1 Peter 3:13-22; John 14:15-21
One afternoon recently, I received a text message with a photo. You might think it was a screenshot from our “You Belong” post this week that received over 1100 likes. Or perhaps you would think someone sent me a picture of a comment someone made: “Thank you for this… it healed something in me… God bless your church.” Or maybe this one: “Us true Baptists do not approve!” or maybe this one: “This is a disgusting excuse for a church. You are doing nothing but taking people to hell with you!” Or this one: Never thought a facebook post would have me considering going back to church. Bold move.” No, it’s not any of those. Please remember that online comments are a kind of reality, but they’re not authentic community, certainly not beloved community like what we have right here. This is what matters most.
The picture I planned to tell you about was of a blue wall with all these nicely framed, pencil drawn portraits, faces all different. In the foreground of the photo, a cup of coffee sat on a table with a copy of Allen Levi’s novel, Theo of Golden. Paul and Nancy Scruggs were in Columbus, GA, visiting their daughter… That’s where the coffee shop is that inspired the one in the novel! You’ll recall the main character, Theo, decides he is going to buy all the local artist’s renderings and bestow them as a gift to each person one by one. You’ve heard me talk about these bestowals at which Theo offers a kind of blessing when he presents the gift of the portrait to them. They usually go something like this: “There is strength in this face… and kindness… and sadness… someone who has been tested, someone who could be a saint. It’s all there.” With each bestowal, seeds of generosity are planted alongside kindness and hope. Over a year’s worth of months in Golden and many bestowals, Theo grows a garden of friendships. One of those new friends is a young man, who has come to Golden to study the cello with a renowned teacher at the local college. Theo observes Simone come into the coffee shop every morning carrying his cello case on his back. This friendship doesn’t begin with a bestowal like so many others in the book, but with a shared love of the cello. Over a long conversation in the shop one afternoon, they bond over the craftsmanship of Simone’s instrument, discussing strings and bows, sound quality, favorite pieces and composers. It’s in this first real conversation that Theo learns Simone is already practicing for a recital the following spring – the last step in completion of Simone’s masters degree.
Without giving too much away, but in order to share the line in the novel that struck me most profoundly between Theo and Simone, I must jump to the conclusion of that amazing recital performance where Theo has the honor of presenting Simone, finally, with his portrait, something often reserved for artists at the end of their careers. But Theo notes that it’s his honor to present this young artist with a portrait at the beginning of what will no doubt be a career of excellence and accomplishment. In his remarks to Simone and a surprising audience of listeners, he says this, “It is written somewhere that ‘most people die with all of their songs still inside them.’” To all his supporters, teachers, and encouragers in the audience, Theo says, “Thank you for protecting Simone from that terrible fate. Because of you, he blesses us.” The songs inside Simone had been cultivated, encouraged and given the opportunity. They couldn’t help but spill out of his beautiful instrument and soul. To hear music played or sung like that is a gift, is it not?
Most people die with all of their songs still inside them… This letter, First Peter, has a word for us today about what to do with the songs inside us.
First Peter is written to a budding community of Christ followers still in the first years of their faith. This letter may not seem relevant to seasoned church-goers, long-standing people of faith like ourselves. But the readers of Peter’s letter might also be called exiles, Gentile Christians living under Roman occupation, held accountable to Roman law.
In the world where Peter’s first letter came to life, a person claiming faith in the living Christ might be imprisoned, beaten, and excluded from the workplace, the homeplace, or almost any other place.[1] And while most of us don’t have any idea what that kind of persecution is like, most of our black/brown, immigrant and LGBTQ+ neighbors absolutely do. And I often say that many of us feel like religious “exiles” here in Alabama for practicing a more open-hearted, open minded Christ-following faith. Your theology, or your politics, or your social positions probably stand in contrast to most of our neighbors. Therefore, I think First Peter, though written to newby first century Christians, does have a message for twenty-first century churches like ours… Congregations that offer a harbor of safety to the immigrant population, of full fellowship to the LGBTQ+ community, or an authentic Gospel based on the teachings of Jesus and not religion steeped in white Christian nationalism seem to be the exception these days. Exiles.
Christians like you and me are being called by First Peter to always be ready to defend the hope we have. First Peter is calling us to consider our capacity for giving witness to why and what we believe. That might feel triggering to some who as good evangelicals were challenged to go door to door banging bibles, yelling, “Turn or Burn!”
“Go to church, or the devil will get you!” as the sign warns on I-65 South.
Unfortunately, I’ve tried that in my younger life… Knocking on doors and asking a perfect stranger, “If you were to die tonight, do you know where you would spend eternity?” It gives me the “ick” to think about it now. Some Southern Baptists believed that’s the kind of evangelism they were obligated to do, or they weren’t doing enough (and the devil was going to get them).
I believe that 1 Peter 3:15 has been used against us to breed a kind of evangelism that is short-lived and inauthentic, not based in relationship:
“Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you! ……………
…yet do it with gentleness and respect.”[2]
Trailing off on that last phrase, zealots clung to “always be ready to make your defense!” without much regard for what that looked like when done with gentleness and respect.
The Church has so often been perceived – and experienced – lacking gentleness and respect, or what Eugene Peterson in The Message calls, “utmost courtesy.”[3]
We must course-correct. Too many have walked away from the church because of how we church people are perceived… the cheapest tippers at Sunday lunch, or worse those who leave a $20 bill only actually, it’s a tract. The ones who troll social media with their mean spirited comments, or waste time, paper and ink making signs about who God hates and who’s going to hell because of who they love. Gentleness and respect is not what comes to mind when the average person thinks of Christians today.
We must course-correct.
When someone says they have given up completely on organized religion, I can imagine why, but I want to say, ‘Tell me about this organized religion you’ve given up on.’ Because I know a church that sings a different song. I know a group of people with hope in their hearts for what beloved community *could* mean for people like them.
Verse 15 actually reminds us that we are not in this alone. The call is to “you” – and we might be tempted to think of this as addressed to the singular you. You must bear witness all on your own. But the Greek grammar (and I realize when preachers say things like this we risk losing our listeners), shows us the “you” here is plural. Maybe it would help to think about it from the New Revised Southern version, which would be like saying, “the hope that is in y’all.”[4]
In the gospel lesson today, Jesus is convincing the disciples that they are not alone in their calling. The disciples are trying to figure out what’s next. Are they done? Like children in church: “Is it over?” “Are we done?” Jesus is trying to give them a “Yes, but also No” answer which they don’t understand. “Yes” in the way they have been intimately together for the last few years is over. Jesus’ time on earth is done. But “no”, in that the community of love they started together is not over. And will never be over. It has begun in them and will continue forever. Because when Jesus leaves, he will send into their midst the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, the Spirit of Truth, to hold them together and to lead them forward. So, no, it isn’t over, he would say.
And while the Church at large struggles to be that loving community where the reign of God, is felt, known, marked by liberation and peace and justice and joy ––
—The truth at the bottom of Easter is “Nothing done in the name of our Lord will be wasted, lost, or pointless, because God’s goodness and power will ultimately triumph over all that is evil and hurtful and wrong.”[5] I am counting on that! That is the HOPE to which we have been called. THAT is the Living HOPE through Jesus Christ, his cross and resurrection, for which we must ALWAYS be ready to tell anyone who asks.
Unlike Theo, we don’t have original portraits to bestow on unsuspecting strangers. But we could offer one another the same generosity of spirit, availability to listen, to ask questions, to seek commonalities. What if we told one another, (or someone else the Holy Spirit puts in our path) what we saw in their faces – the wisdom of life etched in the lines, or fresh with promise, strength alongside the sadness, beauty along with tragedy. It’s all there.
We bear the gift and burden of this calling to share the living hope within us with gentleness and respect. And this Table reminds us: we’ve been called to do it together. We must not let the songs within us go unsung! May the hope that is in y’all continue to overflow as the peace and love of Christ.
[1] Cook, Stephen, Preaching notes for Eastertide 2026
[2] 1 Peter 3:14-16a, NRSVUE
[3] Peterson, Eugene, The Message, 1 Peter 3:15
[4] Cook, Stephen, Preaching notes 2026
[5] Poole, Charles E., The Flute Beneath the Gold, Reading the Bible and Speaking the Truth, Smyth & Helwys, 2002