Bible Text: 1 Peter 3:1-7 | Preacher: Pastor Dorry Newcomer | Series: 1 Peter | I decided to title my sermon today, “The S Word.”  Do you know what I mean by the S word?  We heard it right at the start of our scripture lesson.  Submit.  That might as well be a cuss word.  Most people I know don’t ever want to say it or hear it!

Peter uses this word in response to a particular pastoral problem.  In his day, women were much more likely to convert to Christianity than men.  Probably because men had a lot to lose by leaving the dominant religion of the culture, but women had no power or rights in Greco-Roman society.  The good news of the gospel lifted them up like never before!  But the sense of worth and esteem they found in Christ made marriage extra complicated!

You may have noticed Peter’s instructions to wives are so much longer than the instructions he gives to husbands.  That’s because wives are in a much trickier situation.  If a man did become a Christian, his wife and children would automatically become Christians, too.  They would all be expected to follow whatever the male head of the household decided.  He was the boss.

But when a woman became a Christian and her husband didn’t, she had to figure out how to make things work.  Peter writes as a shepherd, a caregiver for these precious sheep, and he chooses his words carefully.  The marriage laws in his culture were completely skewed to favor the man.  So Peter does not tell the wives to leave their husbands.  They had no right to ask for a divorce anyway.  He does not tell the wives to preach to their husbands and try to convert them, or advocate for themselves to be treated as equals—that would be too risky.  All a man had to do to get a divorce was say he wanted one!

Peter tells wives to do the best thing they can, and that is to graciously submit to the authority of their husbands.  Not because women don’t deserve equal power in the marriage.  They do deserve equal power in the marriage!  But they live in a culture where that is not likely to happen.  Peter is a realist.  But he is also in touch with a much greater reality, and that is the reality of Christ in us.  He tells the wives to submit to their husbands so that the gospel can be made alive in them.  He tells them that their purity and reverence may just be their husband’s saving grace.

We get riled up when we read this passage of scripture because we don’t like the word submit.  We especially don’t like the idea of one group of people being told to submit to another group.  But Peter’s message is not so much about submission as it is about THE MISSION.  Peter sees the wives as evangelists.  He sees them as partners with him in spreading the gospel.  He sees them as spiritual equals with an important job to do.

It is in this context that Peter tells wives to submit to their husbands.  He calls them “daughters of Sarah.”  Do you remember from our study of Genesis earlier this year what Sarah’s name used to be?  She was Sarai, but God changed her name to Sarah.  Her husband was Abram, but God changed his name to Abraham.  These name changes were a sign that God had chosen them for an important mission—through them God was going to make a family of people that would help bless the world.

Later in Genesis we read about Jacob.  God changed his name to Israel, a sign that God had chosen him for an important mission—through him, God would give rise to a nation of people that would work to bless the world.  Now as we study the book of First Peter, we remember that his name used to be Simon.  Jesus gave Simon a new name as a sign that he had been chosen for an important mission—he would be the rock on which Christ would build his Church, the new Israel through whom God will work and bless the world.  By calling the wives, “daughters of Sarah”, Peter is letting them know that they too have been chosen by God to be part of an important mission.

When Peter tells wives to submit to their husbands, he is not trying to demean them.  He is trying to help them claim their identity in Christ.  God is with the women, just as much as God is with men!  This is a revolutionary idea!  He calls the women co-heirs, spiritual equals to men.  Wow.  Then he goes on to tell husbands, pay honor to your wives.  This was crazy talk in a society that basically used and tolerated women, a society where women felt they had to dress up and adorn themselves in order to be worthy of attention!  Peter tells them, you don’t need to do that!  He is always advocating for their respect.

Even when he calls women the “weaker sex” or the “weaker partner”, I think he means weaker as in social standing and power.  The women who became Christians in an age of persecution and possibly against their husband’s wishes were not weak!  But they had no rights.  They had no voice.  Peter wants husbands to be sensitive to that and honor their wives as they grow into mature Christian women.  He also says, don’t expect God to hear your prayers if you’re not treating your wife as a spiritual equal!  That must have been a shock to the men reading the letter.  Women were not included at all when it came to worshipping the Greco-Roman gods, and in Judaism women had to worship from behind a screen.  They never counted much before—but in Christ, Peter tells them, women count as much as you!

Peter’s words to both husbands and wives are designed to help each partner in the marriage fulfill their mission as disciples of Jesus.  He wants wives to submit to their husbands, and husbands to honor their wives, so that people will see something truly sacred in them.  So that the way they treat each other will be a witness to the love and dignity and worth endowed to each person by God.  He wants the most intimate of personal relationships to be a vehicle for evangelism.  He wants marriages to embody the extraordinary truth that GOD IS WITH US—male and female!  To both men and women Peter wrote our memory verse:  “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9)

Peter is advocating SUBMISSION so that his readers we can fulfil their MISSION.  I don’t know about you, but this passage that felt so constricting before now feels pretty liberating and empowering!  So let’s talk about how this applies to us.  What should WE do with Peter’s teaching?

First, I’d like to address the issue of what to do if your marriage or intimate relationship is a place of darkness rather than light.  We are hearing about increased incidents of domestic violence during the quarantine.  Under no circumstances should this passage, or any other passage of scripture, be used to tell people they need to stay in abusive or unsafe relationships.  God desires wholeness and well-being for us.  Peter’s letter was written to address the issue of what to do if your husband isn’t a believer in a time when women had no rights, not what to do if your husband (or wife) is abusive, demeaning, or unstable in a time when we understand men and women to be equals.  No one deserves to feel unsafe in their relationships.  Please reach out for help if you do.  In our area, you can call the Domestic Abuse Project of Delaware County hotline 24/7 at 610-565-4590.  That’s 610-565-4590.

If you’re in an especially dark relationship, making a call like that will take a lot of courage. But what should you do if you’re in a marriage, or a family relationship, or friendship, or even a church, where the problems don’t warrant calling a hotline, but things aren’t as good as you’d like them to be?  Or, let’s think beyond marriage.  What should you do if your world is in a pandemic, and in order to stay safe, you have to be in quarantine?  Is there a way to take what feels constricting and turn it into something liberating and empowering?  Do Peter’s words have any application to these situations we all face?

This week I started reading, A Beautiful Constraint, written by Adam Morgan and Mark Barden.  The subtitle is, “How to Transform Your Limitations into Advantages and Why It’s Everyone’s Business.”  I have to admit, I have never thought of constraints as beautiful!  But the authors are convinced that many constraints can become beautiful if we will learn to embrace them as blessings rather than begrudge and resist them like the plague.  They cite example after example of times when a constraint was the catalyst for creativity and innovation.  Their hope is, “Ten years from now, we would like to search Google for a definition of constraint and see it include this:  a limitation or defining parameter, often the stimulus to find a better way of doing something.”

Although it is so hard not being together in worship each week, perhaps that is exactly what is happening to the church during this pandemic.  We are learning to use technology to offer worship to people who can’t leave their homes.  Until now, our shut-in members had no way of connecting to Lima’s worship.  We have over a dozen people participating in our online Bible study every week.  This week we will have Church Council and Trustees online.  I’m sure we will be glad when we can return to having meetings in person, but now we know how easy is to accommodate anyone who can’t drive at night, or isn’t feeling up to going out, or is traveling!  Saturday I will attend my first online memorial service.  Using that format is no one’s first choice, but may turn out to be a wonderful support in the future to help people participate who otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend.  Next week we are going to try having a prayer meeting via conference call.  I want you to know how proud I am of Lima Church!  We are making the most of these constraints, trying to allow them to stimulate us to finding new and better ways of doing things.

I think that is what Peter had in mind with our scripture passages for last week and today.  He wanted to help us see our constraints as beautiful because they can help us find ways to better glorify God.  Whether it’s dealing with a difficult boss, or dealing with a difficult spouse, or dealing with a difficult virus, all constraints are hard!  They are not automatically beautiful.  Which means we have a choice.  We can either organize our lives around the difficulties and disappointments and frustrations the constraints bring.  We can look at the constraints and see death.  Or, we can look at the constraints and see life.

I’ve never preached on this passage of scripture before.  I’m not sure I’ve ever even been to a worship service where it was read.  As I said, at first glance we might think this is a terrible passage of scripture because it contains the S word.  We do not like the idea of telling one group of people they have to submit to another group.  Hopefully in context we can now see that Peter is actually asking all people to submit to Christ so that through submission, we might accomplish our mission.  If we will do that, we can feel really good, because we are following our leader.  Christ submitted to the constraints of human life, and out of that came resurrection and new life.  I would say that was pretty beautiful.  That is where our hope lies!

Again, I want to emphasize that submitting to Christ does not mean staying in unhealthy or unsafe relationships or situations!  The beauty in that case comes from finding the courage to step out of the constraint.  But for most of us, the beauty comes when we lean in.  The beauty comes when we embrace the constraint, and allow God’s creative Spirit to be at work in us, and help us find a new way of doing things, a new way of seeing things, a new way of being.

That new way is called Salvation.  And that is the most precious S word of all.  Blessings, friends, as we navigate this season of constraints.  May they become beautiful as we submit, and sacrifice, and seek to serve the greater good.  In the name of Jesus, Amen.