1 Peter 3:13-22

I want to invite you to take hold of a wonderful truth. Consider it a foundation upon which to build a full, beautiful and significant life. Embrace it as a core element in the growing of a church. Think of it as an anchoring principle around which the whole universe revolves and upon which all life depends.

The truth is this:

God is good!

Our Scripture texts from last week (1 Peter 2:1-10) and this week each urge us to center our lives on this great fact:

God is good!

Last Sunday, we learned that the goodness of God is like pure spiritual milk that nourishes us. Drinking in the goodness of God builds strong, healthy lives. Today’s reading teaches that we should take this goodness and share it with the world, even if it requires suffering.

Back in the 1960’s, my boyhood pastor rented an apartment to a black family. He suffered the outrage and anger of all the white neighbors. He suffered for doing good. Martin Luther King suffered. Nelson Mandela suffered. You and I can suffer when we swallow our pride to forgive, or open our arms to accept people others consider unacceptable, or advocate for people who have no voice, or spend our hard-won resources on those who have nothing. Sometimes doing good requires suffering on our part, and 1st Peter 3 tells us that, if we’re going to suffer for any reason, this is it. Suffer for doing good. This, after all, is what Jesus did when he gave his life that the world might find life.

The basic ingredient of Christian faith is the goodness of God..

Stories of God’s goodness appear on every page of the Bible. A man and a woman make a terrible choice and their world falls apart. Eden is a paradise no more. But God makes clothes for the man and woman, and then goes to work figuring out how to restore to them the dignity with which they were created. A father finds himself awash in a culture of degrading sin that threatens to swallow his family and the world in a flood of destruction. God gives him an idea about building a boat – an Ark! – to carry his family – and the future – to safety! The Hebrew people find themselves living in slavery and under the torturous weight of oppression and hopelessness. God hears their cries, and so calls and empowers Moses to set the people free.

You see, running underneath all the Cecil B. DeMille-type special effects of the Bible, the true narrative of scripture finds its way into the lives of people and nations and all creation. And this is the story:

God is good!

Everything God creates is good.

God seeks good for the people of the earth.

God is in the goodness business.

But, if this is true – that God is good – some will ask why bad things happen – like what happened one day to old Fred…

One Monday morning, old Fred overslept. He wanted to blame his wife Marge for it, but she was off visiting her sister. He’d simply forgot to set the alarm, and now he was late. He had an important meeting with a client down at the office to seal an important deal, so old Fred hustled as fast as he could to get washed and dressed. Gulping down a Krispy Kreme donut left over from dinner last night, and swigging on a cup of coffee, Fred jumped into his car and sped off to work. The operative word here is SPED. Before Fred knew it, he was pulled over on the side of the road for doing 80 in a 15 mile an hour school zone! The motorcycle cop let Fred have it. Not only did he write him a $500 ticket, but also made some comments about Fred’s driving ability, self-worth, and even his lineage. By the time the cop left, Fred was very upset. “Why don’t those cops spend their time chasing criminals instead of law-abiding citizens like me?” Fred muttered to no one in particular. By the time he got to work, the client was gone, and so was the deal. Fred smacked the intercom button on the telephone and shouted for his sales manager: “Larry, get in here!”

Now, Larry was a first-rate manager who’d worked for Fred for twenty-three years. But recently, sales were off. “Larry, you couldn’t have held those people here for a few extra minutes? Look what you’ve done! We’ve lost a sale! I’m sick and tired of your poor production and pitiful excuses. You’re dragging this company into bankruptcy. I expect you to whip your sales staff into shape, and if you can’t turn things around, then I’ll hire someone who can and I don’t care how long we’ve been together. Do you hear me?!”

Old Fred was pretty upset. But if you think Fred was upset, you should’ve seen Larry!

Larry walked out of Fred’s office with steam coming out his ears. “That no good sorry excuse for a boss! Where does he get off threatening me after I’ve worked so hard for him all these years? I’ve made him what he is. Without me, he’d be nothing! We’ve seen rougher times than this before. All this abuse, just because of a few bad months? What a jerk!”

Then Larry barged into his top sales rep’s office: “Robin, I’m tired of making you look good. You wouldn’t be number one if I wasn’t feeding you the customers. Last month when I really needed help, you let me down. If you don’t do better, I’m replacing you with someone who’s a real sales person. Do you understand?!!”

Larry was really upset! But if you think Larry was upset, you should’ve seen Robin!

“He has a lot of nerve jumping on me after all the sales I’ve generated for this company!” she muttered after Larry left. “Everyone knows the only reason he became a manager is because of me!” As she sat and stewed about this the phone rang. Robin picked it up and shouted at the secretary: “Hold all my calls! If you were any kind of decent receptionist, you would know that I’m busy! Just remember… you can be replaced!”

Oh, Robin was upset! But if you think Robin was upset, you should’ve seen the receptionist!

“Why, the nerve of that prima Dona!” thought the receptionist. “Who does she think she is?” And for the rest of the day, whenever anyone called, instead of a pleasant “Thank you for calling our company. How can I help you?” the caller was met with a gruff, “Hello, what do you want?”

Well, when the receptionist got home that evening she walked in on her son lying on the couch watching TV. She went ballistic. “Son, how many times have I told you that with your mother working all day, you need to carry more weight. This room is a filthy, disgusting mess. How dare you watch television when I spend all day working to support you. Go to your room. You’re grounded… for life!”

She was really upset. But if you think the receptionist was upset, you should’ve seen her son!

Upset and angry, the boy hopped from the couch and as he stomped toward his room noticed Ellis, the family cat. Ellis was lying on the floor with a little cat-like smile on his face, purring away, minding his own business in the middle of the den. “You lazy, good for nothing cat!” the boy muttered. Then he wound up his leg and kicked that cat clear across the room.

THUMP!

Oh my, what a day!

Have you ever had a day like that?

Well, in my mind, this day from hell raises three important questions:

First, wouldn’t it have been a whole lot easier if when Fred left home that morning he had just driven directly over to the receptionist’s house and KICKED THAT CAT HIMSELF?

Second, have YOU been kicking any cats lately? Something to think about.

And third, can you see how this story is the story of the world?

Multiply old Fred by the 7.6 billion people who inhabit this planet, transform Fred’s office into corporations and nations and governments, include among the kicked cats children, women, people of color, or disability, or poverty – even nature itself – and perhaps you can see why the world is the way it is.

Theologians describe it as sin.

What they mean is that we human beings, for some reason none of us completely understands, turn away from God and God’s goodness. We want to be our own gods, masters of our own fate, general managers of the universe. So we turn from God to ourselves, and from God’s ways to our ways. And, in so doing, we end up kicking cats…and dogs…and people…and destroying relationships…and wrecking our health…and polluting the earth…and waging war…and dehumanizing each other…and making a mess of the world and our communities and our families and ourselves.

So if YOU were God, what would you do about a situation like this?

Some wish this rebellious world of ours would be destroyed. To listen to some preachers, that’s God’s plan. Some wish God would wipe the place out and start all over again.

But that’s not what God does.

You see, God is good.

God loves this world and every Fred in it. God loves you, and God loves me. And so God reaches out to us with a gracious goodness that is hard to imagine. We see it most clearly in the life of Jesus who lived his life touching peoples’ lives with the goodness of God. He feeds the hungry. Forgives sinners. Heals the broken. Welcomes the rejected. And in the most amazing way, Jesus comes to the end of his life among us by taking our sins upon himself and laying down his life for us on the cross.

Yes, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Yes, we have made a mess of the world and our lives.

But God responds to us in the most amazing way! God reaches out to us with goodness. And in receiving the goodness of God in Jesus Christ, we are given the ministry of goodness. And this is the ministry that can heal the world.

If I were starting a church from scratch, I’d set it up on that core belief – that God is good, and that God has given the people of the church the ministry of goodness. Like St. Francis’ famous prayer says, where there is hatred, our job would be to sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light. Where there is sadness, joy.

And we can carry this goodness as far as the imagination can take us – where there are rejected people, we would welcome them; where there are hurting people, we would heal; where there are lonely people, we would befriend; where there are oppressed people, we will defend and work for justice.

Our church would be in the goodness business!

It’s members would use words, actions, time and resources to accomplish good among each other and in the world around us. We would measure our behaviors around the question, “Will this produce the goodness of God in my life and in the lives of others?” And that question would govern our speech, our ways of relating to each other, and our involvements in the world. And even more, goodness would become the measure of our success as a church. No longer would membership numbers or size of budget or beautiful facilities define our value. The measure of our success would be whether or not we are growing in the ministry of sharing God’s goodness with the world.

God is good!

And God’s church is in the business of gracious goodness.

How would you feel about being part of such a church? It’d be a lot different than what we see in a lot of churches these days. Could you commit yourself to such a ministry? Would you dedicate your life to drinking in and then pouring out the goodness of God?

I dare say that if only one of the people in old Fred’s life that day had been committed to God’s goodness, things would have turned out a whole lot different. If only one person had been committed to forgiveness, if only one had been committed to cutting other people a little slack when they’re having a bad day, if only one was committed to building people up rather than tearing people down, if only one person had been willing to absorb and suffer the insult in order to stop the cycle, if only one person had spoken the truth in love rather than just expressing their anger, ol’ Ellis the cat might still be purring away!

What if YOU were that one person?

What if WE were such a church?