1 Peter 1:3-9
April 11, 1999
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church of San Francisco.
Dashed Hopes
As far back as I can remember, my father and I would sit along the first base line and watch our beloved and cursed Red Sox try to win the World Series which they haven’t won since 1918. After the first week, they are 5-0, the only unbeaten team in the majors!
When I attended the Pond Homestead Baptist Camp, I would check out to see what was hanging outside the kitchen after a meal. If it was a fork, you know something substantial was coming out for dessert. But when it was a spoon, you can guess that it will again be red Jell-O or butterscotch pudding. Yuk!
After completing my PA-40, Federal 1040, and California 540 Part-Year Resident Income Tax Return forms yesterday, I was hoping to get a return refund for at least $40! Once again, I had to pay.
When my mother found out she had breast cancer, I hoped that she would be able to beat it with a mastectomy. She didn’t.
When you and I find ourselves “wishing and hoping” as Dusty Springfield sang for something better to happen, and it doesn’t, we become disillusioned. Our hopes are dashed. We wonder whether God has abandoned us, or whether God is there at all.
Peter’s Audience
The disciple Peter wrote this letter to new Christians who have suffered persecution for their faith. Just like the disciples scattered on that night when Jesus was betrayed and denied, these Christians have been scattered throughout the known world. The impact of God’s grace in their lives has brought these Christians into conflicts with the expectations and norms of that time. The world was not friendly to Christians in those days. And what they hoped of a blissful life has been dashed. They were “wishing and hoping” that following Jesus would lead to good living. It just has been the contrary. They probably wondered if God abandoned them.
Their sufferings for Christ necessitated Peter to say that for a little while they will suffer various trials. Their faith will be tested in the process, like gold tested by fire. But eventually their faith will result in praise, glory, and honor to Jesus Christ. When persecution and hostility happen, what could they do? What can we do?
Last Sunday we celebrated Jesus’ resurrection with bells, trumpets, songs, anthems, and beautiful flowers. We became inspired that God’s mighty power has conquered death when Jesus rose from the grave. We left with a sense that God’s angels will lift us up.
And as “Easter Aftershocks,” we were ready to shock the world. However, in one very short week, we return to church and discover that living the good life of Easter people ain’t easy. We tried this week to live more Christly, but we found ourselves falling short. To be Easter Christians, we may be in danger of giving up our faith not so from the persecution and hostility that Peter’s audience faced, but by the secularism and benign neglect that we face in our contemporary Christian living.
What can we do when our faith is challenged? When our faith is on cruise control and aimlessly going nowhere? We have three choices. First of all, we can abandon all hope.
1. We can abandon all hope.
This choice leads to bitterness or insanity. If we really took the enormous suffering of the world to heart, and saw no way out, no final justice or redemption, we’d either become embittered in our despair, or we’d crack under the strain. As there was an end of Adolph Hitler and the Third Reich, there will also be the end of Milosevic. As long as there are 152 games to play, the Red Sox can still win the World Series. The choice to abandon all hope is not a good choice.
2. We can pretend things ain’t that bad after all.
This option is more commonly held than the first. Pretending things aren’t so bad suggests naïve optimism or remaining blind to other people’s suffering. When we pretend that everything is going just fine, we believe that only bad things happen to other people. And when something would to happen to naïve pretenders, and we know it will, they usually become stuck with the question, “What did I do to deserve this?” They are naïve to life’s realities. On the other hand, blind pretenders try to ignore pain as much as possible, usually running away from suffering. They escape from the emerging suffering—like flight from the inner city to the suburbs, getting hammered on booze and cocaine, or perhaps going to Tahoe hoping to win it big this time. Pretending that things ain’t that bad is not a good choice either.
3. We can believe that it’s all part of the Big Plan.
This third choice is Peter’s choice. In his letter to despairing Christians 2000 years ago, he reminds them that their real hope lies in the resurrection, that no matter what happens in this life, Christ has won for them an inheritance in heaven that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. God has a plan in place.
Yet Peter’s choice is also burdened with its own problems. When we answer crushed hope with the talk of heaven, we can be accused of being “pie in the sky“ idealists, escapists who can’t deal with reality. Christians with hope hear things like, “That’s all well and good, but does it put food on the table, or pay the rent, or cure my cancer?” Modern Christians are supposed to be activists, not escapists.
Before Jesus’ resurrection, Peter was
a fearful man who essentially ran away—an escapist
a brash disciple who swore he would never betray Christ
and before the cock crowed, a liar who denied Christ three times.
After the resurrection, Peter became one of the early church’s great leaders. He changed from being an escapist to an activist. Tradition says that Peter faced his own martyrdom with courage by asking to be crucified upside down because he wasn’t worthy to die the same way Christ died.
Peter probably wrote today’s passage shortly before his martyrdom. He was not only encouraging these despairing Christians, but he was confessing his own ultimate hope in God at a time when the Roman state was crushing his worldly hopes. Resurrection hope turned this escapist into a martyr-activist, a man who sought no escape. Peter didn’t see any inconsistency between resurrection hope and Christian action in this world. And we must not either. Our faith in Jesus’ resurrection is no one-way ticket to run away from the world, but it is an entrance ticket to actively engage in the world and transform it according to God’s big plan.
Keep Your Fork
But that’s not all there is to Easter. There is more to come. When we are actively involved in the world with God to transform it, we can expect to embrace suffering as Christ did on the cross. As it has been true for two thousand years of Christians before us, it is also true for us today, the cross is not the end of this divine story. Peter said,
“By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who are
being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”
There is new birth—We are to be born again
We are living hope—not no hope, not naïve or blind hope, but a hope that actively lives in the world
There’s an inheritance—we are recipients of wonderful gifts
Imperishable—gifts that won’t perish if you don’t put them in the refrigerator
Undefiled—gifts that are unused and unspoiled
Unfading—gifts that are full of luster like gold tested by fire
Kept in heaven—gifts that are from God
Protected—these gifts are protected by the power of God himself
Revealed—in God’s time, God will reveal to us what wonderful things are to come
When we see that our hopes are dashed and we feel that our lives are for nothing and aimlessly going nowhere, Peter reminds us that we are living hope. We are not inheriting great sums of money and gifts to spend on earth, but that we are God’s inheritance. Our lives are the gifts that are imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. And that against all persecution, all suffering and even benign neglect, God protects us for salvation. Someday in his time and not in our human time, everything will make better sense for us.
In the resurrection hope in Jesus Christ, we believe there’s something better coming.
There was a woman who had been diagnosed with cancer, and had been given three months to live. Her doctor told her to start making preparations to die, so she contacted her pastor and had him come to her house to discuss certain aspects of her final wishes.
She told him which songs she wanted sung at the service, what Scriptures she would like read and what she wanted to be wearing. The woman also told her pastor that she wanted to be buried with her favorite Bible. Everything was in order, and the pastor was preparing to leave when the woman suddenly remembered something very important to her. “There’s one more thing,” she said excitedly.
“What’s that?” came the pastor’s reply.
“This is very important,” the woman continued. “I want to be buried with a fork in my right hand.” The pastor stood looking at the woman, not knowing quite what to say.
“That shocks you, doesn’t it?” the woman asked.
“Well, to be honest, I’m puzzled by the request.” said the pastor.
The woman explained. “In all my years of attending church socials and functions where food was involved, my favorite part was when whoever was clearing away the dishes of the main course would lean over and say, “You can keep your fork.” It was my favorite part because I knew that something better was coming. When they told me to keep my fork, I knew that something great was about to be given to me. It wasn’t Jell-O or pudding. It was cake or pie. Something with substance. So I just want people to see me there in that casket with a fork in my hand, and I want them to wonder, “What’s with the fork?” Then I want you to tell them: “Something better is coming, so keep your fork, too.”
The pastor’s eyes were filled with tears as he hugged the woman goodbye. He knew this would be one of the last times he would see her before her death. But he also knew that that woman had a better grasp of heaven than he did. She knew something better was coming.
At the funeral, people were walking by the casket, and they saw the pretty dress she was wearing and her favorite Bible and the fork placed in her right hand. Over and over, the pastor heard the question, “What’s with the fork?” And over and over, he smiled. During his message, the pastor told the people of the conversation he had with the woman shortly before she died. He also told them about the fork and about what it symbolized to her. The pastor told the people how he could not stop thinking about the fork, and told them that they probably would not be able to stop thinking about it, either. He was right.
So the next time you reach down for your fork, or the next time you eat cake or pie, or the next time that you are at camp and they have a fork hanging after the main meal, let it remind you that there is something better coming.
Easter Today
This season of Easter is a special time for Christians to celebrate the ultimate reason for our hope: Christ is risen, and invites us to rise with him to new life. That’s not an invitation to leave the table, to escape from this world for some “pie in the sky” idealism, but rather, Jesus’ invitation to us is to “keep your fork” because there’s something better coming.
Join with me in a closing litany. After I say, “There’s something better coming;” you respond by saying, “Keep your forks.”
+Easter is an invitation to try again with God’s help to break that addiction we had given up all hope of ever breaking. There’s something better coming; “Keep your forks.”
+Easter is a chance to work at renewing the marriage we had given up all hope of ever saving. There’s something better coming; “Keep your forks.”
+Easter is an opportunity to reach out to our neighbors who, in our busyness, we neglect. There’s something better coming; “Keep your forks.”
+Easter is an invitation to look at our lack of love for the world, the pain and suffering in Kosovo, and seek God for compassion. There’s something better coming; “Keep your forks.”
+Easter is an opportunity to be committed to human and civil rights for everyone in our church and city with no discrimination of race, gender, age, or ability. There’s something better coming; “Keep your forks.”
+Easter is a chance for all who have abandoned all hope to regain their vision of what can be! There’s something better coming; “Keep your forks.”
+Easter is an opportunity to renew our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as our one and only Savior. There’s something better coming; “Keep your forks.”
+Easter is a chance to “renew our strength and mount up with wings as eagles; to run and not be weary, to walk and not faint.” There’s something better coming; “Keep your forks.”
And maybe sometime in October this year, I might have a fork in my right hand, eating a delicious slice of homemade apple pie, and watching the Red Sox play the Giants in the World Series. Keep your fork. There’s something better coming.
Let us pray.
O Gracious God, have mercy on us as we seek to do your work in the face of challenges, persecution and disinterest. Through the resurrection of Jesus, we are living hope in the world. We rejoice in our faith in Christ although we have not seen him and yet we believe. In the name of the resurrected Christ and with indescribable joy in our hearts, we pray. Amen.