Rev. Cn. Richard R. Hogue Jr.
May the words of my lips and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, m Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen. Please be seated.
“Keep my commandments…” We’re at this odd point in Easter and the lectionary where we are in the book of John is actually at the Last Supper. So even as we celebrate the resurrection, we’re reminded of some of Jesus’s last words to his companions and disciples. “Keep my commandments,” he says, and then goes on later to give that commandment. “Love each other as I have loved you.” It’s poignant to look back after the resurrection to all the passion and pain that happened before and the ultimate consummation of Jesus’s command where he dies on the cross for everyone, a revelation of love and mercy of God.
“Keep my commandments…” Christians did that. They did it so much that they made new rules for themselves and for their communities. And people noticed. They deserted the temples to other gods. They didn’t go to the meat markets because often in those days when an animal was killed, it was killed in the honor of a specific god, local, Greco, Roman, what have you. So they didn’t participate in the meat markets anymore. And they stopped attending all of the festivals again, Greco, Roman, local or otherwise. And people noticed, people came flocking to these small communities.
But how do we know that? Pliny the Elder, who was a governor in Asia Minor in the early 2nd century, wrote to Trajan, the emperor, and said to Trajan, and I’m paraphrasing, “they don’t participate in the festivals. They don’t go to the meat markets. They deserted the temples to all the gods and they’re spreading rapidly across Asia Minor,” modern day Turkey. “It started in the cities and is now in the countryside. I’ve put a few to death. Emperor. What say you?”
And Trajan, again paraphrasing, in reply said, “Yes continue to execute them,” because the bottom line was those small communities threatened the hegemony of the Roman Empire because Christians didn’t participate in the mechanisms of empire of empire. They didn’t participate in the meat markets and the festivals and in the temples because their new rules about how they loved each other prevented them from doing that, because there is only one God and God is sovereign.
This is the world that the writer of feast of first Peter is addressing when he says “be prepared to suffer, be prepared to suffer for goodness.” We don’t participate in empire. We’re not overthrowing empire, but we don’t participate in it. And therefore, you will suffer. So, be prepared.
But also, be prepared to tell anyone, anyone about the hope that is in you. When he says anyone and in the style of the Greek that he’s using, he is implying both in court proceedings where you may suffer the deepest loss, and informally with strangers, anybody who might come up to you and say, “What is your hope as a Christian?” Be prepared to offer that hope! And so I think of that as an individual and all the ways that I hope in my faith. But this is a special point in my life too because I have to think about what that means. How do I tell it to my two unborn sons? What is my hope? It turns a lot of things on its head as parents can imagine.
But there’s another way of looking at that specific piece of text as well. There’s a different translation I want to read to you quickly. “Who then is the one who is going to harm you if you become zealous for good? But even if it should happen that you suffer on the account of righteousness, you are blessed. You are by no means to fear them or be distressed, but sanctify Christ as the Lord in your hearts, ready at any time to present a defense to anyone who asks you for an account of the hope that exists among you.”
It’s not just my hope. It’s our hope. Community, a collective hope. What we St. Paul’s hope in. So, what do we hope in? While I speak as an individual, I hope you hear something that you hope in as well.
I hope in each other. I hope for our togetherness in our sharing of treasure, time, and talents that gives us a space like this, a time like this. The ministries that we get to participate in as St. Paul’s Cathedral in San Diego. We share because it makes our lives and the world a better place and offer something that the world an opportunity that the world cannot give.
We hope in caring as best we can for all of our neighbors regardless of what they look like, where they come from, and how they sound. We care and we hope in that care that we change lives and the world.
We hope by daring to speak the truth to power. Just as the writer of first Peter says that you should be prepared to suffer and to be offering what your hope is in the world. We have to be willing to say that from emperors to courts to tyrants to our neighbors to “supreme courts.”
Daring to speak the truth will get us in trouble. But it also gives us hope.
And we hope that we embrace everyone. We hope in our embrace of everyone because we know that God’s love is beyond any human understanding. And again, look where it leads.
But it doesn’t end at the cross. We hope in God’s reign and resurrection, and we live into the resurrection with Easter eyes like Thomas the doubter like the disciples on the road to Emmas like the women that first day that first Easter Sunday. We see with Easter eyes. We see something the world cannot see and we put our hope in that and we live into the teachings of Jesus and his commandments and we love so much that we must sacrifice even in death.
We also hope that God or we hope in God’s already changing the world and that we’re simply messengers of it. We act and we live into that world that the or into that Easter reality that the world cannot see. And so we change the world with God. and we are the messengers of that hope in the world. God is already changing the world. We just try to help everyone else see it.
So, whoever you are, wherever you are on your journey of faith today, whether you’ve been here for decades, a couple of weeks, or you just walked in for the first time, I hope you see how we live and keep those commandments of Jesus. I hope you see the hope that is in us. And I hope you choose to walk with us in that faith, in that hope, in that love. That’s how we keep Christ’s commandments. And that’s how we intend to change the world.
Amen.
