Simon says rest your chin on your fist and pay close attention! Or maybe you’d rather hear it like this: Simon says sit back and relax, it’s time for a 12-minute nap!
Whatever your preference, I’m sure everyone here has played “Simon Says” at some time in our lives. Simon says put your hands in the air… Simon says stand on one foot and wave… Simon says hug your neighbor… Simon says clap your hands… Simon says smile… Simon says scratch your nose… Simon says put $50 in the offering plate!
Aha! We’ll see how many people follow that one!
We think of Simon Says as a fun game. We do what the leader says because we are trying to see if we can do everything “Simon” says to do. But in real life people sometimes do what others tell them to do—or what others do—because they don’t want to be left out, or they don’t want to be different, or they don’t want to have to think or make decisions for themselves, or they want to be like the person they are imitating.
The letter to the Ephesians is one of uncertain authorship. Some people will say that Paul wrote it, but scholars believe it was written by someone else—a disciple of Paul or someone wanting to sound like Paul. Perhaps the author figured that if everyone thought Paul wrote the letter, they would be more likely to pay attention to its contents.
Imitating can be a good thing. It can be complimentary or flattering, or sometimes it may go too far.
In this letter to the Ephesians, God’s people are being called to be imitators of God and to live in love as Christ loved us.
We may think that imitating God is a difficult thing to do, but it shouldn’t be. What the passage is calling us to do is to imitate “the particular character of God’s love toward humankind,”[i] and previously in the letter we are told what and how.
Truthful speech, or speaking the truth in love is natural because Christians are now members one of another. This membership is entirely different from how most people today think of membership. It’s not being on a list of names of folks who belong to a particular church or organization—there’s more to it than that. Membership, in the context of this letter and in the experience of the early Christians, is that everyone belongs to the same body. When that is the case, “Christians can no more tolerate lying to one another than the parts of one’s body can deceive one another. It [simply] can’t be done.”[ii]
Another way to imitate God is not to let anger get the better of us. It’s OK to be angry, but we should be careful what we do or say when we’re angry. In the letter—which was written to people living in the first century—this is also referring to not allowing the devil to deceive and mislead believers. We might understand this today as an admonition to beware of forces outside the community that are capable of undermining the community’s strength. And sometimes within organizations there may be one or a few members who are capable of undermining the organization’s strength. So it continues to be important to speak the truth in love.
Then of course there is forgiveness. That’s definitely a biggie. Forgive others as God has forgiven you. Not an easy one. Not at all. But the Christian community cannot grow or flourish if its members are unable to forgive one another. By example, God’s forgiveness enables us to learn what forgiveness is and then it obliges us to act out that forgiveness in our own lives.
What a challenge! Does all that help us to know—or learn—who we are as Christians? Can we find our identity or grow into it?
Fortunately, there is also God’s gift of faith that helps us to keep putting one foot in front of the other on our personal journeys and on our journey together to discover who we are as God’s very beloved people
Jesus tells us how simple it is. He is the Bread of Life. All who believe in him and come to him will be neither hungry nor thirsty. And the bread he gives for the life of the world is himself. Believe in him… trust in him… live in his way. It's really quite simple….
But the author of Ephesians knows that even though we realize it’s simple, it is still difficult for us human beings to achieve. So he says we must learn Christ so that we put on a new human nature. He says we need to do this in a community of support—the Church—as we learn to live out our created interdependence and learn the meaning of partnership. By the power of the Spirit at work in our lives, we are in the process of becoming human in the midst of our struggles with our old human nature, and one day we will be fully human when we are set free from the restraint of our old creation and are fully united with God.[iii]
So… here’s how I understand it—we are called to be God’s people. This comes with responsibilities. These responsibilities are not easy, but we are called and challenged to try to live up to them every day of our lives, both as individuals and as congregations.
And when we fail, there is forgiveness.
God has named and claimed us, so there is always Hope and there is always the Promise. We place our hope, our faith and our trust in God and God promises to love and forgive us. It's a two-way street. It’s not easy. It takes hard work. But we can all help one another because we are all members of the same body—the body of Christ.
We can work together to figure out who we are and remind one another Whose we are. What does it mean to be God’s people? How do we visualize and grow into our identity as God’s UCC people here in this town? What does God’s love mean to us? What are the responsibilities?
Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”[iv] Jesus also said, “Love one another the way I have loved you. This is the very best way to love.”[v]
And so Simon says Love One Another! It’s the best thing we can ever do! AMEN.
[i] Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV-Years A, B, and C, Brueggemann, Cousar, Gaventa, McCann and Newsome. DVD version, p. 462.
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Letty Russell, Imitating God: A Study Book on Ephesians. 1984. Pp. 81 & 84. Quoted by Hank Lay in note #1 of “Sermonshop 2000 08 13.”
[iv] John 6:35, NRSV.
[v] John 15:12, The Message: the Bible in Contemporary Language, by Eugene H. Peterson, 2005.
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