Now You Are God's People

SERMON OUTLINE, SESSION 2 Chapter 2, “Now You Are God’s People”

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Scripture reading: ,

Guiding theme: We narrate ourselves into the story of exile.

: Joshua is about to lead the people into the Promised Land. He gives them one more sermon recounting the story of the Exodus: “God led your ancestors through the sea, but God brought you to the other side” (paraphrase). He plays with the pronouns, narrating children and grandchildren into a story that is their ancestors’ story to remind them that their ancestors’ story is their story too. The people respond with understanding: For “he is the one who brought us and our ancestors up from the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage” (v. 16, CEB, emphasis added). • When we read Scripture, are we pulling out two or three principles or are we trying to narrate ourselves into the story? • We want to narrate ourselves into the story of exile, even though we know exile is not a perfect metaphor. • We haven’t gone anywhere. (In the biblical exile, Nebuchadnezzar takes the people into captivity.) • We as Christians still have a lot of influence on today’s culture. • We know there are people in our world who really are marginalized and living in present-day exile. • We risk responding to the story of exile, the loss of something, by fighting desperately to make sure we don’t lose it. • Narrating ourselves into the story of exile helps us to read the prophets anew by putting on different glasses. • Revelation: Roma is not a goddess but a prostitute. • Babylonian exile: Nebuchadnezzar is not just an oppressor and an idolater but also someone God sends to re-form his people. • First-century Rome: Dispersion of the people and destruction of the temple are not just tragedies but good news. (First Peter was written to the “exiles of the Dispersion” [1:1, NRSV] or the “exiles scattered” [v. 1, NIV] either right before or right after the destruction of Jerusalem.) “Exile is the way to new life in new land. One can scarcely imagine a more radical, less likely understanding of history. In covenantal categories, embrace of curse is the root to blessing. In New Testament categories, embrace of death is the way to life. . . . Jeremiah announces the

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central scandal of the Bible, that radical loss and discontinuity do happen and are the source of real newness. So he holds what surely must have been a minority view, that the exiles are the real heirs. And conversely those who cling to the land are the ultimate exiles” (Walter Brueggemann, The Land: Place as Gift, Promise, and Challenge in Biblical Faith [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002], 115, emphasis added). • When we narrate ourselves into the story of exile, God helps us get over our “we” confusion. First Peter uses metaphors to narrate the people into the story of exile: • A “spiritual temple” and “living stones” with Jesus Christ as the “cornerstone” (2:5-6, CEB)—we are now the place where heaven and earth intersect and from which the glory of God radiates out into the world. • A “chosen race” (v. 9, CEB)—we are an entirely new “ethnos” made up of all kinds of cultures and ethnicities, but our unity in the body of Christ supersedes those old identities. • A “royal priesthood” (v. 9, CEB)—we are priests to one another and priests to the world, representing God to the world and also representing the world back to God. • A “holy nation” (v. 9, CEB)—we are first and foremost God’s people and citizens of his kingdom. • When we narrate ourselves into exile, we find good news: “Once [we] weren’t a people, but now [we] are God’s people. Once [we] hadn’t received mercy, but now [we] have received mercy” (, CEB).

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