Let us pray:

Be present here and in all that places from which we are worshipping; move in us and through us that we too would be moved and changed. Speak to us, we pray – less of me, more of you; none of me, all of you. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, our Rock and our Redeemer, Amen.

I was in a conversation recently with a group of pastors, working on a project together. And at first, it was a really good conversation. People were sharing ideas, listening, building on one another. But at some point, something shifted. And it wasn’t dramatic. No one raised their voice. No one said anything out of line. But you could feel it. People started talking a little faster. People started holding onto their own ideas a little tighter. People started responding instead of listening. And then you could start to see the patterns. The person who always jumps in first jumped in first. The person who tends to hold back got quieter. The person who likes to keep things moving started pushing toward a decision. The person who needs more time to process got talked over. And before long, the conversation wasn’t really a conversation anymore. It was people falling back into their usual patterns. And what struck me wasn’t what anyone said. It was how automatic it all was. No one decided, “I’m going to stop listening now.” It just happened. And what struck me even more was how familiar it felt, not just in that room, but in so many spaces. And it made me wonder how much of the way we move through the world is like that, not chosen, not intentional, just formed over time.

There are things we carry that we did not choose, ways of reacting, ways of thinking, ways of relating to other people. And most of the time, we do not even question them, because they feel like us. They feel natural, obvious, just the way things are. But if we slow down long enough, we start to realize something. A lot of what feels natural was learned, formed over time, shaped by what we experienced, reinforced by what we were told. And we carry it with us, sometimes without even realizing it. And what Peter is doing in this passage is trying to re-form a people. And that is where this text meets us today.

We are in a part of the Bible that we do not spend a lot of time in. The letter of 1 Peter is not one that most of us turn to regularly. It is tucked toward the back of the New Testament, written to small communities of Christians scattered across regions like Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, what is now modern-day Turkey. Most scholars believe it was written toward the end of the first century, likely not by Peter himself, but by someone writing in his name, carrying forward his teaching to a new generation. These were communities without power, without influence, trying to follow Jesus in a world that did not quite understand them. They were trying to figure out who they were and how to live faithfully under pressure.

This is not an easy text. And I want to name that, because part of what it means to take Scripture seriously is that we do not pretend it is always simple. Texts like this invite us to wrestle, not to avoid them, not to rush through them, but to stay with them long enough to be formed by them. And I will be honest, this is one of those passages I had to sit with this week, not to figure it out quickly, but to listen more carefully. Because what we do with texts like this matters. They shape how we understand God, how we understand ourselves, how we understand one another, and sometimes they have done that in ways that do not lead to life.

So instead of rushing, we are going to slow down and take this piece by piece, staying with it long enough to let it form us.

Peter starts by naming something that is already true about them. In the NRSVUE, it reads, “If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in fear during the time of your exile.” But some translations choose to use “since” instead of “if”, and I think that helps us hear what is happening here. This is not a hypothetical. Peter is not saying “if this is true, then act this way.” He is saying “since this is already how you understand God, this is how you live.” So he assumes two things: that they call God Father, and that they understand God as one who judges impartially.

Now we need to pause here, because that language matters. For this community, “Father” was a primary way of speaking about God. And while we still sometimes use that language, we also recognize that it is not the only way to speak about God. And we need to be honest about why that matters, because limiting God to male language has not been neutral. It has contributed to the marginalization of women. It has reinforced systems where men hold power and women are excluded or diminished. And in its worst forms, it has been used to justify harm, including gender-based violence, by attaching the authority of God to male dominance. So we hold this language carefully. God is not limited to one image. The God we worship holds the fullness of love that we might name in many ways, including both mother and father.

The word “judge” also needs attention. A lot of harm has been done in the name of that word, too. Judgment, in the way it has often been carried, has drawn lines between insiders and outsiders. It has been used to decide who belongs and who does not. It has been used to condemn, to exclude, to control. And if we are honest, for many people, that is what Christianity has come to mean.

But that is not what Peter is doing here.

To say that God judges impartially is not to say that God is dividing people into categories of who is in and who is out. It is to say that God relates to all people without favoritism, without bias, without being swayed by power or status. No one is outside of God’s regard. No one is dismissed. No one is written off. God knows us fully, and that knowing is not separate from love. And in the presence of a God like that, the kind of “fear” Peter is talking about cannot be panic or anxiety. It is something else entirely. It is reverence. It is awe. It is a recognition that our lives matter in the presence of a God who holds all people with the same depth of care.

So here are these communities, trying to make meaning in the world, trying to faithfully follow Jesus in a culture that doesn’t quite understand, and Peter calls this exile, not because they have been forced out of their homes, but because they don’t quite fit. They are out of step with the world around them. They do not move at the same pace. They do not respond in the same ways. 

Because something in them has already begun to change.

That is what Peter is naming. Not just that they are different, but that they are being re-formed.

Verse 18: “You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors.”

That word “inherited” matters, because it means this did not start with you. These ways of thinking, reacting, relating to others were passed down, learned, absorbed, reinforced long before you were aware of them. This is not just about behavior. This is about formation. You were shaped before you even knew you were being shaped. And if we are honest, we can recognize that in our own lives. The speed at which we react, the assumptions we make, the way we categorize people without even thinking about it, the way we move toward certainty instead of curiosity. These are not random. They are formed.

This is where everything begins to shift.

Peter does not just name the problem. He names the possibility. “You were ransomed from those ways.” We again need to slow down here, because this is another one of those places where how we understand this language really matters and the harm that has been done. For some of us, when we hear “ransom,” we have been taught to think transaction, payment, that God required something, that something had to be paid. But that is not what this word is doing here. In Peter’s world, “ransom” is the language of release. It is the language used for freeing someone from slavery, for liberating someone from captivity, for transferring someone from one way of life into another. So when Peter says you were ransomed, he is not saying God needed something. He is saying you were set free from something, from the patterns that were shaping you, from ways of living that ultimately do not lead to life.

He then points to what that new life looks like. “Not with silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ.” And again, we need to slow down, because it is easy to hear “blood” and assume this is about God demanding violence. But in the Jewish and early Christian imagination, blood is about life. Life that is in the blood. So when Peter speaks of the “precious blood of Christ,” he is not glorifying violence. He is pointing to the life of Christ, a life of love, a life of self-giving, a life that remained faithful even in the face of violence.

Which means this. What frees us is not that God demanded violence. What frees us is that in Jesus, we see a different way of being human. A way of love that does not return harm for harm. A way of life that refuses to be shaped by fear. A way of being that remains rooted in love even under pressure.

And that kind of life will not always fit. There will be moments where it feels like you are out of step, where you do not react the way others expect, where you choose to listen when others are reacting, where you stay in a conversation when it would be easier to leave.

So if that is true, then this is not just something to understand. It is something to practice.

So what does this look like for us this week? 

First, notice what you have inherited. Pay attention to your instincts. When you react quickly, when you assume the worst, when you feel the need to categorize or dismiss someone, pause and ask where did that come from. Try to trace it back. Is this something you learned in your family, in your workplace, in your culture, even in the church? Naming it does not fix it right away, but it creates space, and that space is where change begins.

Second, interrupt those patterns. When you notice yourself moving into those familiar reactions, do not just observe it and move on. Do something different. Take a breath before responding. Ask a question instead of making a statement. Slow the conversation down instead of speeding it up. It will feel awkward at first, maybe even uncomfortable, because you are stepping out of something that feels natural, but that is what it means to be re-formed. Change always feels unnatural at the beginning.

Third, practice love as re-formation. Not just as a belief, not just as something you value, but as something that is actively reshaping you. Because every time you choose to listen instead of react, every time you choose to stay present instead of withdraw, every time you choose curiosity instead of certainty, something in you is being re-formed. This is not about getting it right all at once. This is about being shaped over time into a different kind of person. Love becomes not just something you believe about God, but the very thing that is forming who you are becoming.

Because the truth is, we were all formed by something. But that is not the end of the story. Because you have been set free, not just from something, but for something, to be re-formed, to become a different kind of person, a different kind of community, a people who do not just fall into the patterns that are handed to us, a people who are not shaped by fear or reaction or the need to be right, but a people shaped by love. And that kind of life does not happen all at once. It happens in moments, moments like the ones we talked about at the beginning, when the conversation starts to shift, when the pace picks up, when you can feel yourself moving into those familiar patterns. That moment right there is where this becomes real, that is where formation happens, because in that moment you have a choice, to keep moving the way you always have or to pause, to listen, to choose something different. And it might feel small, it might feel like nothing has really changed, but that is how it begins, one moment at a time, one choice at a time, until slowly, over time, you are no longer the same person you were, and we are no longer the same community we were, and that is how the world begins to change, not all at once, but through a people who are being re-formed. So if you remember nothing else today, remember this. We are resurrection people. We are re-formed by love. We are resurrection people. We are re-formed by love. And that is how we become who we are meant to be.