The New Normal

Text:  1 Peter 1:3-9

Theme:  "The New Normal"

2nd Sunday of Easter

April 27, 2014

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

+In the Name of Jesus+

³ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴ and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, ⁵ who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. ⁶ In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. ⁷ These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. ⁸ Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, ⁹ for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

People in my line of work use tools -- just like folks in just about any line of work.  My tools are words.  One word I've been kicking around quite a bit lately and having some fun with is the word NORMAL Consider a few sentences that use the word normal:

There really is no such thing as normal.

Normal reactions to this medicine include nausea and headache.

Your behavior is not normal.

Sometimes I pretend to be normal, but it gets boring; so I go back to being me.

The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well.

I grew up in Normal, Illinois.

I tried being normal once -- worst two minutes of my life.

Remember, as far as anyone knows we are a nice, normal family.

Personal experience -- along with, hopefully, a bit of mature wisdom -- leads me to the conclusion that NORMAL, for all intents and purposes,  is a setting on your washer or dryer.  When you get right down to it, is there really such a thing as normal anymore?  I'm beginning to wonder.

Pull out your handy-dandy dictionary and you'll learn that normal has to do with conforming to an accepted standard.  The question then becomes:  "What is the standard?" and "Who sets the standard?" 

A few years back, I joined the Rotary Club.  We're the group that puts out the flags on federal holidays.  When I was initiated, they gave me a red badge with my name on it.  I noticed that everyone else had blue badges.  I asked why I didn't get a blue badge. (I had paid my dues, after all.) I was told that I could after I had given a classification talk, attended a board meeting, and verified that I visited another club.  After that, I would get my blue badge and be a NORMAL Rotarian.

Part of that rubbed me the wrong way.  It could be that I'm a bit of a non-conformist.  I have a hard enough time conforming to the various and sundry standards I set for myself.  If somebody else imposes standards on me, I don't like that.  And I'm not alone.  Therefore, I'm not normal.  There is something refreshing, I admit, to being abnormal -- or being a non-conformist, if you will.  It feels like freedom.

Into this conversation about being normal or not comes this reading from Saint Peter.  Peter, you will recall, was a disciple of Jesus -- a Christ-follower.  Our friends in the Roman Catholic tradition consider him to be the first pope.

Peter was a fisherman by trade.  He comes off the pages of Scripture as the classic, "Type A" personality. If Jesus walks on the water, then, by golly, he's going to do it too.   If Jesus is asking about what people are saying about Him, it's  going to be Peter who says  "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."    When Jesus talks about being executed on a cross, it's Peter who wants nothing of it.  And Jesus says to him:  "Get thee behind me, Satan."  When the pressure is mounting, it's Peter who cries out to Jesus:  "I will follow you to prison and to death!"  Jesus replies:  "Before the cock crows, you will deny me three times."   When the cock does crow, Peter realizes what happened and he went out and wept bitterly. 

Being out-going and gregarious was the "normal" for Peter.  Sometimes he's get it right.  Other times he'd get it wrong.  But that was just Peter; it was normal for him.

Like many of his colleagues, Peter was afraid the those first few days after the first Easter.  If the authorities could manage to kill Jesus, then could easily target his followers for the same fate.  So the disciples were hiding out behind locked doors.  It was an early version of what the CIA calls a "safe house."  Fear was the new normal.

Fear is the new normal -- for folks in the Ukraine. Fear is the new normal -- for folks in Syria and Egypt.  Fear is the new normal -- for the shrinking middle class.  Fear is the new normal -- as students go to school wondering who is packing a gun.  Fear is the new normal -- for those who face radiation and chemo. 

But Peter didn't have to stay in that safe house for long -- and neither do you and neither do I. "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!" says St. Peter.   "In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade."

Here come the gifts of the glorious victory of Easter.  The coordinates are set.  The Holy Spirit pulls the trigger.  Fear is decimated, and we are set free from the "safe house".  We are born anew into a living hope. Living hope is hope we truly can live in.  Living hope is what we embody.  Living hope is what we, the members and friends of FPC, can offer humbly and energetically to all within our view.

Something happens to us:  we are born anew.  And something is given to us:  an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade."   Speaking of inheritance, here are a couple of stories that point out what this inheritance is and what it is not.

In the city of Boston, Massachusetts, there is a Holocaust Monument.  Inside visitors will find a sculpture hat bears this inscription from a holocaust survivor: 

Ilse, a childhood friend of mine, once found a raspberry in the camp and carried it in her pocket all day to present that night to me on a leaf.  Imagine a world in which your entire possession is one raspberry and you give it to a friend.

Ilse died in that camp the next day.

Then there's another story which took place years later.  You may remember from news reports a very wealthy lady by the name of Leona Helmsley.  When she died, she left a sizeable inheritance  (twelve million dollars, to be exact) --to her dog.  There's no word to date on how the pooch has spent the money.

Obviously, the story of Isle more closely resembles the great Easter inheritance we enjoy.  But even raspberries will decay; they lack permanence.  But this Easter inheritance?  It will never "spoil, or perish or fade," says St. Peter.

Yes, there will be trials; yes, there will be suffering; yes, there will be grief.  St. Peter, and the Bible along with him, make no bones about that.  To  be sure, those trials, pains, and sorrows will test and try our faith, but they are the old normal. The new normal is the new birth and the everlasting inheritance that trumps it all.

No, we don't see Jesus -- but we love Him; we believe in Him.  The joy, says our text, is "inexpressible" and "glorious".  Our language falls short; there really aren't words sufficient enough to describe the joy.  "Joy," said  C.S. Lewis, that great master of the language, "is the serious business of heaven."

What is chief end of man?  Our catechism answers as follows:  (the chief end) "is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever."  Here is the new -- and ultimate! -- normal:  joy!

I hope people will always say of us:  "They enjoy God!"  Indeed, I hope it can be a tagline for our church:  "We enjoy God!"

Enjoy God!  It's not as abnormal as it sounds, for Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed.  Alleluia!  Amen.