“No, Really, Who Are You?”
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Text: Romans 8:9-17
It was a beautiful, sunny day about 10 days ago, and I was sitting in Yorkville waiting for an appointment. Having realized that I had some time wait, I went into a Starbucks shop, ordered a coffee, sat outside in the beautiful sun and enjoyed a relaxing java while I read the paper. It was quiet, it was lovely, and it was serene. Suddenly, like a swarm of locusts, young people started to arrive outside the coffee shop.
They came with baseball caps on, pens in hand, and pads of paper in their left or right hand. There was a great aura of excitement and they stood just outside the railing that designated the seating for those who were at the coffee shop. They looked inside the door with great anticipation and then the excitement started to mount. Two big, strong men came out of the coffee shop and these young men descended on them, pen and paper in hand.
I realized that the people they had been waiting for were members of the Oakland Athletics who were in town to play the Blue Jays for five games. They went up to one of the stars who I recognized as Kevin Kouzmanoff, the third basemen and they nearly molested him wanting his autograph. Oh, there were the charlatans around, who came with a baseball card thinking they could slip them in to be signed in a surreptitious way but it was fascinating that the players knew that they weren't going to do that without pay!
For the young boys with their baseball caps on backwards, sure, they would sign anything. These two Oakland A stars were calm and cool and friendly and warm and a credit to their sport. The boys were excited, they thought this was absolutely the highlight of their day, and they hung around in excitement. The two players were whisked off in a black Hummer.
I sat about a metre away from all this. I looked up at the boys, who were so excited, and said, “Would any of you like my autograph as well?”
They looked at each other with great dismay, almost feeling awkward. They had no idea what to say! They looked, they muttered to one another. Finally, one of them had the courage to say, “Who are you?”
I stared him straight in the eye and said, “I am Reverend Andrew Stirling, Senior Minister of Timothy Eaton Memorial Church in Forest Hill.”
Blank looks! One of them said, “Okay, in that case, sign right here.”
And I did. And, I said something like “Have a very happy day! Best regards, Reverend.”
I think he thought he got something valuable but he wasn't sure. The others knew he didn't have anything valuable, and of that they were certain! I finally said, “Guys, I am just playing with you! But, thank you for your attention!”
They left quickly and I read my paper and had my java. The excitement was over.
“Who are you?” he said very courageously, I thought. “Who are you?” If someone were to ask you the question, “Well, who are you?” how would you reply? You would draw on your curriculum vitae, you'd outline your credentials, your education, your background, you might even refer to your work experience and the things that you have done. You might look at some awards that you have received, maybe some great sporting experience, maybe something in the realm of music.
If someone asks, “Who are you?” you might decide to be more subjective and personal. When they ask you “Who are you?” you might describe yourself as someone who is outgoing, vivacious, or maybe shy and retiring. You might describe yourself as a friendly person, an affable person, or you might tell them that you are a mean person and that you don't like Mondays. You might give all manner of responses to them. You might tell them who you are in terms of your career and what position you hold in society.
Someone might ask you, “Who are you?” and you decide to answer in the form of a relationship. “I am my mother's son” you might say. “I am the daughter of my father.” “I am the mother of my child.” “I am the sister of my brother.” You might describe your relationship along other lines: a spouse, a friend, etc. You might dive deep into your past and say that you are from the line of some king that was a Viking leader.
You might draw on many things to say who you are, but what about who you are in terms of your relationship with God? What happens if someone came up to you and said, “Who are you?” and you tried to answer in relation to the Creator and the Maker. Now, that would really confuse them! It would confuse them, because as a society, as a world, we often don't give a thought to who we are in relation to the Divine and the Creator and the Lord of the Universe! More often than not, we spend our time analyzing our image and our self in the form of a self-image.
We might draw on psychology. We might look deep into the analysis of how the mind operates or the brain functions. We might describe ourselves according to categories that have been established by psychoanalysis. Very often we live in a world that seeks to understand the mind and psychology and the power of reason, and many great insights have arisen because of this. Many things tell us who we are in terms of our self-image by a form of introspection and self-analysis. Often it is healthy, creative, and makes for a better self-image.
Or, we might try and discover who we are in terms of other people's sense of our image. We might draw on some sociological models to try and figure out who we are in relation to everyone else in our society. What part of the demographic do we belong to? What cultural set or sub-set are we from? We might even look anthropologically to our formation as a people and how we have been able to come to the place where we are now.
Sociology has helped us define ourselves in light of the greater whole, and social anthropology has shown how we have been able to create our systems, our government, our lives, our points of interest and meaning as a result of that analysis. We often want to know who we are. We often want to know who we are in relation to others and how others see us.
There is a story I read in a humorous American magazine about a boy who was on his cell phone in the drugstore and was waiting to pick up something at the desk from the pharmacist. The pharmacist overheard the young boy's conversation.
The boy said: “I am calling to enquire if you have someone to take care of your lawn?”
The answer was clearly, yes they did, and the young boy said, “Well, thank you very much. I am glad that you have been able to find someone for that job. Can you tell me, are they doing a satisfactory job? ....... I am glad that the person doing that job is doing it very well.” And, he ended the phone call.
The pharmacist looked at the boy and said, “Oh, you must be very disappointed, because it seems that you are trying to get a job but it is already filled.”
The boy says, “Oh no! I am not disappointed. I am the one who has that job and now I know how I am doing.”
We all want to know how we are doing. We all want to know who we are. We all want to know what people think of us. But scarcely a thought goes by about what God thinks of us!
The Apostle Paul in writing to the Romans clearly identifies who we are in relation to God. In one of the most spectacular of all the passages in The Bible, Romans 8 is about the believers of life in the Spirit, the believers relationship with God in Christ. Now, there are some who have looked at this particular passage and have tried to impose a sort of psychology and psychological models on the Apostle Paul to try to figure out how he understood his identity and how he understood other people's identities with Christ.
Eric Eriksson tried to do that through looking at Luther and then back to Paul. Martin Heidegger tried to do that by looking at the existential philosophy that arises out of Paul. Others have tried at different levels to understand precisely how Paul operated on a psychological level. But, that is to impose a method and a model on a person who was not thinking in those categories or along those lines. The only way to understand the Apostle Paul is to realize that two things influenced his understanding of human beings in relationship to God.
The first is that Paul is a Jew and he never gave up that Jewishness, and therefore he looked at the identity of who he was and who we are in the light of God's covenantal relationship with Israel. The Book of Romans talks about this covenant and, over and over again, Paul refers to “The children of God” or “The people of God” and their standing with the Maker and with the Lord.
Paul was a Christian also, and he understood that through Jesus Christ a new covenant, a covenant that expanded and that went to the gentile world was operative. In Christ, through his death and resurrection, people are adopted into the covenant with God. For the Apostle Paul then, he was thinking of identity, of who we are in relation to Israel and in relation to Jesus Christ.
More than that, he makes another distinction, and that distinction defines who we are in relationship to God. The first part is that we live according to our sinful nature. If we live according to our sinful nature, then we die. It is the nature of sin and of death. But, if we live by the Spirit of God, then in fact the very same Spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead lives within us, and therefore we live.
For Paul then, the distinction was between those who live in the human nature and those who live according to the Spirit of God. So, he has a clear sense of identity, a clear sense of who we are in relation to God. But, in our text today, there is this gem, this line, and it says: “The Spirit, [the Spirit of God,] testifies with our spirit that we are the children of God.” For Paul, the ultimate defining principle of the faith is that we are children of God. Before anyone asks us who we are or what we are, in the eyes of the Maker, through our faith in Jesus Christ, we are of all things, God's children.
You know, my friends, if we believe that to be true, and if that is the cornerstone of our identity and our faith, then it provides us with some tremendous guidance and hope, for it first of all gives us a source of assurance. I think it is fair enough to say that in our world and in our society, particularly I would say over the last 30 or 40 years, we have come to realize just how easily people are abused and lose their sense of identity. We are learning that at our peril in the history of the Church.
We can see, can we not, that there are people who have lost their sense of identity, of being a person, because of the abuse that they have received, and they are unsure as to precisely who they are, not only in relationship to themselves, but in relationship to God and the Covenant? They are not sure. To those who have been sexually abused, in whatever form or in whatever place, there is a crisis of identity and often a lacking sense of worthiness as a result of the pain that they have endured. There are those who as a result of having lost their parents, their earthly parents, feel uncertain or unsure of where they really belong or where they really come from.
I was thinking about that as everyone was celebrating VE Day over the last weekend and the end of the Second World War. My mind went back to when I used to visit a neighbourhood Dr. Bernardo's home in England. Dr. Bernardo's home has existed since the 19th century, but really came into vogue in the Second World War when orphans from the blitzing and bombings in London and Birmingham and Coventry and Manchester would go to Dr. Bernardo's homes throughout the United Kingdom.
I remember visiting one of them in Suffolk where I lived, a beautiful, rural part of the world. Just a few doors down from our house, there was a Dr. Bernardo's home and there were children who had lost their parents during the war. Even though I was just a very young child at that time, I remember my mother taking meals over to them and I remember us raising money for Dr. Bernardo's homes. I remember that those children often had a profound sense of not knowing where they really belonged. Some of them even came to our own shores here in Canada. Many of them had to find a place to live. Many of them were adopted and found good homes. But, for those children that I remember living a few doors down, it was hard. I had my mother. I had my father; they didn't.
The Apostle Paul looked at the gentile world and he thought we were like that, that we were orphans, but he understood that through the power of Jesus Christ and his love, by virtue of the power of the Holy Spirit, God could re-affirm our identity, not by worldly standards, but by heavenly standards. The Spirit bears testimony with our spirit that we are the children of God rising above all the trouble and the pain and the brokenness that often comes from distorted identities on this earth through the power of God's affirmation.
We know that we are children of God and when a person knows that they don't have to explain to anyone who they are by worldly standards, but by heavenly standards - by the standards set by Christ himself. What a wonderful assurance in a broken world!
There is also a responsibility. To say you are a child of God is to make a profound statement about yourself. It says that you belong. But when you belong, says Paul, you must live according to the Spirit and not human nature. You live by the guidance and the support and the strength of the Spirit, not by earthly standards.
There is a wonderful story told of Alexander the Great when one of his young soldiers, also Alexander, was a coward. He was told to go before the great leader and to present himself for punishment. Alexander the Great met this soldier and asked the soldier, “What is your name?”
He whispered, “Alexander.”
He said, “Speak up, what is your name?”
And the man said, “Alexander.”
He said, “Speak up, I cannot hear you! What is your name?”
The man shouted, “Alexander!”
And Alexander the Great looked at him and said, “Well, in that case, either change your name or change your conduct.”
If you are a child of God, there is a responsibility. The responsibility is to open yourself to the power of the Spirit. Even then, the Spirit knows that of our own volition we cannot do this; it is all by grace that we live as a child of God. That is why Paul says the following: “In our weakness, even in our weakness, Christ and the Spirit come to us and empower us”.
There is also a sense in which we receive our gifts and our giftedness through the power of the Spirit. As children of God, it is the Spirit that confirms who we are. Paul says that we are now co-heirs with Christ. That does not mean that we have equality with Christ, or that we have equality with God. Paul says elsewhere that is not something we can grasp. Nevertheless, with Christ, we are adopted, we are co-heirs as children of God. In God's eyes, we are seen through the eyes of Christ, and it is that which is more important than anything else.
I read a story about a young person who aspired to be a missionary and had to get his accreditation. One day, at five o'clock in the morning, he was ordered to come to an examiner's house to be tested. He went to the house at five in the morning, was greeted, taken into a room and he had to sit there for three hours until eight o'clock. At eight o'clock, finally, the examiner came in, sat him down, welcomed him, and said, “I'd like to ask you two questions: Can you spell?”
The young man looked at him and said, “Yes, I can spell.”
He said, “Well, in that case, I want you to spell 'dishes.'”
The young man said, “D-i-s-h-e-s.”
“Well done!” said the examiner, “Now can you count?”
The young man said, “Yes, I can count.”
He said, “Well, what is 2 + 2?”
The young man said, “It is four.”
“Thank you very much!” the examiner said, “In that case, I am going to recommend you to be a missionary.”
The next day, the examiner went before the missionary council and they wanted to know if this young man was worthy of being a missionary. The examiner said, “He most definitely is! He has everything that is needed to be a missionary. First of all, he understands self-denial. He came at five o'clock in the morning out of a warm bed on a snowy day to see me. Secondly, he had punctuality. When I asked him to be there at five, he was there at five. Thirdly, he has the gift of patience, for he sat there for three hours waiting for me to begin the examination. Fourthly, he has a great temper, because even though I kept him waiting, he never complained, and he answered all my questions. And, finally, he is a man of great, great humility, because I asked him the questions you would ask a Grade Two student, and he never demurred and he answered every one of them. That is the kind of person that we want in the missionary field!”
You see, my friends, it is not only outside that our credentials are to be seen, it is on the inside. It is not a matter of our status and our power and our self-image or the image that others have of us; it is the disposition of the heart, the quality of the spirit, and the things that really come from Christ. It is not the gift, it is the fruits of the Spirit that really define who we are.
So, my friends, if someone comes up to you and asks you: “Who are you?” Answer the following: “I am a child of God, and as a child of God, I walk humbly with my Lord.” You need nothing else to show who you really are. Amen.