Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Sacred Space in Exile 1 Peter 2:1-10


      By this time it should be obvious that I read  1 Peter as a sustained reflection on the consequences of the new birth for people who feel like cultural exiles in the world.  This particular reflection calls on the church to remember its baptism as if they were all new Christians, and this section may have originally been an address specifically to new Christians, which was later folded into Peter’s wider masterpiece.    It addresses us as if we have arisen from the baptistery: As new born babes… (2:2)   As you come to him, the living Stone… (2:4) The new birth is like entering a temple—Americans might sense some remote hint of the feeling of awe inspired by the approach and entrance into special revered space if they have walked up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. 
     Critical to my “approach” to these verses is the notion that the new birth brings about an approach or a coming into an experience of the sacred that is likened to the approach of faithful Israel to a sacred stone which marked entrance into the sacred precincts of the temple.  Jesus is a living Stone.  That is to say he is functioning like a sacred stone was critical to Temple entry.      
     This draws heavily on the early church’s understanding of Jesus as the renewed Temple of God.  To be joined with Christ in baptism is to be ushered into this experience of the sacred space.  Of course God in Christ is a living temple—a living Body.  The glory of God resides not in dead stones but in the incarnate body of Jesus who comprises the Temple as Living Stone.  And the very approach into Christ, the living Stone, is one where believers are made into interconnecting stones—we are made into a spiritual house—a spiritual temple—we become living sacred space.  Yes, we are a house in the sense of a household of priests (2:9), but also a holy temple—thus, “living stones,” who collectively house the glory of God’s Spirit.  This dual meaning of house makes the image sometimes hard to follow, but I think we know a collective bunch of people are a ‘household of faith’ and that household always occupies some space.  Thus, where the Body of Christ is we also have a temple—a mysterious space in which the holy may be encountered.  
       All three of the Stone passages Peter cites in these verses are about the approach into sacred space.     
       Isaiah 8:14  is a text where God is himself becomes the appropriate sanctuary for both North Israel and South Judah—he is the one temple presence that the faithful of both divided kingdoms may enter.  He, is the place of refuge.  God is the sanctuary area where there is safety.  Yet, for those who are disobedient attempting to enter into this sacred space is dangerous.  For those, God is not a sacred garden of safety walling out danger—he is rather a discarded stone at the edge of the compound which trips up those defiant and unholy souls who wish to presume on the benefits of the holy.  To the faithless the holiness o God is a fearful and dangerous stumbling stone.
        Isaiah 28:16 looks forward to the re-establishment of the Temple compound which will wipe away evil.  There is a Stone which is the foundation of the Temple’s activity.  The Temple will bring the living water of righteousness to Israel and the nations.  That is good news for those who love righteousness.  Yet, for those who have a covenant with death, the waters of the temple will come as a deluge which washes them away.  
     In Psalm 118:22 we meet the metaphor that we often associate with Palm Sunday when Jesus entered into the temple courts the last week of his life.  There Jesus is being rejected as the entry into the Holy by the leaders of the Temple in his day.  This is similar to Israel’s ancient rejection of God in the quoted Psalm.  The builders of Israel had rejected a certain building stone—the way I might throw away some 2x4’s that I deem crooked.    But God, when he takes over the building project in making the Temple new, selects the very stone the builders rejected and makes it the integrating capstone that makes an entry into the compound possible.   Without the capstone—two sides of an arch would just crumble.  What was rejected is now celebrated as the very entry into the sacred space.  The instrument of entry into the holy, rejected by some—is the one who has ushered us into an experience of the holy. The Jesus the society around the Christians of Asia minor may reject Jesus, but for believers he is the holy threshold into holy space. 
     In all three passages we are reminded that holiness is necessary for entry into and the creation of sacred space.  So it is in light of these verses that I read the initial commands in the first verses of the chapter.  The initial command to take off, lay aside or discard a series of evils, I read as if it were a moral dress-code for priests of holy space.  The concept is a baptismal theme (Gal 3:27).  Malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander all stem from insecurity and a competitive comparative righteousness which exists in the world of favoritism.  These things are discarded as inappropriate attire for people who have received an anointing as priests--who have been born and adopted by an impartial Father, sacrificial Son and imperishable Mystery.    All of these forms of poor dress-code make a community of people and unsafe and unholy place.  Yet, when priests take off unclean attire in holiness they make the temple a sacred place of refuge for all who enter.
     The second image of new birth, alongside a change of clothes, is that of tasting heavenly milk.  Such an image likely arises from places like Isaiah 55:1, 10 where Israel is encouraged to drink milk that costs nothing—by drinking in the word of God that is showered from heaven.  “Tasting” the goodness of the Lord occurs as this kind of positive metaphor only in two other locations in the New Testament.  Once in John 2 where the master of the wedding feast in Cana tastes wine of the Kingdom which Jesus makes from 30 gallon water tanks.  The other is Hebrews 6 where believers are similarly commanded to go beyond their baptism in which they are said to have, “ tasted of the heavenly gift, made partakers of the Holy Ghost,  tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come.”  Newly born priests are, thus, to take their gospel strait up.  Learning to crave undiluted gospel will enable them to grow up into the salvation which is already born in them in embryonic seed form.  Such ritual clothing and diet will produce a community where there is a sacred and safe space.
        This section reaches a crescendo in verse 9: So, we are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God that we may declare the praises of him who called us out of darkness into his wonderful light.  Thus, our new birth then has caused us to take off unholy clothes—to drink the heavenly milk of the Word, to exhibit the kind of character that makes our space safe for others—a place of refuge.  We minister to the world by mystically entering into the heavenly temple where God creates light out of darkness.  Once we were barred from entry into such holy space.  Once we, like early Christians in a pagan empire, lacked a common adoption or any sense of belonging or covenantal agreement, but then we received the mercy that involves us in the redemption of the world.  But now we are priests who maintain sacred space that declares the wonders of God’s underived and eternal life.  So in addition to a new set of clothes, a new nutritional source of holy food, a new approach into holy,  the new birth also ushers us into a new vocation—one of declaring praise and exhibiting the danger and the safety of Divine Presence in the world.

Here's the link to the full sermon