A homily for the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 8, 2021
1 Kgs 19:4-8, Eph 4:30—5:2, Jn 6:41-51
My dad owned a few copies of “The Imitation of Christ,” by Thomas à Kempis, a guide to living in the footsteps of Jesus that, according to Wikipedia, was composed in Medieval Latin circa 1418–1427. That’s way back there.
I first noticed a copy prominently displayed on the bookcase in our living room about 530 years after its publication, when I had learned to read chapter books with big words and, as a good Catholic school second- or third-grader, when I was in desperate fear and hatred of the Antichrist.
You see, my vocabulary at that time grasped big words but not nuances, and I thought the book was about a fake messiah, the way imitation vanilla was fake and tasted fake. I wanted nothing to do with an imitation Christ. I wanted The Real Jesus.
I didn’t realize the title meant how to imitate Christ. So it was years before I attempted to open the book and take in its message.
Ah, youth.
Fortunately, then and now, Paul had already written to the people of Ephesus about how to live as Jesus would, and as Jesus would want them to. Paul likely hoped they would be knocked clear off their horses the way he was when he first encountered Christ, and in today’s selection from his letter to the Ephesians, he starts with an acknowledgment that their lives were never going to be the same.
Brothers and sisters:
Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God,
with which you were sealed for the day of redemption.
Yes, the Spirit had come upon them, filling their souls with divine grace, giving them a hunger for the Bread of Life that Jesus provides, but also confusing them in the heavily trafficked cosmopolitan trade city they called home.
OK, One True God in three persons, you’ve changed our lives, you’ve illumined our minds, you’ve refreshed our spirits. We’re leaving our previously pagan ways behind us and following you and not the Greek or Roman or Mesopotamian gods of the people we do business with. So now what?
Just.
Be.
Kind.
No fighting, no biting.
Live and let live.
Forgive and forget.
In fewer than 100 words, this piece of St. Paul’s letter is a practical guide to, yes, imitating Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He even says as much.
So be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love,
as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us.
Arguably, this passage is a good corollary to The Lord’s Prayer, a passage that stands the test of time.
Nowadays, every smiley bumper sticker, every cross-stitched stretch of linen, every inspirational T-shirt reflects this core message.
Live in love.
How, precisely, practically and specifically, each of us can accomplish that overarching goal depends on who we are and what gifts, talents, skills and, yes, personalities God gave us.
With the wisdom that the Spirit provides and with a well-formed conscience, we will know what to do.
And what will propel us is the knowledge that, when we live in love, we live in God, because God is love.
