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The Catholic Telegraph
April 12, 2002In the wider context of faith and baptism, the author of First Peter quickly turns his attention to Christian identity and Christian behavior. In the passage that immediately precedes this Sunday’s reading, he tells his readers that, since they have been delivered from their former pagan ignorance, they must now conduct themselves as obedient children of God. He addresses to these new converts the direction that God gave to His first chosen people: Be like me, "Be holy because I am holy." (Lev. 11.44 and 19.2)
In our passage he teases out the implications of this direction and gives some explanations for it.
First and foremost, since they are now in a relationship with a God who will judge each person with impartial justice, and since they have not yet reached their final state of perfection, they must conduct themselves "with reverence." (The Greek word used here means "fear," but it is clear that the author does not want to inculcate at attitude of servile subjection but of filial attentiveness and awe in the presence of God. The readers are being invited to behave in accord with who and what they are as God’s children, and in accord with who and what God is.)
Why are they to conduct themselves this way? The text gives three reasons.
First of all, because they have been set free from the constraints of their former pagan beliefs by the blood of Christ. (That is to say they are precious enough to God to have been brought into contact with Him through the faithfulness and self-sacrifice of Christ. Their freedom has not been paid for by mere money!)
Secondly, because their salvation was part of a plan that was in God’s mind since "before the foundation of the world," but which only now has begun to be revealed and fulfilled "for you." (The saving work of Christ was not some spur-of-the-moment thing, but a carefully arranged undertaking that calls for a careful and generous response from those who have benefitted from it.)
Finally, they must conduct themselves in a godly way because they relate to God through the resurrection of Jesus. Because they share the glory of the risen Christ, they are directed toward the glory of God.
This passage addresses one of the basic questions of human existence: how are we to behave? Practically everybody agrees that human beings should conduct themselves in a moral way, that they should pursue virtue, that they should do good and avoid evil. But what constitutes good and evil? What does it mean to behave in a moral way? In what does a good life consist?
There have been lots of answers to these questions in the history of human thinking. At times, religious leaders have taught their followers that being good simply means obeying the rules that God has set out for us, whether we understand them or not, whether they mean anything or not, and that if you are obedient you will earn happiness and if you are disobedient you will be punished. Others have thought that a good, happy, moral life consists in the pursuit of tranquility, in avoiding pain and upheaval, and that whatever contributes to interior peace of the individual is what constitutes goodness. Still others have seen morality as a system of behaviors that human beings have agreed on so that they can live together in some degree of security. Being good means not harming your neighbor so that, in turn, your neighbor will not harm you.
Each of these approaches to morality has elements of truth, but none of them reflects the full import of authentic Christian morality. The basic principle of true Christian morality is the directive that is inherent in this Sunday’s live letter: respect what you have become, behave in accord with what God has made you to be.
Christians look on morality, on "doing the right thing," as a consequence of the salvation that we have been given through Christ. We follow the directives of moral behavior not because of what we hope to get out of such behavior, nor because of what we hope to avoid, but because of what we are. We are women and men who have been brought into a family relationship with God through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. This is a long-term undertaking on God’s part, and it has not yet reached its completion either in each of us individually nor in all of us together. We live in an interim state now. But the way we are to live during this time of our "sojourning" (as our text puts it) is determined not by extrinsic regulations but by what we are: children of God.
Christian morality is not a matter of observing lots of rules. It’s a matter of living consistently with what we know God is and with what we know God has made us to be. It’s a matter of reverencing the relationship to which God has called us. It’s a matter of authentic self-awareness and of gratitude.
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Conversation Questions.
What role does fear play in my life?
What motivates the behavioral choices that I make?
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