The Compliment of Imitation

On September 11, 2001, the United States was attacked and our nation was shaken. It wasn’t the first day in my life that would be etched into my memory by shared tragedy – that day was January 28, 1986 as I sat in my classroom watching a television strapped onto a library cart with my classmates and disbelieving what we were seeing as the Challenger exploded and the teacher quietly unplugged the television and rolled it out of the room. September 11th wasn’t the first attack our nation had sustained, either, but it was the first attack I had experienced. A similar library cart with TV strapped on top was rolled into the church office where I was serving. And instead of turning it off and trying to return to life as normal, we turned it on and tried to absorb what this meant for us going forward. All day long, people came to the church seeking solace, seeking to talk, seeking prayer – and I noticed about mid-day that everyone who came echoed the same memory – where they were on December 7th 1941, the day Pearl Harbor was attacked.

These people knew. They knew that life as we had known it on September 10th was gone. They knew the potential toll that could lie ahead. They knew the horrors of war. They knew we needed one another, to come together, to pray – I listened and learned that day, and I found myself following the faithful example of Mrs. Dovey Wright in the days and weeks and months that followed as we, as a nation, responded and settled into our new normal. Mrs. Dovey was born in 1925 and was no stranger to sacrifice or to uncertainty, and I remember the moment I realized mid-way through September 11th that Mrs. Dovey and the others who had the perspective of experiences in the past were a light for us in the present darkness.

Paul is offering to the church at Philippi to be their light, to be their guide in the darkness. He is in prison and knows the kind of challenges they are facing. He knows the church at Philippi is threatened. Philippi was a Roman colony and the European door to Asia, to the region we now think of as the Middle East. It had been settled by Roman soldiers in the wake of the Roman civil war about 100 years earlier, and these soldiers’ descendants understood their role in expanding Roman influence and culture. Jewish people in Philippi had been persecuted. There were not enough people of Jewish faith to have a synagogue in Philippi. When Paul came and shared the news of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and Lydia was baptized – the first person to be baptized in Europe – and her family was baptized, then others had heard and been baptized. The movement was met not just with resistance, but with persecution. What was this new allegiance? Who was this Lord they worshipped instead of the emperor? Paul says, while you once thought of yourselves first as citizens of Rome, now you are citizens of heaven. Once, your purpose in life was to do the Emperor’s will and spread Rome’s influence and culture and ultimately, footprint. Now, you are a colony of heaven. Your purpose is to spread the influence and culture of God’s will.

And at the same time, the church at Philippi faced the threat of the false teachings of Jewish Christians from places like Thessalonica who are coming and teaching the Gentile Christians at Philippi that they have to be circumcised and follow Jewish laws to be righteous in God’s sight. Follow my teaching, says Paul, live according to the pattern I gave you. Their minds are on earthly things, and Paul tells them and us that they can’t and we can’t transform our lowly bodies. Only Jesus can transform us.

Thinking about Ms. Dovey and the others who had lived through World War II who came to the church on 9/11, I looked to the World War II Museum in New Orleans. On their website, they are hosting a series of roundtable discussions on World War II and the Present Crisis. But, it wasn’t a World War II story that caught my attention. It was the story of Pericles, war-hero, the General of Athens 2,500 years ago, between the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars a plague ravaged the city of Athens. Pericles asserted that the greatest enemy of a strong society in times of crisis—whether facing war or a pandemic—was selfishness. Some Athenians protested acting in the interest of the common good and Athens lost 1/3 of its population to the plague and was left too weak to defend itself against attack and was taken by its long-time enemy, Sparta.

I think Paul is giving a similar warning to the one of Pericles when he addresses Euodia and Syntyche. Scholars have debated why Paul would include this public reprimand of the two women. I think it is because Paul knows that their skirmish is indicative of a deeper issue that threatens the community. “I urge, I beg, I plead,” says Paul, “with you, Euodia and Syntyche, to be of the same mind in the Lord.”

Paul is calling Euodia and Syntyche to agree with one another, to sacrifice their will for the greater good, to follow his example, to follow the pattern that he had taught them, the pattern of Jesus, a pattern of humility and self-sacrifice.

As we celebrate Memorial Day weekend, we honor those who have been selfless and given their lives for our country. 25,000 in the Revolutionary War, 655,000 in the Civil War, 116,516 in World War I, 405,399 in World War II, 36,516 in the Korean War, 58, 209 in Vietnam, 294 in the Gulf War, 2,216 in the war in Afghanistan, and 4,497 in the Iraq War. In total, more than 1,354, 664 men and women have given selflessly that we would live in a free country, where we share the principle that some truths are self-evident, particularly that all people are created equal, that they are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable Rights, and that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Another day that I will never forget didn’t have an exact moment of trauma played out on a screen like the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger or the smoke as planes plunged into the sides of the World Trade Center and Pentagon, that day was Friday, March 13th, 2020. It was the last day of school before Spring Break and as it turned out Summer Break. I described the feeling of that day to a friend as feeling like I was waiting on a slow-motion tsunami –we couldn’t run, we couldn’t avoid it, and our lives, our nation, our world would be changed.

Last Thursday, May 21st, was the day we celebrate Jesus’ ascension, the 40th day of Easter. As Jesus ascended, he told the disciples to stay in Jerusalem and wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Unlike other tragedies, other wars, other attacks, in the face of a pandemic, we could not respond by physically gathering together, by huddling in community. And as much as I would love to hear us all singing together, as much as I would love to greet every one of you at the door at the close of the service, as much as I would love to hear the sounds of laughter and conversation and children playing around the coffee cart, I look to the example of Mrs. Dovey, ready to sacrifice, knowing what sacrifice looks like. I look to the examples of our brave military men and women who sacrificed their lives. I look to the examples of courageous men and women who march into hospitals and don PPE to care, to clean, to feed, to risk their lives for others. And I see light. May we pay them the compliment of imitation.

I don’t know what the coming weeks and months will bring as this slow-motion tsunami of a pandemic continues to roll like a wall into communities around the world. As we are faced with its challenges, may we pay Euodia and Syntyche the compliment of imitation, putting our differences aside and stand firm together. May we pay Paul the compliment of imitation, focusing not on our earthly comforts, but on God’s Will being done on earth. May we pay Jesus the compliment of imitation, having a mind of humility and self-sacrifice, and be ready to put others before our selves. Amen.