One of the biggest things that trips us up as we try to understand the Bible is our habit of treating it like a plate of monkey bread.  We come to it, and it’s all in one piece, but we figure that it’s really a bunch of little pieces stuck together; and we don’t want a whole lot of it, we only want a snack.  We only want to know what the Bible says about this one thing, or maybe we just want something to comfort us or encourage us; and so we pull it apart.  We treat it like a lot of small pieces stuck together for convenience, rather than as all one book that we need to understand as a whole.

The tendency with this section of 1 Peter is to look at it and say, “Here, Peter’s talking about slaves, and here he’s talking about marriage,” and then go off and talk about the husband as the head of the household and the importance of female modesty and never actually come back to the book at all.  That misses the heart of this passage.  For one thing, look at verses 18-25 of chapter 2.  Peter begins, “Slaves, be subject to your masters with all respect,” but then he doesn’t actually say very much about slaves at all.  He spends more than half those verses talking about Christ and his suffering, and most of what he says applies to everyone in the church, not just slaves.

For another, context matters.  What do slaves and married women have in common?  Under Roman law, both were completely under the authority and at the mercy of another person.  What has Peter just been talking about in verses 13-17?  As slaves to God, we are to defer to other people and respect those who are in authority over us.  Is that always going to be a positive experience?  Will those authorities always treat us justly?  No.  And if they don’t, where is that going to bite?

The fact of the matter is, it probably won’t be from the emperor first.  Governments may be unjust, and even the best of them create a lot of injustice along the way, because this world malfunctions all over the place; but except in times of all-out persecution, it’s rare that any government deliberately does as much damage to any one person as an abusive husband can.  Slaveowners could be even worse, for obvious reasons.  It’s all well and good for Peter to say, “Respect the emperor,” even when the emperor is Nero or Caligula; but what if you’re a slave and your master is a mini-Nero?  What if you’re married to Caligula’s evil twin?  What are you supposed to do about that?

American society being what it is, we instinctively analyze and respond to these questions in terms of legal rights and political power.  We want Peter to say, “Rise up and demand justice”—but he couldn’t, because the people he’s addressing have no ability to do that.  They’re powerless.  Outside the very rich, if a man killed his wife, unless his wife’s family had a powerful patron, the authorities didn’t care.  If he killed his slave, nobody cared.  Other slaves might, but they didn’t count, and didn’t dare say anything.  Legally speaking, you’re going to submit—or else.

Peter’s answer is spoken into this reality, and the heart of it is an application of verse 16:  “As free people, but as slaves of God.”  You’re not free by the law of the world, but you are free in the spirit.  If you’re a slave, if you’re a married woman under Roman law, you’re going to submit; you can’t control that.  But you can control why you submit.  Do you submit resentfully, because you have to—perhaps because you’ll be beaten if you don’t?  Peter says, look to Christ, and do it for him.  Do it because he submitted to far worse for you, so that he might heal you and give you new life in God.

For slaves whose masters are cruel and unjust, the reality is that they will suffer unjustly.  Peter acknowledges this, and asks, “Is it really any better if you suffer because you deserve it?”  The answer is, of course, no.  If you suffer for doing good, he says, look to Jesus and endure it without fighting back.  He did that for us, because he trusted that the injustice of his earthly judges would not stand; God the Father and his justice would have the last word.  If we do the same, bearing undeserved suffering patiently because of Christ, because we trust in the Father, then our suffering isn’t pointless—we’re suffering for God, as an act of service to him, and this pleases him.

As Peter says this, he starts off talking to slaves, but he isn’t only talking to them—his words are for the whole church.  If we’re all slaves to God, and if we’re all exiles and resident aliens in a world where we really don’t quite belong, then what’s true of those household slaves is in fact true of all of us.  For one, if we live faithfully with the Lord, we’re all likely to suffer unjustly; that reality was just more obvious in their case.  And we’re all every bit as indebted to Jesus, who freely allowed himself to be tortured to death when he never deserved it.  If he’d insisted on his rights and demanded justice, we’d all be damned.

For another, we’re all going to have to submit to others, and not just the government.  No, we don’t have legal slavery; but the critics of capitalism have long denounced it as “wage slavery,” and they’re not entirely wrong.  Just ask the Man in Black. . . .

Obviously, there’s a difference between being beaten for praying and being taken advantage of at work because you have a selfish, unjust boss who knows you can’t afford to quit.  Employees have options and recourse that slaves didn’t.  But if you’re in a position where those options are all theoretical and there’s no better job in sight, you’re just as caught.  Bad economies empower bad bosses, and it comes down to the same two choices in the end.  If you’re being treated unjustly, you can resist in some way, even if all you do is complain, or you can look to God and bear the injustice with patience and grace for Jesus’ sake.  Put another way, you’re going to be a servant regardless; the choice is yours either to serve grudgingly, kicking and screaming, or to serve freely and graciously in the name of the Lord.  The work is the same in either case, but the heart is completely different—and it’s amazing how much that difference can mean.

When Peter speaks to wives, we see his concern for the witness of the church come into play again.  Women married to unbelievers were in a difficult situation.  The Roman writer Plutarch declared, “A wife ought not to make friends of her own, but to enjoy her husband’s friends in common with him.  The gods are the first and most important friends.  Wherefore it is becoming for a wife to worship and to know only the gods that her husband believes in.”  The women Peter’s addressing were violating that completely, and so they had to be very careful; they could easily endanger both themselves and the church.

This is why we have the injunction against fancy hairdos, jewelry and clothing, because they were commonly seen as signs that a woman intended seduction.  To quote the Roman satirist Juvenal, “There is nothing that a woman will not permit herself to do, nothing that she deems shameful, when she encircles her neck with green emeralds and fastens huge pearls to her elongated ears.”  It was already questionable for a married woman to go out alone to meet with a lot of men her husband didn’t know; if she went out dressed to the nines, her husband and their society would likely assume the worst.  By contrast, if she lived in such a way that the goodness and holiness of God could be clearly seen in her life, that would allay his concerns, and perhaps draw him to Christ as well.

There’s a lot we could say here about how Peter is subverting the Roman social order, but most of it is outside the scope of this sermon.  I do want to look at verse 7, however, which brings the point of this passage—that in Christ, we’re called to choose freely to serve others—home to husbands, who weren’t legally obliged to submit to their wives.  He says to them, “Husbands, don’t you get any ideas.”  The culture of the time thought women were inferior and rendered them powerless, and Peter’s been talking to wives about how to live out their required submission to their husbands; now he forbids married men in the church from taking advantage of that.  As Karen Jobes puts it, “Peter teaches that men whose authority runs roughshod over their women, even with society’s full approval, will not be heard by God.”

Remember, in verses 13-17 Peter tells Christians to live with deference and respect to every person; this played out in particular ways in the Roman house­hold, but that didn’t let husbands and masters off the hook.  Nothing in this passage in any way justifies any sort of abuse of power; indeed, we are grateful that thanks to people like Mary Ann Cox, women with abusive husbands have options now that their Roman counterparts didn’t.  Whatever position of authority you may have, you have it only because of God, and under hisauthority, as his slave; he will judge you on whether or not you’ve used it in accordance with his will and his character.  Jesus suffered injustice, trusting in the one who judges justly; you don’t want to be on the other side of that equation.  Whether you are powerful or powerless, you are a slave of God; you are free in Christ, which means you’re free to serve.

In July of 1984, a joint Nigerian-Israeli operation kidnapped Dikko, drugged him, and stuck him in a wooden crate (together with the Israeli anaesthesiologist whose job it was to keep him unconscious).  Crazy?  Not exactly.  Legally, any sort of bag, box, or other container which is properly labeled as a diplomatic bag is protected under the Vienna Convention and completely untouchable by local law enforcement.  It wouldn’t have mattered if Dikko had woken up and started yelling—there would have been nothing anyone could do.

Except for one thing:  that bit about “properly labeled.”  As it happened, someone in the Nigerian embassy forgot to do the paperwork.  Customs officials at Heathrow received word of the kidnapping while the crate was being processed; understandably, they thought it might be a good idea to check out that crate that was headed for a Nigerian airliner.  Since the crate lacked the necessary documentation, there was no label to keep them from searching it.  Dikko was freed, and four of his kidnappers ended up in a British prison.

As abuses of diplomatic immunity go, that one’s pretty extreme; we tend to associate it more with such things as the $17.2 million owed to New York City as of 2011 in unpaid parking tickets by members of the various UN delegations.  Still, the extreme case makes the point well:  if you tell a group of people they aren’t bound by the government of the nation in which they live, some of them will take advantage of that.  It doesn’t take many bad actors before the group as a whole develops a reputation for antisocial behavior.

Now, when you’re talking about recognized diplomats under international law, that reputation might not cause any real problems.  Being unpopular won’t hurt them, and they’re protected by treaty from anything worse.  The early church, however, was a small minority with no legal recognition or protection, and their mission was to be a witness for the gospel to the com­munities in which they lived.  A bad reputation could cripple their efforts, and if the government decided to go after them, they were defenseless.  Peter’s been very clear that Christians need to see ourselves as citizens of the kingdom of God who live among the nations of this world; but that doesn’t give us the right to misbehave, much less any protection if we do.  It means we’re held to a higher standard than the laws of this world, not an easier one.

This is the issue Peter begins to lay out in our passage this morning.  The crux of his argument, and the key point for this whole section of the book that extends through 3:7, is found in verse 16:  “As those who are free . . . yet as God’s slaves.”  The world defines being free as having freedom forthis world—freedom to do what the world teaches us to want to do.  It’s freedom to be ruled by our desires without anyone telling us “no.”  What Peter’s talking about, what God offers us, is freedom from this world.  It’s the freedom to step outside our desires and outside the roles and expectations the world lays on us, and to choose to do and to be something else.

Which is to say, the world thinks freedom is being able to do what we want with nobody stopping us.  The freedom of God is the freedom to stop ourselves.  It’s the ability to pull free of our desires and fears and think clearly rather than just reacting to them.  It’s the liberty to choose not to do what we want because we understand that what we want to do isn’t what we ought to do or what’s best for us.  It’s freedom from the world, from ourselves, for God.

Peter invites us to act as free people by turning away from that slavery which the world mistakes for freedom.  He summons us to freely choose to live as what we already are in Christ, as slaves to God.  If that doesn’t sound like freedom to you, consider this:  the way of the world is the way of anxiety.  No matter what, there’s always that crawling uncertainty, doubt, and fear at the heart of life.  The most you can ever do is bury it.  If you’re really good at what you do, you may be able to keep it buried for a long time, but you can’t change this fact:  much of what’s good in your life and your world is utterly dependent on things you can’t even understand, much less control.  That’s even true for the most powerful people on this planet.  Eventually, things will go wrong, and you won’t know until they happen, and you won’t be able to do anything about it—but it will all be on your head anyway.

Not so for the people of God.  Our dependence is no less, but we know the one who controls all the forces and events no human can even understand; we know the one on whom we depend, and we love him, and we know he loves us and takes care of us.  That’s why the word of God tells us over and over again not to worry and not to fear, and why Jesus promised us a peace that passes all human understanding—it’s the peace of not having to fear those things which pass all human understanding.  Being slaves to God means freedom from the anxiety that comes with being slaves to ourselves, and thus being free to live as people who are whole and well.

Of course, as we’ve already noted, Peter isn’t just talking about this to make his readers feel good, or to give them a theological education:  he wants to apply it in a particular way.  If we live as slaves to God and owe our allegiance to him above any human authority, how then do we relate to those human authorities?  Is this an excuse to assert our independence from them and do whatever we want?  Peter says, firmly, no.  We are not to use our freedom as an excuse to cause trouble.  That’s not what it’s for, and not what we’re for.

Instead, because we revere God and love his people, we are to treat everyone else (and especially those in authority) with respect and consideration, so that those who attack the church will only make themselves look foolish and ignorant for their efforts.  Peter tells us to defer to our fellow human beings, because they are God’s creations just as much as we are.  Here again we could look to Philippians, this time chapter 2:  “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility put others first, ahead of yourselves.  Let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interests of others.”  Like the Jewish exiles in Babylon to whom Jeremiah wrote, our job is to pray for the community and the nation to which God has sent us, and to do whatever we can do to bless it, and partly for the same pragmatic reason.

As part of that responsibility, Peter emphasizes something which I think we really need to hear:  he commands respect and deference for the emperor and the other ruling authorities.  I don’t hear much of that in this country these days.  I hear a lot of disrespect, contempt, and abuse directed at the President, at Congress, and at politicians and government figures all down the line, and it’s just wrong and ungodly.  There’s no excuse for it, and don’t try to tell me there is.

Peter wrote during the later years of Nero’s reign, when he’d already started executing anyone who displeased him.  Nero had had Paul put to death in AD 62, and would ultimately have Peter crucified.  In 64 AD, he made Christians the scapegoat for the Great Fire of Rome and had them burned as torches in his gardens to provide light for his parties.  This is the emperor for whom Peter commands respect.  Nero’s uncle and predecessor, Caligula, once had an entire section of the stands in the arena thrown to the lions because he was bored.  Peter commands respect for the emperor anyway, and doesn’t offer exceptions.

We need to listen to him, because quite frankly, we’re spoiled.  We have yet to see the President burning Christians as torches on the White House lawn; if we did, Peter would still tell us to treat him with respect.  Anything else dishonors God.  Anything else is a sign that we’re still too caught up in this world, and pinning too many of our hopes on it.

Michael Card tells a remarkable story in his book Immanuel (read here by John Piper):

That’s what Peter’s talking about in this passage; that’s the goal of his instruction.  He tells us we’re exiles and resident aliens in this world.  He’s used each of these words before, but now he puts them together to multiply the effect.  Then he takes it a step further, adding in the point he’s just made in verse 9:  we have a purpose in this world that goes beyond just getting through the day and making a living.  We aren’t supposed to just blend in with everyone else, as if we were citizens of this world right along with them.  Our citizenship is somewhere else; we’re here on a mission from God.

Let’s unpack that for a minute.  Peter doesn’t explicitly use the language of citizenship, but coming hard on the heels of verses 9-10, his point here is right in line with Paul in Philippians 3.  It isn’t in the way you probably think, however.  The NIV reads, “sinful desires,” but a more literal translation would be “desires of the flesh.”  Peter isn’t just talking about things which are obviously sinful—and neither is Paul.  The point is broader than that.  The desires of the flesh are those desires which are natural to those whose minds are set on earthly things.  Yes, obviously, many of those are clearly sinful; but many of them aren’t.  There’s nothing wrong with our instinct for self-protection and self-preservation, or with our desire for material comfort and prosperity.  There’s nothing wrong with wanting to experience pleasure, or to have a good reputation.  They’re just earthly, worldly, of the flesh, and so by themselves, they point us away from God.

Now, does this mean that we shouldn’t have any desires at all?  No.  We’re not supposed to be enemies of pleasure, as if we worshipped a cosmic killjoy; I’m not going to tell you to put on a hair shirt and go out and sleep in the snow on a bed of nails.  We need to understand that Peter was using typical language from both Jewish and Greek moral and ethical teaching, which would have been familiar to his audience; where the NIV reads “desires,” we should understand that to mean unrestrained desires or impulses.  The point isn’t that it’s wrong to have desires, but that it’s wrong to just give in to them and let them run the show.

It’s natural to desire pleasure, but that desire needs to be under control.  If it’s starting to get away from you—maybe you’re starting to drink a little too much, or your eyes are starting to wander once in a while—then you need to abstain.  You need to cut yourself short.  It’s normal to want financial and material security, but if you find yourself making all your decisions on that basis—if that desire is running your life—then you need to set that aside, because that way of life doesn’t bring glory to God.  It’s perfectly understandable to want a good reputation, but if you catch yourself shading the truth, or maybe spinning things a bit, to make yourself look good, then you need to sacrifice that desire to God, because he’s a God of truth, not of the lie.

We’re called to be a people who respect our earthly rulers, but who fear God alone—not any person around us and not any human power.  We’re an organized com­munity of resident aliens in this world, members of another nation living in the midst of this one, owing our allegiance to a greater King, for the purpose of declaring and displaying the character and the glory of that King in the earthly community in which we live and work.  Like Joseph, we’re here to tell people the good news of Jesus Christ with such persistent love and such humble grace that even when people attack us and beat us for it, our example will move them to repentance and faith.  We’re on a mission from God, alright—a diplomatic mission.  We’re his ambassadors to Winona Lake and Warsaw, to Kosciusko County, to Indiana, to America.  We’re the designated representatives of the kingdom of heaven to this community and this nation.

As some of you probably know, I’m pulling that language (and the title of this sermon) from 2 Corinthians 5, which we didn’t read this morning.  In verse 20 of that chapter, Paul describes himself and his colleagues as ambassadors for Christ because they’re speaking on behalf of Christ, carrying forward his ministry of reconciliation which God has entrusted to them.  It isn’t only a ministry for Paul and other special people in the church, however.  It’s been given to all of us.  Paul implores us to be reconciled to God so that we would then turn and do the same for others, leading them to find the peace with God which we’ve found.

This is who we are.  We are God’s people put here as his representatives to this nation and this community to declare his praises by our words and our actions, whether the world wants us to or not.  We are a new kind of people who don’t exist for ourselves, for God has formed us for himself to be his diplomats, helping lead those around us in the fine art of having his way.  We are his ambassadors bringing the good news that the God of heaven has made a peace treaty with the people of this world, and inviting them to sign it.