Values to Guide Us

Based on 1 Peter 1:17-23
First delivered Apr. 26, 2020
Rev. Dr. Kevin Orr 

            As we move along the course of this pandemic, conversations are beginning to happen in earnest around how to safely reopen society, to get our economy started up again. Our government leaders are developing plans that suggest how to ease the stay-at-home orders in phases that protects our most vulnerable citizens but also gets businesses running and people back to work. Public schools are closed for the rest of this school year. Now, conversations are happening about how the fall semester may unfold. Earlier this week I listened in on a webinar from Ohio State for parents and families of students intending to enter as freshmen this year. Yes, my youngest will likely be a Buckeye. A lot of the questions people asked were about what might happen in the fall. Will classes be online only? Will the tuition be adjusted? What about housing? The only answer we got was that final decisions haven’t been made. But the conversations to answer those questions are taking place. Reopening society is much harder than closing it down, isn’t it?

            Conversations about how to restart public worship is also happening. Our bishop has called together a group of people who are tasked with working out some guidance on how to go about restarting public worship in ways that are safe. The lead teams of our churches and I are looking forward to that guidance. We are going to figure out together how best to proceed so that we can worship together again in our sanctuaries.

            Some church leaders are calling for this conversation around restarting to be about more than just restarting public worship. They suggest this can be a time to think about this as a relaunch of our church as a whole. What will we start back up and what will we decide not to restart? What will we continue doing that we started during this time of shutdown? These leaders are presenting an invitation to rethink what doing church will be like in a post-Covid 19 world. Rather than a return to normal, a return to how things were before, we are challenged to consider what church will be like going forward, a church that will be different from the way it was before the shutdown.

            Before we can answer questions like what will we restart, not restart, and continue doing, we need to consider a bigger question. That question is: what do we as a church value? What are we about? If we are clear about why we exist, this can help us in deciding what we as a church should keep doing and what perhaps we should let go. Where do we go for guidance to answer the question of what we value as a church?

            This passage from 1 Peter gives us some handles on what we value as a church, and how these values can ground what we do as a church as we move out of the pandemic and into the society we have that has been profoundly changed. Now, as I talk about values we hold as a church, I am mindful that there are people receiving this message who are not members of Westgate or Parkview. They may not even be members of any church. When I talk about values we hold as a church, I am thinking of church in its broadest meaning. I am talking about every person who consider themselves to be followers of Jesus. It doesn’t matter if you belong to the churches I serve as pastor, this message is going to be helpful for you, I hope.

            It is especially good to look at 1 Peter for guidance on what the church values because he is writing to a community of Jesus followers who are living in a society that, for them, has profoundly changed. They were all raised to practice the religion of their ancestors. They performed their obligations to give honor to their gods and goddesses. But now they have left behind the ways of their ancestors. They have rejected the religious practices of their community. They now affirm that there is only one God, whose Son Jesus was their Lord and Savior instead of Caesar. Having made this shift, they found themselves pushed to the margins of society, as you can imagine. They were a persecuted minority. They had become strangers in their own country. They could no longer live like they used to for as long as they stayed faithful to the way of Jesus. And they were all new to this, first generation Jesus followers. The Spirit had moved in their hearts and they said yes to the gospel. Everything had changed. Now what? Peter wrote them this letter of encouragement to share with them what this Jesus movement was all about. There are three values that Peter names in this passage from 1 Peter 1:17-23. Let’s take a look at them.

            It starts in vs. 17, where Peter says if you are calling God “Father”, the One who judges the deeds of people without prejudice, then live in reverent fear. The value here is that God is paying attention to how we live, what we say and do. I know there is some ambivalence about calling God “Father” because of how this has propped up the oppressive system of patriarchy. And not everyone has pleasant associations with the term “father”, and they overlay their experiences with the father they grew up on God, which can be a problem. That said, the point is that we have a relationship with God that is like that of a parent and a child. Yes, God is an impartial judge, but the relationship is one of parent and child, not of a stranger in a black robe rendering a judgment and then moving on to the next case in the docket. The other thing is that reverent fear is not the same as holy terror. Remember that God loves you perfectly. Perfect love drives out all fear. We are not to be afraid of God. Far from it. God is our rock, our shelter in the storm, the one whose love for us will never end. We need not fear losing God’s love or being disowned by God. God as father and God as judge is all in the context of a God who relates to us with love.

            The value that I see Peter lifting up here is that what we do matters. God, our heavenly father, who judges without partiality, is paying attention to what we do and say. God cares what we do. By extension, God cares about us. We matter to God. If we didn’t matter to God, why would God care what we do? So, that is what is really going on here. Peter is making it clear to these tentative and anxious Jesus followers that the one who loves them as a father loves his children doesn’t have favorites. God loves each of us the same. I say it again: God does not pick favorites. Each one of us matters to God. What we do and say, how we live, matters to God.

            What have you been doing in response to this pandemic? I know many of us have had the privilege of staying at home. We didn’t have to go out and put our health at risk. Some of us have had to keep working because our employment is essential. But all of us have adjusted to how we live our daily lives. And all of those acts have made a difference. Still, it may seem at times that the pandemic is so big, impacting us so much, that it is overwhelming. What can we do to make things better? Is there anything we can do to make a difference? Be assured, what we do and what we say does make a difference. It matters. It certainly matters to God. Because you matter. That means we all need to be thoughtful about what we do going forward.

            The second value is found in vs. 21 where Peter says, “in God we trust.” Does that sound familiar? It’s been stamped on our paper money since the 1950s, about the same time “under God” was added to the pledge of allegiance. Having trust in God was something that Peter had to learn. He and the rest of the disciples were convinced that Jesus was the messiah, the son of the living God. But then he was arrested and beaten. Peter bailed on him, denying that he even knew Jesus. All the rest of the disciples fled as well. Then Jesus was killed. Their hopes were dashed. They were confused. How could they have been wrong? Where was God in all of this?

            But then Sunday came, and the tomb was empty. They shouldn’t have counted God out. When it appeared that all was lost, God came through by raising Jesus from the dead. Not even death could prevent God from accomplishing what God wanted. In fact, the death of Jesus was part of the plan. The disciples learned to trust God after going through a situation that tested their faith in God like nothing else.

            Having had time to process the resurrection of Jesus, Peter was able to share with these Jesus followers that even before the world existed it was Jesus’ destiny to do what he did. After all these generations had gone by, thousands and thousands of years, in their own time Jesus fulfilled his destiny. They had the privilege to live in the time that Jesus accomplished his task. It took a long time, but finally what God intended for Jesus came to pass. Never count God out. God can be trusted. Nothing can ultimately stop God from accomplishing what God wants done.

            What is God accomplishing now during this pandemic? I wonder if there is something that God has been trying to accomplish in the church or in the world in which this pandemic is creating the space for that to happen. The Spirit is revealing to us how our society is structured, causing us to wonder if we can do better, have a society that is more just and environmentally sustainable. The Spirit is revealing what is most important about the church and pushing us to be creative in how we stay connected, worship together, and reach out to our community. I have heard a number of people say the pandemic has forced the church to move rapidly into the 21^st century by embracing the possibilities of modern technology like social media and digital communications. Could it be that in this pandemic God is at work bringing about the change in the church and in the world that God has intended? We can trust in God, that there are things happening right now that aligns with God’s intentions. We can trust that God is active in the midst of these challenging times. Don’t count God out. We can trust that God is up to something.

            The third value Peter lifts up is in verse 22: love one another deeply, from the heart. This goes back to verse 17 where Peter talks about what we do matters to God. But even further back to verse 15 Peter calls us to be holy because God is holy. God is holy and God is love. The two go together. Peter challenges us to live our lives shaped by who God is. That means living a life of love. As Jesus followers, Peter says, that’s what we do. Love for one another is a central value for us. People will know we are Christians by our love. What more can I add? This value speaks for itself. What we say and what we do is to be guided by the value of love for one another. It’s just that clear.

            As we think about moving forward into this changed society, as we reset our church, adapting to a different world, I invite all of us to live out these three values: what you do matters, trust God, and love deeply from the heart. We are going through a time of amazing possibility to shift how we live our lives, how our society is ordered, and how we do church. However we do church in the days to come, if we let these values shape our lives we will be able to move forward with a confident hope that we are living lives that are pleasing to God, lives that will make God proud. So, in the days to come, remember that you matter to God and what you do and say matters to God. Trust God. Love each other deeply from the heart.