Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
August 10, 2003

Scripture:

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Sometimes when I read certain verses in Scripture my principal reaction is: "You’ve got to be kidding!" Now, there are lots of things in Scripture that can evoke that response in me. Sometimes what the passage says seems just plain wrong, as when Paul in 1 Corinthians tells women to be silent in church. This passage really is kidding, by which I mean that it expresses ancient cultural prejudices and not the word and will of God. Other times, though, what provokes the "you’ve got to be kidding" reaction isn’t that what the passage says seems so wrong but that it seems so impossible. I think of Matthew 5:48, for example, that, in the NRSV translation at least, has Jesus saying: "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." Perfect? You’ve got to be kidding! I may not exactly suffer from a lack of self-confidence most of the time, but I sure know I’m not perfect, and there’s no way I ever could be.

One of the lines from this morning’s lesson from Ephesians is like that. "Be imitators of God," it says. Say what?! You’ve got to be kidding! How can a mere mortal like me, with all of my weaknesses, all of my faults, all of my sinfulness imitate God? God is God, and I am not; which means, among other things, that God ultimately transcends all of the limitations of my finite humanity. One of the existential realities of human life is that there is a profound gulf between God and the likes of me. Imitate God? You’ve got to be kidding!

Yet that’s what it says, and I don’t think it’s expressing an ancient cultural prejudice like the anti-women passages found in some of the Pauline and pseudo-Pauline letters. I think it is trying to express divine truth. So what do we make of it? How can we understand this injunction in a way that may be helpful to us?

Well, notice that the author of this letter attributed to Paul (but probably not written by him) says: "Be imitators of God...and live in love as Christ loved us...." Does he mean to give us two different instructions here, as in: Be imitators of God, and in addition to that live in love as Christ loved us? The "and" could certainly mean that, at least grammatically; but it doesn’t have to mean that, and I don’t think it does. Think of it this way: By his statement "and live in love as Christ loved us...," the author is telling us how we are to do that impossible thing, how to imitate God. The passage means, I think: Be imitators of God, that is, live in love as Christ loved us." It is by living in love as Christ loved us that we imitate God.

And so if we want to take seriously this passage’s directive to be imitators of God we must try to be imitators of Christ. But what exactly does that mean? Ephesians points to one thing that it can mean. Using "and" again, the author states that Christ "gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." In other words, Christ loved us by dying for us. True enough, although as we’ve discussed before exactly what that means is not an easy question; and yet that isn’t the only thing living in love as Christ loved us can mean. Christ loved us in more ways than by dying for us. Jesus’ death on the cross demonstrated in one way what God’s love for us looks like, but during his life he demonstrated what God’s love looks like in other ways as well. Primarily he did that by bringing the Good News of God’s love for all people to all of those people whom the religious establishment of his day called sinners.

The Jewish religious establishment of Jesus’ day equated being a sinner with being unclean or impure as those terms were defined primarily by the purity code of the book of Leviticus. Thus, people were considered sinners not necessarily because of morally bad acts they had committed but simply because of who they were, or because of things they did or did not do out of necessity because of the oppressive economic conditions in which almost everyone in that world lived. Thus, essentially all poor people were sinners because they couldn’t afford to do all the things the purity code required them to do. People engaged in certain occupations, even very useful and necessary occupations like shepherds, were automatically unclean and therefore automatically sinners. People with certain diseases, such as skin diseases or mental illness, were unclean and therefore automatically sinners. Now, we don’t think any of these things make people sinners. These people for the most part didn’t choose the things that made them sinners in the eyes of the religious establishment. Those things were just part of who they were either in their physical makeup or because of the station in life into which they were born. Yet the religious establishment of their day called them sinners nonetheless.

And Jesus came to them as the living expression of God’s love and said: The Temple authorities are wrong. Those things that they say make you sinners don’t make you sinners. God does not reject you as they claim. God accepts you. God loves you and calls you blessed. You don’t have to stop being who you are to live within the embrace of God’s love.

That’s what it means to live in love as Christ loved us. It means really living the truth that there are no limits to God’s love. It means really living the divine reality that we are all God’s beloved children and that nothing about our humanity or our circumstances in life can change that fact. If we would really live those truths, we would be imitating Christ and therefore imitating God to the best of our limited human ability.

And ever since Jesus preached that Gospel nearly two thousand years ago, the church has been trying to change it, to restrict the circle of God’s love to fit human prejudices. The issue around which many in the churches are most trying to change the Gospel today, or rather trying are to hold on to an existing limitation on God’s love, is the acceptance of gay and lesbian people as fully equal children of God and members of the church with full participation in all of the ministries of the church, including ordained ministry. Very prominent in the news this last week was the election of The Rev. V. Gene Robinson as Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire. Rev. Robinson is openly gay, and a substantial portion of the Episcopal church just can’t deal with that fact. Some of Rev. Robinson’s opponents even resorted to slander in a desperate, last-minute attempt to block his election.

Their reaction to the church’s acceptance of the full equality of gay and lesbian people is well summed up by this tongue in cheek commentary by Dave Ross, the morning talk show host on KIRO radio and a CBS News commentator. Noting, and accepting, Rev. Robinson’s belief that his call to serve as bishop comes from God, Ross (who is a practicing Catholic) said:

The Big Guy is out of control! He is deliberately calling gay men to the ministry. Maybe He thinks it still means "happy"-but whatever the case, there’s only one thing left to do.

For eons, we here on earth have looked to HEAVEN for advice. Well, with all due respect, maybe its time that Heaven got at little EARTHLY advice. ...

We need to let The Big Guy know that he’s GOT to be a little more selective about who He calls.

Shepherds, tax collectors, other people not on the "A" list-that was fine back THEN. But face it-the early church would NEVER have gotten liability insurance with a hiring policy like that....

I guess that’s the trouble when you’re almighty. You tend to get a little arrogant.

Don’t worry Lord-our religious institutions are ready to set You straight.

Mercifully, the Episcopal Church this week decided that God knew best and did not try to set God straight (pun intended).

Thus it has ever been. God’s love knows no limits. That’s how Christ loved and loves us, without limits, and we often have trouble dealing with it. We keep trying to re-impose the limits that we’re comfortable with; but imposing limits on God’s love is not imitating Christ, it is not being imitators of God. And we are truly called to be imitators of God. That means that we are called to open our doors and our hearts to all those people, like gay and lesbian people, whom the church has historically rejected, calling them sinners because of something they did not choose and could not change if they wanted to. They are today’s equivalent of those so-called sinners so long ago to whom Jesus came with the divine word of God’s love and acceptance. Our mission statement says we "welcome" them. Do we? Are we truly ready to imitate Christ?