A sign of the times is the little grave marker-style warning that is usually staked in front yards across the country, announcing something to the effect: “NEIGHBORHOOD ALERT: You Are Being Watched!!” How effective this is as a deterrent to the upsurge in home burglaries, is difficult to say, but the obvious logic behind these communal efforts at property protection is that no one---especially wrongdoers---likes to be watched.
But watched we are. Whether good or bad, burglar or believer, criminal or Christian---we are all under some degree of scrutiny. Someone else is usually interested in our behavior. Someone usually seems to be taking notes on us. In other words, we are an example. Either a good example---having conduct worthy of imitation. Or, a bad example---being an illustration of what not to do or be. Whatever our moral profession, or behavior, it is under scrutiny. We ALL exemplify something.
The Apostle Paul (in I Thessalonians 1:5-28), commends the early Christians at Thessalonica as “good examples”. By first imitating Christ, they, in turn, became something to be imitated by others. One good example seems to spawn another. Perhaps you’ve seen that little wall plaque that reads: “Oh, to be half as wonderful as my child thought I was, and only half as stupid as my teenager thinks I am.” Behind that stark accusation of every parent is the recognition of being an example and desiring to be a proper one at the various stages of a child’s life.
Long before football coaches were saying, “Winning isn’t the main thing---it is the only thing,” Albert Schweitzer said, “Example is not the main thing---it is the only thing.” He backed up the motto with an exemplary life. In fact, he frequently used the phrase “imitation of Christ” as his life’s credo. The Christian is provided a model in Christ and is called to be a reflection of that image in turn, someone worth emulating, an original worth cloning, a good example.
The strangest things happen to people when they get behind the wheel of their vehicles. I am thinking of a sweet, sedate, 60’s-something lady who presides over her household with efficiency, she participates in the life of her community and plays a responsible role in civic affairs. She is the personification of the middle-class virtue and pillar of strength in her church. But let her take a trip down the highway in her Oldsmobile and a remarkable metamorphosis takes place. And not for the better. She is soon muttering under her breath about the “ineptitude” of other drivers. At the intersection, she refuses to be beaten and steps on the gas pedal with all the determination of a teenage dragster. When she gets onto the interstate highway, it might seem to the observer that she is trying to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 race. She, in her Oldsmobile, can hold her own against the most uninhibited college junior. The tragedy is that she is known more for her wild driving than for all the good she does in the community. The example she sets by her driving, heavily negates all the wonderful things she does outside her automobile.
See You in Church Sunday,
