A Tall Order: Jesus Followers Called to be Imitators of God
this is based on a sermon shared with the First Presbyterian Church of Albany, August 8, 2021. You can access the video transmission of the sermon here, beginning in minute 16:35
Paul’s letter to the Christian communities in Ephesus is an exposition of how the redeeming power of Jesus – in the cross and in his resurrection – was the beginning of the gathering of a community of witnesses from all diversities. From such diversity, God has called forth an assembly – the Church – as co-workers in the building of the kingdom of Heaven on earth, as witnesses of God’s intention to redeem the world and to make it whole again. This community is a gathering of actors of the message and work of Jesus in and from every geography; every language and culture; every social space a person redeemed by the baptism of Jesus is found.
At the beginning of chapter 5 of the letter to the Ephesians there are two sentences that are at the same time captivating and daunting – “Therefore, imitate God like dearly loved children. Live your life with love, following the example of Christ…” (1) I don’t know about you, but this reads like a tall order. I wonder what Paul was thinking when he penned this down. Paul’s letters show that he was well aware of what was going on in the communities he would write letters to. Often, the letters Paul wrote were a call to theological or pastoral correction. They were also calls address the social, economic and/or political reality in the city or region he would correspond with. An effective religious and theological witness is related to the contextual challenges it lives in. What was this call to be imitators of God, to follow the example of Jesus, all about?
“Tolerance is not a Christian Value... The Church is called to solidarity.”
I think had a deeper emotional, perhaps social investment with the Christians in Ephesus. This letter was personal. Paul encourages the Christians in Ephesus to keep up the high level of enthusiasm knowing that they were called to be a community of followers of Jesus with people gathered from the whole known world. Unity was paramount, but so was the diversity of perspectives found in the diversity of people. This unity and diversity will prove essential for a witness to Jesus in one of the most politically and financially consequential cities in Asia Minor and the Roman Empire.
When I originally shared these thoughts the news was at best sobering, at worst full of angst. An independent report had found that Governor Cuomo, of New York, perpetrated sexual harassment while in office. The lack of leadership at all levels of government in the face of an increasing threat from new variants of the pandemic was frustrating and confusing. Hyper-individualism was on display by those calling for the cease of mask mandates. A year and a half into the pandemic there was still a lack of access to information and outreach about the vaccines in some communities - especially those with accents in their speech and with greater amounts of melanin in their skin. There was also news purporting a rebounding of the economy even when many people, including neighbors of ours, faced the real possibility of losing the safety of a roof, most of them over lack of clear directives about access to resources to remediate just that threat. I would have summarized the news for that week with this headline: “Some in the US live under the impression the economy and public health measures are working for them, while many in this country have yet to hear how these measures meant to aid them will reach them.”
The news is a good way to gauge the context we live in. Our context (and our experience of it) inevitably provides a lens through which to read Scripture and ponder its teachings for us today. Our experience of the faith, and the community with whom we worship (or not), is also another important filter for interpretation. I told the community with whom I first shared these thoughts that they should know themselves to be loved by God and by its leaders. I went further to say that not every religious community is made aware of how much they are loved and appreciated. That is also an important lens for scriptural interpretation and witness discernment.
Ephesians 4:25-5:2 inspired these thoughts. From the Common English Bible:
Therefore, after you have gotten rid of lying, Each of you must tell the truth to your neighbor because we are parts of each other in the same body. Be angry without sinning. Don’t let the sun set on your anger. Don’t provide an opportunity for the devil. Thieves should no longer steal. Instead, they should go to work, using their hands to do good so that they will have something to share with whoever is in need.
Don’t let any foul words come out of your mouth. Only say what is helpful when it is needed for building up the community so that it benefits those who hear what you say. Don’t make the Holy Spirit of God unhappy—you were sealed by him for the day of redemption. Put aside all bitterness, losing your temper, anger, shouting, and slander, along with every other evil. Be kind, compassionate, and forgiving to each other, in the same way God forgave you in Christ.
Therefore, imitate God like dearly loved children. Live your life with love, following the example of Christ, who loved us and gave himself for us. He was a sacrificial offering that smelled sweet to God.
“Therefore, imitate God like dearly loved children. Live your life with love, following the example of (Jesus)…” That is a tall order, but one we are called to take on with courage. In the first century – as the Ephesian Church was facing the challenge of the economic power benefiting some and need was rampant among most – Paul calls the followers of Jesus to be imitators of God, to actively embody in word, action, and engagement what is the reaction to knowing that God wants to redeem the world. God is the followers of Jesus to actively embody in word, action, and engagement what is it that being redeemed by God can be in and for the world. That requires that we shed every layer of political, economic, social, and theological service to the status quo in our words, actions and engagements, and to put on the ways of Jesus as the Spirit has and will continue to inspire and empower us to.
Dialogue is not a Christian value. Dialogue is a lazy paradigm for engagement with diversity, one that reduces any encounter we might have with the world to a transaction that calls the world to accept Christ as Lord and Savior. The Church is called to conversation with the world. In conversation we will have the ability to simply be with and among the world learning about their yearns, hopes, pains, and aspirations while sharing the spiritual gifts of joy, peace, justice, and reconciliation. In conversation the world will get to know the community called out by Jesus because the Jesus community will be intentional and committed to stay in relationship with the world. In conversation with the world the Church will grow in awareness of the world, and hopefully in understanding. In conversation with the world, the Church will participate with the world in its challenges and turmoil. In conversation with the world, the Church will convert into an effective presence of Jesus in, with, and for the world. In conversation with the world, the Church may just be able to shine some light, share some flavor, be Jesus with and among the world. The Jesus we worship, the Jesus we serve did not call to a transactional relationship of acceptance. The Jesus we witness to the world opened himself, was made vulnerable, to be in conversation with the world so that he could be with and for the world in every profoundly struggling way in order for the world to gain knowledge of the love of God. That knowledge of the love of God, we believe, leads an experience of God which reveals in the mind and spirit of the believer the certainty that God’s intention is love, justice, peace, and reconciliation for all (and the whole created order).
Tolerance is not a Christian value. Tolerance is a lazy social and theological attitude that allows the tolerant to keep the understanding that the other is on the wrong side of everything. The Church is called to solidarity. Solidarity is, perhaps, the most vulnerable social, political, economic, and theological way of being. When one is in solidarity with the other, one opens oneself to live with, be with, be for the struggles and opportunities of the other. Solidarity even takes one step further. It opens engagement to an understanding that the struggle of the other is not only just, but the struggle of all. Solidarity is acknowledging, in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr, that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” (2) That is solidarity. Tolerance is not only a lazy standard. It is not a social, cultural, political, philosophical, or theological value. The Church is called to be in solidarity. Persons of goodwill are not called to tolerance. They are called to solidarity.
It is in conversation and solidarity that one can understand, embrace, and enact Paul’s call to speak the truth. It is in conversation and solidarity that one can speak the truth in love, that is, with the intention for the wellbeing of everyone with whom one engages. It is in conversation and solidarity that one can recognize that there are far too many reasons, because of far too many circumstances, stemming from far too many contexts why one would feel angry.
Anger is a most human of feelings. Left to its own devices, and Paul says that much, anger will lead to sin. Period. However, living in a paradigm of conversation and solidarity, one can channel the energy of anger through a commitment to love and goodwill. And there is nothing individualistic about love and goodwill. If you love, if you have a sense of goodwill, you have a sense of community and of neighborhood. The commitment of anyone that operates in conversation and solidarity will be goodwill, the upbuilding and wellbeing of the community, of the whole community, as diverse and complicated as communities brought together are.
Say truth. Live truth, not only to and with those in church, or with those of a common theological, political or social persuasion. Speak truth to everyone who is a neighbor.
To be the Church is to speak, to inspire, to witness Jesus to everyone who is our neighbor for the sake of building up community. The church builds community by rejecting tolerance and practicing solidarity. The church builds community by rejecting dialogue and being in conversation and life together with the world we have been placed with and in service to.
The church is called to be community by recognizing the anger that is in us and around us, and by inviting all to use that energy to dismantle inequity and build for radical welcome and wellbeing.
The church is called to be community by choosing the more difficult and Spirit-empowered higher ethical ground – with kindness, compassion, and forgiveness. The church is called to realize that assuming that higher ethical ground is possible not because of our theological, social or political persuasion, but because we are also objects of God’s forgiveness, compassion, and kindness.
In word and deed, so help me God, I will continue to invite the Church to be with the world – the community God has called us to be in Jesus – a sacrifice worth God’s worship for it embodies love, justice, joy and reconciliation.
(1) - from the Common English Bible
(2) - from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”
