![\"OLYMPUS](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/429\/2017\/07\/hope-1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nPastors have a frequent question when they begin to discover\u00a0mimetic theory<\/a>. \u201cThat\u2019s great. But how does it preach?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Reverend Tom Truby shows that mimetic theory is a powerful tool that enables pastors to preach the Gospel in a way that is meaningful and refreshing to the modern world. Each week, Teaching Nonviolent Atonement will highlight his sermons as an example of preaching the Gospel through mimetic theory.<\/em><\/p>\n Mimetic theory teaches that our lives are run by the \u201cOther.\u201d The other can be parents, a spouse, children, or a boss, but the \u201cOther\u201d is also our cultural environment. Mimetic theory helps open our eyes to all the influences around us. Once our eyes are opened, we can consciously choose whom to put at the center of our lives. In this sermon, Reverends Tom and Laura Truby explain the importance of putting Jesus at the center.<\/em><\/p>\n Year A, Pentecost 4, Proper 8 A Warm Smile, a Solid Handshake and a Sure Hope<\/strong><\/p>\n Last week\u2019s lection ended with this perplexing paragraph:<\/p>\n Those who love father or mother more than me aren\u2019t worthy of me.\u00a0 Those who love son or daughter more than me aren\u2019t worthy of me. Those who don\u2019t pick up their crosses and follow me aren\u2019t worthy of me.\u00a0 Those who find their lives will lose them, and those who lose their lives because of me will find them.<\/em><\/p>\n This week\u2019s lection picks up here.\u00a0 Assuming these are not a random series of statements Matthew has put together, leftovers from the Sermon on the Mount, what is the connection between these verses and today\u2019s reading from Matthew?<\/p>\n For me, the first sentence \u201cThose who love father or mother more than me aren\u2019t worthy of me\u201d <\/em>means Jesus is worthy of being the center of our lives and as center he is worthy of being more important than any other relationship. For example, if we are having trouble with a mother or a father, in our minds we talk it over with Jesus in our process of assessing what to do and how to think about it. Even children can do this.\u00a0 With Jesus as our center, there is always someone to talk to, even about our most intimate and important relationships.\u00a0 Let\u2019s say we are worried about our mate\u2019s health and we don\u2019t want to bring it up with them. \u00a0We can talk it through in the privacy of our relationship with Jesus. Maybe we are just talking to our self, but somehow I think it is more.<\/p>\n Or, maybe we see a pattern in our children\u2019s lives that disturbs us and yet we don\u2019t want to become an interfering parent or a meddling in-law.\u00a0 Having Jesus as the relational center of our network of relationships gives us a place to figure out our concerns, explore their dimensions, and question whether it is us or them\u2014maybe we are looking at it through our own experience and our experience is very different than theirs.\u00a0\u00a0 If we make our relationship with our parents, our children or anyone else more important than Jesus we lose this \u201csit spot\u201d for calm reflection.\u00a0 If we really believe that Jesus is who Jesus says he is, as I do, his presence at the center of our lives gives us great gravitas<\/em>, peace, hope and stability though never absolute certainty.\u00a0 We are not running our lives alone.\u00a0 We have a partner who always brings another perspective. How many of you have prayed to Jesus or God about some person or situation that was troubling you?\u00a0 Most of us have.<\/p>\n So when Jesus says \u201cthose who love father or mother more than me aren\u2019t worthy of me\u201d he isn\u2019t saying he is a jealous and exclusive lover, he is saying that if he is the center his presence provides us an anchor point.\u00a0 We have a safe place for reflection on ourselves and others who share life with us.\u00a0 We tap into a source of courage and strength available to us without which we lose perspective and can become reactive, even mean, without knowing it.\u00a0 Having Jesus as a dialogue partner can make it possible for us to love in a way that the other experiences as love. \u00a0It helps us to forgive things the other does that we don\u2019t like. It helps us to see the other with clearer eyes.\u00a0 Jesus wants to be the center for our sake.<\/p>\n Jesus is worthy of being leaned on with all our weight.\u00a0 He won\u2019t crumble, dissolve or distort under pressure.\u00a0 All others eventually will.\u00a0 We are all just human but Jesus comes from another place, a place beyond rivalry, even the rivalry between generations and between genders.\u00a0 In summary, when we put Jesus first, we have a calm place to dwell.<\/p>\n Jesus next said \u201cThose who don\u2019t pick up their cross and follow me are not worthy of me.\u201d When Jesus picked up his cross he was laying down all power and embracing powerlessness. Paradoxically, his willingness to lay down all power made him worthy to be followed.\u00a0 He was modeling himself after God in doing this.\u00a0 Jesus is the ultimate respecter of other\u2019s freedom. His is a way that relinquishes control, coercion and violence; centers on his suffering rather than his causing others to suffer; and is energized by forgiveness. He releases negative energy as quickly as it generates.\u00a0 Those who wish to follow him need to pick up this same cross to be worthy of their master. None of us is worthy but it is the direction we are moving. To the extent we follow him; we will have to relinquish power.<\/p>\n To renounce power over others is to lose our life as we know it and to find it where we didn\u2019t know it could exist.\u00a0 We all think our capacity to impact the world and people around us makes us important.\u00a0 But in thinking that we curtail, distort or maybe sever our relationship to God. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It is only when we are yielded to God, compliant and trusting toward our Creator, that we discover life.\u00a0 In this yielded, humble, trusting, open, joyous and grateful living our bodies relax and our spirits soar.\u00a0 We are now living in discipleship and ready to enter this week\u2019s short gospel lection.<\/p>\n We are disciples of Jesus.\u00a0 If we trust him we have made him the center of our network of relationships. He is the hub around which every other relationship revolves.\u00a0 Nothing has direct access to us without going through him.\u00a0 The disciple and Jesus are this tight twosome that mirrors the threesome in the Trinity. We agree with Paul who said \u201cfor me to live is Christ.\u201d\u00a0 The disciple\u2019s world, both inner and outer, is being transformed by having Jesus as the center.\u00a0 Even our understanding of history, current events and the future of the church are altered by the inclusion of the gospel-revealed Jesus.<\/p>\n We are persons in the midst of profound change such that everything is different than what we had thought. When we meet other people, moving as we are in a new direction, Jesus tells us there is something to know about ourselves:\u00a0 \u201cThose who receive you are receiving me, and those who receive me are receiving the one who sent me.\u201d\u00a0 We are not only presenting them with our new self, we are presenting them with Jesus who is being filtered through us.\u00a0 This Jesus seeping out through us is bringing us all an experience of the true God who is nothing but love.\u00a0 Does that not give all our relationships far more significance?\u00a0 We are part of this; it\u2019s happening to us and through us and it\u2019s big. Maybe being a disciple is worth it!<\/p>\n There are rewards to this; it isn\u2019t all suffering and being humbled! \u201cThose who receive a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet\u2019s reward,\u201d Jesus said. Clearly Jesus is a prophet, one who reveals truth and we are the prophet\u2019s disciples who get to marvel at the grace of it and live in its revelation.\u00a0 \u201cThose who receive a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person\u2019s reward.\u201d We are the disciples of a truly righteous person, a person in right relation with every other person on the planet.\u00a0 This righteous one is showing everyone on earth they are loved and not excluded. As his disciples we live with this knowledge, it is being etched into our DNA.\u00a0 Perhaps this living awareness is our reward!<\/p>\n Finally, Jesus assures his disciples that anyone who helps them, who even gives them a cup of cold water, will certainly be rewarded.\u00a0 It\u2019s interesting that he describes his followers as \u201cthe little ones.\u201d We are little because we are vulnerable, weak and powerless just like our master.\u00a0 We are just like the majority in our brutal, evil and violent world.\u00a0 Jesus\u2019 disciples don\u2019t escape the real world. But they are able to live in it with a warm smile, a solid handshake and a sure hope.\u00a0 Thanks be to God.<\/p>\n Image: Flickr, polsifter<\/a>, creative commons licesnse.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>July 2nd<\/sup>, 2017
\n<\/strong>Matthew 10:40-42
\n<\/strong>Thomas and Laura Truby<\/strong><\/p>\n
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