The apostle Peter pens an epistle to the early church in large part because they are trying to navigate what it means to be faithful and political in the world. They are contending against the Powers and Principalities and Politics of their day and they want to know which way to go. In chapter 2 Peter is in the middle of exhorting the faithful community to resist the empire by imitating the Lord who became Servant of all. He writes of how servants and slaves are free, right now, to imitate the cruciform way of Jesus. He describes the call to remember that Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not. Peter is preaching politics. A politics that was preached to him by Jesus.“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” What could be more political than that?And so, having received a particular political witness, Peter punctuates his epistle with the claim that the church will have to live as strangers in a strange land. In order to follow Jesus they/we will necessarily look very different from the world...