The Meyer Minute for November 9, 2020
There’s Law and there’s Gospel. Each has different effects. The Gospel, the main preoccupation of the Church, brings us peace. “Peace I leave with you,” says Jesus, but then our Teacher draws a sharp contrast, “not as the world gives do I give to you” (John 14:27). The world gives us strife. That’s because people pursue their own self-interest, whatever that might be. Witness our election drama.
The apostle Peter wrote to Christians who were a miniscule minority within the larger Roman society of Asia Minor. They were afraid that the majority would inflict its will on these minority Christians, not only to their disadvantage but even to their physical harm. True, the Christians were generally doing no wrong, but they were shunned, and rabble rousers could easily stir up popular will to inflict harm on them. Christians could not appeal to a Bill of Rights; they were at the mercy of those in power.
It’s original sin that prompts people to seek their own self-interest, which is not the way of Jesus, but people do it, sometimes we Christians included. People with like interests come together, what James Madison called “factions,” and seek to exercise influence and power over others. In the Roman Empire when Peter wrote, power was raw. There was no constitutional check on self-serving human nature except whoever had more power.
The framers of our Constitution saw the effects if fallen human nature is not checked. “As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed…. The latent (hidden) causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man.” That shows itself in various ways, including, “an attachment to different leaders, ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power” and this, among other causes, has “divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other, than to cooperate for their common good.” (James Madison, “The Federalist,” No. 10).
When Peter wanted to join a public fight, Jesus told him to put away his sword (Matthew 26:52). The figurative “swords” are out in our national drama, but we’re different, “peculiar” people (1 Peter 2:9). How can we be peacemakers? “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:3-4).
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