“Holy Priests,” 1 Peter 2.2-10, Easter 5A, May ‘20

1.      Please pray with me.  May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer.  Amen.  The message from God’s Word on this 5^th Sunday of Easter is taken from 1 Peter 2:2-10, it’s entitled, “Holy Priests,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.      On this 5^th Sunday of Easter, the good news of Christ’s resurrection still echoes in our ears. We hear Jesus say to the women, “Go and tell… ” (Mt 28:10), and to the apostles, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (Jn 20:21). These missionary thoughts are repeated by Peter in our text. Every Christian is reminded of his high calling as a priest of God to proclaim his “praises.”

3.      Living in a society hostile to the message of Christ crucified and risen again, we all need repeated encouragement to do this. Such encouragement is offered and given by the reminder of what God in his mercy has made of us and the purpose for it. Peter says that God has “built us into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood” to offer “spiritual sacrifices.” What holy lives we will want to live! How zealously we will declare his “praises” by word and deed!

4.      And yet, what happens to us Christians when we forget what our identity is in Christ?  Take this illustration as an example.  “Can anyone there tell me who I am?” This question was asked by a weary, unshaven man at a convention of the American Legion. He was in uniform—at least of a sort—wearing an old navy jacket but with trousers of army or marine vintage. There was no “dog tag” around his neck, nor were there any name tags on his clothes. His pockets contained a few dollars but no wallet.

5.      So, who are the priests the Apostle Peter is talking about?  There must have been many converts in the early church with their own identity crisis. They heard and wondered about the several names read in Peter’s letter “to God’s elect, strangers in the world . . . a chosen people, a holy nation, a people belonging to God.” Each had its special meaning, but one name stood out because it was given twice: “a holy priesthood” and “a royal priesthood.” To men and women who had lived in “debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry,” such a high title made a deep impression.

6.      In every age some have regarded people as little more than animals. Karl Marx, the founder of communism, said that man is a hungry animal. What he wants most, claimed Marx, are three meals a day. If he doesn’t get enough to eat, he’ll be troublesome. He must be assured that he won’t get hungry; ultimately this is the way to world peace.

7.      Charles Darwin, who proposed the theory of evolution, thought otherwise. To him man is an animal, but a fighting animal. He has to struggle and gain power if he is to be satisfied. Just having enough to eat isn’t enough; he must dominate. Make him boss so he can give orders and bask in the praise of others and he’ll be content. Sigmund Freud, an early proponent of psychology, disagreed. Man is a lusting animal. He must have freedom in sexual matters, or he’ll be unhappy. Let his biology have free rein and all will be well. The Ancient philosopher, Aristotle, also said that man is an animal. His greatest need is knowledge. Educate him about the consequences of right and wrong and he’ll choose the right. He misbehaves because he doesn’t know any better.

8.      Jesus and his disciples didn’t argue about differences between man and animals, but they had no doubts about the enormity of man’s, sinfulness. By nature we are all, “dead in transgressions and sins” (Eph 2:1), “hostile to God” (Rom 8:7). Because of this condition it is necessary to be “born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and enduring Word of God.” Our Lord said, “No one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit” (Jn 3:5). In the waters of Baptism, bonded with the Word, the Holy Spirit works saving faith in Jesus Christ and a person is truly reborn.  This alone qualifies God’s people to be holy and royal priests.

9.      1 Peter 2:9–10 says,  “⁹But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. ¹⁰Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”  This section on the believers’ relationship with Christ concludes with two verses that must rank among the most important in the entire New Testament. In poetic phrases, Peter proclaims the new identity of reborn Christian men, women, and children, and then in just 14 words (in Greek), tells us the new meaning of our whole existence.

10.   Peter wants us as Christians to remember who we are! In verse 10, Peter quotes Isaiah’s contemporary, the prophet Hosea, whose whole message could be summed up by those few words: “Not my people … but now you are my people.” Disconnected from God, sinful from birth, hostile to God’s Word and will, all humanity bears this horrible stencil: “Not the people of God.” God was so angry with unbelieving Israelites that he commanded Hosea to take a prostitute as a wife as a visual aid for rebuking the unfaithfulness of the nation. Hosea was to call their son Lo-Ammi (Hebrew: “not my people”); “for you are not my people, and I am not your God.” “I am not your God” is the most catastrophic utterance any human being will ever hear.  By birth no one lives under the mercy of God. We are born under the curse of sin, death, and hell. The horrible name that Hosea was instructed to give his daughter, Lo-Ruhamah (“not loved”), is the name we also were assigned at birth (Hosea 1:6). 

11.   “But now you have received mercy,” says Peter. “Now you are the people of God.” When Word and sacrament work the incredible change in a human being that we call conversion, things change. When a human being is connected to Jesus Christ in faith, things change. Our status before God changes: God sees us clothed in the righteous robes of his Son and proclaims, “Not guilty!” Our attitude also changes. Instead of hating God’s Word and ways, we come to love them. We see God as Father instead of judge and jailer.  Peter says that as Christians you are, “a royal priesthood.” You are both adopted into the royal family of heaven and anointed into the holy priesthood of God.

12.   But, what are the priests to do?  While the major task of the Old Testament priests was to offer sacrifices to God, another kind of sacrifice is the responsibility of the new priests. Peter urges us to declare the, praises of him who called us out of darkness into his wonderful light.  The immediate sacrifice is one of “praise—the fruit of lips that confess his name” (Heb 13:15). This obviously is our worship, especially with other Christians. “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing” (Heb 10:25). In our day of individualism (“I’ll do my own thing”) one often hears “I don’t get anything out of going to church.” What we “get out of it” is the privilege of glorifying our God. We remember Mary of Bethany, who chose “what is better” when her irritated sister Martha reprimanded Jesus for not directing Mary to help her with preparations that had to be made. Jesus gently informed her that listening to the Word has priority (Lk 10:39–42).  This is where genuine worship begins: “Our Lord speaks and we listen… Saying back to him what he has said to us, we repeat what is most true and sure” (Lutheran Worship, 6).

13.   But worship doesn’t stop there. We declare his praise when we “do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifice God is pleased” (Heb 13:16). What keeps us from doing good? There are many excuses but one not often recognized—is just plain laziness. The ancients called it “sloth,” suggesting the three-toed creature that hangs by his claws for days without a care in the world.

14.   In a parable closing the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus compares two builders. The wise builder built his house on a rock, and the house stood firm in a storm. The foolish man built his house on sand, and it fell with a great crash as the rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew (Mt 7:24–27). Was he warning against laziness? Or, was it like sewing a patch of unshrunken cloth on an old garment, which makes the tear worse under stress (Mt 9:16). He upbraids the lazy servant who hid the talent entrusted to him in the ground rather than putting it to work (Mt 25:14–30).

15.   Our Lord and his disciples were anything but lazy, going “around, doing good” (Acts 10:38), so busy with ministering to the needs of others that “they did not even have a chance to eat” (Mk 6:31).  The 28th chapter of the Old Testament book of Exodus describes in great detail the priestly garments God ordered Aaron and his sons to wear: breastpiece, ephod, robe, a woven tunic, a turban, and a sash. They were colorful—gold, blue, purple, scarlet—and adorned with precious stones. God’s New Testament priests don’t wear such garments. Instead our vestments are the prayers we offer on behalf of others, the kindnesses, the cup of cold water, the hands that reach out to heal and help. That is how we live, as the royal priests of God, as we offer our sacrifices of praise and live in the sure hope of our inheritance that awaits all the “chosen people” who have been “called out of darkness into his marvelous light.”  Amen.  Now the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting.  Amen.