Today's Epistle reading comes from Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians (1031-11:1):
So, whether you eat
or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God. Give no
offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please
everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, so
that they may be saved.
Be imitators of me,
as I am of Christ.
That last line gets me going a little bit. Paul
tells those reading this letter that the way to be like Christ is to be like
him. Wow! Isn’t that presumptuous. Of course, typically when we have such a
reaction to some negative trait in someone else, that typically means that we
possess that same characteristic somewhere within ourselves. Put simply, if you
spot it, you got it. Even if this is true, and I am presumptuous, isn’t it a
bold statement for Paul to say, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”?
Well, it might seem easy to sit back and criticize
Paul for being a bit full of himself from our perspective, but honestly, as we
have been reading 1 Corinthians in the Rector’s Bible Study with Evan, I have
found myself liking and respecting Paul more and more. At the time the people
in the church of Corinth were WILD! They were having affairs with their step
mothers, they were having separate celebrations of the Eucharist, which negates
even having COMMUNION in the first place, and they were getting drunk and going
to church. At this point in his letter, he is summing up a major point he has
been making, namely, “whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God” AND “Give
no offense” to others, “so that may be saved.”
Honestly, this recaps what Paul is trying to pass
on to the Corinthians. Do everything for the glory of God and do nothing that
offends others causing them to stumble on the path toward God. He has been
addressing various concerns throughout his letter: Don’t eat food sacrificed to
idols. You may know that there really are no other gods, but someone else might
stumble because of what you do. Don’t drink heavily before coming to church,
sure you may be able to handle your wine, but others will get the wrong
impression. Don’t start communion without others, this defeats the whole
purpose of coming together. In each of these examples we might get caught up in
Paul saying “don’t,” but truthfully it is not about his prohibition on certain
actions, rather it is about the intention Paul has behind these actions.
Contained within Paul's example is his intention to imitate Christ. We have different issues within our community than the
people of Corinth. Still we seek examples of how we might be imitators of
Christ. Even thinking of this is a bit intimidating. How will we ever imitate
Christ? When I started to think, “How do we imitate Christ?” I looked at the
word imitate and found myself thinking of a connected word: image. We are made in
the image of God. This is good news. We are formed through Christ in God’s image.
Still it is helpful for us to find clear examples of how to become vibrant
images of Christ.
We have the white altar hanging set up just like
last week when we celebrated the example of Thomas A Kempis. Again we are celebrating
another of “God’s All-Stars” who lived his life in such a way that the Gospel
was made clearer. Today we remember Ignatius of Loyola. Ignatius was born into
a noble Basque family in Spain and fought as a knight seeking worldly glory.
When injured during the Battle of Pamplona in 1521, he was forced to recover and during this time he had a conversion experience that shifted the trajectory
of his life to aim straight towards God.
He went on retreat and discerned a call to
ordained ministry, so he moved to Paris where he studied. There he met others who together founded the Society of Jesus, now known as the Jesuits. For
the rest of his life, Ignatius lived in immense poverty, often praying seven
hours a day in a cave. His book Spiritual
Exercises has provided a spiritual framework for many to find God in their
everyday life. It can be difficult to look at the life of someone who turned away
from the comfort of their noble birth to live in poverty praying half of their waking hours. Even to someone who spent the last three years praying the daily office that seems unrealistic.
Our call though is to be imitators of Christ. This is not easy work. Perhaps we imitate Christ like Paul did, by encouraging others who were just
starting off on their Christian journey. Maybe we are like Ignatius and we use
our wealth to empower the weak. Or, perhaps we find the example of another person
in our lives to be the best way to imitate Christ. We are made as Children of God, but we are challenged to open up to how God is making us more Christ-like. How will we be imitators of
Christ?
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