I know a young man who, when he was growing up, was a friendly, well-liked individual, who often wore a smile on his face; but as the years went by, he became more and more distant. I didn’t see him as often, and when I did see him, he didn’t seem to be himself. He didn’t laugh as often, and he didn’t engage in conversation the way he used to. He was present, but a part of him was missing, or at least, was kept hidden from those around him.
It was like he was living in a cocoon.
But then, gradually, he emerged from that cocoon. He experienced a transformation. To everyone else, it looked like he became a new person, but actually, what happened was that, finally, the person he’d always been on the inside revealed itself on the outside.The world could now see what had always been there.
And because who he was on the inside now matched who he was on the outside, his face shone. His face literally lit up in a way that it hadn’t for a very long time.
This isn’t a story about one particular individual, but about many young men - and women - who I’ve known over the years. Some are relatives, some are friends, some are people in the churches I’ve been a part of. Some of them you know. Some of them are friends and family members of yours.
For some, their transformation happened when they came out as gay or lesbian or transgender. For others, it was finally casting off an identity that had been forced on them— by parents, by society, by the church—and finally being who they felt God was calling them to be.
And even though I said this was a story about a young man, a few of these individuals didn’t discover their true selves until old age, at retirement, or following the death of their spouse.
But in each case, a part of the person’s identity that had been kept hidden away was finally revealed. And because they were able to live as their authentic selves, their faces shone because of it.
A long time ago, before I became a minister, I applied for a job. When it came time for the interview, I answered the questions as honestly as I could. I was later told I didn’t get the job because I lacked integrity.
Well, something like that sticks with you, doesn’t it? It makes you doubt yourself. And ever since, anytime I encountered that word integrity, I paid attention. And I’ve asked myself over and over: What does it mean to have integrity?
Eventually, I came to the conclusion that integrity means being true to who you are. Being true to who God created you and calls you to be.
And I know now that I did answer that interviewer’s questions with integrity, I was true to what I believed, and I was true to what I felt was right. I did not hide who I was or what I believed. I acted with integrity.
When Jesus took Peter, James, and John up on the mountain with him, he acted with integrity. He presented himself in a way that was consistent with who he knew he was. He allowed Peter, James, and John to see him in that moment when his outer nature reflected his inner truth, his true identity as God’s son.
These three disciples had thus far seen Jesus and had got to know him, bit by bit, day by day. They believed he was the messiah, the one anointed by God to restore God’s kingdom - but like us, they were a little confused about what that all meant. Would it be a king on a throne, like David, commanding armies in battle against their enemies?
Well, Jesus was like David, but he was also different from David. And God dwelt in him in a way that God had never before dwelt with any human.
And this is what was revealed on that mountain. And what they saw in Jesus, in that moment, and every moment to come, was one whose identity and purpose was fully, completely, 100%, aligned with God.
God dwells in each of us. And each of us have an identity and a purpose given to us by God. But even in the best of us, the alignment doesn’t quite reach 100%. There is a gap between how we act—how we present ourselves to the world—and how God calls us to act.
Paul writes to the Corinthians that we are jars of clay. The light of God shines within us, but we are jars of clay - earthen vessels - with imperfections and cracks. God’s desire is for us to be whole, but we are fragmented. We are torn apart. We’re all at least a little broken.
That integrity I talked about isn’t with me 100% of the time. And it isn’t with you 100% of the time. There are times when we fail to live out our true identity - times when we fail to be true to who we know we are; times when we fail to be true to the person God created us to be.
Maybe that’s why I’m so inspired by people like those I talked about at the beginning of my sermon. They faced great pressure to be and act a certain way, and they did act that certain way, even though it went against who they knew themselves to be; but then they got really brave, and said, “No more! From now on I’m going to be true to who I am. I’m going to be true to the person God created me to be.”
My mom was one of those people. Because of when she grew up and where she grew up and the community in which she grew up, she learned to hide a big, significant part of who she was, and present herself as something other than who she knew she was.
And the light started to fade from her life. It started to fade from those around here.
Then, gradually (because these things rarely happen all at once, but, like Abraham’s journey, take place in stages)... gradually, she came out. She said to a few close friends, “this is who I am.” She said to a few close family members, “this is who I am.”
And let me tell you, it wasn’t easy. Some of us found the light to be a little too bright, at least at first, when we weren’t used to it.
And, like Peter, we may have said some foolish things. “Here, let me make three dwellings…” What is that about? In Mark’s gospel, it says that Peter said this because he didn’t know what to say.
I can relate. Sometimes I, too, say the wrong thing, because I don’t know what to say.
It wasn’t easy for us when Mom came out, and it wasn’t easy for Mom. She was terrified of letting more and more people see her true colors. And, in other ways, Mom remained somewhat guarded and emotionally distant for the rest of her life.
But her family members who saw her true colors - and Mom grew up in a big family - learned to embrace those colors, and embrace who she was.
And that made it possible—or, at least, easier—for others in my rather large extended family to reveal their own true colors. Relatives who are gay and pansexual and transgender know that, in our family, they can let their true colors show, and that they will be loved and affirmed for who they are—who God created them to be.
And our whole family now shines just a little brighter because of that…
The religious know-it-alls brought to Jesus folks they regarded as sinners. They said to Jesus, “What should we do with these sinners?”
They called them sinners, because they hadn’t learned to see their true colors. They tried to shame them, which made it even harder for those they shamed to let their true colors show.
But Jesus brought out their true colors.
Jesus said to those who were brought to him: “These labels that they throw at you—that’s not who you truly are. I know who you are.” And Jesus showered them with love and compassion. His love for them overflowed, just like the perfume that one of them poured out onto his feet, and wiped with her tears and her hair. He embraced them, and their brokenness was made whole.
And you just know that, as they walked away, and heard Jesus say, “Your faith has made you well,” that their faces shone a little brighter than they had before. They held their heads a little higher, and everyone could see the difference. They had been transformed. They began to see themselves as they truly were: beloved children of God, made in God’s own image—a person that was not perfect; a human who was a little broken—but one who was still very good, and whose true colors were beautiful in God’s eyes.
No comments:
Post a Comment