Homily: Loving Imitation

Year A / Ordinary Time / Week 30 / Sunday

Readings: Exodus 22.2-26 / Psalm 18 (R/v 2) / 1 Thessalonians 1.5c-10 / Matthew 22.34-40

Every Halloween I look forward to seeing what my nephew Glenn would dress himself up in. He has worn Spiderman, Batman and pirate costumes. When I’ve asked him about his costume choices, his replies go something like this: “I want to be like them!”

“I want to be like them.” Don’t we sometimes say or think like this when we look at the saints or at saintly Christians we admire? Who amongst us here hasn’t wanted to emulate the selfless self-giving of a Mother Teresa when we reached out to the needy? Who amongst us here is not challenged by Pope Francis’ open-hearted compassion to want to say like him “Who am I to judge?” to gay or divorced or remarried men and women—among them our friends, our siblings, our children—whom we may have discriminated against, gossiped about or even written-off because we—not God—have adjudicated them to be less Christian? And who amongst us here is not inspired by the steadfast faithfulness of our elderly parishioners who come, rain or shine, to pray and worship in our church no matter how difficult it is to walk to church, to climb the stairs or to kneel during mass? Don’t we want to be like these good Christian men and women in some way?

To be like them; this is what imitation is about. 

The goodness of imitation for Christian living is a theme in our second reading. Paul praises the Thessalonians for their good Christian lives that model to other believers God’s salvation in Jesus. They are able to do this, Paul points out, because they imitate him and his collaborators who preach Jesus, God’s Good News. But Paul and his companions can only inspire and enliven the Thessalonians to imitate their Christian living because their lives and ministry are first and foremost an imitation of Jesus’ life and ministry. 

The grace of imitating those who live good Christian lives is Christ-like transformation. That is, by imitating them imitating Jesus, one takes on a resemblance to Jesus. This is what the Christian calling is about: that we become more like Jesus in whom we see God’s image. This is why we shouldn’t be surprised that the ultimate hope of Christian imitation is to share in the family resemblance that Jesus has with the Father: “to see me is to see the Father,” Jesus says. Hence, to resemble Jesus is to resemble God. 

Paul suggests two ways to imitate Jesus so as to resemble God: by receiving and by sharing. He reminds the Thessalonians—and us—that living a Christ-like life begins by receiving God’s word with joy in the Spirit and it flourishes when we share this life generously with others. Joy humbles us to thank to God and generosity enlivens us to announce the Good News; these are Jesus’ way of serving the living and true God in life and ministry.

But aren’t you and I already trying to live the Christ-like life, as best as we can? Don’t we come to Mass weekly to thank God and we pray daily for God’s daily bread? And don’t we share the cash, the kind, the time we have with all in community, especially the poor? I suspect we do this, and we try to do it better when we don’t, because the good Christian role models we encounter keep on encouraging us to imitate them and to live our faith better. 

So, why should we bother about Christian imitation this morning? Because what we choose to imitate will make all the difference in our Christian life. 

We have one Lord; we profess one faith; and we share one baptism. Yet, for so many of us we see two ways to interpret religion, two ways to live it. At every moment, each one of us, however religious we are, is choosing between them. One is the way of Being Correct. The other is the way of Being in Love.

The way of Being Correct involves imitating by action. That is, we ought to do that something that makes us Christian. Often, this is phrased as “Do the right thing,” “Follow the teachings,” “Observe the rules.” This imitation is rooted in, motivated by and conformed to this way of thinking about faith that we often hear in Catechism classes, in homilies and recently by some rigorists at the Synod on the Family: “Be good, do the correct thing and you’ll go to heaven.” Doesn’t this sound like the way the Israelites are to live holy lives in our first reading: “you shall not do this but you shall do that”? 

The Way of Being in Love, on the other hand, involves imitating with the heart. That is, we ought to be like that someone who makes us more Christian. This is imitation is based on the person of Jesus and on his love for God and neighbor. Jesus is pure love, intimately present as well as transcendent, always willing to break rules that do not lead us to God, to lose, to surrender power and to take a “lower” position in order to love. His life and ministry was to give and receive love, and his practice required vulnerability, relationship, wonder, and self-giving. 

Through him, we experience God’s overflowing love for us, and in our response to this, we fall in love with God and grow to be more like God. As Christians, we don’t imitate just by doing; we imitate by being like Jesus in love with God and by being in love for others like Jesus. 

Love is God’s greatest law; it is the greatest value, the greatest practice and the greatest result we find in Jesus. Jesus teaches this truth of love in today’s gospel story. Love must be the source, the reason and the goal of imitating by action. The way of Being Correct makes no sense without the way of Being in Love. 

Being in Love so as to Be Correct is the kind of imitation of Jesus that Pope Francis invited the Synod on the Family to live. He called the bishops, the laity and the experts at the Synod to speak openly about God’s loving response to the family—especially to the family of all Christians, regardless of saintliness. He challenged them to listen to God’s love attentively in their conversation and discernment. And he encouraged them to express God’s love as honestly as God would do to one and all, no matter our degree of holiness. This is the kind of imitation Francis is challenging the Synod—and us—to embrace pastorally (not just doctrinally) so that the truth of God’s mercy will be life for one and all, without reservation or hesitation. 

Today Jesus calls you and me to imitate this same kind of love, his love for God and neighbor always and in every circumstance. He is asking us to be pastors of each other’s lives and souls. We can only do this when we make the way of Being in Love our imitation of his heart of love. Then, what will spring forth from our lives and ministry to each and everyone, and especially, to our gay, divorced and remarried sisters and brothers, will truly be welcome, fellowship, non-violence, forgiveness, generosity, and justice. Such imitation is the way of heaven. 

Sooner or later God will ask you and I will have to choose one way over another as the basis of living our Christian life: either to be correct or to be in love, to keep a rule that protects or to break a rule to care, to impress God or to trust God, to be obedient but unforgiving or to be forgiving and just, to be restricted and or to be free, to be anxious or to be happy, to be ruled-bound or to be Spirit-led.

Halloween is a few days away. I’m eager to see what costume Glenn will don this year. Whatever it might be, I am praying for him, as I am for us, that what we will always dress ourselves up in the love of Jesus. Yes, let us let Jesus’ love be the garment we cloak ourselves in. Then, as we imitate Jesus more faithfully, we might hear others say of us, “Yes, we know they are Christians: see how they love one another like Jesus loves God and loves them.”

with insights from Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Preached at St Ignatius Church, Singapore

photo: from Internet (gde-fon.com)