2 Pe 1:5-11

15 January 2006

“Discipleship 102”

            As I previewed last week during my sermon entitled, “Discipleship 101,” today we’ll look at the last part of the epistle reading in 2 Peter 1.  Last week, I focused on the first part of the text, especially on the ideas of knowing the Lord—and what it means for us to support the qualities in verses 5 to 7.

            In addition, today would have been the 77th birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.  He probably personified, as much as anyone in the twentieth century, the qualities of discipleship mentioned in our scripture text.  We’ll check back with him in a few moments.

            I got the idea for this two-part series on the first eleven verses of 2 Peter when Banu was talking about them in one of the Sanctuary of Hope services last month.  In particular, I was interested in the list of virtues that appears in verses 5 to 7.  There were many such lists in the ancient world.  The Greeks and the Romans were especially fond of compiling them.

            Going through that list, from faith to goodness to knowledge to self-control to endurance to godliness to mutual affection to love—I wanted to consult the original Greek, to see what lay behind those English words.  For example, I wondered what the difference is between “mutual affection” and “love.”  They seem to be saying the same thing in two different ways.

            But not quite.  I commented last week that English isn’t always as nuanced as is Greek.  These are two Greek words that most people already know—certainly the first one is.  “Mutual affection” is “brotherly love,” filadelfia (philadelphia), just like the city!  And “love” is agaph (agape), a kind of love that the early church ascribed to God.  It’s unconditional love—love in its purest form.

            Philadelphia, love of our brothers and sisters, is a lofty enough virtue in itself.  But the love known as agape is even higher still.  For us mere mortals, it no doubt finds its fullest expression in something I recently mentioned in a sermon—the love of enemies.  Probably nothing Jesus said is more consistently ignored by Christians than his command to love our enemies.  Possibly no American was more determined to love his enemies than Martin Luther King.

            In his book, Strength to Love [I really like that title!], King says this:  “To our most bitter opponents we say:  We will match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering.  [By the way, “endurance” is number 5 on the list in our passage.]  We shall meet your physical force with soul force.  Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you.”[1]

Still, just as Jesus’ love of the enemy produced confusion and revulsion in his would-be supporters, the same was true of King.  As Patricia McCarthy says in her book, The Scent of Jasmine, “To the anger of many of his black brothers and sisters, Martin Luther King’s civil rights revolution centered on love of the enemy, and he preached the harsh reality of that love.”[2]

I was too young to witness the events of “the revolution,” as it was known.  (I was three years old when King was assassinated in Memphis.)  I’ve read a lot of stuff from that time, including the writings of Malcolm X and Eldridge Cleaver.  And before their conversions (Malcolm to orthodox Islam and Eldridge to Christianity), they also considered King to be a sellout, Uncle Tom, tool of the white man, whatever.

Those who dare to embrace love of the enemy—those who are serious about following Jesus—will be misunderstood.  After all, Jesus warns his disciples, “In the world you face persecution.  But take courage; I have conquered the world!” (Jn 16:33).  And in the First Letter of John, we read, “Do not be astonished, brothers and sisters, that the world hates you” (3:13).

Thinking about the list of virtues in 2 Peter 1, I ask myself the questions I put on the back of our worship bulletins.  About the first one—which do I find the most difficult to practice—I find myself in a quandary.  None of them are easy!

Consider, for example, the second item on the list:  “goodness.”  Am I a good person?  Well, I haven’t killed anybody with an axe, and I haven’t drowned any puppies—but then, that’s not setting the bar very high, is it?

Jesus would probably agree with that assessment.  We read that one day “a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’  Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good?  No one is good but God alone’” (Mk 10:17-18).  That kind of takes the wind out of your sails!

“Goodness” is the translation of the Greek word areth (arete).  It can also be defined as “virtue.”  So now, am I a virtuous person?  What is virtue, anyway?  It certainly has to do with honesty and integrity.  Some people narrowly define it as chastity, especially for females.  Still, its root meaning has to do with power.  Virtue is power.

In the First Epistle of Peter, addressing the believers, the scripture says that “you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (2:9).  That term, “mighty acts,” is our word arete.  Virtue is power.

We can affirm with verse 8 that “if these things [these virtuous qualities, these powerful characteristics] are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  We will make a difference in our world for God.

You know, I hear about all this stuff, and sometimes it seems so daunting, so intimidating.  It seems like the bar is set way too high!  Does anyone else here feel the way I do?

Not too long ago, I believe I said that my greatest fear is being tortured.  But I don’t think that’s really true.  (Although, if I were re-enacting Dustin Hoffman’s role in the movie “Marathon Man,” with Laurence Olivier as my dentist, I’m sure I’d change my tune on that!)  I think my greatest fear would be, at the end of my life, looking back at all the times I refused to practice these virtues—at the times I had a chance to step up, but instead let the moment pass by.  Does anyone else here feel the way I do?

Still, remember this:  God doesn’t want us to fail!  God loves us with an intensity that would scare us to death if we knew how strong it was!

I’m glad the bar is set way too high!  It’s not a question of beating ourselves up for our failures, but of challenging us to stretch ourselves, to keep going forward.  What good is a faith that doesn’t require us to yearn to be more than what we are?

            The scripture says in verse 10, “brothers and sisters, be all the more eager to confirm your call and election, for if you do this, you will never stumble.”  Be all the more eager to confirm your call.  Put these Christian virtues into practice, and you will find yourself being transformed.

“For if you do this, you will never stumble.”  What exactly does that mean?  You will never stumble.  Does it mean we’ll no longer fail?  We’ll no longer sin?  What kind of pious hogwash is this?  Actually, if we’re living life while keeping our eyes on the prize, then we haven’t stumbled, no matter how many setbacks—even self-imposed setbacks—we must endure.

            Here’s some wisdom that Martin Luther King understood well.  His commitment to Christ wasn’t some haphazard undertaking, despite whatever personal flaws he may have had.  Again, Patricia McCarthy writes, “Each activity was undertaken only after careful and extensive study, preparation, and prayer.  The plan for each activity in the civil rights struggle had four basic steps:  (1) collection of facts of the injustices; (2) negotiation with the enemy; (3) self-purification by prayer and fasting; (4) direct action.”[3]

            I find number 3 in that list to be an interesting component.  It’s not surprising that numbers 1, 2, and 4—collection of facts, negotiation, and direct action—should be part of the process.  But number 3, “self-purification by prayer and fasting”:  what’s that all about?

Martin Luther King, Jr. understood the civil rights struggle to be the work of God.  That’s how he approached it.  Others saw it as nothing more than a power struggle between different groups of people.  But King recognized that self-purification was necessary.  Why is that?

Remember what I said about his desire to meet physical force with soul force?  Among other things, that requires number four on the list of virtues, “self-control,” the Greek word (egkrateia, egkrateia) also meaning “inner strength.”  Virtue is power, but vice (sin) drains us of power.  It takes a lot of strength to love an enemy.  It requires purification from whatever saps our strength.

A church that doesn’t merely pray, but is devoted to prayer, recognizes the need for that inner strength.  Speaking just for myself, I know that that’s a point I haven’t emphasized nearly enough since coming to Westminster.  And for that, I sincerely apologize.  Whether we realize it or not, the work of God is a struggle!

Without prayer, there is no power in what we do as the church.  I don’t know what’s going on in the spiritual realm, but there are Sunday mornings when I can feel the lack of true worship.  Outwardly, there’s no change.  We’re singing the songs and saying the prayers (notice that I said “saying” the prayers); I’m preaching a sermon; we’re eating the bread and drinking the cup—but it seems to fall flat.  There’s no energy.

I mention that as just one example of the need for prayer.  I want us to pray for each other.  I want us to pray that the virtues in 2 Peter 1 may be ours and increase among us.  I want us to pray that we increasingly practice the highest of virtues—the love that is agape.  It’s been said that “the very existence of followers of Jesus who love one another with the love by which he loved us [is] a revelation of the Father and the Son, a revelation that gives life.”[4]

Next Sunday, we’ll begin our study of what we’re calling “Radical Prayer.”  We’ll spend time, both in and outside of Sunday school, to create a path for us to become a church devoted to prayer.  I hope you will grasp this opportunity; I hope you will join in the adventure.

Don’t be intimidated if you feel like you don’t know how to pray:  that’s the whole point of studying, of dedicating ourselves to prayer.  We’ll learn how to pray together; we’ll look at the scriptures and be guided by the Word who gives life.  As we are transformed from a church that prays to a church that is devoted to prayer, we will find the strength we need to do the work of God.

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