This is a great passage about refraining from judgment, respecting authority, and behaving well, despite others’ behavior. These are all things that resonate with me. Given that these letters of Paul’s are written to specific people or communities with particular challenges, I’m inclined to learn more about these letters to Peter. He must have needed to hear about refraining from judgment, respecting authority, and behaving well despite others’ behavior. Those situations sound strangely familiar to today’s challenges with Christianity, in the US at least.
As I sit back and observe well intentioned, God loving Christians on all sides of the political spectrum, I see a blatant disrespect of positional authority, whether it’s the office of the president or various state governors calling for self-isolation. It seems to me that we are called to respect the office, and the work those in the office do, even while we disagree with the positions.
I see a huge amount of judgment, again from all sides. I am not talking about having opinions about policies or actions of our leaders. We are called to be engaged and absolutely have opinions about what’s going on around us. We are called to exercise our right to self-determination, when it comes to electing our leaders, or voting with our pocket books. However, I do not believe we are supposed to presume motive, or demonize anyone else. How can we judge the intentions of others? How can we judge, when we clearly don’t have the whole picture? But again, well intentioned, God-loving people of faith are incredibly judgmental, and they feel they have God on their side, so they’re also righteous. The problem is, some God-loving, loved-by-God, people of faith claim that God hates faggots, and others argue that God hates the 1%. It would be hard to paint a picture of God, if we used the opinions of the judgmental children of God. I don’t believe God hates anyone, even if I dislike someone’s policies.
Finally, this scripture calls us to behave well, even if others aren’t. Even if the other side, whoever that might be, is taunting, harming, name calling, disrespectful, or making false judgments about others, we are to love. When, in response to others’ bad behavior, we taunt, harm, name call, or make false judgments, or are disrespectful, aren’t we the same as they are? We don’t get to claim God is on our side – well, maybe we can claim it, but so can they. So who gets to decide God’s side?
I’d argue it’s back to that simple Love God, Love your Neighbor message of Jesus. I might be able to use that argument to discredit my opponent’s position; they are not acting in a way that loves God and loves your neighbor. But when I turn my argument about what my opponent does, and turn him into a judged enemy, I’ve lost my argument, because I’m not loving my neighbor. Love God. Love your Neighbor. My opponents should be doing that. And so should I.
This morning, I’m thinking about how we might begin to shed that sense of superiority that comes from thinking God’s on our side. I’m thinking about how easy it is to slip into demonizing others, and stop loving them, when we think they aren’t loving. We need to love. Regardless of what they do.
A simple perusing of social media shows how rampant this is, this disrespectful, judgmental, and badly behaved actions of God-loving, loved-by-God, people of faith. I wonder what it would look like and feel like if we started calling BS on any of that, or at least opted out from engaging. Love God. Love your neighbor.
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