I have very vivid memories of going out to eat with my parents and my grandparents. It would be a perfectly enjoyable meal until the check came. Then the fight was on! My dad and his father would both reach for the bill and heaven help the one who grabbed it first. It would start off slow but eventually became a boiling tirade to see who would get to shell out a few bucks for some average Chinese food. That has stuck with me for a long time and to this day, if someone else wants to pay for dinner, I offer and then let them. I’ll get them next time and it’ll be cool. But I remember those struggles between my dad and granddad. I think I now understand what was the cause… We don’t like to owe anyone anything. We certainly don’t like owing people money. A few days ago when I picked up dinner for a friend of mine, he ended up “sneaking” $15 to me because he so hated the thought of owing. But it’s not just with money. We don’t like owing anything… time, respect.

It’s into this that Peter writes to the aliens and exiles in his first letter. As he tells them about being new citizens, about a new way of being in a world that neither likes them nor wants them. His hard yet simple answer is follow the example of Christ. It’s Jesus that is the information guide for new citizens. Peter sees this as being a “He” and “We” sorta thing. This is not a “come to Jesus” letter. This is a “follow Jesus” letter. Peter saying that we look only to Christ but that we do it the context of the community for the benefit of the church.

It’s why he tells us that love covers a multitude of sins. Certainly Christ’s love for us pays for the sins of the world. The “He” part. But what does he mean as far as the “We” part goes?

Proverbs 10 tells us that love remembers no wrong and doesn’t stir up strife. Love covering up anger.

James in chapter 5 seems to believe that love can help reverse a fellow God-follower if they are on a sinful path. Love covering up tracks.

Jesus himself in Mark 11 says that love is indeed evidence of our own forgiveness. Love covering ourselves.

Paul tells the Corinthian church that bears all things and endures all things. Love covering… all things.

And this can’t just be Peter’s idea of good idea or a lofty ideal to be strived for but never attained. This is something important. This is something deeper. Something I have thought on lately is Romans 13. It tells us that love is mandated. The only thing we seem to owe is love. And if that’s true, it’s too bad Peter never told us how to repay that love we owe. Oh wait! He did. In chapter 3, he gives us a list. Be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and humble. Ahhhh, easy stuff. Well, maybe simple but not easy.

So much of this is about the cooperative nature of the Christian faith. It makes us owners of nothing, stewards of everything. Do we truly believe that the earth is the Lord’s and all it contains? The world and those who dwell in it? If that is so, how could we not be hospitable with what is God’s and do it without complaining? We get in trouble when we speak about God owning it all but in our hearts, we hold onto the thought that we really own this little part of it. Ties into owing nothing but love. That said, pay your bills! The electric company won’t accept a hug.

Peter talks to us about gifts as if they are an already given, not a might happen someday. Each one of us given gifts. These gifts given to us for the well-being of the Church. Every member crucial to the body. The world isn’t won by the clergy alone. They are given to us in order to serve. Gifts are not rewards or shiny placards or merit badges, they are the towels we use to dry the feet lowly. We use them as good stewards knowing that we will give account to the master for how they were used. It is not for our account or praise or prestige that we have these things, these gifts. All gift usage is to be towards the Glory of God, not to ourselves.

No matter what situation you find yourself, you have gifts.

No matter what situation you find yourself, act as though you owe love.

No matter what situation you find yourself, know that your actions reflect on the character of God.

Peter starts his first letter to followers of God, those who are now, both physically and spiritually, aliens and exiles in the world. They are the diaspora. The ones scattered in order to be sown into the ground. He warns them not to be conformed to the former lusts which were done in ignorance and pleads with them to be holy as their Father is holy. Part of Peter’s new citizen’s guidebook written because there were lots of questions to be asked.

What customs did we uphold? What practices did we follow? What do we do now? What customs and practices do we follow now in this new place? With this new citizenship? Who’s footsteps do we follow in now? Peter would say Christ’s.

Christ knew what to do because he continually looked towards the Father. He didn’t give into temptation. An example. No deceit in his mouth. An example. We know how much trouble the mouth can get us in. Out of the mouth comes the overflow of the heart. Sadly, it seems like my heart must be troubled indeed if what comes out of my mouth is any indication. When abused, he didn’t return abuse. But we are very quick to return it. We use it as justification. It makes it ok. Sure, I can’t go out and beat people up for the hell of it but if they hurt me, then I get to hurt them back. If someone is attacking me, then I am in my rights to attack them back. Right? If they take an eye, I am owed an eye right back.Maybe it made it ok in our country, in our old nation but it seems to not be a justification now. In fact, instead of returning abuse, Christ did the opposite. He seems to return forgiveness and love. The example. As Christ followed the Father, we follow the example of Christ. We follow his customs in word and deed and point to our loyalty to him.

In Christian culture today, we hear a lot about Peter’s use of Isaiah in this letter. Modern Christianity, at least, some very vocal parts of it, love to tell us that “By his wounds we are healed”. Somehow this is supposed to mean that we are never to have disease or sickness and that we should all have fat bank statements and healthy retirement accounts. But it’s hard to get that from Peter if we take that verse in any kind of context at all. It seems to me that Peter is reiterating that Christ healed us spiritually by the bearing of our sins. Now that I am all for. But he also seems to tying it to the necessity of suffering. I don’t like that as much.

We all want to have pain free lives but what would that really mean for us? We like being heirs with Christ and heirs to all the goodies but Romans tells us that we are indeed heirs with him, we will suffer. Yikes. Christ himself tells us that if everything is going right for us, watch out. Woe to us because the world treated the false prophets well. If they are nice to us, if the enemy is kind, then woe to us.

I don’t think God wants us to suffer but he seems to understand that it’s just a matter of reality in this broken and flawed world.

This isn’t in most of the information guides on Christianity. If this was in the brochure, would we have less people wanting to the heirs?

Do we cling to any of our old customs? Any old practices? Do we have any new ones that we need to embrace?