19CC11 Lent 2 March 17, 2019

A Good Following

Luke 5:27-33; Philippians 3:17-4:1

Philippians 3:17 Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me … ______

Somewhat unusually, I had my sermon ready on Thursday. Friday came with the news of the hate-filled, sickening atrocity in Christchurch, New Zealand. And with it, further proof, as if we needed it, of the universal reality of original sin. Original sin revealed….

 in the hatred that can kill innocent lives;  in the lies that can live off paranoid fantasies and demonize people at their worship.  and in the way it can infect even human achievements and use them for evil.

This murderer used the internet to feed his fantasies and to draw other followers into his darkness. It’s undoubtedly the worst, but by no means the only, recent example of the internet used maliciously. Original sin corrupts everything.

I begin in this way because I’d wanted to speak about the beneficial advantages of our digital world and use them to explore our faith. Here’s what I had prepared.

______

Did you see that lovely news item out of Missouri City Tx., last week?

A donut store opened for business. A new venture; excited planning; high hopes; on Saturday the Grand Opening! And no one turned up—well, almost no one.

Saturday afternoon, the owner’s son tweeted photos of his dad's empty donut shop, Billy's Donuts, writing, "My dad is sad ‘cause no one is coming to his new donut shop [crying face]." Page 1

By a process I can’t begin to explain, the tweet quickly went viral, and has since been retweeted more than a quarter of a million times and liked more than half a million times. More than 72,000 people also started following the doughnut shop's Instagram page.

The next day, the son posted a follow-up:

19CC11 Lent 2 March 17, 2019

"Just wanted to update y'all! We completely sold out of donuts and kolaches! You are all amazing. I can't thank everyone enough for coming out and supporting local businesses. This means too much to my family,"1

72,000 followers on ! Well, Twitter’s big!

 Founded in 2006, by last year it was the twelfth most visited website in the world.  Its global user base in 2017 was 328 million from around 45 different countries.

Twitter users include our President and his predecessor, and lots of politicians, Queen Elizabeth in Britain, the Pope and his predecessor and 20 RC cardinals, and almost everyone else in the world except me—despite the fact that Rick Warren once said that Twitter was his most valuable ministry tool.

The Twitter website proclaims “It’s what’s happening,” and even though it’s been involved in recent internet controversies, it’s incredibly popular.

Twitter users establish an account and then collect followers. In January of this year, the top ten users included 7 entertainers, 1 politician, 1 soccer player (real football!) and YouTube. Katy Perry tops the list with 107 million followers.

 107 million people want to know “what’s happening” in Katy Perry’s life?!  72,000 followers for Billy’s Donuts in Missouri City. Imagine the chaos if they all showed up at once! Well, they can’t because the town’s population is only 67,000, so the question arises, What kind of following is that?

‘Follow’ of course, is an important word in Christian discourse. But it’s a different following— more consequential. “Follow me,” said and Andrew and Peter, James and John and later, as we read today Levi, took up the opportunity and their lives changed.

Luke tells us that Levi “left everything and followed him.” Then, since he didn’t have a Twitter account back then, he did the only thing he could to announce his change, he called friends and associates and threw a farewell party. Everyone knew he had changed, as his subsequent life would demonstrate. Page 2

Following Jesus is one thing, but how did you react to Paul’s words, “Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me and observe those who live according to the example you have in us.”2 Imitate me, Paul tells them! Wow! Who does he think he is? What’s more, he goes on in chapter 4 to urge: “Whatever you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, do.”3

1 https://www.thisisinsider.com/billys-donuts-viral-tweets-help-missouri-city-texas-business-2019- 3?utm_medium=40digest.intl.251.4.rank&utm_source=email&utm_content=&utm_campaign=campaign 2 Philippians 3:17.

19CC11 Lent 2 March 17, 2019

But wait, there’s more! There are other places where Paul says the same thing:  “ … be imitators of me.” 1 Cor.4:16  “I wish that all were as I myself am.” 1 Cor.7:9 (although it’s his marital status in view there.)  “Be imitators of, me just as I am of Christ.” 1 Cor.11:1  “I plead with you, brothers and sisters, become like me …” Gal.4:12

Wow! Who does he think he is? To answer that question, it’s important to remember the context in which something is said; that can make a difference to the meaning of the words: “Oh, shut up!” can be words of angry silencing or jocular agreement. With Paul, the context matters.

In all these cases Paul is writing to churches he’d founded. Some of them had been in existence for only a few weeks before opposition forced Paul out of town, leaving an infant congregation with little leadership, and minimal resources with which to sustain themselves, and on which to base their Christian life and witness. They had no New Testament, yet! That was years away. So when Paul wants Christians not to be conformed to the patterns of the world but transformed by the renewing of their minds4, he offers them the closest resource on hand: “Here, let me show you,” he said. “Follow me.”

Which raises an important point: the Christian life is not only different from the world, it should be seen to be different. People should be able to look at us and think, “They’re not like us; what makes them tick?” That’s a great evangelistic opportunity waiting to be used. Remember 1 Peter: “Always be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.”5

Notice, he writes “… an answer to everyone who asks …” not “…an answer if anyone asks …” Peter expected the faith distinctive to stand out, to be intriguing, inviting questions and conversations that might just, by grace, lead to conversions!

Jim Wallis now leads the Sojourners community in Washington, an evangelical Christian community devoted to issues. He makes a compelling point: Page 3 When I was a university student, I was unsuccessfully evangelized by almost every Christian group on campus. My response to their preaching was, ‘How can I believe when I look at the way the church lives?’ They answered, ‘Don’t look at the church—look at Jesus.’

3 Phil4:9. 4 Romans 12:1,2. 5 1 Peter 3:16, NIV offers a more down to earth translation than NRSV here!

19CC11 Lent 2 March 17, 2019

I now believe that statement to be one of the saddest in the history of the church….Such thinking is a denial of what is most basic to the : incarnation. People should be able to look at the way we live and begin to understand what the gospel is all about. Our lives must tell them who Jesus is and what he cares about.6

No exceptions! No excuses! And we have no excuse—look at the resources we enjoy. We have the scriptures—in a wide range of modern translations that aid understanding, and then all the electronic resources that are at our fingertips! Can you imagine what Paul would have done if he’d had Twitter and Google?

Think of Paul’s work. Scholars disagree on the precise figure, but Paul quotes the Old Testament somewhere between 130 and 180 times in his letters7, an astonishing statistic, given the scarcity of books in the ancient world and the hectic pace by which he lived! The digital resources we enjoy mean we’re privileged by comparison and we benefit in many ways from using them.

Our daughter is preaching today in a little church that’s presently without a pastor. Their organist of almost 60 years died last week; his funeral was yesterday. Gill needs to allude to his passing in her sermon. So she asked us for help with some stories to illustrate the line she’s going to take.

I fired off a couple by email (another advantage we have over Paul) and then Joan reminded me of a couple of other stories she’d heard me use, that were actually better than the ones I’d sent— far better. My computer helped me search my files and then the internet helped me get all the details accurately.

Again, what would Paul have done with resources like that? Now, of course, he has some resources: he did not work alone. He had colleagues and fellow workers: he was always leader of a team of Christians. James Dunn reckons Paul had 8 or 9 close or very close associates, 14 others he calls ‘co-workers’ and around 30 others who contributed to his ministry in some way: “it was always a team mission.” 8

In fact, our text makes that very point. “Join in imitating me” is, literally, “be fellow-imitators of me…” a word that no one else in the New Testament used. The authoritative lexicon of Page 4 ancient Greek lists no other usage of the word—perhaps Paul himself invented it, to acknowledge a powerful Christian resource: the fellowship of faith we are given in Christ.

Just as Joan resourced my reply to Gill with stories for her sermon, equally participants in group Bible studies find their understanding enhanced by the questions, comments and insights of

6 Jim Wallis Call to Conversion. London: Lion Publishing, 1981, 99. 7 The different numbers are determined by whether Paul was quoting or merely alluding to an OT reference. “The Old Testament in Paul ” https://bible.org/article/old-testament-paul 8 James D G Dunn, Beginning From Jerusalem: Christianity in the Making, vol.2. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009, 571.

19CC11 Lent 2 March 17, 2019

other members. Our faith, too, can be a team event. And that team was a model of diversity: nationally, ethnically, religiously diverse. No fear of the stranger there!

And don’t be too nice to disagree with one another. I love the story of the small group where one man was always negative. He had problems with the text, couldn’t understand this, wouldn’t accept that. One member finally said she was tired hearing what he didn’t believe, what did he believe? A provocative comment, but one that produced results! A few weeks later, the man’s wife told the group leader, “I don’t know what you do in your bible study, but keep it up. My husband’s a changed man. The bible is to change us! Jesus wants to change us! Together!

Our faith is not a solo run; it’s a team mission. And of course, the Holy Spirit lives and works in us, through us, (both the writing and the reading of scripture), in us and beyond us: that’s implicit in all of this. It was the Spirit who inspired Paul to write the words one of our small groups looked at in 1 Thessalonians:

Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.9

Our world needs Christ, perhaps as never before: needs Christ in his love for all the world—

 Love to defuse the anger that makes lonely, isolated people feel threatened by the stranger;  Love to disinfect the violence which unresolved anger births;  Love to heal the broken-hearted and comfort the grieving;  Love that grows goodness in our hearts and creates humility, to listen with respect to those of other faiths. How else can we show them Christ?  Love to show that Jesus is the heart of God among us, and the truth, the only truth, that gives our world its meaning and its hope.

Just like Twitter, our lives can show “It’s what’s happening” as we follow Paul and, like Paul, Jesus.

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9 1 Thessalonians 5:11.