Philippians 3:17 - 4:1
Lent 2 - Year C
To be mature is to assess situations with a greater number of experiences and evaluative tools. Younger folks are limited in both and tend to be shaped by their circumstance rather than to anticipate choices needed to be made and to make difficult choices regarding the long-run.
Holding fast to what is true to this point does bring a better experiential base than the last time around, but holding fast also locks us in to building today's defense on yesterday’s war. Maginot lines and nuclear weapons simply do not work any more – each was surprised and surpassed by subsequent tactics of speed and non-state attacks.
A clear-eyed analysis is perennially needed. This is the role of a prophet, not of a founder of an institution setting up ritualistic imitations of the past.
It is important to take seriously where folks are oriented. Abram and Jesus are quite grounded in the end game of space and time—Abram with descendants; Jesus with the children (sisters and brothers) of his day. Paul, on the other hand, has us gazing on heaven which will resend Jesus to us rather than on earth and carrying on the Jesus who had already been sent. If earth is to be as heaven, we need to focus on earth and needed changes here.
So if there were one significant issue for you to strengthen the protection of a threatened part of creation, where would you put your time and energy? It really doesn’t make any difference what your significant issue is as we need folks engaging all of them. Is it around discrimination of a human identity characteristic such as sexual orientation? Is it around common welfare of a labor matter such as a living wage? Is it focused on the environment and monopolized abundance? Is it around a matter for a next generation or a current one? Is it related to spirit and health? Whatever matter you have been gifted with to constructively engage, do it with good prophetic energy. When you are engaged in your arena and others are engaged in theirs, blessings will flow in quite wonderful and unexpected ways. In one way and another the impossibles of being past child-bearing time and even death will find a surprising resolution of birth and rebirth. If there is no significant issue, you have taken your eye off the importance of now and substituted some pie in the sky, by and by.
So be on your way. Do not give heaven or jail a second thought. Do not collect $200. Simply be on your way with your gifts to the part of the common good that is a gift to you. When these gifts join, amazing life burgeons from generation to generation.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2013/02/philippians-314-41.html
What we read as "join in imitating me" might also be read from the Greek as "Become co-imitators with me of Christ." (NISB)
This reads much better in terms of the Body of Christ in its many parts. Co-imitators would have us each operating in our arena without having to do the same and say the same. For instance, the foot could imitate what Jesus would do, walking along with folks while the hand could imitate what Jesus would do, healing through touch. Both are needed.
The tricky part for us is when the hand tries to direct the foot to go certain places or the foot doesn't factor in a stop for the hand to reach deep into another's life.
Being co-imitators of Christ is like being a co-creator with G*D. These partnerships are crucial for our own transformation and that of the world. May brother eye and sister ear help uncle foot and aunt hand comprehend a call to move and reach, and to pause and touch.
In our journey to the imitation of Christ it is important to expand that into being part of a larger co-imitation process.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/march2004.html
The cross of Christ comes in a variety of designer colors. It is one of those Rorschach tests that tells us more about ourselves than it does about the object viewed.
For the moment consider it as a symbol or metaphor for the whole process of life and death and more life. In that sense it is a synecdoche or metonymy (since I have a hard time distinguishing the two, I note them both).
So often we literalize the cross as though that were the end-all and be-all of the story. You may want to think about why Paul talks so much about cross when his experience is that of the risen Christ. Beyond that you may want to think about why readers of Paul pick up on the details rather than the sweep of his commentary.
Here it may be better to pick up on the transformation mentioned in verse 21 rather than get caught in the no-win conversation about the passion of the christ. What needs transformation in your life, the life of your congregation, and the life of the world? Let's be about that and leave the enemies as enemies as long as they need, knowing that they too will be transformed (we just never know when the sit-ins and marriages of same gender folk will reach the critical mass to transform our culture or when our enemies will finally wake to new life).
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/march2004.html
"Join in imitating me" imitating Christ, is one way to put it. Another way of translating would have it, "Become co-imitators with me of Christ." More to the point is The Message, "Stick with me, friends." This reminds us of the communal nature of heaven and Jesus in a clearer fashion than the mechanistic imitation language.
Of specific interest is the language of transformation. Paul talks of being an example. The Greek suggests an example is something that has been struck as a figure formed by a blow or impression. Remembering Paul's being struck by light on a road to Damascus and the talk of suffering and humiliation being changed into glory, there may be an appeal here for each of us to honor our own transformational moments. This is our similarity - we are imitating the belovedness of Jesus.
This is far different than some assent of belief couched in a specific set of words or actions. It is this transformation of being struck by an assurance of being beloved that turns an enemy of Christ into a friend. How are you doing at imitating this internal reality that will be unique to you and yet held in common by all?
- - -
cheap imitations
of grace, of art
are cheap through and through
core-deep imitations
of glory, of friendship
are integral to integrity
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html
"Our citizenship is in heaven."
"Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven."
Earth/Heaven, go ahead, try to distinguish them. Each time we think we have a defining characteristic that sets one apart from the other we are surprised at how often G*D needs to repent and the least of us comes to be where they can not only "live as if", but actually do so and further reveal G*D.
Both Earth and Heaven are transformational images. Transformation goes beyond glory, power, and subjugation. Transformation goes to the heart of the matter - loving and longing for another. In this we find ourselves standing firm and standing together - G*D, Neighbor, Self, One Another, and Enemies.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/02/philippians-317-41.html