Communion Meditation: When Imitation IS the Real Thing

First Congregational Church – Wauwatosa, Wisconsin
Second Sunday in Lent - March 4, 2007
Rev. Steven A. Peay, Ph.D.
[Texts: Genesis 15:1-12, 17-28 /Philippians 3:17-4:1/ Luke 13:31-35]

“Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us.”

            “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” so said Charles Caleb Colton. Later, in poor imitation of the original, but ever-so accurate assessment of the medium, Fred Allen said, “Imitation is the sincerest form of television.” To imitate is to model, to follow as a pattern or example, to reproduce, or to mimic or counterfeit something. Sometimes imitation can be good, “I can’t believe it’s not butter.” Other times it is not, as in when we buy something we assume is genuine and discover it’s a “knock-off” or a “reproduction,” or just a plain old fake. Paul’s words to the church at Philippi call us to think about what it means to be genuine in our imitation, because this is imitation as the real thing.

            Paul telling the people to “join in imitating me” isn’t an exercise in egoism. Rather, he’s standing firmly in the Greco-Roman tradition that the student was not only to reproduce the thoughts of the teacher, but the behaviors as well. Paul is simply reminding the Philippian Church of the ultimate claim that God has on their lives. When we live with God at the center of our lives then it is God’s values and God’s ways that are to direct our thoughts and our actions. Paul was being distinctly counter-cultural here, because the Roman empire thought that it had the claim on the people’s lives and that they were to live and exercise the values it espoused. We may live thousands of years later, but we still have people who try to lay claim to us and to our values. One commentator I read even said that the whole brand name thing, with designers’ names blazoned all over clothing, is just another form of someone laying claim. There may be something to that – why should I pay for the clothing and someone else get his or her name on it? I mean, after all, in my case they’re getting a fairly good-sized advertisement! So the name we put out there is important.  

            Christians by the very name are seeking to be one with their Lord, to be one of Christ’s followers, which implies that we seek to conform our attitudes and actions, our whole lives to Christ. This conformity, this kind of imitation, only occurs when we first go through an experience of letting go of the old values, the old ways of thinking and acting we had prior to our encountering Christ. Earlier in chapter two Paul offers the example of Christ who “did not grasp,” but rather emptied himself so that we might experience the fullness of God’s love through him. It is that ultimate act of self-giving love that Paul seeks to imitate and calls the church in Philippi, here on Church Street and everywhere else to imitate and thus to live a Christ-like life.

            Henry Gustafson, emeritus professor of New Testament at United Theological Seminary, offers some powerful comments on this call to Christ-like life. He writes: The data for imitation here consists not of a series of rules for behavior, but of a new perspective. From this perspective one approaches life motivated, not by "selfish ambition or conceit," but by a concern that "looks. . . to the interests of others." This perspective Paul calls the "same mind." It is a mind like that of Jesus Christ (2:3-5). . . . Like Christ he had come to a place in his life where he sought to empty himself. He did not cling to the things of which he once had boasted. Now he had come to regard his credentials, his honors, his achievements, his own goodness, as "loss compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus (his) Lord" (3:8). The pattern of Christ’s self-emptying had become the pattern of his own life. Motivated by "the same mind," "the same love," he sought to give himself in the service of Christ to the interests or welfare of others. . . .To live that way is to take on a Christ-like life. It means knowing Christ, not merely knowing about Christ, but experiencing Christ as significant for one’s total life. [“Exegesis for the Christian Year,” No Other Foundation , Summer, l998, pp. 5-10]  Coming to have the “same mind” means coming to know the living Christ, which we do when we open ourselves to his presence entering into the living covenant God makes with us through him.

            There is a parallel between what Paul says to the Philippians and Abram’s experience in Genesis. Abram was frustrated and worried that God’s promise, which had led him to leave home, family and possessions, was not being fulfilled. He was childless and the possibility of a “great nation” coming of his lineage seemed slim. Abram opened himself to God, pouring out his doubts, fears and anxieties (giving us a good example of how we should be honest with God). God hears, God speaks with him and invites him into covenant relationship.

Covenants, as scholars like Mendenhall and Hillers have pointed out, were two-way, with the lesser power demonstrating loyalty to the greater. In the near east the splitting of the animals was a sign of covenant promise and walking between them was the way the pact was sealed. The lesser saying, in effect, “let this happen to me if I violate the covenant.” But Abram isn’t told to walk between them and there’s the rub. Rather God causes a “deep sleep” to fall upon him. This immediately should call to mind Genesis 2:21 where Adam falls into a deep sleep and Eve is produced from his side. The sleep indicates that something profound is about to happen and it does. Symbols of God’s presence pass between the offerings and God “cuts a covenant,” in essence offering a “royal grant,” with God binding God’s self to Abram.

Abram was only able to receive this grant when he could focus fully on the presence and the promise – the only two constants in this rather messy and risky business of entering into covenant relationship with God. When Abram moves from the distractions of his complaints, of the things keeping him from realizing that God is faithful and present, then God can act.

This doesn’t stop with Abram or with Paul. We have to come to the point where the distractions are passed by and we can focus on being the people God is calling us to be. Thus, Abram listened to God and became Abraham the father of nations. Thus, Saul the persecutor encountered the Risen, living Lord and became Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles. It’s when they both moved out of themselves and opened themselves to hear God’s voice, God’s claim on them and moved from the other voices and other claims that they could be authentic, be real. It is no different with us as it was no different with Jesus. Jesus dealt with the wily character, Herod, and ultimately that wily one will not have his own way. Jesus is focused on the work he’s called to do, which is to nurture and draw people into relationship with the One. Jesus models for us the lives we are to live; lives not focused on manipulation or on being self-serving, but open to the Other and to others.

How do we do that? First, we have to open ourselves and move away from the distractions. The words of Psalm 46 come to mind, “Be still and know that I am God.” There must be times when we quiet not only our environments – turning off all of the various media that are also making their claims on us – but quiet our inner selves. The focus we need is not easily gained. It is important for us to understand the meditation is more than an exercise in omphaloskepsis (which is a wonderful word meaning to “navel gaze”). Rather, the goal of meditation is to turn us toward our true center and  there are many techniques we can use. Centering prayer, focusing on the Divine Name or using the Jesus Prayer is one. Doing lection divina with Scripture is another. Discursive meditation on a spiritual reading text is yet another, or walking a labyrinth, whatever works so that we get out of ourselves and into God’s presence. Then we listen and listen deeply for God’s voice, which can come to us in many ways, but we’ll know that it’s God because it will only and always draw us toward that which is right and good. Finally, our minds conformed to that of the Lord, we act, living our lives toward God and others in loving service.

I would urge you to use the many opportunities that we have this Lenten season to experience the living presence and powerful promise of God. The Sunday afternoon music experiences, sacred and secular, can be occasions for hearing God speak to your heart in a different way. Let me again invite and encourage you to come and join in the Holy Conversations we’ve begun, it’s not too late. I have to say that I was disappointed by the turn-out on Wednesday, but I am confident the Good God is going to act through this exercise, one way or the other. Again, it’s a matter of staying focused and seeking to live following the “mind of Christ.”

When we come to the Lord’s Table today, having broken open the Word, now we’ll break the bread and share the cup which make the Gospel visible. In these simple signs we are not only reminded of Christ’s self-giving love for us, but we participate in that love and are bidden to imitate our Lord. I remember hearing this said of a religious community that they “sought to be Eucharist for one another,” broken and poured out so that others might be nourished. That’s the example we have, the pattern we’re to follow and to model. When we live in that way, then imitation IS the real thing.