1Peter 2: 2-10
Lectionary Reading Fifth Sunday Of Easter Year A RCL
2 and like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, 3 if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.
As Living Stones
4 And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by people, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, 5 you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For this is contained in Scripture:
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a choice stone, a precious cornerstone,And the one who believes in Him will not be put to shame.”
7 This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for unbelievers,
“A stone which the builders rejected,This became the chief cornerstone,”
8 and,“A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense”;
for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this they were also appointed.
9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; 10 for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
- V. 3 can be translated several different ways from several respected translations:
- if you have tasted
- since you have tasted
- now that you have tasted
- for you have tasted
- if so be ye have tasted (guess which version this is 😉
- if in fact you have already tasted
And in this same verse, “kindness” and “goodness” are used interchangeably.
Peter urges his listeners to “long for the pure mike of the word” some translations say, “crave pure spiritual milk” others say, “desire earnestly the pure mental milk of the word”. A lot of variations but they all use the word, “milk” and they all use the word, “tasted”.
Coming into the statement that Peter makes urging God’s people to crave the pure spiritual milk of the word, is his reminding them of the difference of perishable things vs imperishable and how their lives are now changed. Their lives were built upon perishable things, ideas, values. Now their lives are built upon imperishable things, ideas and values. Its difficult to say exactly all that Peter is referring to but he makes the statement in 1:23 that they have now been born again of imperishable seed through the living and enduring word of God. Then he quotes a passage referring to Isaiah 40. There are several oft quoted verses in Isaiah 40.
“all men are like grass,
and all their glory is like the flowers
of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of the lord stands
forever.”
So that is what he quotes and then goes on to tell them to rid themselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander of every kind. I think he is saying this because that behavior is part of the old perishable way of life. What has always been in the “enduring word of God” is how to love one another. But I don’t think that it was ever brought out until Jesus. In this perishable way of life that Peter is talking about, is understanding God through a religious system. A system of commandments to be obeyed. A system of sacrifices to be offered. A system of priests and rabbis and an authoritative structure to be followed. But what they are being born into has none of that…in a sense. He is telling them to get rid of everything that is built on perishable ideas. Don’t contaminate the purity of God’s word.
There is this idea that they are born again into something so pure and so different. It should not be contaminated with what is so common. All these things we are told to get rid of are things done on the sly that destroy relationships. They are all done in opposition to loving one another. It’s impossible to love someone and deceive them at the same time. These things kill and destroy. The imperishable seed that we are born of, is not planted in the soil contaminated with sickness.
When I was a kid, my next door neighbors Jimmy and Johnny were very Italian. And every weekend their grandparents who spoke very little english, would come and stay. They would make their own pasta and spaghetti sauce, it would take Saturday and part of Sunday and they would always invite the neighbors over to eat. I was good friends with Jimmy and Johnny so I was always there for Sunday dinner. When you have made from scratch pasta, bread, meatballs and spaghetti sauce from a 70 year old Italian grandma, it makes Olive Garden taste like a TV dinner. So when Peter urges them to get rid of what is perishable and desire only the imperishable and then says, if or now that you have tasted that the Lord is good, I have to believe that he is saying that it should be a no brainer.
So what is a life that embraces the perishable? I’m thinking that it is a life that embraces the temporary, the superficial, a life that puts time and energy into what is here today and gone tomorrow.
- Wealth
- Status
- Appearances
Anything that puts and/or keeps our ego at the center of our achievements.
So then what is a life that embraces the imperishable? Obviously it is the opposite. It is where my destroying the ego is the achievement. I’m not sure that the ego is ever destroyed. That is perhaps why Jesus says we have to carry our cross instead of saying we have to die. I don’t think its just semantics. Carrying our cross speaks to an ongoing way of life. We are carrying our cross because we are continually crucifying our ego. I think the only way to do that is to put “others” at the center of our lives. That naturally crucifies the ego and naturally takes the focus off of ourselves. I have know people who speak volumes about how they are detached from their ego and yet their lives are all about them and how detached they are. All they did was devalue their relationships and called that detachment.
Perhaps this is why Peter urges us to earnestly desire the pure milk of the word. God’s word is everlasting because it speaks of eternal life:
- love
- faith
- hope
- mercy
- kindness
- gentleness
These endure forever and these create, heal and nurture relationships. While God is the giver of life, God chooses for life to be born only through relationships. Getting this part right is crucial to the rest of what Peter talks about because he is talking about how they are coming together to be the people of God.