Living Your Faith-Simple? Tough? How Difficult is this for YOU?

 In Paul's letter to the Ephesians, which we'll hear this weekend, we are reminded that we are to live in such a way as to be true to our baptismal call in thought word and deed.

Let's remind ourselves that at our baptism we were called as "Priest, Prophet and King/Queen" to be loving and humble servants of God. We are called through those roles to share our faith, to act justly, love tenderly and walk humbly with our God, as the prophet Micah teaches us. We do this every time we bring justice, love and tenderness into our world by our actions. We know that this call to King/Queen-ship is a call to humble service to our neighbors. None of this is easy.

Often times I think that living our Christian faith is a rather difficult commitment to make. It means being conscious and thoughtful in all our actions, in all our words. All the time.

On the other hand, what I hear in this letter seems pretty simple. Imitate God. The reading spells it out pretty clearly: anything like bitterness, fury, malice and anger should not be a part of our lives. I will say that as an Italian who can be rather loud when excited, I might take issue with the "shouting" example...but for the most part we are to be compassionate, loving, forgiving and kind.

On second glance, maybe not so simple. Of course we want to be all those good and virtuous things, but sometimes, many times, it can be very hard to be that good all the time!  We might be tempted to give up before we even start!

 Who do you believe God to be? What is your picture of the Divine? Some of us were raised with a rather strict and forbidding image of a creator who was somehow always looking to grade us on our behavior. There was a divine checklist with our name on it, and we tried really hard not to have too many marks against us. Jesus' whole life he tried to show us a different image of his abba, his father...as one who loved us and wanted the best for us.

 So which image do you choose to hold onto? Because the image you choose will determine your behavior won't it? If we're called to imitate God's behavior, then it's important to know how we think God acts so we can decide on our behavior.

 Is your God angry, and mean and waiting to catch you when you make a mistake? Does your God take delight in punishing you?

 Or, as we see in the Christian Scriptures over and over again, is your idea of God that of a loving parent, one who is caring and compassionate, one who teaches and encourages, one who roots for you- rejoicing in your successes and gently comforting you in your times of loss or failure?

 "Be imitators of God", "Live in love" ... on my good days of course I want to behave like this! Even on my bad days, I want this to be my vision of how I want to live my life. We want to be, as John has reminded us these few weeks, Bread for others, so that all may be fed on and full of the best of God's love and care.

 Simply put, when Jesus said he was "living bread" he was offering us a true and real connection to our God. In accepting, in eating this bread from heaven, we become what we take into our very selves. We become imitators of God. We become people who live in love.

 Let's get it together, let’s start acting like we love one another!