Are you my muzzah?

February 4, 2009

I Peter 5:12-14

“I’m sending this brief letter to you by Silas, a most dependable brother. I have the highest regard for him. I’ve written as urgently and accurately as I know how. This is God’s generous truth; embrace it with both arms! The church in exile here with me—but not for a moment forgotten by God—wants to be remembered to you. Mark, who is like a son to me, says hello. Give holy embraces all around! Peace to you all—to all who walk in Christ’s ways.” (The Message)

Some of you may remember the P. D. Eastman book from the 1960’s entitled Are You My Mother? It is the story of mother bird that is waiting for her egg to hatch and in preparation for her baby’s arrival goes off to get some food for it. But, while she is gone the egg hatches and the baby bird goes off on an adventure in search of its mother. Coming upon the likes of a kitten, a cow and a power shovel among others along the journey, he asks each one, “Are you my mother?”

In the early to mid-1970s, when my cousin, Alan, was about two years old and growing in his speech, this was a favorite book for him. As we would gather as a family, he would make his way to each member of the family and ask, “Are you my muzzah?” Each of us would respond, “No, I’m not your muzzah.” Then suddenly there would be great jubilation as he would find his muzzah!

This closing passage of the book of I Peter is not about finding our mothers but it is about finding our brothers. Peter acknowledges in his closing remarks how Silvanus or Silas is like a brother to him and how Mark is like a son. These are people with whom Peter works closely and has come to admire. In so acknowledging these two, Peter sends a message of how we need each other—how we are called to be brothers and sisters to each other. If you read this in the New Revised Standard Version, you find a somewhat different translation. It highlights the idea that Rome was like Babylon to this church of Peter’s. The church found itself in a state of exile, turned in upon itself by the failure of other churches to reach out, and seeking to reach out without success. So Peter exhorts the other churches that this church is reaching out to them and they need to wake up and embrace each other. The exiled church is not a church that is any different from the others because it has been chosen by God just as every other church has.

Scholar Pheme Perkins says of this text that, “This warm greeting also reminds readers today of their responsibility to other churches around the world. No church that remains isolated in local or even national boundaries incarnates the vision left by the apostles. (Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching: 1st & 2nd Peter, James and Jude, p. 82)”

Alan wasn’t that far off from that vision of the apostles when he asked his question, “Are you my muzzah?” The question of the apostles is simply, “Are you my brother (or my sister)?” The answer should always be yes to every person that we see on the streets of our city, to every other church that may raise its hands in praise or prostrate itself before a cross—whether charismatic or liturgical high church—there may be all sorts of things to separate us but the vision of the apostles rests in the shared story of the one that unites us—Jesus Christ.

So questions remain for us: How are we doing? Are we a church that has placed ourselves in exile? Do we reach out to other churches? If we find ourselves in exile, why do we stay there? What do we get out of being alone? If we desire change, how shall we accomplish it?

We are called to incarnate “the vision left by the apostles.” May we indeed, my brothers and sisters, rise to the calling! Amen.