“Got Milk?”

1 Peter 2:1-10

They all have it. Basketball star Carmelo Anthony. NASCAR’s Jeff Gordon. Pop diva Britney Spears. Ray Romano of “Everyone Loves Raymond.” Home run hitter Mark McGwire. Even Garfield the Cat. They ALL have it!

Do you know what it is?

The milk mustache!

It is America’s most popular ad campaign, and it makes people smile when they see celebrities they admire show off their white milk mustache and ask the simple question, “Got Milk?”

And the campaign has significantly boosted milk sales and consumption by not only showing that cool people drink milk, but that milk does all sorts of good things for you. On the www.whymilk.com website, you can learn how milk can help you become a better athlete, grow taller, and provide you with proteins and vitamins that make you healthy, and give you strong bones, and even good hair!

Great concept. A simple question – “Got Milk?”

And amazingly enough, this is not the first time that great question has been asked!

Thirty or forty years after the death of Jesus, Christianity had spread throughout Asia Minor. People found new life and hope in the Good News that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, and they became Christians because they had found a living relationship with God and a better way to live. Living under the powerful shadow of Roman authority, they had discovered this alternative kingdom of God that Jesus taught - where people are loved for who they are, set free to become what God created them to be, and sent out into society to build a better world. They had a living faith that they practiced in their lives, in their homes, in their churches, and in their communities.

But it was tough going.

Like all of us, the early Christians soon discovered that having faith in Jesus does not mean that the realities of life go away. Christians have problems. Christians commit sin. Christians have dysfunctional families. Christians get cancer. Christians have rotten kids. Christians get angry at people, and even hate them. Christians live in societies whose moral values are contradictory to their faith. Christians get sucked into that culture. Christians live in a world that is larger than themselves and that they cannot control.

So how can we find our way? How do we know what to do and how to live in such a confusing and disorienting world? Is there some sort of compass that can keep us pointed in the right direction?

And this little letter of First Peter answers these questions by posing another.

“Got Milk?”

Can you imagine that? Two thousand years before the milk people came up with their ad campaign, the author of First Peter put on a milk mustache and asked that very same question.

“Got Milk?”

Here’s what he writes:

“Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation…”

The way we Christians navigate through the difficult complexities of life is by nourishing ourselves on pure spiritual milk. This milk will help us become more spiritually athletic, taller in our faith, stronger in our endurance, and will enable us to find our way.

You know, back in the 1970’s, there was a boycott movement against the aggressive marketing in third world countries of baby formula. This was a matter of grave concern not only because of the economic impact upon poor families using limited financial resources to buy formula, but also because a mother’s free breast milk provided – among other things – a boost to a child’s immune system and enhanced protection against disease. Generally speaking, there is nothing healthier for a baby than his mother’s own milk.

In the same way, there is a pure spiritual milk that Christians need for both growth and guidance.

This milk is the basic building block for faithful Christian living. Without it, your growth will be stunted, and your ability to negotiate the sharp curves life throws at you will be limited. But with it – with this pure spiritual milk energizing and guiding your life – you will find the power to discern God’s will, and to make faithful decisions, and to know the difference between right and wrong, and to live as a Christian in all of life’s circumstances.

Do you know what this milk is? Listen:

Now listen, because here it comes…

“…now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.”

The basic building block of the Christian life is that God is GOOD.

God is GOOD!

This is the pure spiritual milk of our faith.

So let me ask you, “Got Milk?”

The most elemental guiding principle of Christian faith is the radical belief that God is good. This is the first confession the Bible makes about God, and it makes that confession in the creation story of Genesis 1. When God finished creating the universe, the heavenly bodies, the earth, the seas, the animals, the birds, the fish and insects – when God had created men and women in his own image – an amazing declaration is made! “And behold, it was very good!” The first confession of our faith is that God is good, and that everything God created is good.

This is the milk of our faith. Drink it in!

A short while ago, there was a church in our area that responded to the death of Pope John Paul II by placing on its outdoor sign a message suggesting that people who followed the Pope followed him straight to hell. It caused quite a stir!

I would suggest to you that this is a church that does not yet have milk. You see, it is very easy to look at Popes, or people who follow Popes, or folks who walk different paths than the ones we walk through the filter of what we think is wrong with them.

It is quite another to see them through the filter of the goodness of God. God is good, and therefore everything that God created is good. John Paul II – like every human being - was one of God’s creations, made in God’s own image. Despite his human flaws and sins, there was an intrinsic goodness about him because God is good. And out of God’s goodness, the world was created for him to live and play and work in and to enjoy, and to be fruitful in. Out of God’s goodness, Jesus was sent to die for his sins. Through the goodness of God, he was embraced by a community of faith that nurtured him spiritually. Through the goodness of God, he learned to love others – even those he disagreed with – and John Paul II reached across the divide to embrace with Christ’s love Protestants and Jews and Muslims, and even people with no faith at all. Because God is good, an eternity was prepared for him to enjoy with God. His was a life – like the life of every person – tenderly embraced by the goodness of God.

John Shelby Spong says that this belief that God is good and therefore that everything God created is good is the foundational element of the Judeo Christian tradition. The denigration of people because of human failing has no place in our faith. Otherwise, what would be the point of God calling Abraham and Sarah? What would be the point of the Exodus? What would be the point of Jesus’ coming to save the world by giving his life on the Cross? Jesus came because God is good, and all that God created is good and worth saving!

This means that nature is good. Last Friday was Earth Day when we pause to recognize the goodness of the earth God has given us, and to renew our dedication to environmental healing and wholeness. Some people laugh at this, and call those who deeply care about the environment “tree huggers” and other sarcastic things. And granted, some DO carry it to an extreme. But the critics don’t understand. They don’t have milk. God is good, and therefore nature is good and must be valued and respected and protected. But not only nature. Material things too. Our faith calls us to be faithful stewards of our material resources because they are good and can be used to accomplish good! And bodies! Bodies are good because God is good, and healing bodies and caring for physical needs and helping growth are important ministries in the life of any church that truly believes God is good.

And people are good. Now this is not to say that people do not sometimes behave badly. Indeed, they do, just look at the world around us! Murder, violence, hatred, exploitation! Oh, the world is thick with the sin of our lives. But still God loves us! Why? Because God is good, and because everything God created is good and worth saving. Even us. Even your neighbor. Even our enemy.

Now if we nourish our souls with the pure spiritual milk of God’s goodness, then we have to do two things. The first is what our text from 1^st Peter tells us we must do. We have to put away the malice we have toward others. Why? Because malice blasphemes the goodness of God. And it gets in the way of the goodness of God reaching into a person’s life. We have to put away deceit, and hypocrisy, and envy, and slander of every kind. Why? Because they contradict the goodness of God. And because these things interfere with the goodness of God having its way in the lives of others.

In a very real sense, you and I are constantly faced with the choice of relating to the world around us through what angers us about the world, or through what we believe about God.

God is good, and everything God created is good.

And in putting away all malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind, we are called to do one more thing.

Jesus describes it in John 10:10 when he says, “I have come that you might have life, and have it abundantly.”

Our ministry as a church and as individual Christian people is to bring abundance to the lives of the people around us. Our job is to enhance peoples’ lives, and to help them experience more and more fully the goodness of God!

As a church, this means we bring a godly respect to the people God leads us to and leads to us. This means we welcome everyone, including those we don’t agree with, including those who don’t yet get it spiritually, including those nobody else will accept because of some human flaw, or sin, or disability. This means we do things as a church and as individuals that are designed to touch other’s lives with the goodness of God, and to make their lives better. This means we plant love in the face of hatred, pardon in the face of injury, faith in the face of doubt, hope in the face of despair, light in the face of darkness, and joy in the face of sadness. In fact, this is the very prayer we pray every week at the end of our worship time.

I don’t know if you life all figured out theologically. I sure don’t. There are lots of things I wonder about. And I don’t know where you would place yourself on the righteousness scale. I know I wouldn’t be too high. But right thinking and right living are not the most important questions God asks us. The most important question of all is this:

Got Milk?