Introduction: The Unsatisfying Allure of Originality
So let me start with a question: Why is ‘Simon Says’ a thing? That game should not be very hard. Why is it? I mean, Why is Simon Says a thing? Lets table that question for a minute and read today’s passage.
Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace.
2 We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, 3remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. 4For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, 5because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. 6And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, 7so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.
8For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything. 9For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, 10and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.
Well before we answer my original question, let me ask you a question about today’s passage. Was there any part of the passage that bugged you? Anything that maybe just made you a little uncomfortable? Well, if not, let me suggest something:
6"And you became imitators of us,”
Do you feel uncomfortable with that? Well if you do, let me make it worse. You see, it turns out that the Apostle Paul, who wrote this book, says that sort of stuff all the time:
Cor 4:16 I urge you, then, be imitators of me.
2 Thess 3 7 For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us,
Phil 317 Brothers, join in imitating me
To call someone an ‘imitator’ in our culture is usually not a good thing. Because imitation smacks of unoriginality[1], and in our deconstructing, post-everything , hipster culture where you can things can only be enjoyed ironically, the only real sin is to be unoriginal. We all want to be original. We want to believe we are special little snowflakes…unlike anyone else. And an imitator by definition is unoriginal.
But in response to this, let me ask again…why is Simon Says a thing? Why is this very simple game challenging?
Well there is a biological explanation: because we are not fundamentally auditory or verbal creatures…we are fundamentally imitating creatures. Anthropologists will tell you that we learn primarily by watching how other members or our species solve problems.[2]
We’re all compilations of imitations. Someone who seems totally original is probably either imitating a person or subculture that you are not acquainted with[3] or he or she has cobbled together a life of piecemeil imitation from several sources. And, frankly, originality is a cruel, punishing idol…constantly betraying those who chase her with belated information about the derivative sources of their ‘originality.’
So, we can either cautiously and intentionally select who we are going to imitate, or we can let that happen unconsciously or by accident.[4]
And that is why Paul argues that imitation is a helpful tool in sanctification. And I edited him a little bit when I read those verses. Here are the whole verses:
Phil 3:17 Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.
1Thess 1:6 And you became imitators of us and of the Lord
We can look to historical Christians, like Paul, we can look to each other, and because Christianity is an incarational faith where God actually showed up, we can look to God himself for examples of how to do this human life thing.
The vocabulary of Faith and Life cannot fundamentally be totally transmitted abstractly.[5] I mean have you ever tried to define faith. How about hope? And don’t even get me started on love? The theological dictionary that Christianity uses to define these things for you isn’t just a text…it’s also a people. You want to know what love is[6]…the Scriptures will give you the boundaries of what the word can mean…but they (point to the people) will show you how to do it. The basic ideas of Christianity are always embodied. And that is why the Christian life is learned by imitation. If you don’t chose who to imitate, you won’t be original…you will just unconsciously and passively unoriginal.
And that is why the Biblical authors talk about ‘doing Christianity well’ with the term ‘discipleship’. The Christian life is an apprenticeship. We are all padawans, so to speak (at least the nerdier of us). And there are at least 4 ways in chapter 1 that Paul suggests that the Thessalonian church has apprenticed well.
_______________
Group Study
At this point the students went to small groups where they used this guide.
_______________
Summary: The Temporal Orientation of the Christian Life
Christianity deals with reality…in its temporal entirety. Faith, hope and love point respectively to the past, future and present, meaning that at its core, the Christian life seeks a temporal balance of meaning and purpose.
If you focus on the past you are a sentimentalist, if you focus on the present you are an existentialist, and if you focus on the future you are an escapist… Putting too much emphasis on either the past, present or future truncates reality.
But at the center of the Christian life are three disciplines that guide healthy and helpful interactions with the past, present and future.
We are people who take the past seriously. We are people who look back to a moment when we took our stand with Jesus and reinterpret the rest of our lives through that event…and the events that it points to. We are people of faith. We are people who care about the commitments and stories of the generations before us…realizing that moderns may not have a monopoly on interpreting reality.
We aren’t stuck in the brokenness of our past mistakes or mired in nostalgia for past joys. And likewise by living out of faith, hope and love, we are not obsessed with the future. We don’t fear it either. Our future is secure…it is hopeful. We have a hope that we can look to when the brokenness of the present gets oppressive (as some of you have experienced in the last couple weeks). But the future does not consume us. Rather, looking back in faith and forward in hope…gives us energy to fill the present with love.
Those for whom the present is everything often find the present to be too valuable to fill with love. But people of faith and hope who understand the past and future rightly and, therefore, do not overvalue the present, have energy to work and labor, steadfastly…in caring for others.
But let me end with the a final thought. One question I pose was ‘What is the difference between hope and optimism?’ What did you say?
Optimism is the delusion that everything will turn out ok…soon. It doesn’t. The world is a beautiful but terrible place. Sometimes things turn out horribly. Sometimes a miracle doesn’t fix things. Hope requires a cosmic temporal scale. Optimism covers our eyes and wishes for the best. Hope deals with reality as it is and perseveres good or bad because of a confidence in the resurrection (one of the themes of the rest of this book). The role of miracles is not to make everything all right. You are going to die. And it is probably going to be horrible. And terrible things will happen to people you love. If you expect miracles to be the answer to that reality, you will be disappointed. If when you say ‘God is good’ you mean ‘he won’t let terrible things happen to me or those who I love, your faith will be deeply tested. But if you recognize the Biblical role of miracles as ‘signs’…indicators that through the pain and brokenness, there is a deeper, realer, real. There is a resurrection that is going to restore and rewrite. Their purpose and the Christian hope comes into focus.
Which leads me to the final verse of the chapter, the transition to the rest of the book:
For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, 10and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.
___________
[1] Actually, there is a second reason these verses make me uncomfortable. They seem like Paul is being an arrogant (fill in pejorative noun of your choice). But this is anachronistic. Imitation was the core of Roman pedagogy. The fact that Paul called them not only to imitate him, but ‘us’ (Timothy and Silas), and ‘each other’ (in the Philippians verse, see below) and the Lord demonstrates that he is not entirely comfortable with the cult of personality that could emerge from that model and is trying to diffuse it…while at the same time recognizing that imitation is helpful pedagogy.
[2] I took a human evolution seminar last quarter which had a fair number of primate specialists in it. I learned a couple of very interesting things about what distinguishes us from the other primates. One professor made the case that chips are actually more rawly intelligent than humans. But humans out perform chimps because they don’t resolve on a final solution to life’s problems. Humans are social animals that watch each other carefully for solutions to life’s problems that could upgrade their current state. Humans did not emerge because we were the most innovative…but because we transmitted innovation through imitation.
[3] Now, those who have heard me speak will recognize some dissonance with the idea that I often teach that ‘creativity’ is the rare human the image of God. Most innovation is an act of integration rather than raw inspiration. I do love innovation and strive for it. But I do not define myself by it and make most of my intellectual, social, professional and moral progress by apprenticeship (careful, critical, teachable, imitation). Innovation happens a the surprising intersection of observations. Actual inspiration is so rare that it seems that if it becomes one of our highest societal goals, the vast majority of us are sentenced to be disappointing or self deceiving. Also, if inspiration is not built out of former materials, where does it come from.? It is either an accident of brain wiring or a gift of God…and neither are meritorious.
[4] We used to learn trades by apprenticeship….a personal relationship of careful imitation. Now we try to teach the professions through class room learning. Now I don’t talk much about my job. I have a ‘one minute rule’. If someone asks about my job, I try not to talk more than one minute before I change the subject, to keep from boring them. Because I understand, I may love sediment transport modeling…but most people find it dull. But here’s the thing I have realized recently…sediment transport modeling may be dull…but its also REALLY hard. There are not a lot of people in the world who can do it really well. So if a young engineer calls me up and says they are going to try it and asks me to teach them about it…I tell them to move into my office for a month. Because anything complicated has to be learned by imitation. Apprenticeship is more effective than instruction.
[5] Fun Quotes: “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.” - T.S. Eliot (I like this quote because it demonstrates that self-awareness of the derivative nature of the created process – and hence, our fundamental indebtedness – is the maturation process of the artist).
“Imitation is not just the sincerest form of flattery - it's the sincerest form of learning.” ― George Bernard Shaw
“We even talked like Hemingway characters, though in travesty, as if to deny our discipleship: That is your bed, and it is a good bed, and you must make it and you must make it well. Or: Today is the day of the meatloaf. The meatloaf is swell. It is swell but when it is gone the not-having meatloaf will be tragic and the meatloaf man will not come anymore.” ― Tobias Wolff, Old School
[6] Love is a word…it is a verbal signifier of an extremely complex reality. So is hope. In fact, so are a lot of our central big ideas in Christianity. They are very abstract…but we also belong to a faith that believes truth is always embodied. And it is transmitted by discipleship, or apprenticeship which is a form of careful imitation.
