We’re going to come back to 1:3 to start.  This is simply straight-up good news for the followers of Christ.  “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  By his great mercy, he has given you a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”  That word is the good news that was announced to you.  This is how last week’s passage ended.  That word is the good news that was announced to you, and it endures forever. I want to add 2:10 to our “Let’s memorize these verses from Peter” project.  It speaks to our identity as followers of Christ.  We place a great deal of importance on identity markers.  Nationality.  Job.  Gender.  Socio-economic status.  Background and all the various things that word can mean.  Listen to these lines from a book called The Moviegoer by a writer named Walker Percy: “My wallet is full of identity cards, library cards, credit cards.  It is a pleasure to carry out the duties of a citizen and to receive in turn a receipt or a neat… card with one’s name on it certifying, so to speak, one’s right to exist.”  We get this.  Same kind of thing with Google Wallet or Apple Wallet.  It’s an unsettling thing to lose our wallet or our phone, to be stripped of these markers of identity which certify, so to speak, one’s right to exist.  The thing about these identity markers… they’re often fleeting or subject to change or lose their lustre with age (or as we age). 

Here's the thing, dear family.  Followers of Christ have been given a new birth.  Followers of Christ have been given a new existence.  The word for Peter to the churches to whom he is writing is this – all of these identity markers pale in comparison to who we are in Christ.  Here it is: “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” (2:10). It is better to ask of ourselves, “Whose are you?” than “Who are you?” Whose are you?  It’s a good thing for a communion Sunday to be talking about tasting.  Have you tasted that the Lord is good?  This is the thing about tasting something good.  It’s something that we have to experience ourselves, isn’t it?  There are countless shows which feature people tasting food all around the country (and indeed all around the world).  You gotta eat here!  Stanley Tucci eats his way around Italy.  These appeal to us, but watching someone else eat something in no way compares to us experiencing the taste of something good ourselves. 

Have you tasted that the Lord is good?  The Psalmist sings the invitation – “O taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those who take refuge in him.” (Ps 34:8)  The prophet Isaiah makes a similar invitation – “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat!  Come buy wine and milk without money and without price.” (Is 55:1)  I can tell you what the goodness of God is like but it’s really something you have to experience for yourself.

We looked at four imperatives from Peter, which are based on the new birth into a living hope which we have been given through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.  Hope completely.  Be holy.  Live reverently.  Love deeply or love strenuously.  We talked last week about what some of these things look like, though Peter doesn’t list them.  As our passage of today begins, Peter lists what loving deeply does not look like in the family of faith.  “Rid yourselves…” which could be translated “Put aside….” In the same way, we would rid ourselves of clothing that no longer fit or was worn out.  Put aside the worn-out clothing.  “Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander.”  Peter is addressing the community of faith in Christ, the family that belongs to Christ.  He’s talking particularly about ways in which we mess up interpersonal relationships.  Things that are poison in a family or in a community.  Most of the things in this list have to do with words or show up in our words.  Put aside malice.  Ill will – particularly when we feel we have been treated badly.  You remember who was treated badly and bore no ill will.  Put aside guile or deceit.  Concealing or misrepresenting the truth, particularly when done for self-gain.  Put aside insincerity or hypocrisy.  Pretense.  Love one another sincerely, deeply, strenuously.  Put aside envy – resentful longing for something that belongs to someone else (whether goods, a person, gifts, talents).  Put aside slander.  Talking smack.  Talking badly about somebody. 

Lay them all aside like you would lay aside tattered, ruined clothing.

Be like newborn infants longing for milk.  We said last week that desires or cravings or longings are not necessarily bad in and of themselves.  We’ve been created by God to long or desire.  Problems begin when our longings or desires get misdirected.  Opposite the list we just heard about what does not look like goodness, opposite the list of things we are to lay aside, Peter writes of what we should be following for as followers of Christ.  Peter has gone back to the image of new birth and is saying long for the pure spiritual milk, just as newborn infants do.

Aside – The Bible women and men among you (you know who you are, and we should all be like you) are saying at this point, “This reminds me of something else in the NT!”  Paul uses the same kind of language around milk in his letter to the Corinthians – “I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food.  Even now you are still now ready.” (1 Cor 3:2)  In Hebrews 5:12 the preacher (because you can consider Hebrews one long sermon really) writes “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic elements of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food;”  Both of these passages are speaking of how immaturely in Christ the people to whom they are writing are acting.  They need to move beyond milk and get to something solid.  End of aside

This is not what Peter is saying or how Peter is using this image of us as newborn infants.  Remember, he’s not writing this letter to address a particular issue that has come to his attention.  It’s a letter of encouragement above all.  Be like newborn infants who long for milk.  We like to see well-nourished babies, don’t we?  No one ever says of a newborn infant, “Oh, they’re looking so slim!  Have they lost weight?”  “Look at those cute fat rolls on their arms and legs!” we say.  I’ve heard that anyway.  Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk.  The thing about this analogy is that we are meant to be in this state, longing for the pure spiritual milk all our lives so that by it, we may grow into salvation.  What is our goal as followers of Christ?  What is our goal as followers of Christ together?  Someone has said, “  The goal of every Christian’s life here on earth is to fully mature, becoming the person God intends for each of us to be; simultaneously, all believers together are growing into the mature fellowship we ought to be.”  All the while remaining like newborn infants who long for milk.  “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” the Psalmist sings. (Ps 42:1-2) 

What is this pure spiritual milk?  It’s pure.  Unadulterated. Without deceit.  Without guile.  Nothing but good for us.  The opposite of deceitful or full of guile.  It’s spiritual.  It’s been translated as the pure spiritual milk of the word or reasonable milk.  The word that’s translated spiritual in our NRSV Bibles is the same one in Romans 12:1 – “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual/reasonable worship.”  It’s metaphorical milk from God.  It’s God’s word.  It’s the capital W Word.  It’s going through our days connected to God the way a newborn is connected to their mother’s breast.  It’s prayer.  It’s spiritual and reasonable.  It nourishes our reason, our intellect.  It nourishes our soul.  We receive it in our personal practices through which we devote ourselves to God.  We receive it in our gathered life together, in our gathered life around this table (communion table).  We receive it in conversation together and with those who have gone before us through their writing.  Long for this pure spiritual milk, writes Peter, and not just because it’s good for you.  I know we eat things because they’re good for us, and oftentimes, they don’t taste that good.  I know this from a lot of present personal experience.  If you’ve tasted the pure spiritual milk of the word, then you know that not only is it good for you, but it is your delight.  “He has filled the hungry with good things,” sang Mary.  (Luke 1:56)  “Your words were found,” proclaimed the prophet Jeremiah, “And I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart…” (Jer 15:16)

Lord, give us all a longing for pure spiritual milk.  May we know that longing as we come to him together, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let ourselves be built into a spiritual house…” (2:4-5)  Let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, or “you yourselves are being built into a spiritual house.”  This wonderful image of the church – each one of us not merely another brick in the wall but living stones founded on the One who is our living Hope.  Let ourselves be built to be a holy priesthood.  Each and every one of us together to serve God, just as the priests of old were called to serve God.  This role used to be restricted to those of a certain tribe, those descended from Aaron.  In God’s new household, the call on each and every one of our lives is to offer our sacrifice of praise, our sacrifice of thanksgiving, our sacrifice of broken spirits and contrite/repentant hearts, our sacrifice of ourselves.

What’s going on when we approach Christ’s table this day?  We are coming to him, a living stone.  A stone chosen and precious.  A stone rejected because this stone was not indestructible.  This stone could be mocked, beaten, killed.  Who would want to set themselves on such a stone?  A stone that, in dying and being raised, would make a way for us back to our loving God and, in so doing, save the world.  “For in him the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him, God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, through the blood of his cross.” (Col 1:19-20)  This is what’s going on as we approach Christ’s table today.  We are all living stones being built into a spiritual house.

This is who we are, sisters and brothers.  In our hyper-individualistic society, we tend to think that the answers to questions of identity start with “I.”  The descriptions of those who belong to Christ in this second chapter of 1 Peter are all in the plural.  You all are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.  Not existing solely for our own benefit but that we might proclaim the mighty acts of him who has called us out of darkness into his marvellous light.  What does this mean for us as individuals and the church?  I read a description of the church recently as “intentional community.”  Someone has described what Peter is saying about the church as living stones together means like this – “… following Christ entails joining his community, the church.  To accept the Redeemer means also accepting the people he has redeemed.  The freelance Christian who follows Jesus but is too good, too busy, or too self-sufficient for the church is a walking contradiction.  In the old covenant, God set his people apart from the nations.  In the new covenant, he sets us apart as we live among the nations.”

Once, you were not a people, but now you are God’s people.  Once, you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.  Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift as we come to him together at his table.

Amen