Morning Prayer: Tom Lyda Choral Amen Hymn of Faith *Christ Is Made the Sure Foundation* The Witness of Scripture: I Peter 2:2-10 Anthem *O Light of Life* Mack Wilberg. FCC Chancel Choir Sermon *in Order That* David Spain
Recorded on May 7, 2023
This is a wonderful time of year, graduation time when teachers and families and students gather in their regalia and their better clothes to don the caps and gowns and celebrate years of hard work and dedication. It is a time of year to give thanks—realizing that while there has been individual effort, each one has also been inspired and encouraged by a camaraderie of educators, friends, and families without whom no one walks the stage. And, there is the tradition of the commencement address, that charge to the graduates inevitably touching on the themes of gratitude for what has been and hope for the places you will go. It is a time of laughter and tears, of confidence and uncertainty—a foundation built in order that a future can be constructed.
A long time ago there was another passage moment and another commencement address.We don’t know exactly who gave this speech, although it has been attributed to Peter—the Rock on whom the church is built according to Jesus. And we don’t know exactly the audience—exiles according to the opening line but it is a general salutation to fledgling churches in the northern part of Asia Minor, which today we know as Turkey, churches that had not yet built on Main Street and might not have been held in highest regard by Roman rule, churches that were still trying to determine what it meant to be the Body of Christ in the world. The author of these words does what any good commencement address does, reminding people of where they have come from and who has helped them become in order that they can go into the world and make a difference for the good.
As with any commencement, there is a remembrance of the past. The address is saying you may be outsiders, exiles but remember God is the kind of God who loves to work with those who have been rejected. In fact, God takes what has been rejected, flawed, oppressed and creates new life from that loss, whether that is Israel in exodus and exile, or Christ in the crosshairs because God’s valuation and venue is different from Rome’s appraisal and allotment. Hearing this commencement evokes memories of how God acts. God heard the cries of those who were laboring under Pharaoh’s brick quotas; God called one who was slow of speech but long on endurance to lead an oppressed people; God’s steadfast longsuffering with a sometimes bitter bunch of complainers delivered a land of promise; God chose the 7th son and not the first son as the new king; God turned farmers into prophets; a shy woman named Esther into a deliverer; shepherds in a field into messengers of good news; a rejected woman at a well into the first evangelist.Yes, to be sure it hurts to be rejected, whether it happens in the 7th grade cafeteria, or on the job, or in a relationship, but the writer of I Peter says rejection is not a permanent condition with God, who takes what has been rejected and can even make it into a cornerstone for a new building. We remember the audience hearing these words are not the elite but the exiled, not the movers and shakers but the outsiders and ostracized. This is a God who hears the distressed, acts on their behalf, and invites into covenant.
The first part of the commencement is a reminder of where people have come from and who has been with them along the way. The second part of the speech is equally empowering as long as we remember the first part, as long as we remember not only the audience but also the orator who says, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.” We cannot help but wince at those words of grace because of how they have been coopted, weaponized over the years. Horrifically at times in the past and unspeakably too often still today, the mixture of church and chosen or more broadly Christianity and chosen has become a toxic brew of exclusivity and anger, of rejection and judgment. From claims of Aryan race superiority to torch bearing rioters in Virginia; from a global rise in hatred and fear to our own friend and neighbor Imam Imad Enchasi reminding us that anti-Islamic vitriol is on the rise even in a state that asserts the “Oklahoma standard” of care for neighbor, our world is still not beyond turning words like “chosen, royal, holy, God’s own” from a broad net into a narrow chord. When this happens, the inevitable binary gallows are erected: insider/outsider, clean/unclean, worthy/unworthy, constructed by fear inducing demagogues who seem to be able to stoke an angry audience into ready suppliers for the scaffolding, and in whose hands Christianity is reduced, as Andrew Whaley described it “into rigid racial categories [that] abandon all fruits of the Spirit for the sake of the accumulation of power…elevating their status before ever stooping to wash the feet of their neighbor.” (Journal for Preachers, Easter 2023, p. 55) We know, of course, that Christianity is not the only faith tradition and religious expression vulnerable to extremist hijacking. Charles Kimball has reminded us that any religion can become evil. So, keeping this in mind, let us always be vigilant when we hear the words “chosen race, royal priesthood, holy nation, God’s own people.” They are true words, salvific words, hopeful words but only when we remember their initial audience, their grand expanse, and their benevolent purpose.
Who hears these words can make all the difference. If someone has been in the palace, at the top of the food chain, amid the power brokers, those who benefit from the ways systems and societies are structured, then chosen royalty is a given, so much the air one breathes that this air is not even noticed—it feels like a birthright. Every society that has ever been, every organization that has ever been, has a structure and try as we might the perfect structure has yet to be made. Years ago on a mission trip, we went through an exercise during which we all started on the same line and then statements were read about income, gender, race, education, family, relationships, and depending on how one answered each question, you took a step or two forward or a step or two backward. We were all from the same church but before the exercise was completed, there was great difference and distance between us. It reveals that the givens are not given the same, and it is helpful to remember that. The ones who heard this commencement address from I Peter knew about those differences because they were the outsiders, they were the ones who saw the air. We might have forgotten that our ancestors in the faith were the outsiders, the aliens, the foreigners. When you have been on the inside for so long, memory fades of what another vantage point looks like. Our ancestors in the faith saw the air as Rome breathed it; and thanks to this commencement, they saw something else—they saw the air as God breathed it. “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people” and we realize that the charge from I Peter is not meant to erect walls of exclusivity nor create enclaves of exceptionalism; instead it is meant to inspire and to encourage those who are unsuspecting recipients of the unmerited, unsolicited, graciously offered mercy of God, which is a net wide enough to surround everyone and an embrace broader than the measure of our minds.
I Peter is a reminder of how God has always been…this One who creates humanity in God’s own image, which is to say that everyone bears the Maker’s mark.Who we are before we have ever done anything is rooted in God’s making. Some years ago, the New Yorker magazine told the story of a young boy who wanted to meet his ancient grandfather who lived in deep Appalachia. Sitting on the porch, the ancient grandfather asked, “who are you?” The young boy replied “I am so and so’s son and so and so’s grandson,” making the obvious point whether he realized it or not that who he is is not rooted in himself but in his relationships.” Peter Gomes observes, “We are related to all whom God has made, and thus, while there are people we do not know, there are no strangers; while there may be people we do not like, there are no foreigners; while there are people who live in other places, there are no exiles…no one beyond concern.We demonize and dehumanize others in order not to have to accept them as the same creatures of a Creator God, and we learn our lessons only when we recognize in that diversity of human experience the presence and the image of that same God. God is not just nice to people other than ourselves, God consists of people other than ourselves, and so if you occupy a singularly unique place in the world you ought to recognize not only that God is there but that God is elsewhere as well.”(Strength for the Journey, pp. 86, 87)
“You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people,” and as critical as those words are for those think they are no people and of no value, the commencement actually hinges on three other words—in order that. We are who we are not as an end unto itself but in order that we would point to the One who brings people out of darkness and into light. Paul Tillich once said that a saint is not a saint because of personal goodness but because that person is transparent to that which is greater than the self…a window through which grace and mercy pass and in which the Spirit of God finds a dwelling. This is who we are, this too is our commencement address. We do not have to be graduating from anything, just people ordinary and imperfect who nonetheless are what Sally Brown called ‘agents of redemptive interruption.’ (Sunday’s Sermon for Monday’s World: Preaching to Shape Daring Witness, p. xviii). In a world given to knee jerk condemnation, we respond with truth spoken in love in order that God’s marvelous light will shine through us. In a world of warring objectification, we respond with humanizing identification in order that God’s marvelous light will shine through us.In a world of ingrained injustice we respond with courageous inclusion in order that God’s marvelous light will shine through us. In a world of fearful reactionism we respond with informed compassion in order that God’s marvelous light will shine through us.
It is a wonderful time of year, it is always a wonderful time of year to be God’s people and to commence God’s ways in the world in order that…in order that.