Readings: Exodus 22.2-26 / Psalm 17.2-3a, 3bd-4, 47, 51ab (R/v 2) / 1 Thessalonians 1.5c-10 / Matthew 22.34-40
My nephew Glenn looks forward to Halloween each year. He gets to dress up as part of the celebrations. He has worn Spiderman, Batman and pirate costumes. When I 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 hasn’t tried to emulate the selfless self-giving of Mother Teresa as we reached out to the needy? Or, want to have Pope Francis’ open-hearted compassion to say “Who am I to judge?” liked he did to our children, siblings and friends who are gay or divorced or remarried, even as we struggle to understand, forgive, love, accept, welcome them? 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 infirmed or ill they are? Don’t we also want to be like these good Christian men and women when we grow older?
To be like them; this is what imitation is about.
Imitation is important for Christian living. This is the message our second reading makes. Paul praises the Christians in Thessalonica for the quality of their Christian life that announces to all 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 these Christians because their own lives and ministry are first and foremost an imitation of Jesus’ life and ministry.
The grace of imitating Jesus is that one becomes more like him. This happens when we imitate those who imitate Jesus. In the process, we come to resemble Jesus. This is what the Christian calling is about: that we become more like Jesus in whom we see God’s image. It should not surprise us 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.
Today, 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. We should receive it with joy in the Spirit. Why joy? Because joy humbles us to thank God for God’s generosity to give us Jesus, God’s Word. This is how God enlivens us to share the Good News: this is better done in action than in words. In fact, this is how Jesus on earth lived in God, proclaimed God in his life and ministry and served God by incarnating God’s love in our midst.
But aren’t we trying to live the Christ-like life, already and as best as we can? Don’t we come to Mass weekly to thank God and 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 know we all do these, and we want to do these better. I believe that we can when we imitate the many good Christian role models in our life and among the saints. Their examples inspire us to imitate them so that we can love others like them even more. Indeed who and what we choose to imitate will make all the difference to how we live the 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. One is the way of “Being Correct”. The other is the way of “Living with Love”. At every moment, we have to choose between them.
If we choose “Being Correct”, then we agree to live by the following dictums: “Do the right thing,” “Follow the teachings,” and “Observe the rules”. Many people live their Christian lives in these ways. They are all about being correct. Being the correct Christian. Living the correct Christian life. Knowing the correct Christian relationship with God and neighbour. Many Christians want to imitate this way of Being Correct. Their mantra in life is “Be good, do the correct thing and you’ll go to heaven.” But if the only way we live is by Being Correct, just correct always, then we end up fixated on ticking off all the boxes on the Do and Don’t list just to be correct with God so that going to heaven is our reward.
The way of “Living with Love’, on the other hand, involves imitating with the heart. The one whose heart we should pray to imitate and have is Jesus. His heart is totally for God and neighbour. Jesus’ heart has so much love for God and neighbour that while he was on earth, he was prepared to break rules so that he can love another better, to surrender power so that he can love totally, and to humble himself by taking a “lower” position in order to love selflessly. His life and ministry were about receiving God’s love and life only to give it all away. Jesus could do this because he prepared his heart to be vulnerable for another, to enter into relationship with all, to value the wonder of another’s good and to be completely self-giving to all.
Do we want to a heart like the heart of Jesus ? Dare we imitate Jesus?
As Christians, we imitate best by imitating Jesus. He shows us the way to be in love with God and stay in love for others. 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 imitation. The way of “Being Correct” makes no sense without the way of “Living with Love”.
Living with love so as to be correct is Jesus’ way of living for God and loving others. This is how Jesus wants you and me to imitate him. This is how we are to live especially with others and always love them in every circumstance. He is asking all of us to shepherd each other, as he shepherds us.
We can only do this when we imitate Jesus’ big-heartedness to love and to live in love everyday for God and with neighbour. Then, we will be able to reach out, welcome, embrace and uplift those who have disappointed or hurt us, those we fear, those we hate, those we are trying to love—like our gay, divorced and remarried sisters and brothers. They too are God’s beloved, just like we are. Imitating Jesus helps everyone to get to heaven.
You and I have a choice about how we want to live our Christian life: either by “Being Correct” for the sake of being correct or “Living with Love” for the sake of Jesus’ call to love. We can either be correct or be in love, either keep a rule that hurts and damage someone else or break a rule to care and give life. We can either choose to be correct to impress God or live with love trusting in God’s mercy, and either be obedient but unforgiving or be forgiving and mercifully just. We can either live anxiously to get everything correct in order to go to heaven or live confidently in God’s love and led God’s Spirit lead us onward to eternal life. The choice is ours.
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. Jesus’ love must be garment we should cloak ourselves in. Cloak ourselves in so as to imitate him more faithfully, more closely. Jesus’ cloak is meant for us to don all the days of our lives.
Let us wear Jesus’ cloak of love so that we can truly imitate him, and hence, practice the way of “Living with Love”, even when we have to correct others. Then, others seeing us live like this may say this of us: “See how they love one another like Jesus loves them; yes, they must surely be Christians”.
Preached at St Ignatius Church and the Church of the Transfiguration, Singapore
photo: www.bairddigest.com
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