First Congregational Church of Wauwatosa
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Rev. Robert J. Brink
“St. Peter: Closet Communist?”

And now the moment you’ve all been waiting for. Pastor Rob stands in the pulpit of First Church and calls Peter a secret communist. Right? Of course not. That’s just silly. Peter wasn’t a secret communist because it wasn’t a secret at all. He kept it right out there in the open. It says right there in the text. “No one considered their property their own” and “They laid it all at the disciples feet.” Peter was a red commie.

You teenagers out there don’t realize what a big deal this is. When you hear “Russia” all you think of is gangsters, Vladimir Putin, Chechnya, but that’s about it. Kids, that’s nothing. I remember driving out to get ice cream and seeing a sign in one of my neighbors’ windows that said, “Kill a Commie for Mommy.” I remember reading Popular Mechanics, and it didn’t have flying cars or supercomputers, it had instructions on how to build your own fallout shelter. We didn’t call it Russia; it was the Red Menace, and they weren’t interested in tiny Chechnya. They were going to take over the world… or blow it to radioactive cinders. Either way, they were bad, scary bad. So you see, it’s really important if Peter was a communist, because it undermines Christianity. If Peter was a communist, maybe I shouldn’t be a Christian.

Of course you and I both know that Peter wasn’t a communist. Communism hadn’t even been invented yet. Calling Peter a communist is about as anachronistic as calling Caesar a Republican. Sure, they both favor a strong military and conservative domestic policy, but we’re ignoring 2000 years of history here. You can’t just take an idea from today, drop it on some ancient person, and call it close enough. Meaning is about context. In this case, the context is Lenin and Marx. If you showed them this text, they never would have claimed it as their own, because it’s grounded on faith and love instead of force and fear.

The text reveals no proletariat uprising. There are no rich men hanging from trees. The dialectic says these common workers should be rising in revolt, reclaiming the fruit of their labor. But the text shows just the opposite. The working classes are still being oppressed. Only now, they’re volunteering for it. They are willingly selling their goods and sharing the proceeds out of some misguided religious sense of brotherhood.

This is the opiate of the masses at work. They should be angry, and instead they’re listening to Peter and James talk about love, and forgiveness, and heaven. To a communist, Peter is at best a deluded hypocrite, and at worst he’s a con artist colluding with the powerful to keep the people complacent. “Must be nice to only work one day a week. Even then, all you have to do is talk, and people line up to throw money at your feet.” Marx would’ve hated Peter.

So he’s not a communist, and he’s obviously not a capitalist, so what is he? Here’s a radical suggestion. What if he’s a Christian? What if following Jesus actually meant following his example instead of just mentally agreeing that he is the Son of God? What if we were known for our faithfulness? What if our ministers were known for their wisdom? What if joining a church meant that you would never starve, and your children would never be orphans? How do we get there from here?

I’m not sure, but I’m certain it doesn’t involve inserting our politics into a 2000 year-old text. We have so conflated politics and religion in this country that it is now practically impossible to have an honest conversation, because two honest human beings will eventually have a difference of opinion. Only now, it’s not a difference of opinion. It’s a moral deficiency. You say you’re not convinced about global warming. I say you’re raping the earth and killing your own grandchildren. You say you like this new president, and I say you’re socialist and you’re killing your own grandchildren. Then we go to church and we wind up having arguments over whether or not St. Peter was a commie.

You have your opinions. I have mine. That lady over there has some to. But we were not brought here today because of our common fiscal policy. We’re here today because we need some hope. We need some peace. We need some joy. Because the world is messed up. And we’re messed up. And we don’t know what to do about it. We like what this Jesus guy had to say, and we want to know more. I want to know more. So I went to school, and learned Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew. Well, I tried to learn Hebrew. I learned history, and philosophy, and theology. And you know it all comes down to?

God is not angry at you… Can we just stop for a second and hear that?

God is not angry at you.

So stop trying so hard. You cannot earn God’s love. God already loves you without limit, without condition. So stop trying so hard. Remember that children’s story I like to tell at baptisms? Here’s this little baby getting baptized with her family standing all around her, and the question I have to ask is, what in the world did that baby do to earn so much affection? Fill a diaper? From a fiscal standpoint, it makes no sense to have a kid. But relationally...

God’s love outshines those parents the way the sun outshines the moon, and for exactly the same reason. A parent’s love is a pale reflection of God’s love. Why? Because parents are human, and sooner or later we start setting conditions. It's easy to love a baby because you can't expect anything from a baby. But then they grow up and sooner or later, we start with the rules. Sooner or later it turns into, "Not in my house, you won’t!"

Remember that time I asked the kids not to think about pink elephants? That’s where rules get you. Rules tell you what not to do, make you want to do it more, and then make you feel guilty about it afterward. Forget the rules, and focus on the relationship. What does God really want from us? For us to obey all the rules? Of course not. If all he wanted were obedience, we could have made a bunch of wind-up toys. You wind them up. They go where you point them. Perfect obedience. That’s not what God is after.

He wants the same thing any parent wants. He wants his kids to grow up and not be psycho. He wants to spend time with us. He wants a relationship. He doesn’t care about rules. The rules only exist to protect the relationship. We have rules about theft because we need to trust our neighbors. We have rules about football, because we want to play the game. We have rules about cars because we don’t want to kill each other. That’s why Jesus said; you take all the rules, add them up, and you wind up with love God, and love your neighbor as yourself.

There are no rules. There are only (1) relationship… and (2) stupid things that get in the way of relationship. Seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. You think the church just pulled them out of a hat? They are sins specifically and only because they break relationships.

Suppose you offended your best friend. And I don’t mean something small; I mean something stupid and selfish. You got a picture in your head? Ok, you know what you did. What do you do now? It depends on two things. Do you love your friend, and does your friend love you? If you minimize it and explain it away, if you’re too ashamed to even ask forgiveness, then you don’t really love your friend. True love can’t stay away. If you’re afraid to apologize, if they forgive you and you keep apologizing, then you don’t really believe they love you. Because real love is unconditional. Real love gets back to the business of living. It doesn’t keep score, and it doesn’t care about rules. It’s cares about relationship.

Your best friend doesn’t want your apology. Your best friend wants to hang out. If an apology clears the air after you did something stupid and selfish, then great. But the apology is not the point. The relationship is the point. Your best friend doesn’t want you to feel guilty. If guilt motivates you to stop being a jerk, then great. But feeling guilty is not the point. The relationship is the point.

We came here today looking for a little hope, a little joy, a little peace. Here’s my hope. In the cross we see a God who has every right to be angry, but who chooses to love instead. Here’s my joy, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Here’s my peace. That I don’t have to earn God’s love, it was already given. And I can’t scare him away. He’s already seen it. All I can do is the only thing he ever wanted me to do.

Love.