1 Peter 1:17-23

Year A - 3rd Sunday of Easter or Assured ³

May 4, 2014

1 Peter 1:17-23

What do you trust and how have you come to that trust?

One model is that of having had a mentor, a model, a pioneer to follow, a cultural tradition born into or adopted. One is to have some articulatable god to obey or partnering G*D to engage. One is to catch a larger vision such as impartiality in an entitled world.

Even here in an Easter season there are echoes of an Absent Saturday, a stone-closed and stone-cold tomb. You are still in a time of exile. We are not yet living a paradise into existence but waiting for some kingdom to descend upon us with all its weight and burden.

If in the midst of an exile of partiality, what would it be to invoke a G*D of impartiality? Is this to leave a playing field tilted toward the wealthy and powerful? That is one form of impartiality—to allow some disembodied hand of the market to prevail at every turn in denial of every person disadvantaged or environment reduced to a corporate profit. Might this impartiality be an intentional tilting of relationships through a last-resort Jubilee mechanism or an anticipatory participation in right relationships?

As we deal with our limits and fears, lift your eyes again to the impartiality needed to love one another deeply from the heart. Impartiality is not devoid of heart, but lives deeply therein. 

To accomplish this it will be necessary to also strip all passages such as this of their covering language of separation regarding ransom (not impartial) or defect-free (not impartial) or purity through obedience (not impartial) or truth (not impartial) or imperishability (not impartial).

While in exile from earthly paradise, hold to an impartial view of trusting relationships based on loving deeply from the heart. All the religious language in the world can’t cover this.