“The Christian at Home” by the Rev. Don Wahlig, April 30, 2023, Year A / Easter – Acts 2:42-47  •  Psalm 23  •  1 Peter 2:19-25  1 Peter 1:3-9, 13-22 •  John 10:1-10

THEME:  Holy Living starts with faith, grows in hope and blossoms in love.

Anybody here ever gone treasure hunting?

Then you know that the lure of gold is a powerful thing.  Which is why it makes a good story.  Robert Louis Stevenson knew that when he wrote Treasure Island, the story of young Jim Hawkins who joins in an ill-fated search for pirate gold.

George Lucas built an entire movie franchise around the treasure-hunting professor, Indiana Jones.  And, if you are of a certain age, you will remember Humphrey Bogart and his futile search for Mexican gold in John Huston’s most famous movie, Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

Treasure-hunters are not just the stuff of fiction.  People have been searching for buried treasure for millennia.  And that search continues today.  You have probably heard the name Mel Fisher.  Mel is famous for discovering hundreds of millions of dollars of Spanish gold off of Key West. 

  More recently, in just the last few weeks, out in California there is word of a new gold rush.  All the rain and melting snow has uncovered new deposits of gold that have washed down the creeks and river canyons of the Sierra Mountains.  Ordinary people from all walks of life are putting aside their day jobs to pan for gold, inspired by the fortunes of prior generations of gold-hunters.  Yes, indeed, gold is the focus and inspiration for millions of people who dream of the good life.

But there are two problems with placing our faith in gold.  First, you cannot take it with you when you die.  That’s why all the gold is still there to find today.

Second, when you have gold, you have to keep it safe.  That’s why we have Fort Knox.  That means you are constantly worrying.  Can someone steal my gold?  The more gold you have, the more you have to worry.

So, as our scripture reminds us, as precious as gold is, there is something much more precious.  That is our faith. 

The heart of our faith is the good news of Easter:  God raised Jesus from the grave.  By doing that, he conquered death itself.  Through faith in Christ, you and I have been given a new birth, a living hope, as I Peter says.  That is the hope of new life.

This hope rests not on material things, but on the promise of salvation.  Let’s be clear what we mean by that.  Salvation is both a future promise and a present reality.  It is the experience of living in the presence of God.  We trust in his promise that we will experience salvation in all its fullness at the end of time when you and I are resurrected, and Jesus welcomes us to the heavenly banquet in his father’s Kingdom.

But we also experience salvation now, knowing that God is present with us today.  In fact, God walks with us every step of every day of our lives.

So, the promise of salvation is like a spiritual trust fund.  It’s a resource we can draw down on to sustain us in this life, knowing that the day will come when we inherit the whole kit and kaboodle.  So both now and then, the promise of salvation is cause for joy.  That is what the writer of I Peter means when he says that joy is the outcome of our faith.

That does not mean we will not suffer, because we most certainly will suffer.  And suffering is painful.  But our faith shapes the way we understand suffering.  Instead of bitterly resenting it, we learn to see suffering for what it is:  a test, a test of our faith.  We are able to endure suffering because we know that testing makes our faith stronger. 

We also know that the alternative is far worse.  Suffering without faith is the worst suffering of all.  Without faith, there is no hope.  Without hope, there is no joy and no life.

That is why faith is more precious to us than gold.  Faith leads to hope.  Hope leads to joy and life.

And this life of faith that we live has a particular shape that is distinctly Christian.  This faithful, hopeful, joyful way of living is what Christ offers us.  It begins in the mind.

The Greek text literally says “Gird the loins of your mind.”  That’s funny.  It’s a colloquial way of expressing the need to discipline our wills to conform to God’s will.  By making this a habit, we learn to want what God wants, over and above what we want for ourselves.

And what God wants, above all else, is love.  Here is the the striking thing.  Love is not so much an emotion as a habit.  Anyone who has been married for more than five minutes will tell you that love is a decision we make.  We make it every day until it becomes habit.  That’s why love is the hallmark of Christian living.  At our very best, it sets us apart from others who put themselves first.

In the coming weeks we will see what that love looks like in the way we live together as a faith family, as members of our community, and finally as heirs who will inherit God’s Kingdom.  This morning, we lay the foundation for that by focusing on what love looks like at home.  That is where love, like charity, begins.

So, the question is what does 1 Peter say about Christian living at home?  Well, this is where we have to be brutally honest about something uncomfortable.  Along with a few other New Testament letters, I Peter is famous – or perhaps I should say infamous – for what is known as the household codes.  You’ve heard of these:  wives be subject to your husbands, children be subject to your fathers, and slaves be subject to your masters.

It is a sad fact of history that these verses have been misinterpreted to justify all manner of abuse and injustice.  That is what usually happens when we make the grave mistake of trying to apply scripture without understanding its context. 

The context for I Peter is Rome.  The Roman Empire was built on the family unit.  It was widely understood that the proper functioning of the family was essential to the well-being of the Empire.  Just as the Emperor was the father of the Roman Empire, so was the Father the head of the Roman household.  This system of patriarchal hierarchy went back 400 years to Aristotle and even before that.

What is new in I Peter, and the other New Testament letters, is the call for mutuality within family relationships.  For Christians, Jesus is now the head of the household.  His great commandment and self-giving love govern family relationships.

The Father bears responsibility for ensuring that family members treat one another with love, honor and respect.  Before, he could do anything he darn well pleased.  And many did.  Now, in light of Christ, he is accountable to Jesus for reflecting his love at home.  And every other member of the household is expected to do the same.

This means husbands must love their wives as much as they love themselves.  Parents must be gentle with their children, and children must respect their parents.  Every member of the family must be kind to every other member.  This is what holy living looks like at home, and it all boils down to faith.

But let’s be honest.  Not every family – not even every Christian family – lives like this.  Why is that?

The answer is simple: Sin.  We are flawed.  As the Apostle Paul says in Romans, “I do not understand my own actions.  I do not do what I want.  Instead, I do the very thing I hate.”  I think we can all relate to that, can’t we?

That means there must be something more to holy living at home.  That something is actually two things:  forgiveness and reconciliation. 

The hard truth is we hurt the very people we love.  Sometimes our loved ones hurt us.  But when Jesus is the head of the household those family conflicts and divisions can never be left to fester.  We cannot give up on our loved ones, any more than Jesus gives up on us.  That is what faith demands.  And it’s what holy living looks like in practice.

Friends, let’s talk about you.  How is your faith expressed in your close relationships?  Which of your relationships needs to be polished, to be more mutual and caring?  Where would forgiveness and reconciliation renew a broken relationship in your life?

When we put our faith into action through holy living, it’s like the treasure hunter polishing the precious metals he’s recovered, rejoicing again at how brilliant they are.  Our faith renews the luster of love we share with those closest to us.

Friends, as the prospectors used to say, “There’s gold in them there hills!”  But the gold is not what the world thinks it is.  The true gold is not found in the mountains or under the seas.  It is found in holy living. 

It starts with faith.  It grows in hope.  It blossoms into a joyous life of love. 

May it be so.

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