EASTER 4-A, April 13, 2008The scholars who were entrusted to select the lessons for each Sunday of the year were experts in their field. When they chose the readings for this Fourth Sunday of Easter, they elected to begin today’s second lesson with verse 19. In doing so they did exactly what they, in their professional lives, would rail against. They took these verses out of context. Or did they? But that is getting slightly ahead of myself.
This is what Verse 18 says: "Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh." Peter is addressing slaves, asking them to endure whatever pains that slavery might entail, both physical and psychological, unjust pains to boot. You and I would never guess that slavery is the context for this passage would we? So these scholars did indeed take this passage out of context.
Or did they? Did they leave out verse eighteen because the remaining verses are apropos to every one of us here this morning even though none of us is a slave? None of us is in servitude to some property master in the same way the slaves Peter was encouraging were. None of us has our freedom taken away. And yet we are indeed slaves of a sort. We all suffer unjustly, somehow in some way. We are not free to do as we please. We have done nothing to deserve that suffering, done nothing to have our freedom curtailed, but there it is.
I want to show you a video. It lasts about six minutes. It’s a video of some modern-day slaves. Think about that as you view it. I’ll get back to you in six minutes. [Show video of Relay for Life "Voices"]
Having cancer is slavery in no less a way than be shackled to a post or forced to do labor for which there is no pay. Everyone in that video – from the cancer survivors to those who are still battling that disease to those who love them and walk their journey with them are all in some sort of slavery. Their freedom has been restricted. And none of them, not any one of them did anything to deserve what happened to them. Like the slaves to whom Peter was writing, they all suffered and perhaps still are suffering unjustly.
Each and every one of us is limited some how in some way by forces beyond our control, by the luck of the draw, by happenstance. Bad genes, bad luck, bad something or another catches up to each one of us sometime in this life, sometimes from our very conception. We suffer and we suffer unjustly. We suffer because of our own illness or disability and we suffer because of the illness or disability of those we love. Our freedom is limited. We are in slavery.
So, perhaps, on second thought, the people who put together the lectionary were right on and wise to omit the verse about slavery, probably because when you and I would read or hear this verse, out immediate reaction would be that Peter was and is not talking about us or to us. But he was and he is.
We all want a full and abundant life, the life Jesus mentions at the end of the Gospel reading, however each one of us might define that abundant life and what all that might mean for our lives. Given an opportunity to think about what we would want our lives to be like if we had total control over those lives, we would all paint a wonderful and loving picture. There would be no undeserved suffering, no cancer, no Alzheimer’s, no diabetes, no…well, the list is endless. No slavery of any kind, that is for sure.
Like a shepherd, we would all wish to be able to control whom and what enters into our lives. But we cannot. What we do have, however is, as Peter notes at the end of the reading, is the Good Shepherd to watch over us, whose grace will strengthen us, whose love enables us to endure whatever suffering comes our way. And what we also have, as that Relay for Life video so vividly portrays, or the Alzheimer’s Walk or the Walk to Eliminate Brain Tumors our daughter Autumn will be part of – what we also have is one another.
We do not and we cannot go through this life alone especially during those times when some form of slavery controls our lives. That is why we are here today. That’s why we walk those walks and give or our time and talent and treasure. May we always be there one for another, one with another.
