, election is a term given to the
idea that God chooses to reveal himself through people. God did not elect
Israel to be redeemed at the exclusion of all other people groups, instead
God chose Israel to reveal himself and be an instrument of His divine grace
and blessing to all the other nations. In the same way God does not choose
people to be saved and exclude others, but He continues to use common every-day
people to be instruments of His grace and ambassadors of reconciliation in
the world.
Those who follow Christ are a royal priesthood not through birth,
but they have been adopted by God to mediate His presence and serve as representatives
for Him to the world. And they are not holy in terms of being exalted or other-worldly,
but although common in their nature, they have been ceremonially set apart
and purified in order to be instruments of blessing to all nations.
Third, the issue of rejection is dealt with in verses 6 through
8. If the Early Church is indeed the new people of God, then why are they
still experiencing so much rejection and animosity? Peter reminds them that
the theme of rejection is not a new one in God’s story. God’s
chosen people in the Old Testament, Israel, frequently faced rejection and
exclusion. The prophets, who were God’s chosen instruments to reveal
His Word to the people, were more often than not persecuted and harassed.
God is still trying to form a people of His choosing who will
reveal His love to the world. In this text Peter refers to this group of people
as “God’s temple.” There are several times in the Gospels
Jesus talks about a shift from seeing the temple as a building of stone to
seeing the temple as a group of people (His own body) in whom the presence
of God is made manifest. The apostles pick up this theme and talk about Jesus
as the cornerstone of this new temple God is building. We should not be surprised
that God’s new human temple is rejected because its cornerstone (Jesus)
was despised and rejected. As the cornerstone of God’s temple, Christ
is not only rejected, but He can often be a stumbling block for those who
do not believe.
So how can we live as the unique people that God is creating
us to be?
Again to move in reverse order, Peter gives us three ways that
the Christians of Asia should respond to God’s unique plans for building
His human temple. First, they should “come to him, a living stone”
(v. 4, NRSV). The human temple God is forming is designed to be the dwelling
place of His presence. Believers become the very living stones of His dwelling
place in as much as we connect ourselves to Jesus Christ, the living cornerstone.
It is impossible for us to reveal His presence if we are not deeply and daily
connected to the life of the cornerstone.
Secondly, the believers are to “long for the pure, spiritual
milk” of the Lord (v. 2, NRSV). Like newborn infants whose singular
thought and desire when they are hungry is for their mother’s milk,
the royal priesthood of God’s people are to learn the singular desire
for God’s rich presence. The original temple was known for its purity.
Soren Kierkegaard wrote that, “purity of heart is to will one thing.”
The human temple of Christ’s presence, the church, must learn what it
means to seek the pure and spiritual things of God.
For the final response we have to move to a verse not included
in the lection reading, verse 1. Peter implores the Christian church to, “Rid
yourselves, therefore of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy and
all slander.” The holy nation God is forming is to be set apart most
of all in the loving behavior they extend to one another. There truly is no
holiness except social holiness.
In the uniquely grace-full way that the Early Church responded to one another,
God’s presence was revealed in His unique human temple. As John writes,
“No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us,
and His love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:12, NRSV).
In our age of individualism we like to talk about the plans
and hopes God has for us as individuals. Although God certainly does care
about our individual commitment and our lives as individuals, the primary
plans and purposes of God in both the Old and New Testaments is to form a
community of people who become the unique location of His presence.
In a church age that has been marked by divisiveness and frequent pettiness, it is sometimes hard to believe that God still desires to reveal himself through a chosen race, a royal priesthood, and a holy nation. Yet the call still remains for us to connect to Jesus Christ our chief cornerstone, to learn to crave the good, rich, and deep things of God’s Spirit, and to reflect in our loving and gracious life with one another the love and the grace that is the primary character of the God who is forming us as His people and dwelling among us as His temple.
