Sermon 14th October 2012

Today, our Vicar, Cameron Barker, continues our study series on Becoming like Christ, looking at the book of 1 Peter.

There wasn’t going to be a story to start off today; but then I came across this one. It simply has to be told, for several reasons. That includes its claims to be a true one – which, as a parent, I can well believe that it is.

So, it’s about a young girl learning to say bed-time prayers with her Daddy. Being quite little, of course she had to include every family member, every friend, every animal (current and past): etc! One night, after she had finished the full nightly routine, out of the blue she said, “And all girls.”

This ending then became standard; so one night her Dad asked her why she said it. Her response was: “Because everybody else always finishes their prayers saying ‘All Men’.”

As I say, that one just had to be told on this occasion, for several reasons. First and foremost, it illustrates our in-built human capacity sometimes to hear what we think is said, rather than what is actually said. To that we might add that it shows too how we often put in our own corrective. Let’s be honest, though: our attempt to express what we think should have been said can so easily be misguided, or just plain wrong – and the older we get, the less amusing that usually is!

Today is a classic case in point. If we could measure the levels of enthusiasm for the sermon topic from the response to our Bible reading, that would have rated very low today. This is the word of the Lord: really? Are you sure? That reaction isn’t really a surprise. We think we know both what this passage says, and what it means. Isn’t this part of the justification that men have used, encouraged by the misogynist institution that is the church, to keep women subservient? The honest, sad truth is that it has been used that way, by too many people (mostly men), for too long. But that doesn’t mean that it’s right; or that it’s what Peter said; much less that it’s what he meant!

The first thing that we need to do, then, is to put this passage into context. Of course there are lots of people visiting for the baptism who won’t know how Peter reached this point in his letter. Actually anyone who hasn’t heard, or read, last week’s sermon has missed the key transition that has now happened. We started from the beginning of this letter, and have been going through it step by step. As he was so well qualified to do, Peter began with a great excited outpouring of what it means to be a Christian: how Jesus has changed all things, for all people, for all time. He got so excited that he kept on with that until the middle of chapter 2, which is where we reached last week. It was there that Peter began to apply everything he’d said to daily life. So how do we live this new, Christ-like life in the real world?

Gill’s very helpful sermon is on our blog-site for those who want to see the details of Peter’s advice on living for Christ in the realms of politics, and work. Today we arrive at the third main area of society: the family – specifically, marriage. But it’s very much a continuation of the same theme from last week; and it has the same foundations too. “In the same way ...”, Peter writes; and yes, there is that lovely word again: ‘submit’! The NIV is a more accurate translation with its ‘be submissive’. I’m sure that not a few necks have stiffened all over again at the very mention of it; maybe particularly those of the wives who are meant to be submissive! Again that’s no big surprise: submission is something that, if at all, we do with great reluctance, as a last resort: and almost is a defeat.

This is not least why Christianity is such a counter-cultural movement, though. As Peter reminded his readers at the end of the last chapter, at its core it’s all based on the example of Jesus himself. This is what he has left us to follow, and what he calls us to do, as we become more like him. Jesus submitted himself to death on the cross: God’s son, who stopped a storm just by speaking, didn’t have to do this; he chose to. This is how one modern writer puts it: ‘Jesus could have saved himself on the cross; but then he couldn’t have saved you’. And there is the point: this isn’t about me, about what I want, or think I should get. As that same modern write also says: it’s all about Him. This is about living for Christ, who gave himself for us; and to do so does make us like strangers, aliens, or foreigners in this world, as Peter wrote.

So there is the context for this passage and how we have got to here in Peter’s letter: what then about what it actually says, though? I’m sure you’ll have noted that it appears a little imbalanced: the advice to the wife here outweighs that to husband 6:1. However, there is good cultural and factual 1^st-Century reason for that being so, and we do have to take those very much into account. What follow are just statements of fact: this is how things were back then, when Peter wrote. The reality is that, as Aristotle put it, women were ‘A secondary form of human being’. Like slaves, they belonged to someone else: some man, their father, or husband, had complete power over them: legally they could own, and do nothing much.

Females were seen as so inconvenient that any girls after the first-born were regularly abandoned at birth. Mostly they died, but some were taken into slavery, often as prostitutes. But one of the main reasons that there were so many women in the early church for Peter to write to was because Christians didn’t do that to their daughters. Then, we know, the church was also a very welcoming place for former, or current, slaves; prostitutes and all. And, thirdly, once she’d become a Christian, a woman knew that Christ had set her free to follow him, no matter what her husband chose to do himself. So married women could, and did, join church in their own right.

Part of the 1^st-Century way was that women followed their husband’s religion. So if the man became a Christian, his whole family did so with him. There’s plenty of New Testament evidence of that happening too. But included in what this radical new way meant for women was they could join the church even if their husbands didn’t. So this truly was a society-challenging situation that Peter was writing into; he therefore wanted his readers to be very careful about their conduct. That was his general across-the-board principle: live radically for Christ; show people what God’s self-sacrificial love looks like in every way you can; but do it in ways that aren’t so far out of their box that they’ll dismiss you without even considering why you’re doing it.

So wives: submit to your husband! Yes that was expected of women by that society; but not of, or by, Christians. So don’t do it because you have to; do it because you choose to! Also then, don’t spend time, money, and energy making yourself look good just on the outside: focus on what’s on the inside. It’s that gentle, quiet spirit that’s both ageless, and of the greatest worth to God, Peter reminded them – and us. Now I hasten to say that Peter wasn’t telling women not to bother with how they look! In the Greek there is no adjective with the word ‘clothes’. You can work out that Peter wasn’t saying that women should do away with all those things, then! What he did want to flag up is where someone’s main focus is: is it on what’s on the outside; or what’s on the inside?

At some time you’ve probably heard someone say something like, “She’s beautiful; and doesn’t she know it”. I’m sure you’ll also have heard it said of some man, that he thinks he’s “God’s gift”. If you have, you’ll have heard the understandable disapproval that too high a self-opinion carries. That’s never attractive, no matter how good the person may look on the outside. What Peter wants is for his married female readers to see what’s most likely to make their husbands come to faith. It won’t happen because you look great: it will way more likely happen if you live a changed, Christ-like, self-sacrificial, loving life. Specifically it will make a real difference if you follow those Old Testament female examples: even though you don’t have to!

I hope you heard that? Submission is actually a choice that can be made from a position of security and faith. It’s not easy, or painless; but it too can be done, following the example set by Jesus on the cross. God honours, and blesses that; and your husband must as well: “in the same way” yet again, Peter wrote here! What he’s saying is that men have to realise that in God’s sight women are equal to them! We are no different: both are given God’s gracious gift of life. Neither gender earns, or deserves, that. And if men demand our own way by force, because we generally can, then we can’t expect God to listen to our prayers, Peter says! If our closest human relationship is wrong it impacts our Godly one detrimentally too.

How radical was it to say, and believe, this in the 1^st-Century? And, let’s be honest, how radical is it to say, and believe, it today? Not in what we think of as some less developed, or Muslim country, but here, today? What might it look like if we actually lived this out: wives choosing to submit to their husbands; and husbands choosing to treat their wives with the respect that’s their due as equals? Anyone who is married instantly knows what a huge challenge that is, even if both are Christians. There’s much at risk; it’s a lot to give up, for both wives and husbands. But the example has been set for us; on the cross Christ both showed us that it can be done, and also what it can achieve. This is truly radical, exciting, society-changing, life-giving good news for all people; if we’ll do it. So have you heard God’s call to you today? If so, how will you respond to it? As ever, the choice, and the responsibility is yours, and yours alone.

It strikes me that the best way to end may well be with today’s reading! So here’s a very accessible modern translation, from Tom Wright’s commentary on this letter. This time you might like to listen out for what it actually says ...

“In the same way, let me say a word to the women. You should be subject to your husbands, so that if there should be some who disobey the word, they may be won, without a word, through the behaviour of their wives, as they notice you conducting yourselves with reverence and purity. The beauty you should strive for ought not to be the external sort – elaborate hairdressing, gold trinkets or fine clothes! Rather, true beauty is the secret beauty of the heart, of a sincere, gentle and quiet spirit. That is very precious to God. That is how the holy women of old, who hoped in God, used to make themselves beautiful in submission to their husbands. Take Sarah for instance, who obeyed Abraham and called him ‘Master’. You are her children if you do good and have no fear of intimidation.

You men, in the same way, think out how to live with your wives. Yes, they are physically weaker than you, but they deserve full respect. They are heirs of the grace of life, just the same as you. That way, nothing will obstruct your prayers”.

This IS the word of the Lord ...

And so let’s pray ...