Creativity
Rev Gav
How do we find our identity?
Matthew 12.46-50
While he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers were standing outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” But to the one who had told him this, Jesus replied, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” And pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
Who doesn’t have issues?
During my time as a minister I have made an astounding discovery. Are you ready for this? It’s not a culturally acceptable thing to say.
Everyone is bruised.
Yes, everyone is bruised — even the people who, on the surface, seem to have it all together. Yes, they are bruised too. They have issues and stuff going on that no-one knows about. They may well put on a brave face, dress to impress, seem always to have the right words to say, and exude an air of confidence and assurance, but the truth is that underneath that exterior they are bruised too.
It seems that nearly every day in my role as a pastor I come across people with anger problems, lack of self-worth, depression or some kind of addiction. In their personal lives people are going through tough things. So what is the answer? Well, I know that there are no pat answers — no simple solutions, however, as a Christian, I want to throw out a perspective or a way of looking at the message about Jesus that shapes who we are to the very core of our being.
Who am I?
Have you ever noticed that when people retire they often experience a profound loss of identity and this is captured in the question, “What is the purpose in my life?” Their identity had been in what they did — their job. So when that job finished, their identity suffered.
Some young people scrawl their street name in subways, on bridges, on trucks and trains — the more difficult or dangerous place, the better. Why do they do this? Why do they need to express their individuality, who they are, in this way?
Often, today, young people’s identity is in the brands that they wear, what they listen to, what they drink, what they smoke. Their identity is in what they consume. You may say, “That has always been the case. It was the same in the 1950s or 1960s.” Perhaps. But back then they would often do a job for life, for example, an engineer, a nurse. They would ultimately find their identity in their job — what they did. This is no longer the case. Many young people expect to be in a job for no more than two years. What will happen when this generation grows up? Will there be an identity crisis of will they carry a consumer-driven identity into adulthood?
Caring professions are typically professions that attract people who have a ‘need to please’ and this includes the church. How do we prevent ourselves from being a community that colludes with people in allowing them to never say ‘no’?
Here is a truth.
When we find our identity in a person, an action, or an object then that person, action or object will shape who we are.
Where did this identity crisis come from?
See if you can follow this line of thinking…
We live in a world where freewill exists; where bad things can and do happen; where, we can choose to withhold love from each other; where we can choose to put ourselves first – before God and before others. And this is what we do. We break relationships because we put ourselves before God and others. We withhold love.
Broken relationships mean broken love.
And we are all the recipients of broken relationships. None of us had a perfect upbringing. None of us have had perfect parents, perfect friends, or perfect experiences. None of us have experienced perfect love all of the time. This means that all of us have, to a greater or lesser extent, experienced a lack of love.
This lack of love means that we are all looking for love.
How is this lack of love expressed?
Quite often, this lack of love expresses itself as some sort of dysfunction – or more commonly, as more than one related dysfunction. For example,
- obsession or addiction — pornography, infatuation
- sexual confusion, dysfunction, or paraphilia
- a need to please
- defensiveness
- self deprecation — low self worth or low self-esteem
- violence to self or others — self harm, bullying, domestic violence
In our search for love we often seek that love from other people. We might, in our desperation to be loved, become obsessed with a person — perhaps someone who shows us some attention. We crave that attention that feeds our lack of love and so we seek that attention to the distraction of all other things.
Perhaps it is not other people, but a thing that makes us feel better about ourselves? We might seek that love and attention in food, money, drugs, nicotine, shopping, alcohol, pornography, or sex. When we are indulging in it, that ‘thing’ makes us feel better about ourselves. We need more and more of it just to feel good most of the time. It may shape us physically, mentally, and emotionally. It may lead to a physiological or psychological condition.
If a parent or older person or person of the same sex loves us sexually while we are still a child, we learn that this is how we get loved – and it shapes our sexual identity — sometimes forever.
If in our seeking love the approval of others becomes the most important thing then we develop a need to please and feel crushed by even genuine criticism. As a reaction we become defensive and it looks like we are the opposite of loving — yet we bark because we want to be loved more than anything.
Our lack of love may cause us to demand love — taking it physically through exerting power over someone. This can be bullying in the playground, domestic violence in the family, or sexual paraphilia in or outside the marriage.
If we have experienced little love then we feel unloved and worse, unlovable. We treat ourselves how we feel. We may harm ourselves, cut ourselves, abuse ourselves, or open ourselves to be abused by others.
Dysfunction is looking for love in places other than Jesus, and it is to Jesus that we now turn.
Where does identity come from?
In biblical times, identity was tied in with which family or clan you belonged to. You would say, “I am the child of,” or, “I am of the house of.” Our identity would have been defined by who our father was.
Who was Jesus’ identity in? It wasn’t in his family.
While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (Matthew 12:46-50)
Yet Jesus was completely secure in his identity. He did not suffer a crisis of identity and had no dysfunctionality in his personality. We would say he was solid or grounded. How can this be, when he experienced such terrible things – such lack of love from the world around him? Jesus did not walk around in a protective cocoon. He experienced every lack of love that could be thrown at him by human beings. The answer is, because he experienced perfect love from his Father. He was in a perfect relationship with God. His identity was not in being a brother, nor was it in being a builder, nor was it in being a Rabbi, nor was it in being a teacher, a leader, or a revolutionary. Jesus’ identity was in God and in nothing and no one else.
Jesus’ identity was in his Father — his heavenly father.
Because Jesus was in perfect relationship with God, only he had the answer for the world. Jesus perfectly loved his disciples — through the giving of himself both in his life and in his death. Their identity, being found in Jesus, enabled them to obey his commands and love others. Other people experienced the love of God through the disciples and discovered for themselves the love of God. They became disciples of Jesus themselves, and so the revolution of love continued, so on and so on, down through the centuries. Perhaps this is the Kingdom of God — a kingdom or revolution of love.
Through the restoration of relationship we have the restoration of love.
How do we find our identity in Jesus?
There is a lie that we often subscribe to, and sadly, many in the church subscribe to it too. It is that if we wish to be better people, we need to try harder. This is a lie! We cannot be better people; no matter how hard we try. If we want to be grounded, solid, and secure people then we need to know and experience God’s love. We do this through loving God — through having our identity in Jesus.
For some people, this may be difficult — we may have to learn how love and to receive love.
1. Others
Firstly, we can experience the love of God through being loved by others. For as God dwells in the heart of a believer who loves us, we experience some of God’s love for us. Other people can present to us a God who can be loved. Do you struggle to feel loved by others? Perhaps, you may need to allow yourself to be loved by others so that you can open up yourself to experiencing the love of God? Then, when you love God back, you open the floodgates to receive his love.
2. Bible
Secondly, through the Bible, we can gain an understanding of a God who can be loved and God’s eternal love for us. Through reading the Bible, we learn of God’s love for us demonstrated through Jesus, and the lengths that God has gone through to restore our relationship. However, to experience God’s love, we need to believe that it is true! To do this we need to let the word of God dwell within us — to let it sink in, to be on our lips, and to shape and transform who we are. We need to let God speak to us through the Bible. If you are struggling to experience the love of God, have you ever tried meditating on a word or phrase, such as “God so loved the world that he sent his one and only son”?
3. Creation
Thirdly, we can experience God’s love for us through creation. God spoke and God’s word created the world. Don’t get bogged down as to whether God created it in six days, through evolution, or whatever. The point is that the world speaks of God’s love. If you are struggling to experience the love of God, have you got out into the wilderness and beauty of the world? Have you connected with the creator through creation? Have you stopped to smell the roses?
4. Worship and Prayer
Fourthly, we can experience the intimacy of God’s love through worship and prayer. When we focus our minds on God, there are times when worship or prayer can take us to a place of deep intimacy with God. Again, if you struggle to feel loved by God, have you ever opened yourself and given yourself completely in worship or prayer? Have you bared your soul? Have you ever abandoned yourself in love? It may be worth a try.
5. Sacrament
Finally, we can experience God’s love through sacrament. Sacraments are real things that have a spiritual significance. God communicates love to us through sacraments such as baptism and communion. In communion, the bread and wine are physical representations of spiritual realities. Through communion, God gives to us and invites us to be part of him/her. What greater demonstration of love is there than for God to give life for us? If you struggle to experience God’s love, then when you take communion, don’t just remember God’s love for you – allow God to actually communicate love to you.
Finally…
All of us have, at one point or another, struggled with our identity. All of us are bruised to a greater or lesser extent. Jesus, who had his identity firmly routed in the Father, invites us to find our identity in him. He invites us to receive God’s love — God’s acceptance and forgiveness. Jsus longs for us to be whole and to be a community that draws on the love of God and shares that love with others. Let us let Jesus love us.
“This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
May you be he healed of your of your bruises and/or brokenness. May you come to know that God loves you — not because of anything you have done — but because God loves you, and may you come to know and find your identity in and through Christ.
Amen.
and then