Imitating Christ in Our Lives and in the Leaders We Follow

By Rev. Kristen Yates

Good morning, everyone.  For those of you do not know me, my name is the Rev. Kristen Yates.  I am the Associate Pastor here at the Mission, and it is my sincere pleasure to be here with you today sharing God’s Word with you.  This is something I have been doing now for close to 17 years, and it continues to be my pleasure, so thank you for giving me this opportunity.

Now, I mention those 17 years, not just to prove to you and myself that I am old and have been doing this forever, but because as I recently sat with our Scripture readings for today, I was reminded of my first years in ministry – years that in so many ways were unexpected and challenging.

You see, after having pursued my Masters degrees in Theology and IR, and having worked as an environmental consultant in the D.C. area for a number of years, I could have never imagined that I would one day find myself working as a youth pastor in a church, but that is exactly what happened.

God intervened in my life and completely changed my plans.  Instead of going to work for an organization like World Vision like I had originally planned after school was over, I became a youth pastor, and that was even in spite of my intense objections to God. 

 However, when God intervenes, He intervenes.  So, here I was serving as a youth pastor in a church, and for sure, sharing the Gospel and doing life together with teens was a beautiful thing.  But boy oh boy, what a pressure cooker that first experience in ministry was.

 You see, unbeknownst to me, when the church hired there, there was a fairly big disconnect among the people about who they wanted as their youth pastor.  The folks who hired me wanted a serious person who would teach their kids the Bible and be in relationship with Jesus.  In fact, my interview with them was really intense.  

Another group of people, however, wanted to see the old ways of the youth ministry continue, and it turns out, the old ways were very different than what I was hired to do.  This group wanted the youth pastor to create a safe place where the kids could have fun.  Sure, spirituality could be included, but community and fun were the main objectives for them.

Now, again, when I was hired, I had no idea about these differences, but it didn’t take long before I began to experience this divide. Some people absolutely loved me.  Some people found me greatly wanting and were not shy about criticizing me, trying to sabotage my ministry efforts, and going behind my back to try to make their vision of the youth ministry a reality.    

And while much good and beauty came out of my time in this church, I am not going to lie that by the end, I was pretty demoralized about church.  Continued opposition and criticism can do that to people.

Now, to be clear, I know that not everything I did or said during my time at this church was perfect.  As I reflect on it now, I can see areas of immaturity in my leadership and character, and I can say that as best as I tried, there were just some ministry skills I had not yet learned.  Also, as hard as I tried, I was just never going to be as fun or creative as the previous volunteer youth pastor.

Nevertheless, despite all this, I can also fairly confidently acknowledge at this time, with many years of reflection in the interim, that the main criticisms and opposition to me during this season of ministry actually did not primarily have to do with me – my personality, my lack of certain skills, or areas of immaturity in my life, but they primarily had to do with the vision of what the Christian life is about and therefore the vision of what the youth ministry should be about.  

 At stake was the question:  is Christ and His Gospel going to be central to our lives and ministry, or is He going to be an add-on?  And with that, do we want our youth pastor to be a spiritual mentor and mother of the faith or do we want her to be really fun friend and event planner? 

Well, unfortunately, the lack of a shared vision that was centered in Christ ended up causing lots of friction, and eventually the funds for a youth ministry went away altogether.  And thus, ended that chapter in my life and ministry.  

Well friends, would you pray with me.  Lord God, we thank you for your Son, that He came into this world to save us, to show us a way of life that is upside down to the wisdom of the world, and to invite us to find our center, identity, and purpose in Him.  May we as a church always find our unity in the Crucified and Risen Christ, seeking to serve, lead, and empower others to lead out of this unity.  Amen.

So, today we continue along in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.  Up until this part of the letter, Paul had been writing to address problems arising in the local church, including factions over which leader the community should follow - Apollos or Paul, and to issue them a reality check:  apparently, many of the Corinthians Christians saw themselves as spiritually wise, but in fact, they were mere babes who were speaking and acting in worldly ways.  

Well, as we get to the part of the letter we read today, the letter turns more personal and also brings the problems at hand into more focus.  

At the root of these factions arising in the Corinthian church was an extreme self-satisfaction and pride and a setting aside of the centrality of the Gospel.   Many of the Corinthians believed that their Christian faith combined with their Wisdom gained from pagan philosophy had given them a higher spiritual status and a thus a right to judge others who had not reached this status.  They therefore boasted that they were full, rich, and like kings.  And they looked down upon people like Paul and even criticized him.  In their syncretized Gospel faith plus Pagan Wisdom worldview, Paul simply did not measure up.  And it is clear from Paul’s letter here, that the Corinthians had not been shy in letting Paul know what they thought of him, especially in relationship to how they thought about themselves.  

Thus Paul, as a wise and caring apostle of the faith, responded to their arrogance and their ignorance.  He reminded the Corinthians that He was their spiritual father in Christ Jesus, who was not there in their lives to help them pursue their personal agendas or to stand by as they boasted of their supposedly high spiritual status.  Rather, he was all about God’s agenda, and he was there to shepherd them and awaken them to God’s vision for their lives.

You see, God had intervened in Paul’s Life.  In his unexpected encountered with the Risen Jesus on the road to Damascus and the subsequent overturning of his own agenda and personal religious aspirations so that he could become the Lord’s apostle, Paul had been graciously entrusted with the mysteries and treasures of the faith.    It was his task, therefore, to steward these mysteries and treasures and to invite others to ponder them and live into them.

Therefore, since Paul was entrusted with this task, the Corinthians had no right to judge Him, and Paul stated this very clearly in his letter.  Paul said that only God could judge him, and one day, God would indeed judge him and the Corinthians, as well and bring forth any darkness to light that was in Paul’s or the Corinthian’s hearts.  In all honestly, this judgement was the only true judgement that mattered, and it was the only one that should concern Paul or the people, for the Lord’s judgement is actually a fearful thing when properly considered.   

On the other hand, as for some of the Corinthian’s opinions of him, Paul found them to be completely inconsequential.  Yes, these opinions were frustrating and likely exhausting to Paul, however, Paul knew his identity and call in Christ, and thus the Corinthian’s criticism could not tear him down and make him change his beliefs or the course of his life and ministry leadership.  Neither could any praise they sent his way puff him up.  Their views of him simply did not matter.  The Lord’s view was the only one that mattered.  

Now, at this point in my explanation of Paul’s letter, I do want to pause for just a moment, for I know for some of us, Paul’s seeming deflection of the Corinthians criticisms here, saying that they should not judge him, may initially make us anxious.  

In a time when spiritual abuse and manipulation in the church is being brought to light more and more, some of us may cringe just a bit at these words.  For in saying that the Corinthians cannot judge him, was Paul giving license to leaders in the church to do whatever they want and then saying that people are not allowed to call them out on it?  Well, while it may be easy to jump to this interpretation, it is important to know that this was not what Paul was saying here.  

Paul was not saying that leaders are immune and barred from rightful calling out of sinful and misguided behavior.  He, in fact, would do this himself.  Think of his confrontation with Peter when Peter had stopped sharing meals with the Gentiles.  No, Paul was not opposed to the idea of holding leaders accountable.  Rather, in this instance, Paul was revealing that the judgements and criticisms coming his way had nothing to do with others calling him to account or asking him to be faithful to the Gospel.  Rather, these judgements and criticisms were coming from a place of extreme pride and syncretized faith.  

Paul, their father in the faith, the one who had founded this community, had delivered the Gospel to them, and instead of holding on to this pure Gospel, certain Corinthians had added something onto it, namely pagan philosophy, and that had led them to set aside the centrality of the Cross, to misunderstand their freedom in Christ,  and to even to use their enlightened status to engage in behavior not even acceptable by pagan standards.  And then they boasted about this and criticized and rejected Paul’s teachings and way of life.  

Thus, Paul had to confront them.  For at stake in the Corinthian’s criticism of Paul was the following:  were they going to continue on in their half Christian/half pagan ways or were they going to find their center in the pure Gospel of Christ?  Were they going to continue to judge Paul based on their worldly wisdom or were they going to truly see him as their spiritual father who led a life that was worthy of imitation?

Now, at this point in the letter, after brushing the Corinthians’ judgements aside, Paul presented his way life – indeed the life of all of the apostles - and these lives looked very different than the Corinthians’ lives.    While the Corinthians boasted that they were full, rich, and like kings, the apostles were more like a set of “bedraggled and humiliated captives in chains at the back” of a victory procession, to use the words of N.T. Wright.  Their lives looked like foolishness, weakness, and dishonor to the world, and they were no strangers to periodic hardships such as hunger, thirst, homelessness, and persecution. 

And yet despite these challenges, the apostles did not succumb to the wisdom of the world.  They blessed others who cursed them and answered those who slandered them with kindness.  Indeed, they were most definitely not like the pagan philosophers the Corinthians so valued.  If insulted, a Cynic would hurl insults back.  If insulted, a Stoic philosopher would try to rise above it and ignoring it.  But for Paul and the other apostles, what did they do in such situations?  Well, they would show patience and kindness, and they would bless those who cursed them. For after all, they followed in the footsteps of Jesus, who, himself, was falsely accused and slandered, tortured, and executed on a cross yet never tried to escape or retaliate but in fact prayed to His Father, “Forgive them Father, for they do not know what they do”.  

Now, as we have already discussed in previous weeks, for those living in the Roman Empire, the central event in the life of Jesus – the crucifixion - would not have been seen as an embodiment of wisdom, or as a model for life.  Rather, it would have been held as a deeply offensive reality.  And yet, according to Paul, this was where the mystery of the Christian faith found its center – that crucifixion proceeds resurrection, that death proceeds life, and that humility and downward mobility proceeds exaltation, not just in Jesus’s life, but in his followers’ lives, as well.  

So, in his letter, Paul invited the Corinthians to stop their boasting and judgements, to do away with the philosophy of the pagans which was corrupting the purity of the Gospel, and to embrace the way of the cross.  If they did this, they would see that Paul’s life was worthy of imitation after all, for Paul’s life was itself a life lived in imitation of Jesus.   

So, friends, as we can see, there is a lot going on in today’s passage, and we might ask, what are we to take away from it?  Well, I do believe this Scripture has several implications for our lives, so let’s look at them now.

So, a first implication has to do with who we choose to be our church leaders.  For those of us who have recently listened to the podcast about the fall of Mars Hill church, we know that it makes the argument that we in the American evangelical church have had a proclivity to support and promote charismatic leaders who seemingly have great vision, are great speakers, and grow the church, yet are extremely prideful and are not willing to be called to account when they fail to live out the implications of the Gospel in their lives and teaching.

Well, as a church, it is imperative that we are discerning about our leaders, and Paul’s letter today shows us some of characteristics we should be looking for:  leaders who are faithful to the call, character, and way of Jesus despite what others may think; leaders who know they are not perfect and will be judged by God and thus are open to self-examination and godly accountability; leaders who embrace the centrality of the cross and some form of downward mobility; and leaders who bless even those who would seek to tear them down.  These are the kind of leaders we should be raising up and encouraging.

A second and related implication has to do with the posture of our hearts when differences of opinions arise between us and our leaders.  Now, the reality is that that at some point, whether it is here at the Mission or elsewhere, a pastor or church leader will say something either in a sermon, a meeting, or personally to us that will really tick us off, and as such, we will be tempted to write that person off and judge him or her, or if we are really angry to leave the church or even worse to lead a faction in opposition to that leader.  Now, when these times arise, as they certainly will, let us first pause and enter into a time of reflection and even self-reflection in which we can examine our own hearts. 

We can ask:  Is our anger and judgement arising because this person is being a jerk or is failing to live up to the standards of the Gospel and as such, do we need to call this person to account?  If so, how can we humbly and lovingly call this leader to integrity?  How can we work to ultimately build this person up in Christ and protect the unity and calling of the church?  

Or, as another scenario: is our anger and judgement arising simply because we disagree with certain decisions that a leader has made?  In this scenario, we probably need to ask ourselves, why is this making us so angry?  Is this about the protection of the Gospel message or is this about our own personal vision and pride or something else?  Friends, it is not wrong to have our own visions for ministry and to even bring these differences of opinions into conversation with leaders, with the hope that they might make a difference, but if we are holding onto these things too tightly and they are steeped in pride and anger, we are not likely to have productive conversations or to nurture good relationships.

Or finally, is our anger and judgment arising because a church leader is simply acting as a spiritual father or mother in our lives and is pointing out our idolatries or syncretism or is inviting us to embrace an implication of the Gospel that we really would rather ignore? If this is the case, entering into a time of self-reflection before God is necessary, for the Lord has a word for us to hear.  It may not be easy to hear – after, all that is why we are angry, but what is at stake in all this is the centrality of the Gospel in our lives.  What is at stake here is living the lives we are meant to live – lives that embrace the call, character, and way of Jesus, a way that often looks like foolishness to the world, but turns out is the only way where we can find true life and abundance, not only for all eternity, but starting now.

So, Mission Cincinnati, here is my invitation:  Let us embrace this way of Jesus, taking up our crosses and making Jesus central to our lives and let us promote and follow leaders who also embrace this way, are humble, are spiritual mothers and fathers who desire to steward the mysteries of the Gospel well, and are in leadership because they love people and wnt to see them walk into the fullness of faith in Jesus..  In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.