Scripture/Sermon of the Day

18 Slaves, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only those who are good and gentle but also those who are dishonest and harsh. 19 For it is a commendable thing if, being aware of God, a person endures pain while suffering unjustly. 20 If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do good and suffer for it, this is a commendable thing before God. 21 For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.

23 When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. 25 For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.

I. This letter of 1 Peter reminds me of my Greek uncle Renos who was like a father to me as I was growing up. The advice he often gave sounded like it came from this letter.

II. The translation in the bulletin is from a version of the Bible called “The Message.” But many other translations don’t use the word “servant” but “slave.”

Listen to verse 18 again translated from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible: “Slaves, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only those who are good and gentle but also those who are dishonest and harsh.”

The next chapter says, “Wives, in the same way (as with slaves), accept the authority of your husbands, so that even if they do not obey the word, you may win them over by the purity and reverence of your lives. Do not adorn yourselves by braiding your hair or wearing jewelry or fine clothing — but let your adornment be the beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit.

III. The author of 1 Peter was a product of a patriarchal society and did not want to upset the established order. So he told women to listen to their husbands even if he was abusive. He told slaves it was commendable if they thought of God while they endured their unjust treatment.

IV. When we read passages like this, we need to go to the gospels for perspective. Jesus treated women like Mary Magdalene and the Samaritan woman at the well — and the Canaanite woman — as equals. He engaged them in honest conversation, and each of them were regarded by the Jewish “authorities” as untouchables and people who respectable Jewish men should avoid. When the woman was about to be stoned to death by a group of angry men, Jesus didn’t tell her to be brave and accept it. He told the men not to worry about the woman’s sin — but to look at their own.

V. When slavery was legal in America, slave masters used this letter from Peter to justify their cruel and inhumane treatment of the enslaved people they owned.

And people like my father and uncle who were raised in Greek families, my uncle who advised me probably when I was in High School: “The man is the head of the house, and what he says is the law. And if he gives an order to his wife or children and they ask “Why?” — all he has to say is, “Because I said so.” You do not need to explain.

The theme of all the readings today is Jesus Christ as the good shepherd. We don’t follow Peter, or Paul, or the man who wrote this letter. We follow Jesus. So when we read something from the Old Testament, or other parts of the New Testament, we need to keep going to the gospels and seeing what Jesus said and did. In his encounter with the Roman Centurion, Jesus was the servant of the Centurion’s slave. Think of that — Jesus was a servant of a slave — he healed a slave. He was the servant of lepers. Jesus served the women he encountered — the Canaanite woman, the Samaritan woman, the thousands of women he fed when he multiplied the loaves and fish.

And if you really want to see who the boss was in his family, look at the dynamics between Jesus and his mother at the wedding at Cana. It was Mary who gave the orders. Jesus just looked at her, probably sighed and said, “Woman — it’s not my time to be helping at weddings!” But he did what she said.

When we read the gospels we see —IN EVERYTHING JESUS DID, LOVE GUIDED HIM. That’s the lesson we can take from 1 Peter, and all the other interpreters.