Easter 4
April 26, 2026
William G. Carter
For it is a
commendable thing if, being aware of God, a person endures pain while suffering
unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit
is that? But if you endure when you do good and suffer for it, this is a
commendable thing before God. For to this you have been called, because
Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow
in his steps.
“He
committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.”
When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did
not threaten, but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. He
himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, having died to
sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been
healed. For you were going astray like sheep, but
now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.
We didn’t choose this Bible passage. It was chosen for us. There is an ecumenical committee that selects a schedule of scripture texts for weekly worship. I don’t know who they are, but they chose this one. And it is a curious text, indeed.
For one thing, the committee left off the first verse. Verse 18 begins the paragraph, and they left it out of the reading. We can’t blame them for that. It’s one of the most embarrassing verses in the New Testament. It says, in effect, “Slaves, obey your masters. Take whatever they throw at you. Show them proper deference.” Ouch!
In earlier times in our nation’s life, that verse was plucked from the first century and hurled at African people who had been stolen from their homes and sold as forced laborers. It’s ugly. And it will not help to say that Peter’s word for “slaves” was a technical term for house servants, a good bit different than the American enslavement now regarded as America’s original sin.
We can be happy that human enslavement is outlawed in this country, even as the aftershocks of that violent oppression continue to damage our social and economic fabric. We still have a lot of people in this country who think they are better than others. According to historian Heather Cox Richardson of Boston University, people like that are still scrambling to get themselves elected, if only to perpetuate their presumptions of superiority.[1]
Our text was addressed to slaves, who were told to stay in line. I think it’s OK to skip that verse. But it does raise the question: why read the rest of it?
Some might point out that Peter speaks of the death of Jesus. The cross is central to the faith we share. We hoist it high and remember that Jesus took our sins upon himself. This has always been one of the central mysteries of our faith. And it took Christian people a good long time to figure out how to talk about it.
When Jesus appeared on the scene, he told enchanting stories. He kneeled beside the sick and made them well. He taught people how to pray simply and directly. And he called out the hypocrisies of religion and government. The people cheered him. And for all these good and honest deeds, he was nailed to a cross. He was punished but did nothing wrong. He was verbally abused but did not talk back. He was beaten and whipped, yet never reacted in kind. He came to us in love; and that provoked the worst in us. And he took it. He carried it.
Maybe this is the point of our text. It’s three weeks after Easter, Resurrection Season, but don’t let the empty tomb entice you to forget about the cross. Easter was more than a happy ending to a painful weekend. It was – and continues to be - a call to righteousness, a summons to give up hatred, an invitation to turn away from violence and abuse and turn back to God.
That’s why the writer of this letter draws on the ancient words of the prophet Isaiah. He needs to find words to understand what Jesus went through. From chapter 53, he reads,
He
was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted
with infirmity,
and as one from whom others hide their faces, he was despised, and we held
him of no account.
Surely
he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases,
yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are
healed. (53:3-6)
Does that sound familiar? Of course it does. Peter is quoting Isaiah’s old text as a way of making sense of the cross of Jesus. Those ancient words were embodied by the Christ. This is who Jesus was, who he still is. And we need that reminder, even after Easter.
But there is an even better reason why we are hearing this passage today. It’s because it is the Fourth Sunday of the Easter season. The fourth Sunday is always Good Shepherd Sunday. We hear our old friend, the 23rd Psalm. We speak and sing about the Shepherd, even if we have never actually met a real shepherd. And that hooks the last line of 1 Peter’s text, “For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.” Ah, there it is.
For that, too, is also a quotation from the prophet Isaiah (53:6). It’s a Shepherd text, a Good Shepherd text. The promise that no matter what we are going through, the Shepherd gathers and guards us. We are never guaranteed that life will be easy. We are never promised that everything will work out to our preferences or prop up our privileges.
Yet the Shepherd Christ stands with us. “He suffered for you,” says the preacher Peter. He healed you. He gave you an example for when the world beats up on you.
It is striking that Peter addresses this to slaves, not slave owners. There is no Gospel word for slave owners, or for the masters, or for the oppressors. Only for the slaves, and for anybody who suffers unfairly. Isn’t that interesting? Isn’t that just like Jesus? It sounds like the Sermon on the Mount. As somebody notes,
His instruction was to those who were forced to go a mile, but he had no word for those who did the forcing. He advised those taken to court but not those who brought them there. He spoke to those struck on the cheek, but we know of no saying from him to those who strike others. Apparently Jesus’ followers were the abused, not the abusers. Perhaps that is true in the case of slaves and not slave owners in the churches addressed by 1 Peter… It was not written to them or for them. It was written to those who were slaves, had become Christians, but were still slaves.[2]
And the word is to endure. To push through without striking back. To claim the full stature of your humanity. It is possible to be a victim – yet not be a victim. Do you know what I mean by that? Simply this: if we experience pain, we do not inflict pain on others as our response. If we experience disappointment, we do not ruin somebody else’s day. If the world beats us up, we choose not to strike anybody else up. This is the path of forgiveness, just as Jesus forgave and continues to forgive. More than that, it is the path to claim the fullness of our God-given humanity. “We follow in his steps,” says Peter. We pursue his example. We become Christ-like by living like Christ.
So, he said, “If anyone strikes you on the cheek, you take control of the situation. Give them the other cheek.” They may lose interest if they run out of cheeks. Is this unrealistic? Or merely untried?
And if anyone says, “Hey you, carry my pack a mile,” take control of the moment and carry that pack a second mile. Go beyond the basic requirement.
Is Peter telling us to become somebody else’s punching bags? No, no, no. For there is a human dignity to be claimed. Our calling is to become like Jesus, never striking back, never holding the grudge, never demeaning another person who has just demeaned us. This is hard. It’s very hard. It takes practice.
Try to recall the last time
somebody hurt you. How did you respond? Did you plan their slow, painful
demise? Or did you plan a more creative approach, like putting a strong
laxative in their hot chocolate? There is no future in revenge, even if it
would feel so good.
“Of
the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to
smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the
prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome
morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back–in many
ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are
wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.”[3]
There is another way to live, another road to walk. It is not the road of retaliation or the way of MAD (that is, mutually assured destruction). As Mahatma Gandhi supposedly said, “If you live by an eye for an eye, pretty soon the whole world will be blind.”
No, if you have an enemy, fix them a meal. If you’re really strong, invite them to eat it with you. Or you send them a gift, preferably one that is not ticking. That will keep them guessing.
I remember an old college friend. He loved his girlfriend. She treated him cruelly. He invited her out, she was late, he still waited for her. He wrote her a love note. She ripped it up in front of him. He bought her It was terrible. We thought he was crazy to stick with her. So did she. At one moment, she yelled at him, “Why do you keep being so nice to me?” He said, “I thought that was how we are supposed to treat one another.” She didn’t know what to say. She ran out of words. She lost interest in being cruel. Then she started taking an interest in him. Curious, isn’t it?
The lesson is so simple, yet so difficult. When someone mistreats you, what would Jesus do? How would he respond? What could we learn from him? Class is in session. There’s going to be a lot of homework. Keep in touch.
[1] See, for instance, her book, How
the South Won the Civil War, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022)
[2] Fred B. Craddock, First and
Second Peter and Jude: Westminster Bible Companion (Louisville: Westminster
John Knox Press, 1995) 49.
[3] Frederick Buecher, Wishful
Thinking: A Theological ABC (New York: Harper & Row, 1973).
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment