The three commands of verses 7-9 are set in the context of the immediacy of the end of all things. The first two commands make sense in light of this imminent reality. First, be self controlled, or don't flip out because the end is coming. Our security is not found in this world, and so the coming destruction of this material world should not burden on our souls. Second, love each other. This also makes sense as we live in communities as reflections of Christ. We show Christ to one another without care for seasons or days. We have been filled with the Spirit and so love is simply our new way of living. But the third command might seem strange to our modern, individualistic ears. Sure, we love people...out there. Our home though is our home, after all. Our sanctuary from the outside world. Right? So when Peter tells us all to love strangers and foreigners, to be a friend to them and to do so without grumbling and complaining, and when we realize the implication is that we do this in the context of our home, our personal sanctuary, we might start looking for ways to turn this command into a metaphor. But that would be playing Twister with Scripture.
Our modern, enlightened minds have told us that we are the number one priority in our lives. Existence begins at home, Descartes might have put it. We have been taught from and early age that what we want and how we feel are the two most important things in our life. It is our desires and our self esteem that make up the bulk of reasons that lie behind the actions of our everyday lives. I want ice cream, and ice cream makes me feel good. Therefore I will go have an ice cream. Innocuous enough. But in the context of the end of the world, in the context of strangers and foreigners, in the context of loving all without ceasing, perhaps there are other considerations that need to be made before we go get ourselves an ice cream. Now, I am not saying there is anything wrong with getting an ice cream. What need to be challenged, or at least brought out into the daylight and examined, are the unconscious gears that churned out that particular action. Was it merely to satisfy personal, fleshly foodlust? Perhaps to gratify the "You deserve a break today" thought that we have been inundated with these past decades? What drives our actions? What lies behind our motivations to do whatever it is that we do? Paul calls us to consider the needs of our neighbor more important that our own, to consider others as more important than ourselves. How does this factor into our thought processes? Is "Does this bless others?" a box that we check off before we do anything in particular? More to the point of this verse, does "Is my house a place where others feel comfortable?" every cross our minds? How about this: "Is my life, and thereby, my personal space focused on blessing me, or on blessing others?" Or this: "Do I actively pursue blessing others with my goods and my spaces, or do I think that blessing others chiefly means staying out of their way?" What is the aroma of our homes? Is it welcoming and inviting, comfortable and outward focused? Or is the outside of the front door the only space we are willing to share with strangers? What is our own attitude, an extension of our personal space, homes in miniature we might say, as we move in and through society and culture? Are we good hosts?
Important questions that are not often asked. Especially when life is busy with work and family and hobbies. All good things with which the Author of Life has loaded up our plates. But our Author does not load up our plate simply to see if we can get through it all. He is more interested in how we get through it all. What is the fundamental attitude we carry through life? Do we make ourselves Grand Central Station, with everything starting here, with us, and then moving out? Do we decide what we export and import, and how much, and when? Or are we simply a railroad car, carrying cargo from the true Central Station, from Him, out into the world, traveling on the tracks He has laid for us? There are only two orientations in the world. Either we are looking at self or we are looking at the Father. Furthermore, there is not one area of life where this orientation does not manifest itself. Even in eating an ice cream.
As with everything we rely entirely on the Gospel. First and foremost because we do not have the right orientation in and of ourselves. We cannot live in such a way that puts others first unless we have been born again of the Spirit. Only with new hearts can we look outward. The cargo container, which is our life, must first be picked up and placed on the train. Then we can live oriented in the right direction. But if we have been born again, and the Spirit is at work in us, in what ways do we impede His work? In what part of our gardens do we refill, with the dirt of our sin, the holes He has dug to plant new fruit trees? How are we getting in His way? To stay on topic, we do not live 'gospel-y' lives when we see our homes as belonging to us. When we take private property to the absolute, and declare our homes free from the annoying interference of the Spirit, we are most definitely getting in His way. When Jesus bought us with His blood, He did not just buy our souls, keeping our name on the books until we get to heaven, as if salvation is merely reserving a table for Friday night at 6:30. He bought our entire lives, and He bought them for the here and now. Even our salvation is not intended for us. Our salvation plays a small bit part in a much larger story. We have been repurposed. When He bought our entire life, that included every extension of it. It included our homes, our own sacred personal sanctuaries. In other words, our homes are not our own to do with as we like. They belong to God, to do with as He likes. On the broad scale this means He can take it away from us at any point in time, and we can still trust His goodness. But this is covered in the first command, to be sober minded in all things and to not place the substance of our hope in these material things we are surrounded by. But what about the home He has allowed us to keep? What about the home He has obviously put us into? How do we reflect the Gospel there?
The first principle to always remember is that all things are gift. Everything you have, everything you eat, everything you see, everything you smell, everything is gift. This world is gift. Every minute in the day, every day in the year, every year of our lives is gift. This lies at the heart of understanding the world and our part in it through the lens of Gospel. We deserve nothing that we have received. Even the hard and painful consequences of our sins are gracious gifts, for every sin deserves instant and immediate death, followed by eternal and unending separation from God. But this is not what we receive. Far from it. We are given breath every day. We are given the means to live, every day. Beyond that we are given unnecessary joys and blessings every day. Gift. Complete gift. This is what grace looks like: a thrice holy God who cannot stand the sight of sin, becoming a man and living in the very pit of sin for 33 years. Surrounded by sin daily. Watching it express itself every minute. And then, taking all that sin and putting it on like a cloak, He bares the shame that sin carries with it. All so that you and I can continue to breath, without fear of death. This is grace. This is gift. A gift always has a giver. The giver of all these things is the Father. He actually does deserve everything, and yet His orientation is to give. Therefore Christian. What do you do with this gift? Do you also give? Do you also look a sinner directly in the face and give? Give of yourself, give of your property? If our very lives are a gift to us, is it not height of arrogance to not give of our lives to others? Remember, our lives were bought for a purpose. Our lives were given to us, not for us to keep for ourselves. We were granted breath, both physical and spiritual breath, with the purpose of taking life to others. Every aspect of our life, not one of which we can declare ours by right, is purposed for others. This includes, most inconveniently our own homes. So what do we do with them? How do we love and befriend the alien and stranger with our homes? Once we have answered that question, all that is left is to not grumble about it. He who complains is giving with his hands while grasping with his heart. But both hands and heart were bought by the blood. And so with every part of our self, none of which belongs to our self, with every extension of our self, none of which belongs to our self, let us give and make gift, and let us do so cheerfully. In light of the empty tomb, how can we do otherwise?
No comments:
Post a Comment