February 24, 2013
Received - Lent 2
- Philippians 3:17-4:1
- Dr. Teri Thomas
When my son Thomas was about 18 months old my parents came to visit.
Thomas spent most of the day in the backyard with my father doing household chores.
When they came in for dinner Thomas was in his high chair and he started fussing.
I looked at him and he was grabbing his front teeth and pulling on them.
He was clearly expecting something to happen that wasn’t and he became increasingly frustrated.
I had no idea what he was trying to do.
After supper my father left the table,
went to the sink,
pulled out the upper plate of his false teeth
and rinsed them in the running water.
Come to find out he had done that all day in the backyard, rinsing his teeth in the hose.
Thomas was simply trying to imitate his Papa Harv.
It has been said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
But George Bernard Shaw said: Imitation is not the sincerest form of flattery,
it’s the sincerest form of learning.
Anyone who has been around children understands social learning theory.
It states that social behavior is learned
primarily by observing and imitating the actions of others.
The social behavior is also influenced by being rewarded and/or punished for these actions.
In this morning’s reading
Paul appeals to his readers to imitate him.
This may seem to be an expression of insufferable vanity.
But Paul is aware of all the false teachers that surround these new believers.
It was as if he could imagine the false teachers that would one day surround all of us as well.
Don’t imitate them
those who are into the gluttony of consumption
those who put their faith in riches, or power or success,
those whose minds are set on earthly things.
Gandhi once remarked, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians.
Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
Even within the church
some of us may find ourselves agreeing with this statement
because human beings so often disappoint us.
When someone points to the mishaps of a professed Christian
as a reason not to embrace the faith,
we may encourage him to look at Jesus instead.
But in our text,
Paul calls his audience to look at people and to imitate them.
Paul’s audience is to imitate him or,
if he is not present, to imitate those who follow his example.
Because in imitating me, Paul taught, you are imitating Christ.
That is how you stand firm in your faith.
Paul would say you don’t come to faith and then learn to imitate.
You imitate and that brings you to faith.
In marriage counseling there is a technique recommended for restoring love
in a troubled relationship.
Imagine a person in love and imitate that person.
Act as though you are madly in love with your partner
and by maintaining that behavior,
the love is likely to grow.
By imitating a person in love,
we learn to love.
By imitating a person of faith,
we learn faith.
By imitating a follower of Christ
we learn to be like Christ.
Paul goes on in his letter to the Philippians
claiming, our citizenship is in heaven.
When Paul uses the language of citizenship,
he does so from a cultural perspective very different from ours.
One of his primary goals for using this language was that of empowerment.
We know this because most of Paul’s audience would not have been citizens.
In the Roman Republic, and later the Roman Empire,
citizenship was a privilege of the few.
So for Paul to claim that these followers of Jesus
were citizens of heaven
was an empowering reality.
Citizenship is about rights and privileges.
But is also about where our heart is…
where our allegiances lie…
our devotion and our obedience.
If our citizenship is in heaven, we will be transformed.
Our friend Jay
is always amazed when he is out in public with us
and Jack identifies some person we encounter as an Ethiopian.
Jack tests his identification by offering a greeting in Amharic-
the language of Ethiopia,
and is immediately engaged in conversation.
He can recognize them by sight.
When we travel we like to guess the citizenship of other travels we encounter.
There are some who are identified by distinctive dress,
or the style of footwear,
or even their eyeglasses.
Sometimes we can recognize a language
or pick up an attitude that serves as a clue to their origins.
So when we are out in public-
does anyone recognize us as citizens of heaven?
Is there anything distinctive about us?
Anything that gives our identity away?
If you see a person and say to yourself-
that is without a doubt a citizen of heaven
and that is a person I want to imitate
what is it you see?
What qualities do you observe?
What do you identify that sets them apart?
What do we receive when we imitate a faithful follower of Christ?
What is in it for us?
The citizenship in heaven that Paul describes is in the here and now
this is not a heaven we wait to enter when we die.
This is a place we live now, today.
What do we receive when we gain our citizenship in heaven?
Being a citizen of heaven
is about doing the work of God
in the midst of a world that can often resemble hell.
Citizens of heaven are to be known by the distinctiveness of our work and nature.
Citizens of heaven are folks who know that faithfulness to God trumps;
the laws of economics,
the claims of culture,
and even challenges the claims of national security.
Being a citizen of heaven means that God’s welcome to us
means we are invited to be full members of the community.
So, in a city, and a country that seems so deeply divided,
let us not succumb to the ways of division
nor allow ourselves to be seduced by the claims of lesser citizenships or consumptions.
Instead let us live out our identity
as citizens of heaven
to the glory of God alone.
Amen.