This is the Day
Philippians 3:17-4:1
Luke 13:31-35
The Smith family goes out to eat with their four-year-old Jonathan. The waitresses asks the little boy, “Jonathan, what would you like?”
He says, “I’ll have a grilled cheese sandwich.” She says, “Jonathan, I’m sorry, we don’t serve grilled cheese sandwiches.”
The little boy looks over at the counter and asks, “You have a grill, don’t you?” She says, “Yes.” He says, “You have cheese, don’t you?” She says, “Yes.” He says, “You have bread, don’t you?” She says, “Yes.”
He says, “Well, I’ll have a grilled cheese sandwich.”
The waitress says, “OK, I’ll go see if the chef will fix you a grilled cheese sandwich.”
She comes back in a little while and says, “Okay, Jonathan, the chef agreed to fix you a grilled cheese sandwich. I forgot to ask you, though, what you want to drink.”
He says, “I’ll have a milkshake.”
She says, “Jonathan, your parents have probably already told you we don’t serve milkshakes.” (She was ready for him this time.) “Now, it is true we have milk. And it is true we have ice cream. But we don’t have the syrup.”
Jonathan looked her squarely in the eyes and asked, “You have a car, don’t you?”
Jonathan was an original. We like originals which is why our scripture text today can be difficult to hear.
Imitators. That was the goal to which Paul encouraged the Philippians to aspire. They were encouraged to imitate Jesus – or at least imitate those leaders they admired who were imitating Jesus. When I read this passage there is something about it that just kind of doesn’t sit right in my gut. I finally figured out that it was the whole imitator thing. It flies counter to American intuition. We fancy ourselves as originals – innovators, entrepreneurs and trail-blazers – Jonathan. We like our individualistic spirit and spunk. We play second-fiddle in nobody’s band!
The truth is that from the very beginning of life we are all imitators. Babies learn to smile watching their parents smile. We learned how to stack blocks by watching others stack blocks. We learn how to develop relationships by watching how others develop (or destroy!) relationships. Minnesota Public Radio did a story this week on how social networks impact how we think, feel and behave. Fascinating stuff! The theory is that if you have close friends who are struggling to maintain a healthy weight, you are more likely to struggle with maintaining a healthy weight. The presenter made the analogy that how we influence each other is similar to how we catch the flu. You may be healthy today, for example, but if your friend’s friend’s friend has the flu right now, it is likely that your friend’s friend will get the flu which will make it likely that your friend will get the flu which will make it likely that ultimately you will get the flu. The humorous thing about this is that just like we can be carriers of influenza, we can be carriers of influence. So if people in your life are negative, for example, you can be a carrier of that negative emotion to those you interact with. Or if the friend of your friend is a complainer, it can influence you to become a complainer. Conversely, if you are a person who lives with hope, sees the best in others and holds your opinion until more facts are known, then those are the kinds of people you will gather around you. We imitate those around us in ways of which we are not even aware.
And yet, we prefer to think of ourselves as being the imitated rather than the imitator. We cheer for the Jesus from the gospel lesson who stands up to religious leaders and challenges religious bigotry. That is the kind of people we aspire to become. That is a noble aspiration and it comes with a cost. This might give you a clue as to why these particular passages are paired as Lenten texts.
Or perhaps our reluctance to own our journey as imitators of Jesus is our innate resistance to being imitations. Is being an imitator the same thing as being an imitation? Being an imitation denotes being inauthentic. An imitation is considered a knock off, a fake or false. According to Philippians, being an imitator of Jesus means we become more authentic in who we are. We discover deeper truths about ourselves and what it means to live faithfully. Philippians tells us that by imitating Jesus we learn what is true and real and whole about being human. We also learn deeper understanding about being on a journey toward Easter that invariably encounters Good Friday. Few of us are prepared for the Good Friday experiences of life, but we know they will come.
Being an imitation, on the other hand, means we have no intestinal fortitude when things get rough. When you’re not the real thing, there’s no investment of one’s resources. Being an imitator means we’ve decided that following Jesus has costs for us just as it had costs for him. Being an imitator means we’re willing to lay ourselves – our future, our lives, our reputation – on the line for something in which we believe. That was what Jesus knew in our gospel reading. He was headed for Jerusalem – the city that stoned the prophets and silenced the prophetic voices. Where are we headed?
How does one make the transition from imitation to imitator? Well, what did Jesus do? When he faced a mob wanting to stone a woman caught in adultery, he didn’t take the “imitation” way out and say, “Yes, you are a very bad person. You deserve the scorn and shame of the community.” No, he said, “I don’t condemn you. Go and learn from this experience so that you will be a better person next time.” When the religious elite tried to trap him with a trick question of who deserves loyalty, God or Caesar, he didn’t fall for such a petty ploy. He said, “Give to Caesar the things that belong to Caesar and to God the things that belong to God.” When he was arrested because his message of hope was not politically acceptable to those in power – when he was given opportunities to wiggle out of his assertions that the poor deserved justice and the outcast deserved a place at the table (outlandish ideas in his day and in ours!) – he didn’t let the truth get lost in the politics. When he was nailed to the cross and looked down on his tormenters, he didn’t curse them but forgave them. It was hard to be Jesus. It is hard to be an imitator of Jesus… but the alternative is to be an imitation.
This is the day! When Joshua led the people to the edge of the Promised Land and they stood there with a choice to go forward into the unknown promises or to remain stuck in the wilderness, he reminded them to “choose this day whom you will serve.” This is the day! When Jesus met the disciples fishing along the shore he simply said to them, “Follow me.” That was their day to choose.
There are lots of good excuses to turn away from the call of God. The economy is kicking us in the butt. There is little political will to grant our community equal access to the rights of citizenship. Some of us have been unemployed for way too long. Some of us are struggling with the loss of relationship or family or health. Those old tapes that have been engrained in our memories still play those same tired messages that you’re not good enough or strong enough or cute enough or butch enough or any of the other “enoughs”. Enough! This is the day. We get to choose. We can choose to follow God – to trust that grace is sufficient to carry us, that love is healthier than fear, that being part of a community is better than journeying alone – or we can remain as imitations. This is the day!
Today we have several people who will be baptized and join our congregation as members. It is always so thrilling to see ourselves through their eyes – to see the optimism and hope, to know the joy of finding their place in our community where they can thrive. Today is their day to make a decision and all of us get to make the same decision again along with them. When these new members covenant to work with this congregation to make the world a better place, we also covenant anew with them and each other to do the same. We renew our desire to resist the patterns of failure and to lift up our heads to see redemption all around us. What God is doing in the midst of All God’s Children MCC is a unique experience. We are an original. Why? Because we are learning to be imitators of Jesus and giving up being imitations of somebody else.
God has called All God’s Children MCC to a unique path. We are not completely like the churches that any of us might have come from. We have our own journey to take. If we are to be the spiritual center for the GLBTQ and allied community – if we are to be the “Human Rights Church” for Minnesota, if we are to be the safe space for people to be true to themselves in all the glorious manifestations of humanity with which we are richly blessed – then this is the day we make the choice. Imitators of Jesus or imitations.
Source:
www.homileticsonline.com The Five-Question Quiz, February 2010.