Major
Themes in 1 and 2 Peter
Stephen
Terry
Commentary
for the June 24, 2017 Sabbath School Lesson
“No
one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or
you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God
and money.”
The
Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said
to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but
God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.
Luke
16:13-15, NIV
In September of 2015, the painting “Interchanged” by
William de Kooning, pictured here, was sold at auction to Kenneth C. Griffin
for 300 million dollars.[i] It is currently on loan to
the Art Institute of Chicago. Recently I happened to see part of “Casino Royale”
starring Daniel Craig. It was the card playing scene at the end of the movie with
115 million dollars at stake on a single hand of Texas Hold-em Poker. While the
first example is factual and the second example is fictional, they do highlight
the values of too many in this world. These dollars represent at some point in
their accumulation the monetization of labor and resources. I have seen the
works of many fine artists and appreciate the uniqueness of their talents, but I
question the values of a world wherein a million men toiling away for hundreds
of hours is of less value than the work of one man making some paint strokes on
a canvas or briefly spending a moment with some pieces of patterned pasteboard
arranged in an uncommon but not rare sequence.
Perhaps what sets such examples in stark relief are the attitudes
displayed by the owners of such wealth. They too often cavil at providing meaningful
benefits that would provide stability and security for the families of their
employees, but have no problem spending similar amounts for yachts, mansions,
and yes, even art. To their credit, a few set up foundations to address
societal ills. But even then, they too often do so while avoiding addressing
the real needs of their employees for medical insurance, a stable retirement,
and adequate provision for unexpected disability. Unfortunately, the church is
not immune to such callousness. Tithe and offerings are squandered on “get-rich-quick”
schemes that show little regard for the sacrifices made by the men and women
who faithfully paid those funds into the coffers of the church. In our own
denomination, there has been the Pawtucket Nursing Villa Scandal, the Davenport
Investment Scam, the Harris Pine Mills bankruptcy, the Shady Grove Hospital
scandal, and the Boston Regional Medical Center scandal, among others.[ii] It is puzzling perhaps
why there is so little regard for the labor of the common man by those who
aspire to positions of power and influence. All of this is a sharp contrast to
the message of Peter. Instead of a sensible preparation of what is to come on
the earth, too many seem to be acting as though the earth will go on as it has
forever and there will be no accountability for what they do to one another.
Peter points out that there is accountability though,
even if it is deferred. He gives the example of the flood which was brought on
by the extreme wickedness of mankind.[iii] When we see the results
of almost constant warfare for the past century or so and the tens of millions
of people painfully and horribly swept into early graves by the death dealer’s
uncaring scythe, it is hard to imagine how much worse things must have been in
Noah’s day to have brought about the deluge that almost entirely extinguished life
on earth. One wonders why, in the light of our modern efficiency at producing evil,
could we not be standing on the brink of similar annihilation. Peter tells us
that while the previous event was aquatic beyond anyone’s ability to tread
water, the next one will be cataclysmically fiery. This has caused some to
wonder whether it will be brought about by our own doing. With the
proliferation of enough nuclear weaponry to fry the earth to a cinder many
times over, this seems a very plausible scenario. With the increasing evil all around
us, touching the lives of almost everyone, mental and emotional instability
seem a foregone conclusion and perhaps it is only a matter of time before the
right deranged person manages to achieve adequate power to bring it all to an
end with a devastating nuclear holocaust. We have seen the harsh realities of
this possibility in the examples of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and others.
Even Western democracies may not be immune. Perhaps this is why survivalist
supplies are a growing business. Others, even those who are not religious, seem
to be concerned about the possibility of an apocalypse.
However, try as I might, I cannot find any survivalist
paranoia in the pages of Peter’s epistles. Instead, contrary to the nihilists
among us, he found meaning in social order and support of government and
rulers.[iv] Perhaps, he felt that
social stability was essential to delay the impending judgments of God. This
would seem especially true if we will be the ones to catalyze that judgment,
nuclear or otherwise. Jesus said that the evil times to come would be so bad
that the love of most would “grow cold.”[v] Sadly, our love for one
another seems to have taken second place to our love for our possessions,
rightly so named, not because we possess them, but because they possess our
lives to such a degree that we are enslaved to care for them. We buy houses
with multi-car garages and then fill those garages with our “things,” while the
cars the garages were built for remain outside in the weather for lack of room.
Many of the things hidden away in these garages have so scarcely seen the light
of day that the homeowners may not even be aware they own them until it comes
time to move to another residence. When we feel we need a bigger home to hold
it all, we might be surprised how much room we already have if we were to
declutter our lives from some of these possessive “barnacles” that are clinging
to our hulls. We are at times even afraid to leave our homes for any length of
time for fear of what might happen to them if we aren’t there to guard those
possessions.
Perhaps it is this need to secure all of this detritus
that has given rise to the home security industry and the sale of weapons on a
massive scale. It hardly seems likely that this is the result of an increase of
love for others as Peter wished us to aspire to.[vi] Maybe Peter was simply
remembering the words of Jesus about “enduring to the end” in spite of it all,
managing to keep on loving in the face of overwhelming evil.[vii] Both Peter and Jesus
seemed to think that love was essential to salvation. I doubt that it was a
love of things that they are referring to. In my outreach around the world, it
is a conundrum that the very instruments we use to carry this message to others
can cause them too often to covet the technological possessions that make it
possible. I encounter evangelists who think that they cannot reach people for
Jesus without the technology they see others using. They feel that this will
bring large crowds to their meetings and will result in many baptisms. But it
begs the question, “Are they being converted to Christ or to the power of
technology?”
If love has a place, it is definitely in evangelism, and
no machine, no technology is capable of loving like a human heart is able to.
If Jesus were to walk the earth today, would he be presenting his message
through massive multi-media events, or would he do the same as he did two
thousand years ago, touching hearts one by one with his love and compassion.
Perhaps it is hard for us to do the same for we have been too hurt by the evil
in the world to trust enough to love others. But if we look into our own
hearts, we know that we want to be loved by others. Is it so hard to believe
that they would like the same thing? Perhaps our possessions have become like a
wall around our hearts that keep us from focusing on the hurt we ourselves
feel. If we were to disencumber ourselves of them, we would have to come to
terms with our hurting hearts and the damaged hearts of those around us. We
would no longer be able to separate ourselves into the “haves” and “have nots.”
But someone needs to be the first to be willing to be vulnerable, to love, and
since we cannot compel anyone else to take that step, it can only be us.
