A Long Way from Home - 1 Peter 1:1-7

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Peter was part of that first generation of believers, filled with the Holy Spirit.  

Which meant that he was one of the people who had to figure out, what does this mean? How do we live this life? How do we take this power and translate it into our world?  

As we take the next few weeks to study the two letters that he wrote to the churches, we're going to be looking through the lens of Holy Spirit. Looking for what is he doing in His Church. 

What makes us a church is not the incorporation papers. It's not our building. It's not the sign out front. It's not our membership in the CBOQ.  

What makes us a church is the presence of Holy Spirit, and how we open ourselves to what He is doing in and through us.  

It's very easy for us to forget that people like Peter were actual people: breathing, thinking, eating, sleeping, blowing their nose when the dust rose.  

It's easy for us to think about them in the way we might think about Robin Hood: a semi-historical, semi-mythical character. Probably based on someone real, but under layers of time and culture. Russell Crowe or Kevin Costner or Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Even a cartoon fox with a pointy green hat. 

We can easily fall into the trap of treating the Bible like a colouring book. Two dimensional, simple black lines on white. Bringing our own crayons to fill in the blanks the way we see fit. 

It's important for us to remember that Peter was Peter. A real person who wrote real letters to real people, and who really had the experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit.  

So today we’ll start by imagining who he was. His world. His loves. 

We know that Peter had a wife, and that she travelled with him on some of his journeys. One thing we don't know is her name. So for the purposes of this story, I am going to take the liberty of naming her after Rachel, one of the great women of the history of God's people. 

So I invite you to join Peter, Rachel, and Silvanus in a fifth floor apartment on a hot summer morning in the city of ancient Rome.  

______ 

Peter sat on the bed in the corner and closed his eyes.  

He was in the shadows over there because there was only one small window, and Silvanus needed the light for his work.  

They had just finished composing the letter. They'd read it through together. Peter had signed it. And now Silvanus was working on the first of who knows how many copies there would ultimately be. They multiplied fast once they were sent. The rest of those copies would come in time, but today they just needed one.  

For Rachel.  

She'd be back soon from the market.  

Lots of people were out at the market at that time of day or out getting water. Peter had done that a few times himself, hauling those jugs down five flights of stairs, through the street to the public fountains, filling them up, and then shouldering his way back through those crowded, packed streets. Then carrying them up and up and up the stairs.  

Just like everyone did. Every day. 

Peter kept his ear open for Rachel's voice outside the window in case she got back and hollered for help to carry up the stuff. But what he did hear from across the room was the scritching sound of Silvanus' quill on the parchment. His whispers as he talked to himself. He always did that when he was making a copy. He always read the text out loud to himself as he wrote, so he’d know he got it right.  

Silvanus was a good man to have in the room. He wasn't just a scribe. He was a brother and a friend. 

______  

Here they were in Rome, so far from where they had first met—back in Jerusalem, in those early days when Silvanus had been a leader in the church. Then he’d travelled, mostly with Paul, out into the world, preaching the gospel wherever they went. He’d scribed some letters for Paul as well, so he was familiar with how this worked. 

Whenever Silvanus and Paul got together, they invariably had to tell the story about the time when they'd been arrested and thrown in prison. Chained to the wall. Sitting on the floor. It got to be midnight and they couldn't sleep, so they just started singing. They liked to joke that Paul's singing was so bad it caused an earthquake. 

Silvanus, like so many, had made sacrifices for Christ and had seen wonders. He had Holy Spirit gifts of teaching, leadership, and prophecy. And there was nobody Peter would rather have helping him write his letter—finding and shaping the language for what was in his heart, and getting it onto the parchment. This far from home, it was good to have someone like Silvanus in the room.  

Peter closed his eyes. They were dry and tired. He was ready for a break. Probably so was Silvanus, but this first copy needed to be ready for tomorrow morning for Rachel to take. 

She was going home. She was going back to Galilee. Rachel was going to go, and Peter was going to stay. So far from where they'd started.  

______ 

Here they were, so far away from that simpler life, and it had been a good life.  

Peter had grown up fishing. Business was going well. He liked his partners, James and John. He was proud of the calluses he’d earned on his hands and his feet. Of the scars, and the stories they told: about boats and nets and sails and storms and the occasional stroppy eel.  

He liked sorting through a good day's taking, separating the tilapia from the carp and the catfish.  

He loved the breezes that blew down from the Galilean hills, and he loved that moment when the wind changed, and you knew—you knew!--You had to get back to shore.  

He loved sabbaths at home.  

Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your god... Exodus 20:9-10 

So when the sun went down on Friday, down went the nets, and down went the tools. The family spent a quiet, restful evening at home. Got up on Saturday and walked to the synagogue. Joined in the prayers and heard the Torah read. Learned about HaShem, the God who had loved His people and brought them through. He loved hearing about the ancient heroes and the disasters. Hearing about how Holy Spirit had rushed upon them and filled them.  

When the Saturday sun went down, he picked up his tools again in the cool of the evening. Got things ready for the next morning's cast-off. 

It had been a good life. The rhythms of fishing. The rhythms of the day, of the week, of the year. The rhythms of the waves and the weather and of the generations. Rhythms that he had learned from his father. That he’d looked forward to teaching his own kids: his and Rachel's. They would learn from him just like he had learned from Jonas. To read the weather, to tell a good fish from a bad one, to care for blisters and cuts, and how to hold the knife better next time.  

But it hadn't worked out that way, because HaShem had other plans for Peter's life.  

He started out fishing, and ended up as a shepherd—of sorts. 

______  

Here they were, so far away from that good and beautiful life.  

And Rachel was going back. She was going to take that letter with her on her journey to Galilee. She would deliver Peter’s letter to the church, and his love to their family. He thought he might have a couple of grandkids whose names he'd never hear.  

He was getting restless. He stood walked across the small room and looked out over the city from the fifth storey window.  

He could see—just in glimpses between the walls of the taller buildings—the famous seven hills of Rome. Seven hills that were hemmed in by a great stone wall that had been built to protect the city against enemies, most of whom Rome had now gone out and conquered. The hills were covered with buildings: a patchwork of mansions of the rich and overcrowded towers like the one he was in, all side by side. Mixed up in a maze of streets and markets.  

Over that way he could see just a glimpse of the complex of temples and the colosseum near the bend of the river. The hill where the emperor’s palace stood.  

Galilee had hills too. Great high hills surrounding the sea, green in the spring, brown in the hot season. Blue below and blue above. Here and there, all around the shoreline, little bits of houses and settlements.  

Rome... Peter thought, Rome was just a mess. It was a mess with a brown river running through it. No blue except the sky.  

______ 

Here they were, Galileans in Rome. In the most feared and corrupt city he could think of. In Babylon.  

He looked down at the crowded alleyway with so many people pushing against each other to get up and down the alleyway. Another sort of river.  

Rome was crowded and nasty. For his first few days there, he had stared up at these tall, tall buildings. How did they even stay up? In Jerusalem, the Temple was tall, but these were people's homes. These were filled with people stacked on top of each other, eight storeys high. All he could think of when he looked at them was... chickens. In stacks of crates, eight high, one on top of the other, with no breathing room above. No roof to sleep on, on hot nights. 

The buildings were crowded together, separated by alleyways with no horizon to look to. Blocks and blocks of buildings of timber and mud, and hardly a space for a breeze between them. Dozens of people sharing a space meant for five or six.  

No wonder the fire had spread so fast. No wonder it had been so hard to stop and so much had been lost. No wonder people were angry, blaming the emperor... who was looking for someone else to blame.  

The believers who worked in the emperor's palace were whispering that Nero was looking at the Christians. Outsiders, newcomers, easy scapegoats. Politically cheap and expedient. 

______  

Here they were, Peter, Rachel, Silvanus, Paul, and so many others, square in the sights of a powerful hunter. Sheep that have caught the eye of a wolf.  

Something was coming and it was not going to be good.  

Peter and Rachel and the others had spent a lot of time talking and praying, trying to decide what was best. To stay? To get out?  

Choices had been made. Tomorrow they would say goodbye.  

______ 

There they would be, so far from each other. She in Galilee on that rocky beach where they had grown up and walked and worked and learned to love their God. Prayed together. Found each other. She would be living in that house, a matriarch in a home of generations. Their first home together.  

He remembered the day after the wedding, when Rachel and her mother had moved in. How proud he had been of his beautiful, faith-filled, strong wife. His friend and his partner. How grateful he was, and how (just a little bit) terrified.  

He remembered when he’d met Jesus and she, in keeping with tradition, gave him permission to go and follow Jesus for that first 30 days.  

He remembered when she truly met Jesus. The look in her eyes when she sat on her own family room floor with the disciples, listening to Jesus speak.  

She had followed Him too, one of a generation of women that Jesus had raised up and set free.  

Peter remembered how, years afterward, the two of them had sat together in silence, hand in hand under the stars in the small hours of that Jerusalem morning. After that great day when Holy Spirit had arrived and filled them. Empowered them. And there they sat in Jerusalem. Peter and Rachel from Galilee. Filled with the Spirit of God. 

______  

How far away they were from the walls that they had grown up within.  

For Peter, one of the greatest walls that had to be torn down was done away shortly after Pentecost. When he met Cornelius.  

Cornelius was a Gentile. Not someone Peter should have even been talking to. He remembered the first time he'd shaken a Gentile's hand, having to resist the temptation to wipe it off after. He remembered the first time he had sat in a Gentile's house, fearing that the roof was going to cave in on him. The first time he'd sat at a Gentile's table to a meal of bread and lamb and fruit, knowing that what was on the table was not the problem. The problem—his problem—was whose table it was.  

Those feelings had been deep and real. Peter had hard work to do because Jesus was not having it.  

______ 

Now here he was, living in Babylon, visiting the churches in people’s homes, and accepting—no—enjoying the hospitality of Gentiles. Out in a whole wide new world of brothers and sisters.  

On the other hand, Jesus had told his followers 

...all nations will hate you because you are my followers. Matthew 10:22 

You will be arrested and tried and imprisoned. You will be. It's going to happen.  

Most of Peter's world had made sense growing up.  

There were things to learn... when to head back to shore, what fish to keep and which to throw back. 

Jesus’ warnings hadn’t made sense...  

The church grew and grew and grew as they lived that life in Jerusalem.  

Until... Stephen. Wonderful, brilliant, respected Stephen.  

Dragged out of the city and killed like a dog in the street just for following Jesus.  

Jesus had told them,  

...Be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Acts 1:8 

Go and be My witnesses. My martus. And they had. They had gone, and they had been His witnesses. They had, one day at a time, one life at a time, begun redefining that word. 

Martus. From being simple witnesses—telling what they’d seen—to being martyrs: witnesses all the way to death. 

Peter remembered every name... all the people he had lost. Stephen. His fishing buddy James. Others. He wept for them all.  

Others, he didn't even know where they were. Nathaniel? Matthias? Thomas?  

When was the last time he'd heard from his brother Andrew?  

Peter and Rachel had stayed on in Jerusalem after Pentecost for as long as God allowed them, raising their family in the city instead of raising them by the lake.  

When it was time to go, they went. They'd left Jerusalem as well.  

They had traveled to Syria and Antioch and Pontus and Galatia and Cappadocia and Asia and Bithynia together. Through Ephesus. Through Corinth. Around one sea and across two others.  

______ 

Here they were, living in one of those chicken crates, made of timber and clay. So far from the ground. So far from the lake. So far from the world that had made sense.  

Peter and Silvanus and Rachel were in Rome. Paul was, too, all preaching the light to people who were in the dark. All urging onward the people who had taken their first steps into the light. But more and more and more, conversations between believers was about what might be coming, and whether they should leave the city.  

Peter and Paul felt commanded to stay. To keep preaching Jesus to these people who needed to know his name.  

To keep on, as Jesus said, feeding his sheep.  

But Rachel felt commanded to leave.  

Each was saying yes to the challenge. Each was saying yes to the risk.  

The wind had changed and the storm was coming.  

______ 

She was going to be leaving in the morning, carrying the letter that Silvanus was still copying. This subversive, dangerous letter. As she travelled back through Corinth and Ephesus and Galatia and Antioch, she would stop and connect with the churches. She would stay long enough to answer any questions. They would make a copy of their own, that they would then copy and share. Then she would take her copy and carry on to the next stop. Until she reached home. 

Peter would continue to come and go from his chicken crate, waiting for a shout at the door. Waiting for boots on the stairs. 

He had not tried to hide from the authorities. That would have been completely counterproductive to why he was there in the first place. People knew where he lived. People knew who he was.  

People knew that he was that Simon Peter. One of only a couple of people in the entire city of Rome who had touched Jesus, who had seen Jesus, and who would never stop talking about Jesus.  

______ 

Silvanus finished his scritching and his whispering. He took the time to double-check his work. He read it through. He counted the words on each page to make sure it all matched up and he'd got it all right.  

From the salutation: 

From Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who through the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours. Grace and peace be multiplied to you. 1 Peter 1:1-2

All the way through to the signature.  

Beloved family, grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and to Him be the glory now and to the day of eternity. Amen. 1 Peter 3:18 

Silvanus was satisfied with his work, so he leaned back and unkinked his shoulders and capped his ink. He smiled up at Peter. Peter frowned back at him, at this friend, this brother... who understood why he did not smile: Rachel's letter was ready.  

They heard her steps, heavy and loaded with supplies for the first leg of her journey.  

Peter took a deep breath, straightened himself up. He nodded at Silvanus, and Silvanus nodded back. We can do this. He is with us.  

Rachel came into the room, dropped her parcels, saw her frowning husband standing tall. And she smiled.  

______ 

Peter ended his earthly life a world away from where it had begun. He had gone: 

• From fish to sheep,  
• From beaches to pavement,  
• From hills to towers,  
• From water to the aftermath of a fire,  
• From Jerusalem to Rome.  

Some would suggest that he went from freedom to captivity. True, he was arrested along with thousands of other Christians. He and Paul were both executed for their faith.  

Peter, as we understand it, died on a cross. We don't know how Rachel's story ended.  

They were both born into a world where Holy Spirit was a wonder from the past, something amazing that God used to do, preserving and guiding their ancestors through the years. They were born into a world where Holy Spirit was a maybe someday hope for the future, when someday He would raise up more prophets and judges and kings, filling them and empowering them to do God’s work.  

That was the world they were born into, but they played a part in shaping a world where Holy Spirit is available to everyone.  

These ordinary people—who breathed and loved and had favorite colours—once they had started, kept following Jesus all the way to where He was going.  

The further they went from who they were at the start,  the more they were changed, the closer they became to who God knew they could be.  

The further they travelled from where they started, the closer they were to home.  

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