LAKE JAMES

NORTH CAROLINA

Easter 4A, April 17, 2005

            This Easter season we are reading the First letter of Peter, written probably 35 years after the Resurrection, 15 years after Paul’s writings, about the same time as the gospels began to be written down. Peter writes to Christians in north and west Asia Minor, in churches that included both people born as Jews and as non-Jews, but born again in Christ, churches that had split off from the synagogues, churches under persecution, churches that included both free men and women and slaves.

            Slavery has been described as America’s original sin. After 140 years we are still dealing with the effects of race based slavery. March 19-20, 1865 at the Battle of Bentonville General Johnston failed to turn back Sherman’s army after its march through Georgia. April 2 General Lee evacuated Richmond. April 9 Lee surrendered at Appomattox. April 14 President Lincoln was shot. April 17 and 18 Johnston and Sherman met at Bennett Place near Durham to negotiate surrender. The terms were not acceptable to the governments, but Johnston finally surrendered on April 26^th. President Jefferson Davis was captured May 10 and the war slowly ended. The country was devastated; Confederate money was worthless; the slaves were free. The south slowly began to reconstruct its life and society.

            Those who wish for their own reasons to deny the moral authority of Holy Scripture frequently pick on the Bible’s recognition of slavery. When the General Convention of 1976 appointed readings it left out verse 18, but it allowed us to expand the readings, and today I want us to pay attention to slavery.

Slavery in biblical times was not race based. Most slaves were either prisoners of war or people in debt. Rome had no bankruptcy courts. People get into debt trouble today from bad luck, illness, bad judgment. Debt in classical times resulted in slavery. Slaves legally have no civil rights. They are property not persons. They have no legal right to make any choices in life. They do what they are told by the master. Children born to slave mothers are slaves from birth.

But societies have also recognized that for the health of the whole society must impose limits on masters. In Roman times the law allowed slaves to keep some of the money they earned. It was possible for a healthy, industrious, and lucky slave to buy his freedom or another’s freedom. These “freeedmen” though they did not have the civil rights of citizens, were protected as were aliens and other strangers.  

The Christian faith offers spiritual freedom through service to Christ Jesus. The collect for peace in Morning Prayer says that his “service is perfect freedom.” >From the early church to our own time oppressed people have come to Jesus for spiritual freedom. In caste-ridden India one or two people in a hundred are Christians, and most of them are Dalit, those who used to be called “untouchables,” and they are under contstant persecution from those of higher castes. Easter Day a rural church in Pakistan was attacked by a Muslim mob that wanted to destroy the church and reclaim the land on which is stands. Several low caste Christians were killed in the raid.

The churches to which Peter wrote included slaves and feeedmen, Jews and Gentiles. Peter advises them, “Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh.” He doesn’t attempt to justify slavery or to justify the authority of the masters. He simply accepts it as part of the life situation of some of the Christians. We are all familiar with outward compliance and inward defiance. We’ve all been children and teenagers, suffering under the arbitrary authority of parents and teachers and others. Many of us spent at least some time last week or some time before that dealing with the arbitrary authority of the Internal Revenue Code. There is no moral requirement to pay more tax than the law demands; we are entitled to whatever deductions and exemptions we honestly qualify for. But cheating, even on income tax, is not moral. “accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh.”

            Why? Why not duck and weave and evade and rebel? One reason is practical. We can’t get away with such behavior. A second reason comes from moral theology. We can’t duck and weave and evade and rebel and at the same time maintain an effective witness to the love of God in Jesus Christ.  As we were reminded last week, we “invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds.” There is an objective difference between those who are “kind and gentle” and those who are harsh. We are called to an impartial obedience to the “Father who judges all people impartially according to their deeds” as a witness to all masters, kind and unkind, gentle and harsh. We are called to the difficult and painful task of following in the steps of Jesus Christ. It is natural when we are made to suffer to threaten revenge. “Don’t get mad, get even” is a political motto. But when Jesus “was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.”

            We are people to whom God has revealed his purpose and plan for the world, and his purpose and plan for our lives. We know that Jesus “bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness.” We know from our own experience how much we have been beaten up and beaten down by sin – by our own sin against ourselves and others, and by others’ sin against us. We are the people who pray to the Father, “forgive us our trespasses, our sins, as we forgive those who trespass, who sin against is.” God’s grace is greater than our ability to receive it. While we were yet sinners Christ died for us. “By his wounds we are healed.” Only by his wounds can we be healed, truly healed from the inside out.

            Half measures won’t do. An example: Just before my last year in seminary I had my impacted wisdom teeth taken out – all four of them. And the wounds healed up, except the upper right. It healed over but it ached sometimes, and I’d put my tongue on the place and press to relieve the discomfort. About two months into the fall I felt a little rough place, and finally I was able to reach up and pull out a little piece of bone or tooth about an eighth of an inch long. Once it came out the gum healed and I haven’t had any more trouble. Unconfessed sin, unforgiven sin, is like that little piece of bone. We may appear to heal over but we’re always sore, sore until we deal with the tiny piece of bone or tooth, until we are truly healed from the inside out. By Jesus’ wounds we have been healed.

            Finally, today’s readings, the readings on every fourth Sunday of Easter, are about Jesus as Good Shepherd. The shepherd metaphor runs through much of Scripture. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. . . . I am the good shepherd, I care for my sheep.” And Peter ends this part of his letter, “For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.” 

            We are the Lord’s slaves; we have been bought with the shed blood of Jesus, ransomed from slavery to sin and death, slavery to our own uncontrolled and sinful desires and behaviors. We are slaves to the kindest and gentlest of masters, to God who loves us and wants what is best for us, who knows what is best for us, and who gives us complete spiritual freedom so we may freely choose to serve him and love him, and love one another in the power of his love,.We rejoice in God’s love, in his gift of love for one another and for all creation. Truly, his “service is perfect freedom.” Amen.

This page last modified on Friday, April 11, 2008 09:39 PM