When Jesus’ Milk Don’t Taste So Good

1 Peter 2:2-3

“Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.”

            And if the Lord tastes rotten, well then, is the implication that this is a religion to avoid?  I like Peter’s honesty.  The truth of Jesus Christ may not be for everybody.  That may come from many different reasons.  Perhaps the person is not yet ready to hear the truth of Christ.  Perhaps the method by which ‘the truth’ was passed to them has left them with a sour taste in their mouth.  Perhaps somebody has done something in the name of Christ that Christ would never have condoned-but that is the only witness this person has ever had to our Savior.

            I fear for the many people who have done things to skew the message of Jesus so that it has become unpalatable to good people who might otherwise have tremendous personal relationships with their Savior.  Most of these many people are very sincere in their own faith journeys, but much damage has been done in the name of Jesus, now and throughout history.

            As the first generation, I would like to believe that Peter was fairly pure in his portrayal of the life and ministry of Jesus.  Despite that, we see much opposition to the faith throughout the history of the early church recorded in the book of Acts.  Some people just didn’t get it.  Or, if they got it, they didn’t like it. 

            So what do we do about the people who have tasted of the spiritual milk but do not find it good?  Praise Jesus, that decision is not up to us.  We can live the most Christian lives we can muster, demonstrating the love and sacrifice of our Lord Jesus, but in the end, it is Jesus who is in charge, not us.  His love for humanity is universal and He will do what He will do to break down the walls between himself and those who will respond.

Growing Into Salvation-Is Like Growing Into a New Pair of Pants?

1 Peter 2:2-3

“Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.”

            In continuation with the childhood theme, growing into salvation…toddlers for Jesus or something.  How does one interpret this?  Salvation comes to us by the sacrifice of Jesus upon the cross, a “once for all” event for the people that God loves-everybody.  It is generally viewed like a light switch, salvation is on or off, you are saved or not.  This switch, in general Christian thought, does not have a dimmer switch to it.  The light does not slowly become brighter.  Or does it?

            What does any of that mean?  It comes down to the question of how someone becomes a Christian.  Most churches define it along the lines of confessing Jesus as Lord and Savior, and accepting him into your heart.  That is kind of hinky when it comes to the theology of the Trinity, as it is the Holy Spirit that indwells us, not Jesus exactly, but that is quibbling.

            By its structure, this phrase seems to develop from the last, we are supposed to seek the pure spiritual milk so that we may grow into salvation.  Metaphorically, a good diet is how we grow in salvation.  But that takes me back to the previous question, can we ‘grow’ in salvation?  We can certainly grow in our knowledge and understanding of the Lord.  We can grow in faith as we turn more and more of our lives over to Jesus, but salvation…

            There is, in classical theology, the concept of the ‘ordo salutis’, the order of salvation.  What this theology does is collect together a lot of theological techno-babble words and try to work out a logical sequence for them in our faith journey.  These include words like sanctification, justification, election, predestination, and more. 

            Paul is a lot more into the theological jargon than Peter, but it is seen in operation here.  Is growing in salvation passing through the various levels of the ordo salutis?  Or is this all just a lot of smoke and mirrors? 

            Could it simply mean, growing in salvation, that we come to understand more and more of just how completely life changing salvation is?  Could it mean that, as we welcome Jesus in, we come to know and understand just how completely he will change things in us for the better?  Could it mean that, as we experience more of Jesus within, we share more of Jesus outside of ourselves?

            I must admit, I kind of like that one.  Our journey of faith can last a lifetime and the marvel of that journey is that there is always something more that our Lord Jesus can teach us.  I think that is our growth in salvation.

Who Decides What Is The Pure Milk?

1 Peter 2:2-3

“Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.”

            We know Peter was married, it is possible he was a father, although I do not know the historic traditions about that.  But he had some experience with babies at least.  His metaphor carries much truth about it.

            A pure, unadulterated milk of truth about our faith, one that we can invest ourselves in without the controversies of the day.  Would that not be marvelous?  I remember a discussion with a Seminary professor way back when.  There was a consideration of the center of the biblical message and the periphery of the biblical message.

            The stuff at the center was this pure spiritual milky stuff, straight from the mother’s…  Well, not sure Peter is willing to carry the metaphor quite that explicitly far.  Anyway, the stuff at the center was all the stuff about Jesus and salvation and so on.  The periphery stuff was still biblical, but might be open to debate. 

            What struck me was who got to decide what the pure, spiritual stuff was and who got to decide what was on the periphery, presumably Pablum for the newborn.  The structure of the church, for example, was one of these peripheral issues.  Yes, being Presbyterian, we believed in the order of the committee.

            Were not the disciples the committee of twelve? 

            But some of those other churches that did the bishop thing, concentrating power into the hands of one person coming down from some unbroken apostolic succession from, well, Peter himself.  That was peripheral, not central to the absolute truth of the church, even though the Reformation minds behind the Presbyterian Church knew they were better than Catholics.

            But touch on the issue of gender inclusion, can women lead in the church?  Maybe one got a gusty laugh and an assertion that the women were certainly skilled in the leading of bake sales, but what else?  That became a central issue, because it was a power struggle for the right to interpret Scripture. 

            At the time of the Reformation, the hierarchy of bishops was as surely a central issue to the ‘freedom’ loving Protestant breakaways as the issue of women in authority was at this particular Seminary.

            And that lesson has never left me.  Who is going to decide what is the pure, spiritual milk that we, the newborn infants in the faith, should be seeking?  Kind of depends on whose in charge.

Babies in the Service of Jesus

1 Peter 2:2-3

“Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.”

So in the light of all the bad things that we are supposed to leave behind when coming into the Lord, we need something to replace them.  There is a story of someone cleaning out their mind of an evil spirit, but not replacing it with something better leads to the evil spirit moving back in with a half dozen friends. 

We know that Peter was married, that bit is clued in for us in the gospels.  I wonder if he was a father, looking at this particular metaphor.

Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk,--What an image!  We are but babies in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we need to develop into new-renewed people..

so that by it you may grow into salvation—That is interesting.  We grow into salvation, is it not something that happens to us by the grace of Jesus Christ?  Interesting contrast.

if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.—I do not believe this is a communion metaphor.  Rather, it is a challenge.  We have come to the Lord, do we find it to be a good thing?

But I Was Just Watching Out For Them…

1     Peter 2:1

Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander.

According to the Google, slander is to “make false and damaging statements about (someone).”  And Peter says don’t do that.  Sounds obvious, does it not?  This runs against everything that the Christian is supposed to stand for.  Love, truth, grace, all that sort of thing.  But, of all the things that Peter calls upon his readers to rid themselves of, this might be the hardest to even see.

One of the joys of the Christian walk is the change that it brings to our lives, lives once governed by sin and evil, sadness and brokenness, these things change as love and grace, joy and healing take over.  But as these changes work out in our individual lives, we see these changes working out in the lives of our neighbors and fellow parishioners as well.

And not everybody changes the same way we do.  They do not change at the same speed with which we change, they do not change in the same manner in which we change, they may make changes but fall back into old patterns, they change things we may not think need changing, and they do not change things that we are convinced need to be changed.  And because we are a tight knit community, seeking to build one another up, we feel the responsibility to observe what our neighbors are doing, and, in turn, offer our advice and commentary.

Such is the nature of the human beast.  We are a community-oriented being.  And it is into all those nooks and crannies of the lives of our fellow Christians that we can quickly cross a line from ‘helpful mentor’ to ‘meddling ignorant’. 

A couple in the church gets a divorce and nobody knows why, for sure, so the sanctity of marriage becomes the subject of the day.  No one knew about the abuse.

A girl in the youth group dresses in a very provocative way, inspiring associations of dressing patterns and sexual promiscuity.  A ‘helpful’ member of the church seeks to intervene.  No one knew the young woman was an aspiring fashion designer, creating her own clothing to symbolize that a woman can dress as she wants.

During coffee hour, a select group of families gathers together and proceeds to slander, roast, comment on, and otherwise verbally abuse anyone and everyone in the church that does not meet with their approval.  No one else goes to this coffee hour, because of the trash talking, so the clique carries on for years without check.

And they all thought they were doing what they should be doing, in the name of Jesus.

   

Ever Been Annoyed With The Person Whose Bible Is Bigger Than Yours?

1 Peter 2:1

Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander.

According to the Google, “envy” is “a feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else's possessions, qualities, or luck.”  It is an unhealthy longing, marked by discontent and/or resentment.  And Peter says we have to get rid of it.  How might we even get it, in the church?

It is a longing for something somebody else has, and, by extension, what we ourselves do not have.  Does this mean a bigger bible?  Or might it be more fundamental than that?  Might envy show up when we compare ourselves to other people that we think of as ‘better’ in the faith, whatever that might mean.  Maybe they find things faster in the bible, maybe they have a more natural way of dealing with people, maybe they are openly and immediately generous in a way that we are not.  Maybe we feel Jesus ‘blessed’ them more.

I am envious of people who can keep organized and to a schedule.  I am envious of people who seem to have that innate ability to strike up a conversation, who are naturally outgoing and vivacious.  In fact, sometimes I hate those people. 

After all, that is where envy leads, to hatred, and hate leads to the Dark Side…

I think that when we expend the energy longing for what we do not have, we are expending energy that could help fulfill us with what we do have.  There is a place for everyone in God’s church.  There is a skill set we all have that uniquely qualifies us to do God’s work.  And that is what Peter is writing about, doing God’s work.  Envy is just going to pull away from its accomplishment and success.

The Danger of Accepting Every Committee, Cause, and Cake Sale in the Church

1 Peter 2:1

Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander.

According to the Google, “insincerity” is, surprise, surprise, ‘the quality of being insincere’.  To be ‘insincere’ is a lack of honesty in the expression of actual feeling, or being hypocritical. 

I was assigned to a prayer group in Seminary and we talked about this a little bit.  It concerned praying for missionaries.  The suggestion was made to pray for all missionaries everywhere, a blanket prayer that covered all the bases, just in case.  Insincerity as a matter of convenience.  “Lord, I pray for everything, everywhere, amen.” 

It is very easy to look at insincerity from the point of view of the callous or hypocritical leader who has designs on being big in the game, instead of looking after the sheep the Lord has commended to their care.  But how about a different angle?

A lack of honesty in the expression of an actual feeling can be stock in trade for some Christians.  Consider the good woman who has sacrificed time with husband and children to respond to every call for committee, cause, and cake sale that her church has to offer?  When the pastor, who has internalized the wisdom that if you want something done, ask a busy person, comes walking down the aisle during the passing of the peace in the worship service, with the straight back and focused walk of the recruiter, making eye contact with the good woman, and she smiles, because that is what she was trained to do…but behind the expression is a mountain of insincerity, how does one get rid of that?

“She should be strong enough to say ‘no’.”  Wonderful sentiment, but not particularly realistic.  The pastor, the church, they all contribute to this kind of insincerity, choosing work over the nourishment of the soul.  I should know, I have been the recruiter during the passing of the peace, but work very hard now to be the nurturer during the passing of the peace.

But getting rid of insincerity might mean that not all the work gets done.  And that is okay too.

If You Have To Be Sneaky To Get Your Faith Across, You Are Doing It Wrong

1 Peter 2:1

Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander.

According to the Google, “guile” is defined as “sly or cunning intelligence”.  And Peter says to rid ourselves of it.  Because while the Christian faith can be many things, sly and cunning are two things it need not be.  Open and direct would be better considerations for this faith of ours. 

Tricking someone into accepting the faith, dancing around them with well-cast tales about Jesus, instead of the presentation of the truth of the gospel, that is what Peter turns against in this instance.  What he has sought to present to us thus far in his letter is the truth of the gospel as he has received it.  It is that gospel that he then turns over to his readers, in the first century and today.

Because, in the end, faith in Jesus is a heart thing, not a head thing.  I can convince someone of the truth of the faith with brilliant logic, flawless rhetoric, and a hundred examples that will cause their head to spin.  “But if I am without love, I am a banging gong or a clanging cymbal.”

Pair this with malice and we are to rid ourselves of the intention to do evil and sly intelligence.  Those two go hand in hand.  Fooling someone, setting them up for something, that is stock in trade for so many religious charlatans, desiring to exploit the religious sensibilities of the masses for their own gain.

Our faith and the sharing of that faith is never for such an intent.  It is to bring the love of Christ, the promise of freedom that comes from him, and the possibility of life eternal.  Anything else, we are called upon to get rid of.

Have You Secret Hopes for the Punishment of God to Fall on Some?

1 Peter 2:1

Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander.

According to the Google, malice means “the intention or the desire to do evil”.  Peter is calling upon his readers to rid themselves of all such intentions.  It comes with a big “therefore”.  Return to chapter 1, read that through again and it becomes obvious why.  The desire to do evil has no place in the work of Jesus. 

Well, thank you pastor, that is a tremendous grasp of the obvious.  At first glance, that may be true.  But look again.  Peter does not only speak of the joy and wonder that comes from a relationship with Jesus Christ, he counts the cost in the lives of the disciples as well.  Vs. 6 talks about some of the various trials.  Vs. 17 talks about living in reverent fear among the exiles.  Living for Christ will cost people something in their relationships with those who do not believe.

This may have been especially true in the time of Peter as the teachings of Jesus were beginning to separate out those who would be called “Christians” from the Jews in the synagogues. 

It can be easy to come to the faith with malice in the heart, even unintentional.  The believers have been ransomed, they have an inheritance, Jesus died for them.  The unbelievers, well, there is a strong streak of condemnation of the unbeliever in the Bible.  And if that is not treated with the utmost respect and gentleness, it can easily become a club to be wielded against those who do not believe. 

At least, it is a club in the hearts of the believer.  Remember, malice is the intention to do evil.  If there is someone for whom we harbor a secret desire to see them punished by God at the end of time, therein lies malice.  Sharing God’s Word is never about the advancement of punishment for the wicked.  It is always about the spread of God’s love.  Punishment is above our pay grade.  Best to leave it up there.

What Stands In The Way of Doing the Work of Christ?

1 Peter 2:1

Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander.

Chapter the Second of Peter’s first letter carries on from before.  How shall we then prepare when we have received the gift of God to do the work Jesus has led us to do?  Lists are always fascinating in the bible.  Are they simply catalogues or is there a thread that carries along between them, tying them together? 

These are the things that must be gotten rid of in order to do the work of Jesus.

Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice,-- Malice, an attitude that is defiant of God’s love for us, and for the love we are expected to show.

and all guile,--Trickery, perhaps that is a better term for this.  Why do we do what we do?

insincerity,--In whose service are we playing at being the Christian?

envy,--How would this get in the way of Jesus’ work?

and all slander.—Rather than telling the truth, making something up about someone else?

Why did Peter pick these ones in particular, at this moment in his letter?  Goes back to consideration of who is reading his letter, I believe.