We are in a season of bold proclamations. Whether the assertions are about the best ways to govern, the smartest ways to allocate resources, or where responsibility lies for the care of others, the conversations happening in the wider community are marked by bold declarations of what is truth – often asserting truth with a capital “T.” The most dangerous of these declarations of truth for me are the declarations about what being a Christian means – what being a faithful follower of Jesus entails. Maybe I am more sensitive to those assertions because of my 9 to 5 job, but I cannot tell you the number of times I have been frustrated, if not angered, lately by those proclaiming truths about the way of Christ that sound very little like the Jesus I know.
Knowing my defensiveness lately, you will likely be unsurprised by my reaction to our epistle reading today when Paul is acting very Paul-like. Paul, who has regularly said that followers of Christ should imitate Christ, today says, “Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us.”[i] Paul’s instruction to imitate him is bold. Paul does not say, “Do as I say, not as I do.” Paul says, “Do what I do.” Modern, defensive skeptics that we are, we immediately assume Paul has developed an inflated ego. We know that telling people to imitate you is the first step toward a nasty fall. Such a bold claim is setting Paul up for failure – because none of us are perfect. Paul’s words immediately remind us of the hundreds of clergy who have fallen – who have embezzled, had affairs, abused children, abused alcohol, and have failed to be faithful pastors. Surely Paul is setting up himself and the many people who are following him for failure. Why would he do such a thing and who is he to proclaim perfection?
What we lose in our jaded, skeptical, snarky twenty-first century selves is the reminder of how learning and formation have happened for centuries. As one scholar explains, both Jesus, and Paul his disciple, “know that true moral and spiritual formation depends on tutelage under a master – learning to follow the habits and practices of one who has become proficient in a particular trade or skill. Indeed, this is the precise meaning of the word ‘disciple’: a learner or pupil.”[ii] In this way, disciples are learning from someone wiser than themselves, and in fact are imitating the teacher’s teacher.[iii] So when Paul says imitate me, he does not really mean imitate Paul, but imitate Paul, who is imitating Jesus Christ. Imitate the teacher’s teacher.
What I find assuring, then, is that Paul is not saying he is perfect. He is not boasting about his perfect imitation of Christ, but only encouraging others to imitate Christ as he tries to imitate Christ. What Paul knows is that our lives are never perfect. But if we are not imitating something worth imitation, then we are already losing the battle. And so, Paul’s imitation and our imitation many years later may be rough versions of Jesus Christ, but our imitation is still rooted in that great teacher who taught so many before us.
How we imitate Paul today is a bit more complicated. We too must find our teachers who point to The Teacher. The trick is not to think too remotely. When asked who our role models are, many of us will name famous people of faith – Martin Luther King, Jr. or St. Patrick who we will celebrate tonight, or, given that it’s Women’s History Month, some of the suffragettes or first female clergy. And those folks will give us much to ponder about our faith life. But the problem is, sometimes those people are so removed from our lives that they cannot really teach us how to live our lives as Christians today.
This is why, in his own day and in his own community, Paul offers himself up as an example. Not because he is some stellar example of Christ, but because he is in relationship with those with whom he is talking. Paul realizes that the most powerful person to learn from is someone right in your community. As professor Dirk Lange says, “Paul is directing the gaze of the community not toward some type of individual perfection, not even toward the supreme perfection of Christ…but to the realization of Christ’s love within the community itself.”[iv]
So, Paul is inviting us to do a couple of things. First, Paul is inviting us to name our own teachers. One of my favorite set of teachers is a couple I know from college. When Rebecca and David were married, they bought a home in North Carolina much larger than what they would need. The house was a fixer-upper, but they had dreams. Their dream was to make the house into an intentional Christian community that also serves as a transitional house for families. So, people who are in-between jobs, a woman who is recently divorced, or really anyone the local pastor recommends is welcome to come live in their home. They have some house rules about sharing work, community meals, and weekly worship. But Rebecca, David, and their two sons are imitating Christ in this radical lifestyle. When I am really wondering how to live a Christ-like life, I look at this family and see how far I have to go.
But even Rebecca and David can be a little too removed. So sometimes I just look at those around me. I look at the spiritual disciplines of parishioners here. I look at the ways that you care for those with physical and mental limitations. I look at the ways you tend to this property, engage as faithful citizens, or the ways you serve our neighbors in need. Much like Paul and his community, we are not perfect. We too struggle to understand how faith is lived right here in Upper James City County. Our engagement in that struggle is what points us toward Christ.
This leads us to our second invitation from Paul – to recognize the ways in which we are all teachers to others. When you leave this place every Sunday, you are not just Linda or Dave or Elizabeth. You are Linda the Christian from Hickory Neck. You are Dave who shows what being a person of faith is all about: not because you are perfect, but because you are struggling to be like Christ. One of my favorite evangelism videos is a video that talks about the top reasons why people do not come to church. One reason they articulate is that the Church is full of hypocrites. We know the ways that we feel like hypocrites and the world knows the ways we act like hypocrites. The video has responses to each person’s fear or hesitancy about Church. When the person complains that the Church is full of hypocrites, the Christian honestly and humbly says, “And there’s always room for one more.” That kind of raw honesty is the kind of honesty that leads to trust, that leads to sharing, that leads to opening our doors to others. That is the kind of honesty that makes others not only want to imitate us and our Teacher, but also to join us and the Teacher. Paul invites us then to boldly proclaim, “Imitate me,” so that we can figure this journey out together. Amen.
[i] Italics added by me for emphasis.
[ii] Ralph C. Wood, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 62.
[iii] Casey Thompson, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 64.
[iv] Dirk G. Lange, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 65.
