Christ Church of Longboat Key
Presbyterian, USA
July 14, 2013
Sermon by Rev. Bruce Porter
“YOU ARE A PECULIAR PEOPLE”
Exodus 19:1-6; I Peter 2:1-12
Let me begin by telling you my intentions for this morning. First of all, I shall be calling you
peculiar. And that’s a compliment. Secondly, I shall be urging you to be more peculiar than
you presently are. How’s that for an introduction?
Some time ago, my wife and I were in Charleston, South Carolina, where we visited an
historic Episcopal church. While there, I chanced upon a remarkable tribute to an assistant
pastor who died in 1836. The memorial plaque on the west wall of the sanctuary said that
the pastor was “steadfast and uniform in his peculiar convictions and actions . . .” Makes
you wonder. What “peculiar” convictions and actions were his? The word, “peculiar,”
suggests that he may have been odd or weird, or maybe even have been what my maiden
aunt used to call a little “eegie.” I’ve known a few pastors like that.
By the way, pastors often appear peculiar, as odd ducks, to the rest of the world. You are
sitting on an airplane next to a fellow who engages you in conversation. He tells a few offcolor jokes, and cusses mildly. He then says to me, “What do you do for a living?” And I
say, “I’m a minister.” It’s the “eyes of a deer in the headlights.” I have long wanted to save
embarrassment. So, when a stranger asks me what do you do? I say, “I am in life
insurance.”
Again, some Sundays coming to church, I stop to get coffee just down the road at Harry’s
on the island. There are some guys in shorts and sandals, just sitting on those plastic
chairs outside, some women in bathing suits on bicycles. I come out of my car with a suit
and tie on at 9 o’clock on a Sunday morning. I get a fleeting look as I go into the store
which says, “This guy belongs on Mars. He doesn’t even know where he is.”
However, the truth about all this is that there are two ways of being “peculiar” or different
from others. One is to be eccentric, or queer, and that is hardly praiseworthy. I remember
a preacher saying years ago, “You know there are two ways of being a ‘fool for Christ.’ And
some people I know are just darn fools, and there is no honor in that.” Some folks are just
odd, and blame that on our Lord, and there is no honor in that. There is, however, a good
way in being different or peculiar, and that is to be special or distinctive. Henry Thoreau,
the American writer, spoke about those who “marched to a different drummer.” These
people were unique in that they heard the higher music and the deeper beat. They stepped
out to music that the ordinary folks couldn’t hear. They weren’t so much odd or strange as
1
they were extraordinary. Their character, their devotion to truth and justice, their reliance
on high goals, made them set apart as special people.
Well, the old King James Versions of the Bible used the word, “peculiar,” in exactly that last
way. You don’t find it in the Revised Standard Version or in the other modern translations.
Listen as God says this beautiful thing to the children of Israel, “If you will obey my voice
and keep my covenant, you will be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people; for the
earth is mine.” That means that Israel will be a special treasure to God, the apple of his eye.
They are set apart to be his in a special way. This promise is echoed again in the New
Testament by the author of I Peter when he says to the Church, which is us, “But you are a
chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people.” Hear it again?
Rather than a word of disparagement, it is one of the greatest compliments that can be
made. To be peculiar, is to be specially chosen, particularly loved and honored. That is the
good news. The other news is that in order to be special, you and I need to be different.
We need to be different from the culture which is around us. We need to be set apart from
others. We need to be different in the way we see life, in the way we act toward others, in
the way we think about possessions, in the values that we hold up as number one. We need
to be different from the world. Distinctively so, because we are God’s own, Christ’s
brothers and sisters.
So, that’s what I want to say to you today. You are called to be peculiar. You are meant to
be distinctive by the radical difference you bring to the world.
That is a hard truth for many church people to understand. They pretend that the world
about them is already sort of Christian, and all we need to do is just spruce up a few of the
cobwebs, and go along. That’s not how it is. The world about us is hardly Christian, it is
often the enemy of Christ.
Let me ask you some questions that will highlight whether you are just a reflection of our
culture, or are a reflection of Christ. Who calls the signals in your life? Is it the Firm of
good old Blank and Blank or Christ? Do you sense how your friends and neighbors apply
subtle pressures on you so that you conform? When your grandchildren or youth say, “Why
everyone is doing it,” do you cave in?
We are surrounded by television marketing of products which preach about values. Do you
challenge those values in your home or in your discussions at the club, or by the way you
live? Television tells your whole family that consumerism is God, that being young is a key
virtue, that being sexually aroused is what it is all about. Ever since Dwight Eisenhower,
presidential candidates have been taught to care more for creating an “image,” than for
offering the truth. Do we create images on screens rather than have integrity in ourselves?
I think Christ challenges our culture, and calls us to sometimes not fit in. To be strange,
alien, sometimes. He calls us to be counter-cultural, even un-American.
2
We need to fit in. I remember seeing a cartoon a number of years ago which showed two
cows out in a field staring at a milk truck going by. On the milk truck were these words:
“Homogenized, Pasteurized, Vitamin D added.” One cow said to the other, “Makes you feel
inadequate doesn’t it.”
That’s the way many lay people feel. They suspect that they are just like everybody else,
and they want to know what it is to be a Christian, and to be a Presbyterian Christian, in this
world we live in. We want to be Christ’s people! Don’t you see the danger when those in
the Church sound just like those outside? There must be a difference.
Let me mention some ways in which we are different or peculiar in the world’s eyes. First,
you and I are different or peculiar from our culture because we have a different God. He is
not the man upstairs, or the rain-maker, or a private detective, or somebody in the clouds.
He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. One author says that a lot of people think that
God loves them when they are successful and happy, and dislikes and punishes them when
they are sick or in trouble. However, we disagree. The Father of Jesus Christ loves us
always. He loves us as we are, not as we ought to be, because we will never be what we
ought to be.
Secondly, you and I as Christians are different or peculiar in the world’s eyes, because we
have one foot in heaven. Don’t misunderstand me. We don’t despise this world and claim
that everything is wrong here. We can rejoice in God’s good gifts. One of the Jewish
rabbinical schools said something I agree with wholeheartedly: “At the day of Judgment we
shall be called to account, not only for those sins we have committed, but for those good
gifts of God which we have not enjoyed.” Isn’t that good?
Nevertheless, we know something as Christians - - this world is not enough. This world and
all that is in it, including us, is passing. So, we need to be conscious of the spiritual world,
and place our trust more and more in that. That means we need to learn more and more
how to tune in to that world in prayer. We learn to listen for God, and not just to television
signals. We need to touch the world’s goods lightly, not putting too much trust in them, as
if there was lasting happiness or salvation in things.
Third, we are different from our culture in how we get right with God. People in our culture
think we get right with God by being good. They think that our faith is good advice on how
to be good. But as one minister has put it: “Christianity is not being kind to granny and the
cat.” Our Christian faith is different from all other religions, in that it is not advice, but it is
good news. Through Jesus’ offering of himself for us, we are already forgiven. There is no
reason to add up our credits and debits. We already know that we fail to measure up. This
forgiveness saves us Christians from two deadly attitudes: self-hatred for sinning, or
pretentions that we are o.k. or even perfect, on the other. Both of those are egoistic.
Christians get right with God – by a gift – God’s gracious gift of a Son who dies on our
behalf.
3
Fourth, you and I as Christians are different or peculiar in the world’s eyes because of our
ethics and goals. We need to have a new kingdom ethic. It is out of this world. For
example, who really believes on Main Street that it is right to forgive enemies - - rather than
get back at them. Archie Bunker used to say, “What’s wrong with revenge, it’s the only way I
know of getting even.” Who really believes that it is better to give than to get? That is
either colossal inanity, or the most beautiful truth in life. Jesus said it, and it is absurd,
unless you are living a kingdom ethic that is so far beyond personal business and
government practice, that it is stratospheric. We are called to be a “sample” on this earth of
what it would be like to be in that new kingdom that Christ espoused. And we are to be a
sample of that, before that kingdom really gets a foothold. We keep hearing the music from
the parapets of the castle in that kingdom that calls us to live a new ethic that is one of love
beyond self, committed love that does not let go or wear out, or fade in the stretch. And we
have to learn and grow in our understanding of that - - particularly as it relates to our
common lives Monday through Saturday.
Finally, we are different in our hope for life to come. Our culture talks about heaven as
something up there, a golf course for those addicted to the game, a court room, a cleansing
station, a great light walking across a bridge, or perhaps for some it is nothing at all. We
differ as Christians - heaven is like “going home.” That’s what Jesus said, and he doesn’t lie.
We have a service this afternoon, and it’s called a Witness to the Resurrection, and that’s a
lot more than a celebration of a person’s life. It’s a celebration of a victory.
Let me close with a challenge and an invitation. Somewhere I read of a minister throwing
down the gauntlet this way. Imagine it is the first century and people are being arrested
and nailed on crosses for being Christians. Would there be enough evidence against you to
convict you of being a Christian? Or would you just blend in with all the rest? That’s the
challenge.
Here are some invitations. Be different.
1. Read your Bible this week. Start with Mark. Better yet, let the Bible read you. It does
you know.
2. Pray this week. A monk once said, “The only way to fail at prayer is to not show up!”
God will love to hear from you.
3. Do something for someone else this week, just for joy - - not to win Brownie points.
And you will be on your way to being a peculiar person.
Amen.
4