Stumbling, Spilling, and Second Chances

I am probably averagely clumsy. Sometimes I trip and fall, but not any more often than anyone else. I rarely, if ever spill food on myself, though sometimes if I am very thirsty, I will drink water too fast and get some on my shirt. However, I have an uncle whose clumsiness is legendary. I won’t say specifically who it is, but people who know him will know who I am talking about. I have been told that he walked through the same screen door twice in one day. I heard he completely destroyed a family’s new patio. And I have seen him spill drinks all over himself on numerous occasions. It isn’t just that he drinks too fast and spills a bit of water. No, he just doesn’t get the cup or can up to his lips before he tilts toward himself and disaster follows.

Now, I will not say that I have never spilled or stumbled. Obviously, we all do that from time to time. However, sometimes we get frustrated with people who are more clumsy than normal. “I can’t bring you anywhere. You just keep making messes.” It’s hard enough being clumsy. Imagine being clumsy and being the object of ire when you stumble or spill. And if you think being the target of ridicule from your friends for being a clutz was bad, imagine being the target of God’s wrath! And even worse, imagine this stumbling being something you were destined to do. No matter how much you practice holding a cup of water to your lips before tipping it back, you can never get the water to go in your mouth instead of on your shirt, and every time that happens, God gets angry. 

Our second reading for this Sunday, 1 Peter 2:2-10 may seem very uplifting to the people who receive the letter, but verse eight is a shock to those who are on the outside. “They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.” That sounds like they must disobey the word. They must stumble. They don’t really have a choice in the matter. This seems fundamentally unfair. For those outsiders who haven’t come to believe in Christ, there really isn’t a lot of hope. They are destined to be the way they are. Their unbelief is already woven into the story of time, inescapable.

As much as we should be confident in our Baptism, in God having already saved us from our sins, this issue of destiny is frightening even to believers. Sure, my faith may be strong at this moment, but I have seen many people who have had strong faith at one point or another fall away. There are pastors who have admitted to being atheists, unable to bring themselves to believe in even the things they preach. Just because I have faith at this moment, does that mean I will be saved forever? What if I fall away? What if I fail to believe? What if my world is shaken so hard by some tragic event that I cannot ever think about God in the same way? What if I stumble?

These are difficult questions to wrestle with, and if we believe that we are destined to either believe or not, we may start to think that if we stumble, we were always meant to stumble. God knew we would fail from the very beginning. How can we be a royal priesthood, if we were always meant to fail?

I know a few people who spill food on themselves more frequently than they would like to admit, but fortunately, no one I know has spilled food on themselves enough to just give up eating. As far as I know, my uncle is still alive. He probably continues to spill his drinks on his shirts, but that hasn’t stopped him from drinking water when he is thirsty. As for me and probably everyone reading this, yes, I have stumbled, tripped, stubbed my toe and all sorts of other embarrassing and painful accidents that happen while walking, but I haven’t frozen up yet. I still walk around. I will continue to live and move and probably trip sometimes. Such is life. Just because we stumble, doesn’t mean we cannot continue walking. 

This passage speaks of believers being a “chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.” These are all wonderful things, but they present us with a question. What is the purpose? What is this race chosen for? To whom are these priests ministering? One simple answer may be that we are chosen to worship God, simply being in relationship with God is enough for us to complete our duty. Certainly, with regard to salvation itself, this is enough. God saves us freely. Simply being claimed by God is enough for us to be saved. However, being saved isn’t our only purpose. In fact, it isn’t our purpose at all. This isn’t work we have done. It is Christ’s work. We have to find something else to do.

Maybe our duty as a royal priesthood is to minister to those who are stumbling both within the church and without. The truth is sometimes all of us have our doubts. Whether we struggle to believe that God’s love is enough to save us, that we are worthy of God’s love, or that God even exists, we all struggle with doubts from time to time. We all fall into patterns of sin when we pursue idols and fail to let God be God in our lives. We all hurt other people. While we believe that God loves and forgives us, we still need to hear it. We can minster to each other, proclaiming God’s love and forgiveness.

And there are others who don’t believe, the actual targets of verse eight. There are some who would say that if they don’t believe, then they are utterly lost. We can’t help people who stubbornly persist in their unbelief. But who else are we to minister to? Who else can we help? Even while people don’t believe, we can care for them. We can walk with them. We can support their basic needs to make sure that they are surviving whatever difficult journeys they are on. And whether or not our assurances that God loves them mean anything to them, we can stay with them. We can reassure them. “Whatever happens, however dark the road becomes, I’ll be with you. If we stumble and fall, we’ll do so together. I’ll watch out for you and you can watch out for me, because whether or not you believe that God loves you, you can at least know that I love you.” And maybe, through patience and love, they will eventually stumble right across the kingdom of God, see God’s radiant love and light, and in the light of that kingdom, stumble no more.