#015: The Witness of the Chosen People of God
Sermon text: 1 Peter 2:21-25
Our passage this morning starts with these words “For to this you were called…” To what exactly? you may ask. This verse starts with a conjunction which means that it is somehow related to the proceeding verse. When a verse starts with the word ‘for’ (sometimes ‘therefore’), it’s an invitation to go backward to find that idea connected to that verse.
It is called context.
In our case, we must go back to verse 20 which says “For what credit is it if you sin and are mistreated and endure it? But if you do good and suffer and so endure, this finds favor with God.”
Let’s focus on the second part of that verse and then connect it to verse 21: “But if you do good and suffer and so endure, this finds favor with God. For to this, you were called…”
Do you see how it makes sense now?
Doing good and suffering. Peter notes that the recipients of his letter, those he refers to as the chosen ones are called to love goodness and persist in the face of suffering. Persistence is really another word for endurance.
The word Peter uses for goodness means to do that which is beneficial to another person, to be helpful, well-meaning, and kind. It denotes a kind of emptying ourselves that seeks the well-being of another person, often at our expense.
The other word—suffering, or persistent suffering—denotes a situation where something befalls us. In the most extreme, death or being killed. There is also an indication of endurance. In other words, the ability to remain hopeful and faithful in the face of catastrophe. This is what it means to suffer.
So, our witness has two pieces: a predisposition that is beneficial to another person and remaining hopeful and faithful in the face of suffering, pain, and loss. The Apostle Peter says that to these, the Church—you and I—have been called.
Yet a critical piece of every sermon is the person and passion of Jesus. Take Jesus out of it and all you have is eloquent words akin to a presidential acceptance speech but devoid of power. What Peter does in this text is to ground the calling and witness of the chosen people of God in the person and passion of Jesus Christ.
Central to Peter is the idea that: In Christ is the demonstration of what it means to be the Chosen people of God, and the deliverance to the life and witness to which the chosen have been called. In other words, as the Baganda say, water flows to areas it has been before. The pattern to the life of the chosen is the very life of the one who chose them. The chosen go where Christ has been; they triumph where he has triumphed.
This is what Peter means in the second part of verse 21 when he says that “…since Christ also suffered for you, leaving an example for you to follow in his steps.” In vv 22 & 23, Peter shows that Jesus did not sin, tell lies to get out of situations, malign others, or even retaliate when he suffered. Rather, he committed himself to God who is the just judge.
This is the pattern of life of the chosen people of God.
Now, let me tell you a story.
1977. It was supposed to be an important year for the Anglican church in Uganda.
One hundred years earlier, European missionaries had pierced through the hard terrain of the East African hinterland and finally made their way into the court of Kabaka (King) Muteesa 1 of Buganda Kingdom on June 30th, 1877.
The church, in 1977 was to hold the much-anticipated Centenary celebrations to celebrate 100 years of missionary Christianity in Uganda.
Yet, 1977 would turn out to be the darkest year in the history of the Church of Uganda because on February 17th, that same year, the Archbishop of the Church of the Province of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Boga-Zaire, Janani Luwum was murdered—or should I say martyred by the ruthless despot, Idi Amin Dada.
Ten days before the murder of Archbishop Luwum, he had, along with 17 of his bishops, penned a letter critical of Idi Amin’s mismanagement of the country. In the letter, the churchmen decried the insecurity, arbitrary murders, abductions, and the abuse of rights, dignity, and sanctity of human life in Uganda at the time.
The archbishop and his bishops exhibited moral courage and moral consistency.
These two terms I am introducing—moral courage and moral consistency—bring together the two qualities of the life of the chosen people of God.
Moral courage means that you stand for what is true, even if it means standing alone in the line.
Moral consistency, on the other hand, means that you not only love truth, but you are also willing to be a disciple of truth, honesty, faithfulness, and integrity even when no one is watching. That when presented with enticing opportunities to compromise, you still do what is right.
Archbishop Luwum and his bishops exhibited both moral courage and consistency. They had two options: to keep quiet about the innocent blood that was being shed in full view of everyone or risk their lives by standing for truth, honesty, and the God-given dignity and inherent worth of human life. They chose the latter. They chose to suffer for the cause of truth.
Indeed, less than two weeks later, the archbishop was killed by Idi Amin who later made up a story that the archbishop had died in a car accident, yet his dead body had been found with several gunshot wounds including one through the mouth.
The other bishops were willing to die as well but the Christians objected. In Kigyezi, where Bishop Festo Kivengere was bishop, congregants said “We have already lost an archbishop, we cannot lose you as well.” Bishop Festo, along and some other bishops had to flee into exile.
Today, the situation is different. Everything has been commodified. Integrity is on the wane, and solidarity has a price. Many do whatever they could to shun responsibility, and our society is built to numb pain and suffering. Pain and suffering are no longer the somethings we endure, they have become the things we run away from.
A kind of commitment to endurance and suffering in a world filled with catastrophe is rare as our attention spans have shortened, and patience is no longer desirable virtue. We are becoming so individualised that our commitment to the cult of financial freedom has severed all the ties we used to have with each other. Other people’s pain no longer concerns us. It is all about ‘the hustle’. Everyone wants their ‘own space’. In such a world, it is hard to see the injustice visited upon people who are not us.
This, our society is a society in shambles.
But what Peter is telling us is that God has chosen us to be a different kind of community. He talks about this in the context of what the English bible translations refer to as ‘slave’. Now, this is a problematic word that requires unpacking.
You see, the word translated slave—oikétēs—is different from the common word used in the bible for slave—doulos. The literal meaning of oikétēs as used by Peter is ‘a member of the household’. The term denotes belonging. In this context, those chosen by God to belong to him.
Verse 24 shows us that our belonging to God has been achieved by Jesus through what theologians call imputation. That Jesus bore our sins by snatching them from us and hiding them in his body—although as the text tells us, his body was pure, undefiled, and foreign to sin. He hung on a tree in agony, pain, and death so that we could live for righteousness.
The chosen of God are fuelled by God’s concern for their sins, and his ultimate deliverance of them from those sins. Peter quotes from Is 53 to drive this very point across. “By his stripes you were healed.” In this figurative expression in the genius of the Prophet Isaiah, he relates our deliverance from sin to getting healed from a chronic disease.
Vs 25 says that those who had been going astray like sheep have been turned back to shepherd and guardian of their souls. This is a very important statement in regard to living a life of moral courage and consistency. Because living like this can be a hard ask, having a spiritual foundation then becomes important. We can never risk our lives for mission and ministry unless those lives are hidden in someone who has triumphed over fear, pain, suffering, and death.
Mere activism cannot do. Don’t get me wrong, I like activism and I think it's necessary, but the witness is better. The difference between activism and witness is that while an activist is committed to a cause, a witness is committed to Christ, first, and the cause is just an extension of that commitment to his or her Redeemer.
For the chosen of God, witnessing is a calling—a calling to suffer and endure catastrophe according to the pattern of Christ so that we will be saved through the passion of Christ. Because the ultimate goal of our witness is the renewal of all things. And through Christ, we have been delivered and are now counted among those called God’s people.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
AMEN.