Sermon - Imitating God

Ephesians 4:25-5:2

Imitating God

James Sledge                                                                                       August 12, 2012

When I was a child, Disney movies were a staple of my movie going.  The Parent Trap, 101 Dalmations, Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book, and many others came out during my childhood.   A movie that I particularly liked, in part because my family had a dachshund, was one starring Dean Jones and Suzanne Pleshette entitled The Ugly Dachshund.

As I recall, Suzanne Pleshette’s prized and pampered dachshund is about to give birth to puppies, an event of such importance that she and her husband, played by Dean Jones, rush the dog to the veterinary hospital, enlisting a police escort from an officer who mistakenly believes this emergency involves a human birth.  Following the delivery, the vet convinces Dean Jones to place a Great Dane puppy who has been rejected by his mother into the litter of dachshund pups.  And so Brutus goes home as a member of this dachshund family, unbeknownst to Suzanne Pleshette.

As the title of the movie suggests, Brutus, raised by a dachshund mother with dachshund siblings, thinks he is a dachshund.  But of course as Brutus grows into a huge Great Dane who thinks he’s a tiny dachshund, all sorts of movie disasters and hilarity ensue.

It gets so chaotic that Suzanne Pleshette wants Brutus gone, but Dean Jones pleads with her and sets out to prove that Brutus can actually live up to his Great Dane DNA, entering Brutus in the same dog show as his wife’s prized dachshunds.   The plan almost goes terribly awry when Brutus spots a dachshund from the show ring, immediately reverting to thinking he’s a dachshund, crawling on his belly to appear small.  But the situation is salvaged when Brutus spots a lovely Great Dane and begins to adopt the regal, imposing figure of the Great Dane he actually is, winning the blue ribbon.

 The Ugly Dachshund is far from a great movie, but it does touch on a significant topic, that of identity and where it comes from.  Brutus the Great Dane has acquired an identity that does not fit him, and trying to live out his mistaken identity has been the source of countless mishaps and disasters.  But when Brutus encounters a Great Dane who knows she’s a Great Dane and begins to imitate her, he discovers his own, true identity.

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Who am I?  That’s a huge existential question, along with associated questions about how I become who I am.  Nature or nurture or some combination, and then in what proportions?  What is the interplay of genetics and environment?  None of us like to think we are programed or fated to turn out a particular way, but we also know that children who are abused often grow up to be abusers, that there are cycles of poverty and violence which seem intractable.

Do the habits and practices we witness growing up leave an indelible mark on us?  Are we largely fated, for good or ill, to become some version of our parents, slightly altered models of those we spend the most time with and learn to imitate?  Of can we become something completely different?

At first glance, our New Testament reading this morning might seem to have little to do with such questions.  It seems little more than moral encouragement.  “Try hard to be good.  Don’t steal.  Be kind to each other.”  But while I would love it if more people followed such advice, I don’t think that is the primary message from the writer of Ephesians.  Rather, I think he is talking about identity, about who we become in Christ.

Thanks to the double hazard of needing to use an English translation along with reading only brief snippets of Scripture in worship, it is easy to miss the imagery in our Ephesians reading of taking off and putting on clothes, images associated with baptism.  In the verses just prior to our reading, the writer reminds the Ephesians of how their new life in Christ has taught them “to clothe (themselves) with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” 

Our reading this morning then continues, speaking of “putting away falsehood,” using a verb that refers to stripping off or taking off clothes.  The letter is not just encouraging correct behavior, it is describing different identities, an old, false self that has been stripped off like a dirty garment, replaced by a new self, a new creation that emerges through putting on Christ.

This is a restatement of both the imagery and the reality of baptism.  In the waters the old self is washed away, an old identity dies.  Emerging from the waters we arise to new life and a new identity is born as we put on Christ.  Living into this new identity, we become imitators of God.  It is a transformation not unlike what happens to Brutus the Great Dane.  A false identity learned from imitating the world’s brokenness is traded for a true one that instead imitates God, in whom our truest and deepest identity is found.

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 “Relying on God’s grace, do you promise to live as imitators of God, and to teach that life to your child?”  “Do you, as members of the church of Jesus Christ, promise to guide and nurture Claire by your words, by living as imitators of God, with love and prayer, encouraging her to know and follow Christ and be a faithful member of his church?”  Slightly paraphrased, those are the questions that will be asked in just a few moments to Claire’s parents and to you, the congregation, as we celebrate the Sacrament of Baptism.

It is easy to let Baptism become a quaint, cute (at least when it involves children) ritual, a rite of passage that we know is significant, but we aren’t exactly sure why.  It is easy to forget that God is doing something in baptism, claiming and marking Claire as God’s very own, giving her a new identity saying, “You are mine.”

Claire will no doubt become part of the world’s brokenness as she matures.  She will be shaped by that brokenness and forge an identity that in some ways mirrors this broken world of ours.  She will likely not recall the events of today, and she will not realize their significance for a long time, which is why we promise to help and encourage her in growing into her baptismal identity.

But regardless of her remembering, and regardless of how well or poorly we help her understand what happens here today, God embraces Claire as a beloved daughter.  God pours out the Holy Spirit on her saying, “Claire, I have called you by name and invited you to discover your true identity as my daughter, as a sister of Jesus the Christ.  Listen to him.  Follow where he leads, and imitate him, for he knows the way to life in all its fullness, and he will show you who you truly are.”

Thanks be to God!