Imitating Jesus

Lent 6 year C Sermon Phil 2:1-11

Twenty eight years after Jesus’ triumphal and dangerously subversive entry… into Jerusalem…
twenty eight long years…after Jesus arrest and death by crucifixion… years of church planting… conflict management… persecution and imprisonment…

the apostle Paul writes …one of the most practical and inspiring passages in all Scripture...words from prison…
full of confidence and support… for his weary friends in Philippi. Let us listen for a word from God as Paul writes…

‘If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, any comfort from his love, any fellowship with the Spirit, any tenderness and compassion…

then make my joy complete.. by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit…

but in humility consider others…better than yourselves

Each of you should look… not only to your own interests…but also to the interests of others.

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature… God…
didn’t consider equality with God something to be grasped … but made himself nothing…
taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a human being…
he humbled himself and became obedient …….
to death— even death on a cross!

That’s why God exalted him to the highest place

and gave him the name above every name,

that at the name of Jesus… every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess… that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord

Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi…

is much like a spontaneous email you and I might write to beloved friends. In this letter Paul opens his heart
and expresses his affection…and he talks about himself more often than in… any of his other letters.

And Philippians just rambles along… like a friendly email would …filled with personal news and outbursts of feeling. Paul uses the words joy or rejoice sixteen times… and he’s writing from prison! Chained…

day and night to a guard.

Is he nuts…is he manic…to feel like this in prison…or has Paul discovered…a source of deep and sustaining spiritual nurture…one he wants to share with his friends…I think he has…

Pauls’s discovered that…the joy that comes from being united with Christ… in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit … this joy… is somehow greater than happiness…

Why?

Because it doesn’t depend on what happens. This is practical joy….joy you can use…every day… even if you’re weary or persecuted or discouraged by failure.

And in the midst of all this stuff about practical joy… Paul writes one of the most important…most poetic descriptions of Jesus in the whole new testament…

And he writes this masterpiece…not to resolve some theological conflict in life of the church…
but to re-enforce… the common everyday duties…
of the Christian life…

When you’re wondering how to behave…or you're your attitude should be… choose to imitate Jesus…

choose humility. And Paul supports and reinforces the practical Christian virtue of humility… with a profound doctrinal truth and mystery… concerning the divinity and humanity of Jesus. [pause]

Like the prophet Isaiah…

Paul seeks a practical word… to sustain the weary…
and finds it… in the practise of

being united with Christ…and the comfort of his love, and in the practise of being in fellowship with the Holy Spirit…where tenderness and compassion are to be found.

But if you as individuals or as the church are to get any encouragement from being united with Christ…

this spiritual practise has to have legs…Paul’s saying …you have to make it into a life style…
carry it into everything you do…

then your attitude should be the same as Jesus.

You will be imitators of Christ. You can’t fudge this… because the whole doctrine of who Jesus is…upholds it.

If you’re united with Christ…you can’t justify elevating yourself above other people…you can’t justify looking down on anyone … you can’t justify selfish ambition or the vain conceit… of looking in the mirror and saying ‘well at least I’m better than they are’ but in humility consider others better than yourselves.

It’s ok to look after yourselves…but not only your own interests… also the interests of others

This isn’t some namby pamby touchy feely lilly livered willy woofterish take… on living the Christian life…

it's the result of the practise of being united with the love, the tenderness and the compassion…
of the Word of God… made flesh in time and space …who made himself a servant…not a general…or CEO of Israel Inc.

It's the result of being united with the one… who in obedience to God’s will and saving message of Shalom … took on all our human frailty…
even… our susceptibility… to death…

even death on a cross!

That’s why his name is to be revered above other names …that’s why at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess… that Jesus Christ is Lord…and master…that he’s the one to follow.

And how is that supposed to happen…when the church is continually on trial for its arrogance and hypocrisy…
whether in the streets of Philippi or on the television screens of the world.

How can Jesus’ name be honoured and respected… when his followers abuse and exploit others…

for their own selfish ends… That’s what Paul wants to know…That’s what I want to know…

And that’s what Paul wants us to avoid…
by encouraging the imitation of Christ…

Because of his own weakness…Paul knows full well… just how quickly we can lose the plot…how easy it is for things go wrong…when we allow our own selfishness and greed and lust...to overshadow the humility…
that come from unity with Christ

Paul’s saying that arrogance pride and hypocrisy are the real evils to avoid… You don’t abuse and exploit others when you’re looking out for their interests as well as your own…whether they’re pagans in the Roman Empire…widows and orphans in Palestine…

or innocent children under the care of the church.

Today the whole church is once again on trial…

for its arrogance and hypocrisy…
and that’s as it should be…as the world continues to measure us… against the one we claim to follow…
as the world continues to compare… our words and our actions…as individuals and as faith communities…
to the one who took obedience to the principle of Shalom… all the way to the cross. [pause]

Today there’s nowhere to hide…when the church fails to imitate the humility of Christ. When we cause little children to stumble…or hit out those who are different… We can’t claim moral authority…
because we don’t have it…remember?

the one we follow humbled himself in obedience… all the way to the cross

And Paul reminds us…the point isn’t to claim the moral high ground…in the mirror or in the media…the point… is to be united with Christ in humility… looking after the interest of others as well as our own.

The point isn’t to elevate ourselves above the community…the point is to serve it...

And I am with Paul…regardless of what happens… remain in unity with Christ…and imitate him… and you will discover the joy that goes way beyond happiness… It’s the most practical thing you can do…

in your daily lives…and it is the word…
that sustains the weary…

The Prodigal Son

Lent 4 year C Sermon 10 Prodigal Son

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

And behind their hands…the ultra religious in the crowd… mutter to each other… ‘This Jesus welcomes sinners and eats with them…’

So Jesus tells them a scandalous tale… about eating with sinners…a parable with three thinly disguised characters …there’s the forgiving one…

the one who is forgiven…and the one who refuses to forgive.

Grace and hospitality are extended to both…one humbly accepts…but other would rather keep sipping on his cup of bitterness and entitlement.

By the end of the story…

two of the characters… are already having a party…
but the other… has self-excluded…refusing the invitation…to celebrate the reconciliation of the family.

Who are they supposed to be… really?

God…the nation of Israel…and the pagan gentiles?

Maybe Jesus himself…the pious Pharisees…and all those deemed to be unclean?

And who are we supposed to identify with…as individuals and together as the community of faith?

For us…sitting here in third millennium Aotearoa New Zealand …it’s tempting to see the story the way we always have… through the lens of our own cultural assumptions …coming to the same familiar conclusions.

Isn’t it sad… how the youngest son runs off and
gets in with the wrong crowd…hits the booze and the drugs… and ends up in the gutter…and isn’t it wonderful… how the dad… joyfully welcomes him home… when he’s ready to say sorry…

Pretty simple… maybe God’s just like the father?

And isn’t it a shame…the older son’s so bound up… with resentment and anger… that he cuts himself off from the party. Isn’t it a pity…he’s so judgmental…so absorbed…with what he thinks he deserves…

he actually misses out.

Certainly this interpretation makes sense to us…

it would make a good movie wouldn’t it…
but our story teller isn’t a twenty first century film maker…he’s a first century rabbi. And the culture of his audience isn’t pacific-pakeha…but middle-eastern.

What if our very familiarity…with the parable of the Prodigal Son…causes us to miss something…some nuance…some treasure of inspiration and meaning…aimed…at an entirely different group of people

How do we avoid domesticating the Gospel… or holding it culturally captive?

In his book …Jesus through middle eastern eyes: cultural studies in the Gospels…Professor Kenneth Bailey tries to deepen our understanding of Jesus’ actual cultural context.

Bailey’s lectured on New Testament…
in middle-eastern universities for most of his life.
His research takes him all over the middle-east…
to ask ordinary Jews and Arabs…
how they understand Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son.

And Bailey makes some amazing discoveries about the underlying tension in the story…invisible to the western eye…between patriarchal honour and scandalous grace.

What startles Bailey is how consistent and passionate …are the replies of Jews and Arabs alike…especially to the shocking suggestion…that a son would dare to ask for his inheritance…while his father is still alive.

They don’t see this as a story of irresponsible youth…to Bailey’s Semitic audience…the son is shamefully abusive…humiliating and dis-honouring the father…as though the son is saying…‘Dad, I can’t wait for you to die.

In a culture where patriarchal honour…family honour…ethnic and tribal honour…must be preserved at all costs…the father is expected to explode with rage…sever the relationship…and disown the son.

So this is far more serious than running off to Europe… with the money your parents saved for uni…and ending up in the gutter.

And the listeners are appalled to hear… that flying in the face of cultural expectations…the father doesn’t retaliate…instead… he freely and completely… grants his younger son’s request…no strings attached.

They can’t project their social norms onto this father… his love is different…this father gives his children unheard of freedom…even to reject and dishonour him. [pause]

And there’s another counter-cultural twist…

As well as expecting the father to strike back… Arabs and Jews see the other brother as complicit in the crime…because as the oldest… it’s his responsibility to act as mediator and peacemaker…in the family…so the father’s honour can remain intact.

But in Jesus’ parable…the older brother does nothing to protest this insult… to his father’s honour…he won’t lift a finger to prevent the break-up of the family… instead he distances himself…from the whole drama.

To the Semitic mind the older brother remains disgracefully silent…both boys have turned their backs on family unity. Doesn’t psalm 133 say…‘How good and pleasant it is… when children live together in unity’?.

And then of course in his freedom…the younger son…

carelessly descends…into a self-created hell…[pause]

And when he’s as low as he can go…when he can’t slide down any further…stripped of all physical emotional and spiritual support…starving and penniless…
the prodigal son decides to change direction…
to turn his life around…to head home…which is what the Hebrew word for repentance… literally means.

And consistent with rabbinical teaching on repentance.[i]

the son knows what he has to do…so we hear him rehearsing the ritual words of atonement … I’ll just go back to my father and I’ll say…Father, I’ve sinned… against heaven and against you. I’m no longer worthy to be called your son’…just let me live as your hired servant.

There’s no hope for anything else…his own poor judgment…has destroyed his relationships and his wealth…he’s lost everything…and in his cultural context…the prodigal son…is taking a huge risk coming home…

His abusive actions…will have offended the honour…not only his father…but the family and community. And the middle-eastern audience knows…were the young man to set foot in the village an angry mob would descend on him.

But according to Jesus’ story…the father spots his son coming…before anyone else does… and according to the Greek[ii]… compassion wells up…from deep within his bowels… driving the father to act swiftly and decisively…to intercept his son… [pause]

Before anyone else can get to him…before the boy can even open his mouth in the ritual of atonement…his father runs to him…as no dignified middle-eastern patriarch… ever ran…

In front of everyone in the village…before his child can begin to repent…the father throws his arms around him…and substitutes kisses for words… [pause]

It’s not supposed to work like this… in the middle-east the father’s actions are excessive and humiliating… When honour must be satisfied…there can be no grace.

But in Jesus’ story…before the boy can say anything …the father’s judgment is drowned in love…grace is extended…and the boy accepts [pause]

Jesus’ meaning is clear…the father in the story offers love and hospitality like no other…whatever reconciliation costs… the father will pay…homecoming will be celebrated… a banquet is set and everyone’s invited… the best wine will be served…the most precious calf will be sacrificed…

There will be a great feast of reconciliation.

And when the bitter older brother.. refuses to come to the party…even then…the father leaves his place of honour at the banquet table…leaves his other guests…even the guest of honour…and comes out to plead with his older son… to join the feast…

Jesus sends a clear message…to the cynical and bigoted religious authorities… stop projecting your need to elevate yourselves above the rest of humanity onto God…you can keep your pride and your obsession with honour…that’s your yoke…not mine…

God’s love is inexhaustible…God’s grace unlimited…

So what could these cultural insights mean for us…
as twenty-first century followers of the story teller…
Which character are we supposed to be…as individuals and together as the people of God in this place? Is our pride and honour the last thing on our minds…when we offer hospitality to the community.

Are we serious enough about following Jesus…to show love like no other …whatever the cost to our self image …or corporate image.

Who is worthy of a place at our table…with whom do we refuse to eat…a particularly good question for race relations Sunday. How lavish will our hospitality be? Are we prepared to sacrifice our most precious calf?

What could Jesus’ story of God’s inexhaustible love and limitless grace… mean for our community beneath these mountains and beside these lakes?

What hurts and hopes of theirs…could we address?

Will compassion seize our insides… and move us to public displays of justice and reconciliation…move us to offer grace before we’re asked?

Could we create a place where scandalous love and boundless hospitality is offered?
A place of celebration, support and safety for those who’d never imagine it in their wildest dreams they’d be welcome here…will our welcome feel to them…
like coming home?

Our vision as a parish is to build an invitational spiritually growing multi-generational faith community where all are welcome to this table of grace without limits. I pray that you will join this journey with energy and passion.

---

[i] Commentary by Rabbi Rami Shapiro

There is no vicarious atonement in Judaism; you alone are each responsible for your actions and for setting things right with those you have harmed. While forgiveness is to be sought whenever necessary, the final month of the Hebrew calendar is set aside for serious forgiveness practice. You are to go to everyone you know and ask them for forgiveness. The command is to ask for forgiveness, not to bestow it (though that is advisable). It is the asking that is the greater healing. Here's why:

The Hebrew word for repentance is teshuvah, literally "returning." Repentance is the act of returning to your true divine self, the self created in the image and likeness of God and which knows that all things are manifestations of God. Returning requires the shattering of the egoic self, the self predicated on the illusion of separateness, and devoted to selfishness and a zero-sum worldview where your success depends on another's failure. Wherever you are devoted to defending an isolated sense of self, there lurks the potential for sin.

[ii] The father is seized by the same emotion splanchnizomai that occurs in the parables of the merciful master and the Good Samaritan…an emotion that moves us to just and merciful action.