First Peter 3:18-22 March 1, 2009

For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you - not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.

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People are meaning makers. We never seem to be very satisfied just knowing what's happening. We always want to know what it means. It could be anything at all. Looking out at you this morning, I see you sitting there. That's what's happening. You're breathing, you're watching, you're listening, or maybe you're only pretending to listen. Maybe your thoughts are drifting off to next summer's vacation, or concerns about your health or the argument you had last week. Whatever's going on though, that's simply what's happening. But none of that means anything, until we give it a meaning. Until we assign a meaning to an event, it simply is what it is.

All by themselves, the events of our lives, what's happening at any given moment, don't hold our attention for very long. What holds our attention is the meaning we give to these events. The fact you're here this morning is never as interesting to us as what your being here this morning means. What does it mean? Well, there are all kinds of possible answers to that question. Maybe you're here because you love the fellowship, or the inspiration of the music and preaching. Or maybe you're here because someone dragged you to church or because you feel guilty if you don't come. It doesn't have to be one thing. It could have a whole collection of meanings. The point is though; Sunday morning worship does not come pre-loaded with meaning. It carries the meaning we give to it.

Of course, if you've been attending church for most of your life, the meaning you find here is probably something you assigned to it a long time ago. Once that happens, once we figure out what we think something means, we don't tend to see what's happening anymore, except through the lens of the meaning we've given to it. There's an old Indian saying that goes something like this: "If you're walking along with a child and you see a bird, and you tell the child the bird's name, that child will never see the bird again. He will only ever see the name you've given him for it." That's the idea. The events of our lives don't come pre-loaded with meaning. They carry the meaning that we give to them.

I remember so well, in the weeks following 9/11, how one commentator after another tried to tell us what it meant that the twin towers had been brought down. It meant that we are more vulnerable than we realized. It meant that we weren't living sufficiently in fear of what might happen. It meant that we are a rich, arrogant nation that was getting what it deserved. It meant that we were at war with Islam. Pat Robertson told us it was God's punishment for allowing gays and abortionists to take over the country. Over and over, one commentator after another tried to tell us what the "real" meaning of 9/11 was. But what they all seemed to have in common was a sense that there was one "right" or "correct" meaning of it all that came attached to the event itself. Their job was to discover that meaning and convince us that it was the right one in fact. This is something we do all the time. We're always getting "what happened" all tangled up with "what 'what happened' means."

I was making this point to my bible study class this week. We're talking about the image of Jesus that comes to us through the gospel of Matthew. I was saying that one thing we need to remember about Jesus is that he didn't come pre-loaded with meaning. Jesus gathered disciples, preached and prophesied, healed the sick, offended the authorities, was crucified and, according to a number of eye-witnesses, rose from the dead. These are some of the things that happened in Jesus life, according to the bible. Jesus was "a happening," as some of us aging hippies used to say. There were a lot of things that happened in Jesus' life; a lot of things he did. But one thing he did not do is hand out pamphlets everywhere he went explaining the theological significance of his life.

It was the followers of Jesus, those who came along after the fact, who began arguing about what was the "right" or "correct" or "orthodox" meaning of Jesus' life, as though what he meant was hidden in what he said and did and not something we have imposed on him. Jesus' followers have come up with lots of different interpretations over the years, and for love or money we can't seem to agree on which one is right.

This morning's passage is perfect example. It is a gem of theological complication. Jesus suffered for our sins in order to make us right with God. He died in the flesh but rose in the spirit. He visited those who had already died in sin before the time of Noah. Noah's flood is a symbol of baptism. Jesus has gone into heaven and sits at God's right hand, and all creation is under his authority. Wow, all that in just five verses. If that doesn't leave your head spinning you probably weren't listening.

This letter is supposed to have been written by Peter, although theologians argue about whether it actually was. Personally, I've always found it hard to imagine that simple fisherman from the gospels writing something like this. It sounds more like a condensed version of early church theology. G. Oliver Wagner, commenting on this passage, says that, "The text reads like a condensed resume of our Lord." Listing the main theological points, he says they can be seen as having a cause and effect relationship. "Jesus suffered / we are made righteous before God. Jesus was put to death / we are saved from our sins. God saves / we are baptized in water. Jesus was resurrected / we must do good. Jesus ascended into heaven / we (and all things) are subject to him."

It's true that these are some of the great classic understandings of what Jesus' life meant; understandings that have been handed down to us through many generations. We could easily spend years just unspinning the implications of these statements, and in the history of the church, many people have done just that. Let me be clear that I'm not saying these meanings are wrong. What I'm saying is, these are some of the meanings that we have made out of Jesus' life. These are some of the meanings that people have assigned to Jesus life. But that is not the same as saying, "these are the meanings Jesus' life had even before he arrived that were just waiting to be discovered." His life did not come pre-loaded with some full-blown Christian theology for us to ferret out. Rather we have taken his life and made our own meanings out of it.

Now, it may or may not be obvious to you that this is a far from orthodox interpretation. But I find it a critically important distinction to make. Why? Because too often, once we think we know what something means, we don't see it anymore. Once we've given the bird a name, the name will remain long after the bird has disappeared from sight. In the case of Jesus, we don't even have to know the meaning of the meanings that have been given to him. Just knowing that those meanings exist, already fixed in place long ago by the great theologians of the church, whether we understand them or not, tends to kill any thought we might have of looking for a meaning of our own. We become locked in to what we think things mean, or we don't bother looking for our own meaning because someone else has already figured Jesus out for us. Sometimes, often actually, we become trapped by the meanings we or others have given to the things that happen in our lives, to the point of hardly being able to see the happenings themselves at all.

Let me give you an example. I got an anonymous letter this week from someone who read in the paper that we are going to hold a class on Buddhism over the next few weeks. This person, whoever he or she is, was quite upset by this decision. The letter is very direct, "For the sake of your own soul and those of your congregation that you are responsible for, I would ask you to rethink and revisit this idea of teaching the tenets of the Buddhist faith in His church, and especially during the time that Christians are celebrating Christ's death and resurrection, the whole cornerstone of our faith."

During my ministry, I've received this kind of letter occasionally, often enough not to be particularly offended by it, though I admit it does stick in my craw a bit. I've never thought it was particularly appropriate to toss out unidentified criticism. I have no intention of cancelling the class, of course. But the reason I share it with you at all is that it so well fits the context of this morning's sermon. This person, let's say he, is very clear about what he thinks Jesus and the church are all about. He has the meaning of Jesus all fixed in his mind. He is clearly committed to his interpretation being correct, and he apparently finds other interpretations threatening. Needless to say, my own interpretation is very different.

My take on Jesus is that he would most likely approve of our trying to better understand of some of the other great world religions. We're not trying to turn anyone into Buddhists here, but it seems obviously valuable to learn about what Buddhists believe and practice. In my own experience, I came to a much deeper understanding of my Christianity as a direct result of studying Buddhism, and I don't feel it poses any threat to our faith. Neither do I feel any particular need to defend Christian orthodoxy against it.

As I read the gospels, Jesus comes across to me as someone very interested in tolerance, love and forgiveness. He seems very open to going beyond the bounds of his own Judaism when it meant connecting with people upon whom the religion of his day frowned; lepers, sinners and Samaritans to name a few. Jesus seems very opposed to rigid beliefs that leave no room for the Spirit to "blow where it will," and he apparently feels little compunction about not marching right along with those who thought they had a lock on the mind of God. However, allow me to point out that these are some of the meanings I place on the Jesus I find in the gospels. I like to think they are in harmony with who he was, but if I were to say that my interpretation was more correct than the person who wrote me the letter, I'd just be doing the same thing he is.

I don't come right out and say it all the time, but most of you know by now that, as much as I love Jesus, I don't have much of an investment in defending Christian orthodoxy. The meanings that the church has found in Jesus over the years can be rich and profound, but the minute we allow them to become a theological straight-jacket, it feels to me that we are violating the very essence of the freedom in the Spirit he was trying to teach us. I'm a big believer in the Spirit, and though I'm not always sure what it is trying to say to me, I do have a strong belief that it doesn't respond well to our efforts to put it in a box.

This being the season of Lent, let me to invite you, over the next few weeks, to try finding your own meaning in Jesus. Try opening your own heart to the Spirit of Christ, with a mind open to the possibility that God might just want to reveal something new to you. I know it's hard. Most of us have had "THE MEANING OF JESUS!!" pounded into our minds from a rather young age. But I have great faith that, in the infinite mystery and wisdom of God, there are at least a few corners we haven't yet explored.

Amen.