Holy Foreigners?

Text: 1 Peter 2:11-25

Have you ever been in a place you did not belong? Not only was the scenery different, but the people surrounding you did not think of those surroundings in terms you recognized. Things were valued differently; expectations were miles apart; fitting in was not an option because you didn't know the rules. It's an experience many in our immigrant communities know very well.

Holiness, Peter tells us, is very much like that. Being set apart as citizens of a holy nation--God's people--makes us aliens in the one we presently occupy, even though it is the one we have physically lived in all of our lives. We have a new highest authority. The challenge is not how to be like those around us, but how to live among them. And if we're doing it well, there will be occasional or perhaps constant opposition to our presence, because the residents also recognize that we don't belong there. It makes them uncomfortable, and they may very well do what resident cultures so often do to immigrants. They malign them, make false accusations, create negative stereotypes, and dismiss their values as irrelevant. Living respectfully and honorably among them is hard work. It's holy work. It's our calling.

Just how all-encompassing this different way of being in the world really is begins to be fleshed out in the text which follows, all the way through the remainder of the epistle. First for mention is the political question. Does being a citizen of God's holy nation mean that we have no obligations to the governing authorities of the world, especially of the place we live? Does it mean we overthrow the latter and replace them? A resounding negative on that one. Instead, the quick guide to living in foreign territory: "Show respect for everyone. Love your Christian brothers. Fear God. Honor the king (president? congressmen? mayor?)." How hard is that to comprehend? How are we doing at it?

Peter then moves to another area of life which is very much in the center of what shapes our lives--employment. Few of us have ever been threatened with physical violence by our employers (thankfully!), but Peter uses even this extreme as an example of endurance of unjust suffering; we can find in it an identification with Christ, whose undeserved treatment provides a model for us to follow. Holiness is not for the faint of heart; nor is it for the proud.

Learning to live as aliens is difficult. Perhaps we should learn a few lessons in doing so from brothers and sisters in Christ who live among us in immigrant communities. It might move us toward holiness to do so.