Bible Text: 1 Peter 4:1-11 | Preacher: Pastor Dorry Newcomer | Series: 1 Peter | Good morning, everyone!  I’m recording my sermon today from our house in the Poconos.  Coming here wasn’t in our plans for this week!   But the storms on Wednesday brought a tree down on Barren Road, and we lost power at the parsonage.  PECO estimated it would be back on by 11 pm Saturday night.  Then more storms on Thursday night brought down another tree, and then the estimate from PECO is 11 pm Sunday night!  The prospect of no hot water for four or five days was more than I could take, so we made the decision to come upstate for a few days.  Ironically, we just got word our power was restored.  Thank you, PECO!

Thunderstorms are not the only unexpected and dramatic events of this week.  We’ve seen photographs and videos of peaceful use of power, people standing up and speaking out against the racial injustice that has plagued America for centuries.  Related but distinct from the peaceful protests are the powerful photographs and videos of looting and fires and violence.  And we’ve seen police, military, and members of our government respond to all of this with their own displays of power.

When powerful, unforeseen things happen, we will always find ourselves needing to make a decision.  Powerful storms in Lima meant Phil and I had to decide between staying home with only cold showers, or figuring out another plan.  Powerful displays of injustice in our world mean we all have to decide between doing nothing, or figuring out another plan.

In our scripture passage today, Peter is encouraging his readers to make the choice to figure out a new plan.  He does not want them to wander aimlessly through life, but instead urges them to “arm themselves with the same intention” as we saw in Jesus—to live by the will of God.  He says, you spent enough time dilly dallying.  Now it’s time to get serious, because Christians are facing powerful resistance.  Christians are dealing with many threatening scenarios.  However many days you have left on earth, don’t live according to your fleshly desires, but instead live according to the will of God.

To live in the will of God is to live in the Spirit of God.  Peter makes a very interesting claim in this section of the letter, that somehow the gospel was proclaimed even to people who had already died, so they would have the chance to live in the Spirit as God does.  Life in the Spirit is so important to God, even death is not a barrier to it!  He goes on to describe what this life in the Spirit looks like.  Phil’s grandmother used to say, “Straighten up and fly right!”, and that could be a good summary of Peter’s words in this section of the letter.  Stop wasting your time with parties—pray instead!  Leave behind that lawless idolatry and submit yourself to Christ.  No more living according to what makes you feel good—be considerate and hospitable to others.  And above all, maintain constant love for one another.  Peter’s words were aimed at helping the fledgling church survive and grow in adverse conditions.

Pastor Karen started a series this week on the Fruit of the Spirit, which Paul records in Galatians 5:22.  Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  These qualities are the fruit of a life focused on following God’s will.  When we arm ourselves with the same intention that Jesus had, we will gradually see changes in our personalities and behavior, and the times when we don’t see these qualities in ourselves become more unsightly to us.  Almost two weeks ago, I was cooking dinner and could not find the jar of beef gravy I knew I had put in my cart in the Acme the week before.  I don’t know what happened to it, but at 6 o’clock, it was nowhere to be found, and I got angry.  Under normal circumstances, we’d just run to the Acme and buy a new jar, or make peanut butter sandwiches.  But of course we were trying to go to the store only once a week, and we had just used up the last of our bread that morning.  Phil had a meeting that night at 7, everyone was hungry and tired after a long day, and I felt so much pressure that I lost my peace, I lost my patience, I lost my gentleness.  It got worse when I accidentally stepped on Garth, our daughter’s puppy, who loves to be underfoot in the kitchen.  I felt horrible that I might have hurt him, and in trying to regain my balance, I twisted my ankle a little and hurt myself.  But what hurt most of all was that I lost my self-control and yelled out a swear word.

A meltdown over a jar of gravy!  That was a powerful display of my limits and weakness as a human being!  Powerful displays always force us to make a choice.  Phil chose to go to the Acme and buy a new jar of gravy, so dinner was saved.  But the much more important choice was inside of me.  Was I going to choose to do nothing with my sin?  Or was I going to figure it out?  I apologized to Garth and made sure he was alright.  I apologized to my family and made sure they were alright.  And I apologized to myself.  At first I really didn’t feel alright.  But you know what?  Something amazing happened.  In that moment of losing my temper, I felt so far away from God, and so far away from the person I want to be.  But the next morning, I wrote in my journal and thought about all that had happened the previous day.  It was at that moment of desolation—the moment when I felt furthest away from God and furthest away from the person I want to be—that I also felt closest to God.  God’s grace came and made my ugly moment beautiful.

Powerful events always force us to make a choice, and when we choose grace, when we choose to do God’s will, when we choose life in the Spirit, we will find that what at first seemed awful—as in AWFUL—becomes awe-full as in filled with awe and reverence!  Last week we read how Peter instructed the early Christians to always be ready to give a defense for the hope that is in them, and as unfortunate as my beef gravy meltdown was, it also renewed my hope.  God can redeem every difficult moment and turn it into an opportunity for our growth, which restores and strengthens the in us the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control we may have lost hold of.

No one ever told me in seminary that so much of the Christian life boils down to “figuring it out,” but it’s true, because doing nothing in the face of sin is simply not an option for Christians.  We are called to confess our sin, to make amends if possible, and figure out how to improve and grow.  Doing nothing in the face of the world’s sin is not an option for us, either.  Jesus opened his ministry by quoting the prophet Isaiah, boldly announcing that the Spirit of the Lord is upon him, and that he has been anointed to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and to let the oppressed go free (see Luke 4:16-21).  As the Church, the Body of Christ, Jesus has handed this mission down to us.  For the Church, life in the Spirit looks like justice.  We are to continue to liberating and leveling work Jesus began, but we have to figure out how.  One of our struggles, though, is that it can be so hard to figure out how to bring about justice and healing, we default back to doing nothing.  It’s paralyzing to be inundated with so many difficult scenes.  Where should we even begin?

They say the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago.  The second best time is now.  No doubt I should have been addressing the sin of racism more vocally all along in my ministry.  But beginning today is better than not beginning.  White privilege is a relatively new term for me.  Not as new as “social distancing”—but still pretty new, certainly not a term I ever heard growing up.  About fifteen years ago, I took the required anti-racism training that every pastor in our conference must attend. I was not familiar with the concept of “white privilege”, and at first, I was in disbelief.  When the presenters tried to explain that being white in America makes a person far less likely to get arrested for a petty crime, or singled out for a traffic violation, or questioned by authorities for any reason, I resisted.  I believed that America is the land of the free.  I did not want to see the extent to which some Americans enjoy less freedom simply because of the color of their skin.  When research was presented that showed how people of color tend to receive much harsher prison sentences than their white counterparts, I recoiled.  I thought America had a justice system to be proud of.  I didn’t realize the extent to which our legal systems are not always just.  Add to that disparities in banking, real estate and lending rules, and education, and what I was overwhelmed.

Looking back, I am embarrassed that I wasn’t more open to seeing these realities.  I think I was afraid to see them, because that meant seeing flaws in a country I didn’t want to be flawed.  I think I was afraid to see them, because that might mean seeing flaws in myself, in a person I don’t want to be flawed.  But God kept bringing new people and new information into my orbit, and what I initially resisted so I wouldn’t feel awful now feels awe-ful.  I am filled with awe and respect for the ways people of color must adapt and strive to be seen and treated as equals in our country.  I am filled with admiration for the courageous people of past generations and our generation who have worked and work for racial justice.  And I am again thankful for the grace of God which continues to bring this issue of racism to my attention.

The term “white privilege” may be new to you, too.  It is a way to describe the unconscious, unseen advantage white people have in our society.  It’s the advantage that comes from being seen as “normal”.  You may remember opening a new box of crayons, and in addition to blue, red, and green, there was a “flesh” colored one.  We know flesh comes in many colors, but the flesh crayon was a peachy white.  That was “normal”, you know?  Crayola righted that wrong decades ago, but bias persists.  Have you ever gone to the hospital and been surprised that the physician wasn’t white?  Do you ever feel less safe around a stranger, simply because of the color of his or her skin?  That has happened to me.  I’m not proud of those moments.  But I can also trust that those awful moments can be awe-full, if I will allow God to use them to help me change and grow.

This has been an awful stormy week in our country, and each of us has our opinions as to which parts of the weeks have been particularly awful.  United Methodists are decidedly un-united in our political views!  But we are united in Christ.  If you are hearing this sermon today, I know that you are interested in living the rest of your days on earth according to the will of God.  You are interested in life in the Spirit.  And so I want to encourage you to think about the concept of white privilege.  White privilege does not mean that your life hasn’t been hard.  It means your life hasn’t been made harder because of the color of your skin.  The fact that we haven’t felt much urgency about understanding and addressing how white people in America benefit being the “normal” race is also an expression of white privilege.

I did not ask for the benefits that come from being white in America, and I would never intentionally do anything to perpetuate them.  I know you wouldn’t, either.  We want to live in a land that is just and fair and free for everyone.  The powerful storms of this week are showing us, though, that they are being perpetuated.  Like all powerful events, they have brought us to a decision point.  We can either turn away and dismiss it all as “just awful.”  Or we can look for the Spirit at work, and make it filled with awe.  We can swallow hard and overcome our resistance to see the reality, that life in America is not the same for everyone, and figure out what to do next.

Last Sunday we celebrated Pentecost, and the Holy Spirit coming to the first Christians.  We talked about wearing red, which symbolizes the power and joy of the Spirit.  The Greek work for power is “dunamis”, from which we get our word, Dynamite.  The Christian Church tends to like for things to stay the same, year in and year out.  But Pentecost reminds us that the Church was founded on power that changes things.  The Holy Spirit came as tongues of fire, and rushes of wind, potent distillations of the explosive power of God to break down the old and bring in the new.

Peter had a front row seat to the power that came on Pentecost, and by the time he wrote this letter, a good two to three decades to experience life in that power.  And what he has to say might surprise you.  It sure surprises me.  He says, “Above all, maintain constant love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.”  Love covers a multitude of sins.  What happened to straighten up and fly right???  I think what Peter is trying to say is, love knows there’s more going on than what’s on the surface.  Yes, there has been looting, which is sinful.  But love asks, what is driving that behavior?  How can we address the pain and the hurt and the systemic sins that are underneath the rage?  Yes, there has been police brutality.  Love demands justice for those wrongs.  But it also asks, what is behind that misconduct?  What changes can we make to support those in law enforcement so they will be less likely to do wrong?  Yes, there have been uses of power this week that we may find awful.  But love takes time to listen and learn, and never judge a person until we’ve walked a mile in their moccasins, which of course we can never do.  So we leave the judging to God.  When Peter said, “Love covers a multitude of sins”, he did not mean that we blanketly tolerate all wrong-doing.  Like the prophet Micah, he was urging people to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.

Every powerful event brings us to a choice.  We can do nothing, or we can figure it out.  My jar of gravy meltdown led me to do a lot of thinking about how I can be more fair with myself and with my family when it comes to dinner.   Right now our nation is having a meltdown of sorts.  As people born anew into a living hope, Christians don’t get to choose to simply do nothing.  We have to figure out how to dismantle the sin of racism, because Christ has entrusted his mission of peace and justice to us, and oppression and inequity should be more and more unsightly to us as we mature in Christ!  This week, addressing injustice feels pretty daunting.  But remember how Peter said the gospel was proclaimed even to the dead?  Nothing, not even death, not even thunderstorms or protests or violence or racism or poverty of any kind can stop the power of God!  So arm yourselves with the same intention that was in Christ Jesus:  the will of God, which is always at work to transform awful into AWE-FUL.  Amen.