Suffering

1 Peter 2:18-3:9

Sometimes Life (people) isn’t Fair

I told the Bible study that I read these passages as a parable; that is Peter took the everyday and used it as a common example to speak about a spiritual truth. In this passage Peter takes the condition of House Servants and the condition of Wives  and uses those conditions to teach Christians how they should react when life, when individuals, aren’t fair.

Out of this he talks about suffering injustice as a Christian and being a Christian married to a non-Christian, specifically to a man. For him, both parables teach us how Christians are to live and how our living can be a tool of evangelism.

Sometimes, because of the people over us, life isn’t fair – it is absolutely unjust. Sometimes you get fired or laid off or in the case of the house servants of Peter’s day, beaten, when you have done a good job and followed the boss’s instructions to the letter.

Sometimes you are in a marriage in which the one partner is overly demanding to the point of being abusive. You keep the marriage covenant but she or he always wants more – you are caught in a bind of never being able to please.

The question is how do you as a Christian live under such conditions?

Let me begin with a caveat; physical and verbal spouse abuse, or abuse of servants or children is never acceptable. If you are being made afraid for your safety or if you are being dehumanized as a person, you need to get out of that situation. Fear is never an answer.

Peter says to the slave who can’t run, or to the person who feels they must stay in the job:

1.       Make sure you are doing what is right. You haven’t a leg to stand on if your boss is ticked because you messed up.

2.       If you are doing right and the boss continues to abuse you, consider Jesus. Here was one who went about doing good; he healed the sick, drove out demons, fed the hungry and gave sight to the blind – yet he was abused. If you remember he even paid his taxes. But the more he did right, the more he obeyed the Law, the worse it became for him – so bad that they nailed him to the tree; he suffered the most painful abuse possible.

3.       His response was to pray for his tormentors; he even healed their children and invited them to know God as he knew God – in response to his abuse he offered healing and peace.

4.       God honored Jesus and used his response to suffering as the ransom for us – through the suffering of Jesus, we have been given the keys to heaven. Peter says that the suffering of Jesus, how he handled rejection and injustice is a model for each of us who bear his name.

It is obvious that we are not Jesus; we do not live in his society, his culture – but we can use his model.

1.       He kept God and God’s love for all people uppermost in his life. His full time was spent living out that love; his healing and teaching found its power in God’s love.

2.       When he was abused he did not abuse in return. Both verbally and physically he “turned the other cheek.”  When others went to defend him he ordered them to put up their sword.

3.       He did not hide his differences. Some of Jesus greatest teachings came about in defending himself against the Scribes and Pharisees. Best examples would be the parables of Luke 15, parables of grace. He stood his ground.

4.       Jesus understood himself to be God’s Sacrifice for sin; you are not. And yet there is a suffering that brings redemption – a suffering that looks evil in the eye and says do what you will, you cannot separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus my Lord. The knowledge of this comes through prayer, fasting and a serious study of scripture.

Then Peter speaks to the wife, not in fear of her life, not being abused as we count abuse today; but also not being valued as a child of God or an equal in the covenant of marriage. To her Peter says:

1.       Your method of dress may make you a beautiful object of desire, but you will continue to be an object.

2.       Rather than win your husband through sensuality, let your spirit, your gentleness in the Lord shine through. In place of resentment, let your husband come to recognize your desire to please him and your love of the Lord. Your words and actions are not to mimic his; rather you are to speak words of grace and peace.  You are to live out your love for God.

3.       Perhaps, through the way you speak, through the Spirit that shines through your modesty and your genuine desire to please him, the actions of your prayers;  your husband may also be won to the Lord.

And echoing Paul, Peter addresses the husband and reminds them that in Christ his wife and he are one; that she too is a recipient of the living hope of the inheritance of eternity. He says that the husband who seeks to draw closer to Christ will do so through the way he honors his wife.

And then to the Servants, to the Wives and to the Husbands, to the Church, Peter says:

                Finally, all of you have unity of spirit, sympathy. Love for one another, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse, but, on the contrary, repay with a blessing. It is for this that you were called – that you might inherit a blessing.

May we bring such blessings to our worksite, our marriage and our Church.

Amen