22 December 2006

The week ends with more from 1 Peter.

Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same intention (for whoever has suffered in the flesh has finished with sin), so as to live for the rest of your earthly life no longer by human desires but by the will of God. You have already spent enough time in doing what the Gentiles like to do, living in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry. They are surprised that you no longer join them in the same excesses of dissipation, and so they blaspheme. But they will have to given an accounting to him who stands ready to judge the living and the dead. For this is the reason the gospel was proclaimed even to the dead so that, though they had been judged in the flesh as everyone is judged, they might live in the spirit as God does.

This is one of the passages I thought I would skip over. Alas, here we are. There is much about conduct here and some of it is directed to the separation that is being urged from what was the pattern of life that was once the Christian's and is still around them. Some of that had to do with the various guilds and clubs and the banquets and feasts associated with them. One thing is clear, there seems to be a separation from that kind of lifestyle and the Christians are going about things differently in life. But...I want to comment about that. Today, a number of Christians are trying to separate themselves from the general population by setting up systems of alternate education and social groups. It is as though there is a need for some today to live in a world of the "clean" and the "unclean" so as to protect themselves. One of my concerns about this is that they buy into the huge materialistic aspect of the culture and yet think nothing of that. Listen some time to the very "well known" preachers of the day. Very often, it is all about money. Yes, there are words about Jesus and the grace of God, but the lead message is how trusting God will make your rich...will give you all that you ask for in your life. That...is just as much the blaspheme as is that life that is addressed in the text. But today, thrown into the hopper is how Jesus wills riches for us. This is a delusion. Wealth has nothing to do with the Reign of God...unless it is all used for the welfare of others. You won't hear that today. Too many churches fall into the same "me first" spirituality that makes feel people good...but it produces the same values as the culture.

Connection: Yes, there is a life that is contrary to the way of the world. And yet, it is much more broad than what we sometimes want to accept.

Come, Lord God, and strengthen us for the life of love and mercy and hope that turns us to one another and make us a community unlike any other - one ruled by your grace. Amen.