St. Paul Lutheran Church, Minden, Nebraska
Sunday sermon – Tenth Sunday after Pentecost - August 9, ’09
“Imitate God: Living to Love!”
Text: Ephesians 5:1,2
The question I’m asking and addressing this month of Sundays in August is the question: Is religion good for people or bad for people?
There are a lot of different religions in the world today. All over the world, even here in America, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Mormon-ism, and the whole New Age movement, are large growing religions.
What is it about the Christian religion that sets it apart from other religions? What is it about the Christian religion that makes a difference in what people believe & how they live their lives?
Last Sunday I used the epistle reading from Ephesians 4 to focus on St. Paul encouraging the Christians at Ephesus to maintain and to cultivate “the unity of the Spirit, in the bond of peace”. I said there isn’t anything wrong or sinful with people being unique individuals who like to do some things and not other things. But when it comes to individuals practicing religion, I said there is a world of difference between individuals who get stuck on doing their own thing and individuals who see their individuality as a blessing, as a gift, as a God-given gift they can use together with other unique, gifted individuals for bearing witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and also for bearing the burden of helping & encouraging others
Now, according to the Epistle reading for this Sunday, from Ephesians 5, the focus on what is distinctly & delightfully holy, helpful & healthy about the Christian religion shifts to the Apostle Paul’s emphasis on Christians being “imitators of God.” Not imitating each other’s religious habits. Not ridiculing, mimicking or making fun of others who do or don’t take their religion seriously. But the Apostle Paul puts his emphasis squarely on Christians being imitators of God as God’s beloved children who walk in love as Christ loved us.
The challenge is this: what can I say about Christians “being imitators of God” that doesn’t sound absolutely off the wall, totally out of the question; hopeless; an impossible admonition that none of us, none of us, can live up to?
I mean it’s not like God is just a little smarter, a little bigger, a little taller, a little older & wiser, a little more experienced than us! God is God! God is all-knowing. God is all-powerful. God is everywhere. He is holy & just. God is eternal having no beginning & no end. God is 100% merciful & forgiving. God is love & God’s love is perfect, unstoppable, unconditional, immeasurable, unlimited.
Given all that, given the greatness of God, the power of God, the perfect love of God, what on earth does the apostle Paul have in mind when he says, “Therefore, be imitators of God?”
What Paul has in mind is that for us Christians, as God’s beloved children, the nature of God’s love is something we cannot do without. God’s love is not just something we need, something holy and out of this world, but God’s love is something we can relate to in this world; a gracious, self-giving love we can respond to, even put into practice ourselves when we know how and what to practice.
I like the down-to-earth, close-to-home paraphrase of the Apostle Paul’s words in the epistle reading for this Sunday as they appear in the MESSAGE which has St.Paul saying to the Christians at Ephesus, and to us:
Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents.
Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with Him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. Christ didn’t love in order to get something but to give everything of Himself. Love like that.
Do we by nature know what it’s like to love as God loves, to love people and use things? No! As human beings, we mostly know what it’s like to love things and use people. As sinful, self-oriented human beings, we know what it’s like to love life, enjoy life, and try to get the most out of life we can get for ourselves. It’s a familiar song the world & our sinful human flesh sings, “Love what you do to me, love when you’re good to me, love what you can give me. Me - me - me! What about me?!” No one has to teach us that, no one has to show us. There’s a lot that passes for love in this world, but as the saying goes, “love isn’t love until you give it away.” Love isn’t love when love is rude, impatient, over-bearing, bad mannered, bitter. The last thing you & I need to live with & respond to in this life is that love keeps score, gets even.
No way! When God wants us as His beloved children to fear, love and trust Him above all things; when God wants us to love people and use things instead of loving things and using people; when God wants us to love no matter how loveless or selfish or wasteful or unloving the world can be; what does God do?
God transforms us. God wants us not to be our own little gods
(g-o-d-s), live in our own little worlds, love in our own, little limited ways. No! God wants us to be His, to be God’s, (G-O-D-‘-S); not to possess God but to be possessed by God, to be God’s own, dear-ly beloved people in the world but not of the world.
In this is love, says 1 John 4:10,11, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation, the sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
What does it mean to be imitators of God? Stop! Look! Listen!
Don’t just pray for forgiveness, writes St. Paul to the Christians at Ephesus, practice forgiveness. Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ in love forgave you
Don’t think you can be an imitator of God? Pay attention to God’s love in Christ in action for you. Pay special attention to the cross of Christ. On the cross you do not see God in Christ acting to please you. On the cross you do not see God in Christ acting to pass along good advice for you. But ultimately, personally, “being imitators of God” begins again & again with observing God in Christ suffering for you.
“When I survey the Wondrous Cross”, says an old familiar Lenten hymn
“See from Christ’s head, His hands, His feet
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?
See Christ’s empty cross; see how Christ emptied sin & death of its power to enslave us. Move on to Christ’s empty tomb. Easter means new life; freedom from all sin & death. Christ rose for you & your salvation.
Is not this the heart and soul of what sets the Christian religion apart from all other religions? Not that we try to love & please God, but that God in Christ comes down, loves, and pursues us.
Do parents want their children to imitate every word, every action,
every behavior, parents are capable of. No! But when parents act in love, when parents act kindly toward their children, when parents act kindly toward others; when parents are merciful & forgiving beyond the law of averages, beyond what seems right, that’s worth imitating!
So the apostle Paul writes: Observe how Christ’s love was not cautious but extravagant. Observe how Christ didn’t love in order to get something from us but give everything of Himself to us.
As Christ loved you and gave himself up for you, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God, love like that.
Bottom line! “God who acts in Jesus Christ does so in such a way as to stir us up to action wherever we can & with whatever we have, so that the love of God in Christ for us & in us CAN be imitated, “incarnated”, translated, practiced, put into human form and effort.
Bottom line! “Ought we not take the sign of God’s love for us in Christ as a sign that we are loved, lovable, and that the world is worth loving? If so, it will surprise us, it will encourage us how there are no limits to what we can attempt as God’s representatives in the world. (Peter Gomes, Biblical Wisdom for Daily Living, p.178)
May it happen day after day, so we sing, so we pray:
Grant us grace to see Thee, Lord, Present in Thy holy Word –
Grace to imitate Thee now And be pure, as pure art Thou;
That we might become like Thee At Thy great epiphany
And may praise Thee, ever bless, God in man made manifest.
