• "Strangers and Pilgrims"
• Sermon for the Third Sunday after Easter
• April 17, 2005
• The Reverend Stephen C. Scarlett

In the epistle (1 Peter 2:11ff.), St. Peter writes, "Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul."

The title, "strangers and pilgrims," is a reference to Abraham, the great patriarch of Israel. Abraham left his home in ancient Babylon and migrated to the land of Canaan. Abraham lived in Canaan for many years and God promised to give the land to his descendants. However, Abraham never held title to any of it, except for his purchase of a burial site for his family.

When Abraham purchased the burial site from the native Canaanites, he said, "I am a stranger and a sojourner among you." (Genesis 23:4). Abraham had the status of a resident alien. He lived in Canaan but he was not a citizen of the land.

We live in the world as those who do not belong to the current world order. Philippians says, "Our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself" (3:20-21 NKJV).

Though we live in the world as resident aliens, God has promised that we will be the heirs of the creation in Christ. 2 Peter says, "According to his promise we look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells" (3:13). The descendants of Abraham took possession of the land when God judged the native inhabitants. We will take possession of our inheritance when Jesus comes again in glory to judge the world.

We became citizens of the kingdom of heaven-and strangers and pilgrims on earth-in baptism. When a person becomes an American citizen, he is required to renounce his allegiance to his former country. Likewise, in baptism we were asked (BCP p. 277), "Do you renounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, with all covetous desires of the same, and the sinful desires of the flesh, so that you will not follow nor be led by them?" In baptism, we professed allegiance to Christ, the king of heaven.

As citizens of heaven and strangers and pilgrims in the world, we are called to live a different manner of life than the citizens of the world. St. Peter says, "Abstain from fleshly lusts." Citizens of the world are governed by their appetites. We are called to self-control and virtue, to subdue the flesh to the Spirit. Jesus teaches us that our desires are by nature disordered and wrongly directly. They need to be disciplined and directed towards their true source of fulfillment in God.

Of course, there are some who say that we have progressed since the time of Jesus and the apostles and that New Testament standards should give way to those of the modern world. The truth is that very little has changed in two thousand years. The modern debates about sexual morality and the value of life are strikingly similar to the debates the early Christians had with the ancient pagan culture. The promise of freedom from the moral law, which modern heretics trot out as a new and exciting alternative to the biblical revelation, is really just a very old demonic lie.

We are called to follow Christ and reject the standards of the world because the world and its standards will be judged and Christ has saved us from judgment. As 1 John says, "The world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever" (1 John 2:17 NKJV).

St. Peter says that fleshly lusts "war against the soul." The desires of fallen human nature cause turmoil in our inner being because they promise a satisfaction that they can't deliver. And they cause guilt for which the world has no answer. This is the state of the fallen world. People become slaves to substances, to behaviors, to the love of money, but they are never fulfilled by these things.

As strangers and pilgrims, we abstain from acting on our disordered desires because we have been restored to fellowship with God, who is the true source of human fulfillment. Being, as Ephesians says, "Filled with all the fullness of God" (3:19) we are freed from the idolatrous attachment to things. We have regained the dominion over creation that we lost at the Fall. Through the experience of forgiveness and the power of Christ in us, we can control our desires rather than having them control us. We can begin to really live.

Thus, we avoid gluttony and drunkenness, but we affirm the enjoyment of food and drink. We avoid lust, adultery and fornication, but we affirm sexuality in its God-ordained context of marriage. We avoid the love of money and instead we begin with our tithe and the practice of generosity to glorify God with our wealth. In a world full of rebellion, we obey the laws of the land. In everything we do we are called to show what it is like to live in the world under the lordship of Jesus Christ.

St. Peter says that we are to behave honorably among those who do not believe so that, "whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation." The "day of visitation" that St. Peter refers to is the day when Christ "shall come again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead." It is the Day of Resurrection. It is the day towards which life in Christ is oriented. It is the day when strangers and pilgrims become citizens and heirs of the new creation.