Real Imitation
By: Dr. Gregory S. Neal
Those of you who are my age or older will remember the Chrysler Cordoba commercials featuring Ricardo Montalban, who played Mr. Roarke on Fantasy Island and Khan on Star Trek, in which he waxed long and rhapsodic about the car’s rich "Corinthian Leather" seats. Every time I hear one of these old commercials, I can’t help but think: Real, Genuine, Fake, Imitation Leather. As real as it might have been, it always sounded like an imitation to me. Often the word “imitation” is used in a negative sense: something that isn’t quite real, isn’t quite right, isn’t quite as good as the real thing. Like Imitation cheese: those individually wrapped slices of congealed liquid polymer that kind-a sort-of taste like cheese? Yeah, like that. Imitation … it’s just not that great. However, that’s not the meaning of its use here in Ephesians.
When I was a kid, I always wanted to be like my dad. When he read his newspaper, I would hold up my newspaper and pretend to read. When he drank his coffee, I would drink my milk from a coffee cup. When he blew across the surface of his coffee to cool it, I would blow over the surface of my milk. When Dad mowed the yard, I would follow him around with my toy mower. I so much wanted to be like him. As I grew up, I really wanted to be like him: he was smart, so I wanted to be smart. He was important, so I wanted to be important. He went to SMU, so I wanted to go to SMU … I eventually did that, by the way. When I mimicked my dad, it was because I loved and respected him, and I wanted to be like him. Similarly, we are called to imitate God because we love and respect God and want to be, even if just a little bit, more like what God wants us to be.
“Therefore be imitators of God….” (Ephesians 5:1)
What does it mean to be imitators of God? Note what it also says: “… as beloved children.” (Ephesians 5:1) Just as I imitated my dad because I loved and respected him, we are called to imitate God because we love and respect God. Paul continues:
“… and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Ephesians 5:2)
What does it mean for us to “live in love?” The Greek word for love being used here is “agape,” which means:
“To Consider the needs of the other as being more important than, or essential to, your own needs.”
Living in love means that we live our lives considering others ahead of ourselves: considering their needs and working toward meeting those needs because their well-being and joy is essential to our own.
That’s why Christ was who he was and did what he did. God came to live among us in Jesus of Nazareth, experiencing what we experience, laughing with us, crying with us, healing us, eating with us, sharing with us all that it means to be human, and even dying with and for us. In all of this, and more, Christ shared God’s love with us in word and deed, by precept and example. Because God loved us so much, we were not left to the consequences of our own folly: to be gobbled up by sin and death. God’s love for us is far beyond our ability to imagine.
There is nothing that you can ever do, there is nothing that you could ever be or do or say, there is nothing about any of us that would ever cause God to stop loving us, or not accept us, or not embrace us. We are all … you are … beautifully made, just as you are right here and right now.
"But I’m a sinner." Welcome to the club …we all are.
"But I’m not perfect." Nope … none of us are.
"But there are things about me that need to change." Yep … me too.
The amazing truth of God’s love is that who you are right now, as a human being and a beloved child of God, is who God loves, right now. It’s not that God loves something or someone that you’re going to become at some point in the future. No. Scripture and good theology teaches us that God loves us right this very moment, just as we are.
"Christ gave himself for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." In ancient Jewish practice, nothing is left of this kind of offering. The fragrant offering is one that is totally and completely given to God; it is entirely consumed by fire on the altar, and its smoke wafts upwards to heaven as an offering. There’s nothing left for the priests or the attendants or those who gave the offering; it is completely given to God, leaving nothing but ashes behind. That’s how much God loves us. In Jesus’ life and ministry, death and resurrection, we have a depiction of how God has totally and completely given Godself for us all. We are called to imitate God through living in love for others, just as Jesus lived in love for us. We’re not called to imitate certain behaviors of other people, nor are we to do the things that others think we should be doing. We’re called to imitate Christ’s Way of Love.
The Netflix documentary “Pray Away" focuses on Exodus International, one of the “ex-gay” groups that tried to change, convert, or “heal” LGBTQ people. Back in the early 1980s, when I was in Junior High School, my parents forced me to go through one of those programs in hopes that it would change my sexual orientation. Through high-pressure “therapy” sessions, with moralistic preaching that lead to guilt and shaming, I was told that if I really loved God I would stop being gay. With multiple aversion therapy "treatments," efforts were made to make me straight. None of it worked; indeed, it couldn’t ever have worked, but I didn’t know that at the time. Reparative therapy was a disaster for me; the damage it did took decades to overcome, and some of the emotional scars remain to this day. Indeed, it took God’s grace, repeatedly lavished over me by dear friends, bellow clergy, competent clinical psychologists, and church members – most especially, by the wonderful saints at St. Stephen United Methodist in Mesquite Texas – to bring me to God’s true wholeness and all-inclusive love and acceptance.
The ex-gay program I was put through tried to teach me that, while God loves gay people, God can’t or won’t love us while we’re gay. At least, that’s how it was explained me when I was a vulnerable 14 year boy. I was told:
"God won’t love or accept you for who you are, or your way of loving other men … not even in monogamous relationships. To be loved by God, and to prove that you really love God yourself, you must stop being gay."
And, in order to punctuate this bullshit, I would be shown a photo of a shirtless young man accompanied by a moderate electrical shock through a cuff around my wrist. After hundreds of these "treatments," it was nothing short of torture and it took many years for me to overcome the psychological damage that it did to me.
These ex-gay "ministries" and their conversion and aversion therapy processes have been rejected by the American Psychological Association as being contrary to sound mental health; indeed, it has been clearly shown that they have done severe harm to those who have been forced to go through them. Not only that, but the message of these ministries runs contrary to God’s grace; it runs contrary to God’s love in Jesus the Christ, who lived and died for us all.
Rather than trying to mimic or imitate behaviors that others think we should be doing, we should be following the example of Christ and living as an expression of God’s love for others. As Christ loved us, so we are to love one another. It’s as simple as that.
© 2021 Dr. Gregory S. Neal
All Rights Reserved
As a popular teacher, preacher, and retreat leader, Dr. Neal is known for his ability to translate complex theological concepts into common, everyday terms. HIs preaching and teaching ministry is in demand around the world, and much of his work can be found on this website. He is the author of several books, including Grace Upon Grace: Sacramental Theology and the Christian Life, which is in its second edition, and Seeking the Shepherd's Arms: Reflections from the Pastoral Side of Life, a work of devotional literature. Both of these books are currently available from Amazon.com.