Peculiar People

Readings: Psalm 116:1-19, Exodus 19:1-8, Luke 24:13-35, 1 Peter 2:1-9
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY, May 4th, 2014

A printable PDF file can be found here

"You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that you should show forth the praises of Him who has called you, out of darkness into His marvelous light"
(1 Peter 2:9)

The phrase in that verse that always tickles me is where Peter describes Christians as "Peculiar people". As I've stood in pulpits in different places around the world and looked out at congregations, I have seen some peculiar people. There's a church in Tillingham, in England, that advertises itself as "The Peculiar People South Street Chapel". I've often wondered if they ever had people attending their services just to see how peculiar they were.

Looking back over the history of Christianity it has to be said that the church has had more than it's fair share of odd characters who expressed their religion in the strangest of ways.  But when the bible here uses the word peculiar, it isn't using it in the sense of describing some odd behavior or eccentricity.  Rather, the word peculiar is used to describe the unique lifestyle and way of being that discipleship of Jesus Christ calls us to.

God calls us to be peculiar in the sense of having the sort of life that others recognize as belonging to God.  He calls us, explains Peter, "Out of darkness into His marvelous light".  As I saw on a poster :-) "God is looking for Spiritual fruits not religious nuts".

 Who are God's peculiar people?

In a nutshell; I'm looking right at you! For some peculiar reason God has chosen a bunch of people as inconsistent and as contradictory as we are to be His own!  Don't ask why ... that's the mystery of Divine Grace.  I can't speak for you, but I'm not sure I would be my ideal choice for a person likely to do much good for the Kingdom. Maybe that's the way it has always been.

Our Old Testament reading had Moses addressing the Israelites after coming down from Mount Sinai with the laws. "Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant then out of all the nations you will be my treasured possession" (Exodus 19:5).  Moses was such a reluctant leader that he even had Aaron do his speaking for him because he was so afraid of speaking in public.  Maybe he knew how stubborn his fellow Israelites could be.

Stubborn they were, but, this verse shows that God was choosing them to be the world’s peculiar people.  It wasn't that they were better than any other race or even more deserving.  There was a job that needed doing and they were the ones God chose for the task. Problem was that some of them had the idea that being the "Chosen People" gave them a God given right to look down their noses at everybody else. "We're the best.  We're the holy ones… the chosen ones"

That's the peculiar thing about being God's chosen people.  Yes, He chooses us, but it is in spite of who we are not because of the way we are. We are not called to be 'holier than thou' people who insist that they alone have been privileged to have the truth revealed to them. God chooses us not to parade our imagined virtues but to offer ourselves to others in service.

The Israelites where chosen to be a light for all nations.  They were to structure their lives and the life of their community in such a way that other nations would come to understand that God was at work in their midst.  They were to prepare the way for the Messiah to come so that a program of Kingdom like faith could be a part of all races of all peoples of all times and places.

So who are God's peculiar ones today? The Christian Church, in all her variety, all her many different traditions and ways of expressing her faith. Who are the peculiar people who make up the church?  Peculiar people like ourselves!  Every believer and follower of Jesus Christ is one of God's peculiar people.

What should be peculiar about us?

The other sections of this verse give us some clues.  You could do a whole sermon on each one of these, but let's just scratch their surface and try and get a little from each picture we're given.

1. A Chosen Generation

A Christ-like life should have the peculiar feature about it that the disciple recognizes them self as chosen of God. Not in pride or arrogance, but with humility and Christ directed praise.

Christ died for us.  We did nothing to deserve it.  On the contrary, ours were the sins that caused His abandonment to the cruel nails of Calvary's cross.  We have done nothing to deserve being called chosen ones.  He has done it all.  This is the central core of the Gospel.  We can't reach God.   He reaches out to us through Jesus Christ and works in us through the Holy Spirit.  In humility this leads us to praise. "I was lost but now I'm found, blind but now I see". The mystery of God's choosing is just that... a mystery.  A peculiar mystery.

2. A Royal Priesthood
One of the great Reformation doctrines is the priesthood of all believers. Every Christian belongs to a royal priesthood.  That means that whatever standards we expect of a Christian bishop or a minister, or a priest or a pastor, any servant of God, they are the standards we should apply to our own lives.

We (meaning all of us) are a royal priesthood. Those who stand in pulpits don't have any special access to God or any special resource of spirituality to draw upon that is not available to any other Christian person. I don't have in the pulpit a special telephone hot-line to heaven.

I can't forgive your sins.  I can't give you a new life.  I can't heal you.  I can't convert anyone or save any one. I can not guarantee a glorious life after death. All I can do is say, "I know someone who can. He is Jesus Christ, the Lord".  I can share with you what He's doing for me. And I know, that, because you are part of the same royal priesthood that I belong to, that if He can do amazing things for me, He can do amazing things for you.

We are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood.

3. A Holy Nation.

"Holiness" is about is being "Set Apart". God calls us to holiness of life. When we dedicate ourselves to that task then it does set us apart from others. We are to be a light that shines ... for as the text we have been looking at concludes, God has called us "Out of darkness and into His marvelous light to show forth praise and glory".

There's something very earthy and incarnational about true holiness. It's not sanctimonious or "Holier than thou".  It's the sort of peculiar characteristic that made Jesus so very human yet so very much more human than most of us ever come near achieving.  It's not something that takes us out of the world to an ivory tower where we sit and contemplate life, the universe and how many angels could dance on a pinhead.

Here's part of a letter by an anonymous author, who in the early years of Christianity wrote about the peculiar nature of those who were part of the earliest church.

Letter to Diognetus, (sometime in the second Century)

"These Christians are not differentiated from other people by country, language or customs; you see they do not live in cities of their own, or speak some strange dialect... They live in their own native lands, as citizens they share all things with others; but live like aliens, suffer all things.  Every foreign country is to them as their native country and every native country as a foreign country.

They marry and have children just like everyone else, but they do not kill unwanted babies.  They offer a shared table, but not a shared bed.  They are present in the flesh but do not live according to the flesh. They are passing their days on earth but are citizens of heaven.  They obey the appointed laws but go beyond the laws in their own lives.

To put it simply, Christians are in the world but live in a way that is out of this world"

Don't be afraid to stand out of the crowd as one of God's peculiar people.  He has chosen you to serve Him.  He describes you individually as royalty - a royal priesthood and together as a chosen generation and a holy nation.  But don't let that go to your head.  See it for what it is.  A call to service and a call to be a model of discipleship that others can relate to and follow.

To close, let me remind you of those words of our text;-

"You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that you should show forth the praises of Him who has called you, out of darkness into His marvelous light". (1 Peter 2:9)

The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.