Bible Text: 1 Peter 2:9-17 | Preacher: Pastor Dorry Newcomer | Series: 1 Peter | A lot of people have been telling me how every day feels the same lately.  One day just bleeds into the next, one week slides into the next, and here we are at the start of May, another month of what feels like forever!  When my dad retired, he used to say, “Every day is the same except Sunday we get a fat newspaper.”  Now we don’t even get a fat newspaper on Sundays!  So, given the sameness of the days lately, would you say you are in a rut, or a groove?  Big difference, isn’t there?  Both words imply a well-honed routine.  Both words convey a sense of predictability and pattern.  But they are quite different, aren’t they?  Stuck in a rut means I don’t see much chance of things getting better.  But grooves?  Grooves are good.  Grooves are energizing.  We don’t get stuck in grooves.  We blossom in them!

It’s no fun being a rut.  Well, I guess it’s better than being in a ditch!  But ruts are dreary.  That’s why I’m really glad we are studying the book of First Peter right now.  Peter wanted to help people escape their ruts and get into a groove instead.  Since he could not be with everyone in person, he wrote them a letter.  At the very beginning of the letter he reminded his readers that they are not meant for ruts.  They have been given a new birth into a living hope!  Last month our memory verse was, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” There is nothing like hope to get us out of our ruts!  Ruts are unpromising places.  But when you’re in a groove, you see opportunity, victory, and joy.  Grooves are hotbeds of living hope.

If you want to get out of your rut and into a groove, Peter offers us a simple plan.  All you need to do is look at yourself in the mirror.  Every single one of us, if we look in the mirror, can see a real-life example of living hope…IF we will look at ourselves through God’s eyes.  Look at yourselves, he says, and pay attention, because:

Once you were not a people—you were in a rut!  But now you are God’s people.
Once you were trying to make it on your own without God’s grace.  Talk about an unpromising place.  Now you have God’s mercy at work in and for you!
The world maligns you and calls you evildoers.  The world wants you to see yourselves as defeated.  But God doesn’t see you that way!

Peter reminds his readers that they are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, people belonging called to declare God’s praises.  He tells them, you have been pulled out of darkness into God’s marvelous light.  You’ve been born anew into a living hope!  In other words, you’re groovy people!

Seeing ourselves through God’s eyes makes all the difference.  For one thing, it completely levels the playing field.  Peter wrote in verse 17, “Honor everyone.”  This is a revolutionary thought.  Next week we will read in verse 18 that at least some of the early Christians were slaves.  They were not honored by their society.  But Peter says, if you see yourself the way God sees you, you will honor everyone.  All people are of equal worth.  No one deserves to be in a rut.  No one deserves to be put down or treated as if they are undeserving of hope and promise.

He went on to say, “Love the family of believers.”  Don’t let the adversity you’re facing cause you to get angry with each other.  Don’t let the scarcity and fear around you keep you from being generous amongst you.  Good advice!  Definitely not stuck in a rut stuff.

And then Peter says, “Fear God.”  I’ve been wondering about this line.  I have talked with a handful of people in the last few weeks who think the corona virus is a sign that God is judging the world.  Have you heard that, too?  Well, this week I listened to a lecture by a professor of Christian history and he said, for Christians, living in times of pandemics and plagues is actually normal!  Did you know the bubonic plague raged through Europe from the 1340’s to 1720?  Four hundred years!  At no time did the Christian church ever officially teach that the plagues were God’s judgment.  But all that suffering got people wondering, and sometimes they would organize repentance parades to show God how sorry they were for their sins.  Unfortunately, these mass gatherings only served to further the spread of the disease!

Peter absolutely did not think the suffering his people were experiencing was a sign that they were doing things wrong.  No doubt he had taken to heart what Jesus said, “Blessed are those who are persecuted, for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:10).   Peter did not tell people to fear God because persecution and sufferings were a sign of wrongdoing.  Peter told them to fear as in revere, honor and worship God. The world is full of injustice and frustration.  But God is perfect.  God’s love is perfect.  And God’s love never works to put people down.  God’s love is always at work lifting us up.  Some people look at corona virus and see God’s judgment.  That doesn’t connect with me.  I look at corona virus and see God’s love, a love that grieves when we suffer, a love that longs to take us out of even our deepest and darkest ruts and bring us into marvelous light.

And when you get pulled into the light, everything changes.  What Peter says next is one of the most shocking things in the Bible.  After writing, “Honor everyone. Love the family of believers.  Fear God,” Peter writes, “Honor the emperor.”  Hooba dooba.  Honor Nero?  The man who ties Christians to posts and lights them on fire as human torches?  The man who refuses to lead in truth but instead fosters lies?  The man whose primary focus is his own pleasure and comfort, and not the well-being of the people he has been given to govern?

Instead of saying, “Honor the emperor”, Peter could have written, “Pray and work to overthrow Nero!”  But Peter doesn’t say that.  In fact, he says, “For the Lord’s sake, accept the authority of every human institution.”  Why would he write that?  Why would he encourage the early church to honor and accept an unjust, evil ruler?

I think the answer to this question, as well as the motive behind this whole section of the letter, comes down to that one word, acceptance.  It isn’t that Peter is uncaring about the challenges his people are facing.  He doesn’t love the idea of people submitting to an authority that has it out for them.  Peter urges people to accept the authority of every human institution because he knows the best way to navigate challenges is through acceptance of reality.

The best way to navigate challenges is through the acceptance of reality.  Peter and the people reading his letter lived in an autocratic society.  They had no political power.  They had no voice.  They had to accept that truth and then respond accordingly.  Avenues like protesting, voting, and advocating for justice were not open to them, and openly disobeying the authorities was only going to make things worse.  They best way they could foster change in their setting was to accept the imperfections of their society, and aim instead to change themselves.  He urged them again to be exemplary in their conduct, so that the lies being told about them would eventually be refuted.

Peter’s advice about submitting to authority is tailored to the context of his day.  But the reasoning behind his advice is universally applicable.  The best way out of a rut is to accept the truth of our situation.  Look at all the accepting Peter urges in this passage!  He wants them to accept the truth about their political situation—submit to Nero’s authority but obey Christ.  He wants them to accept the truth about themselves:  they are a royal priesthood, a holy nation.  He wants them to accept the truth about each other—all people are worthy of respect and honor.  And he wants them to accept the truth about God.  There is a day in the future when God will come and make all things right in a big way!  Until then, we are not forgotten.  With God’s help, we have work to do and a mission to accomplish.  We are not meant to be stuck in ruts.  We are meant to be in the groove!

Peter’s premise holds a lot of promise for those of us who feel stuck in a rut these days.  But first we need to figure out, what would it look like for us to accept the truth of our situation?  We are not the first Christians to live during a pandemic.  We don’t have to fear that God is angry with us or has forgotten us.  We can trust that God is always at work for good.  We don’t have to go around wishing we lived in a world where there is no danger.  We can accept that there is some danger, some risk, some threat, in all of life, but that God is in the business of life!  We don’t have to pretend to be happy all the time.  As one of our long-time and very wise members, Lilian Wright testified in worship last year, there have been times in your life when you have been very, very unhappy.  But God has been faithful!

Helen Keller said, “Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.”  What a powerful line, coming from someone who became both blind and deaf at 19 months of age.  Helen Keller knew a lot about suffering.  But she also knew about overcoming.  She learned how to communicate, first with signs, and then later, even though she couldn’t hear anything, she learned how to speak.  She graduated from college, wrote several books, and travelled all over the world advocating for many social causes.  She especially worked to strengthen the rights of handicapped people and women.  Her life could have been defined by her suffering.  Instead, Helen Keller spent her life not only overcoming her suffering but working to help other people overcome suffering, too.

I love that word, overcoming.  God did not design us to be stuck in ruts.  God has called us out of the darkness into God’s marvelous light.  This light is so marvelous, it doesn’t need clear skies to shine.  It can shine through clouds and storms, plagues and pandemics.  This light is so wonderful, it can turn even the most difficult of situations into a hotbed of hope.  This light is so powerful, it can overcome even our deepest inhibitions, and turn us into groovy people!

So this week, I am wondering if we can get out of our ruts, and start a pandemic of acceptance.  Will you look in the mirror and accept what you see?  You are part of a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s chosen people born anew into a living hope.  Will you look at the world, and accept what you see?  It is created and ruled by our loving heavenly Father who is always at work for good.  Will you look deep inside yourself, and accept all that is there, the highs and the lows, the fears and the failings?  In all of it, God is with us, friends.  May we continue to find ways to declare the praises of him who called us out of the darkness into his marvelous light.  Amen.