Through Water

1st Peter 3: 13-22, page 234
Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord.
Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil.
For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water.
And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you – not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.
Sermon
The author of 1st Peter addressed a fledgling group of Christians who lived among a society that didn’t understand why those Christians believed what they believed. The author’s advice: Be eager to do what is good, for when you do good, if people persecute you for doing what is good they will be the ones put to shame; still though, you may suffer, but remember that if you suffer for what you believe, if you suffer because of your faith then you become like Christ in your suffering. He was righteous, so be righteous as he was and become like him in your suffering, the righteous for the unrighteous.
There’s nothing in there about giving up – the author’s advice is all about how to go on believing even when it isn’t easy to believe.
We know about that. It’s sort of like stubbornness, and it’s that sort of strongly felt belief that has been fueling the debate at Duran Schultz’ Barber Shop by Kroger this past week over which fence post lasts the longest, cedar or locust. Tired of the constant arguing, everyone absolutely sure that they are right and not willing to budge on the issue, Duran, as the owner of the shop, got tired of it and hoped to end the argument with a decree: “It’s locust and that’s final.”
Someone getting his hair cut, we may hope he wasn’t sitting in Duran’s chair as Duran might have taken off his ear: “But how much longer does it last?”
“Maybe five minutes” Duran responded.
Men in barbershops know about stubbornness, but it’s not exactly stubbornness that the author of 1st Peter is writing about. The author is writing about holding tight to your belief in Christ, and if we can go on holding tight to our convictions over which tree makes the longer-lasting fence post how much tighter must we hold onto our convictions of the Spiritual Nature, convictions that matter beyond a difference of five minutes?
We see such faithful stubbornness in Harold Camping who still thinks he knows when the world is going to end, though his first two predictions have come and gone without rapture. My friend Brennan Breed, soon to be Columbia Theological Seminary’s newest Old Testament professor, wrote on facebook this past week: “The true mark of fundamentalism; when your assumptions don’t match up to reality, double down your assumptions.”
That’s what he’s done, he hasn’t recanted, he hasn’t stopped believing; instead he rescheduled his end of the world date again, now it’s October 21st.
He really does look foolish for holding so tight to this belief of his, and I’ve been enjoying making jokes about him as much as anybody, but I’m reminded why I shouldn’t when I feel what it’s like when someone tries to make me look foolish for believing what I do.
Last week Stephen Hawking, the famous British physicist was interviewed by The Guardian newspaper. When the greatest mind of our generation, one who’s capacity to understand the universe is known and respected by all, was asked about the existence of heaven he said, “I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people who are afraid of the dark.”
A few months ago I preached a sermon and quoted a preacher who doubted the existence of hell, but that’s different for me, I love to hear hell’s existence doubted. I don’t want to believe in hell. Heaven is entirely different – and I don’t like this belief that I care for deeply to be doubted by someone I know is a genius, and it’s this discomfort that opens the door to what the author of 1st Peter is really talking about. “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.”
But how?
Hawking does have plenty of detractors. There is a young man named Colton who disagrees with this great physicist; he’s written a book called Heaven is for Real. We could hold a debate between the two but Colton’s only four years old.
Another option is to discredit Hawking himself making his argument less credible by making Hawking himself less credible. It’s not too hard really. I heard a theoretical physicist say that people in his field are a lot like hot air balloon pilots – they depend on their own hot air so that they can enjoy their favorite past-time: looking down on people.
Making fun of the source doesn’t take away the strength of his words however, nor does making fun of the source honor the words of 1st Peter: “Do not fear what they fear,” the author says, “and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord.”
Those words honor the difference between stubbornness and faith, I think. When someone disagrees with us, whether it’s over fencepost or eternity, what we truly fear is being wrong, and I do fear being wrong about heaven. But faith isn’t about me and my capacity to be right or wrong.
Faith is about hope and trust, putting our hope in what we can’t or don’t understand ourselves – faith, then, is an appeal to God.
It’s important that the author of 1st Peter reminds us of Noah because Noah is the very definition of such an appeal, building himself a boat on mainland, miles from the ocean. Such an undertaking wasn’t rational, wasn’t self-imposed, but was the definition of trust in one who understood and knew more than Noah or anyone else.
I am sure there were some who called Noah stubborn, but Noah wasn’t building this ark because he believed he should. He didn’t go on building it to prove to everyone that he was right and they were wrong. This boat was based in trust because Noah’s ark wasn’t his idea – his ark was an appeal to God and by that ark he and seven others were saved.
Our baptism is no different. It isn’t about washing ourselves of our sins, our mistakes, so that we can start over, still depending on our own ability to save ourselves. It is an appeal to God, an appeal to the only one who can save us.
That’s pretty much what Grandpa thought. In Cold Sassy Tree Granny just died and Will asked his Grandpa if he would ever see her again.
“I think so son. If there is a heaven, she’s up there, I know that,” he said softly. Then he laughed and slapped his hand on Satan’s rump. “Ain’t but one way to find out if she is or isn’t though. And I’m not that curious.” He sighed, spat, and said, “Having faith means it’s all right either way, son. ‘The Lord is my shepherd’ means I trust him. Whatever happens in this life or the next, even if there isn’t a life after this one, God planned it. So why wouldn’t it be all right?”
Maybe physicists can fathom more than anyone else, but for those of you who can fathom the limits of your ability to know, understand, and control, appeal to the one who is beyond what you know and trust that this God who put the earth in motion, called forth the light of the solar system, and spoke all of creation into existence, this God in Christ laid down his very life for you. The righteous for the unrighteous, and he has gone into heaven and sits at the right hand of God, where all angels, authorities, and powers are subject to him.
No, do not fear what they fear. “Having faith means it’s all right either way. Whatever happens in this life or the next, even if there isn’t a life after this one, God planned it. So why wouldn’t it be all right?”
Amen.