In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen. (Psalm 19:14)
Who am I? … We spend so much of our lives unsure of the answer to this simple question. We look at parts of our environment and try to piece them together as some way to describe ourselves, but we usually are unable to really answer the question, “Who am I?” accurately.
If I don’t know who I am, then what I stand for and what I believe in can be easily swayed by circumstances. Therefore, knowing who I am is critical to helping me get through this life.
Henri Nouwen was a Roman Catholic priest who spent his life struggling with this issue. He taught at Notre Dame, Harvard, and Yale before realizing his calling to serve mentally handicapped adults.
During this later part of his life, he noticed that we usually answer the question “Who am I?” based on three things.
The First is: “I am what I do.”
I’m a doctor. I’m an accountant. I’m a ditch digger. We even assign values to certain jobs, and transfer those values to the persons doing those jobs, don’t we? We’re more impressed when we’re introduced to a doctor than we are when introduced to a ditch digger. An admiral is more impressive to us than an ensign. Likewise a senior vice-president of a company draws our interest more than the mail clerk of the same company. It’s also one of the first things we want to know about someone when we meet them.
And even if we won’t admit it out loud, don’t we tend to hope our daughters marry a doctor or lawyer instead of a ditch digger or garbage man?
Some jobs give people power over other people, but that doesn’t make them better than the people they supervise. But we often forget that.
A while ago, the sewer line under our neighbor’s front yard ruptured. A section of pipe and the cap needed replacing, along with some other work, and it was all underground.
When their doorbell rang, they were quite happy to see a ditch digger standing at their door, and would have been very unimpressed by a doctor, unless the doctor was holding a shovel in his hand.
The Second factor is: “I Am What I Have.”
We spend our lives chasing material things, like cars, money, big houses. And we often think of success as getting more things than everyone else has. But the satisfaction is temporary. No matter how much we get, we still want more. And every step of the way, we hope others will notice the cool stuff we’ve got.
In fact, we often judge people’s opinions by how wealthy they are. The Hollywood elite has tremendous amounts of material possessions, and also some of the goofiest opinions on many issues, yet many people give credence to their ideas solely because they are wealthy. Many of the celebrities we see extolling their views are operating way outside their field of expertise. They are often good actors, musicians, or comedians, but they have little or no real, in-depth knowledge of the subject matter they discuss publicly. Subjects that most people spend years studying in order to understand them competently are discussed by celebrities whose comments are quoted as authoritative.
Think about it. If any of us offered our opinion to the media about an issue like stem-cell research, military strategy, or treatment of diseases, we would be asked for credentials showing that we’re subject matter experts in the area. We would need to prove that we’re scientists, military officers, or doctors, before any reporter would take us seriously. Yet think of how many times you’ve heard some celebrity talk about these topics without being asked what makes them qualified.
We assume that wealth imbues us with expertise in other areas despite all the evidence to the contrary.
The Third thing is: “I Am What People Say About Me.”
We tend to believe what people say about us. There’s a saying public relations: “Don’t believe your own PR.” We see it all the time though in our celebrity-obsessed culture. People are given almost god-like status because because of their looks, musical or acting ability, or popularity at the moment. They are lifted to the top of the social ladder, and often plummet back to earth when that popularity fades. That sudden stop is often devastating.
In ancient Rome, military commanders who had been victorious in battle, killing at least 5,000 enemy troops, were honored publicly in a huge civil and religious ceremony called a Roman Triumph. The “triumphator,” as he was called, was paraded through the city ahead of his troops. In front of him were the chiefs of the conquered peoples, who were followed by wagons of gold, jewels, and other spoils of war. The products of his great victory were directly in front of his eyes throughout the parade.
In the chariot with him was a slave who held a laurel crown directly over the triumphator’s head. As he was holding the crown, the slave would repeat continuously, “Memento mori, (Remember you are mortal)” or “Respica te, hominem te memento (Look behind you, you are only a man).”
In an effort to remain in the limelight at any cost, celebrities today do almost anything for recognition. Bad news is better than no news is their credo. Who’s hard is so cold that we can’t feel the pain of Britney Spear’s catastrophic spiral from the pinnacle of celebrity as pop singer and former Mickey Mouse Club child star, to a drug-addicted national laughing stock whose family is now in tatters?
You see, even though we tend to believe the good things that are said about us. The negative things people say cut through to our very core.
A critical comment from someone can erase hundreds of positive comments from other people. Especially a critical comment from one of our peers. We’re very worried about what our “social equals” say about us. Peer pressure is enormously powerful.
Think back to when you were a small child. We thought of our parents as the ones who knew everything, who had all the answers for us, and provided safety for us. Then we became teenagers and realized we knew everything and our parents were morons.
A quote often attributed to Mark Twain says, “When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in just seven years.”
I see some of the parents smiling also. I’m not sure if it’s because they remember thinking that way themselves, or if they’re living at the other end of it now.
At some point in our lives we all can identify with knowing what our parents want us to do, and knowing that our friends want us to do something different.
And regardless of our age, we treat our Heavenly Father that same way, don’t we? We disregard his commands and do what we know in our hearts is wrong, because people will think we’re weird if we don’t go along with what they think is right.
People will think we’re some kind of freaks if we obey God. Those 10 commandments were OK back in ancient Israel, but times are different now, right? Going to church, obeying our parents, and not lying ever? No one does that anymore. We think that God, like our parents, is out of touch. He doesn’t understand that people will make fun of us if we actually do what he wants us to.
But God, like our parents often turn out to be, is right after all.
These three factors are how we usually decide who we are, and who someone else is.
“I am what I do.”
“I am what people say about me.”
“I am what I have.”
In Edward Gibbons book, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, he mentions a statement from one of the most powerful, prosperous, and prestigious Muslim rulers of the Roman era. Gibbons wrote,
“It may therefore be of some use to borrow the experience of the same Abdalrahman, whose magnificence has perhaps excited our admiration and envy, and to transcribe an authentic memorial which was found in the closet of the deceased caliph. ‘I have now reigned above fifty years in victory or peace; beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies. Riches and honours, power and pleasure, have waited on my call, nor does any earthly blessing appear to have been wanting to my felicity. In this situation I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot: they amount to FOURTEEN: — O man! Place not thy confidence in this present world!’” (Chapter 52)
Hmmm. Those three things didn’t seem to work very well for Abdalrahmen. Centuries later, another writer noticed a similar problem. Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935) wrote a poem about a rich man during the early 1900s, called “Richard Cory”:
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from head to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But he still fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.
And he was rich — yes, richer than a king —
and admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
“I am what I do.”
“I am what people say about me.”
“I am what I have.”
As Henri Nouwen noticed, there’s a problem with those ideas. They are all lies! They are deceptions meant to keep us from realizing who we really are. They’re temptations. The same temptations that Satan offered Jesus in the wilderness.
“DO SOMETHING!” Change these stones to bread. Show yourself to be the Messiah by doing what you want instead of what God wants. — I am what I do.
Satan promised him all the Earth’s kingdoms and property if Jesus would just worship him. — I am what I have.
And Satan brought Jesus up to the roof of the temple and said, “Jump off. The angels will carry and protect you, and then people will say all these wonderful things about you.” — I am what people say about me.
Power,
Property,
Prestige.
The very things that we base our identities on, Jesus realized were illusions — mere temptations that would distract us from obeying God and discovering who we really are.
Jesus realized that being the Son of God was more important than any of Satan’s temptations.
So we now know who we are not.
We are NOT what we do.
We are NOT what we have.
We are NOT what people say about us.
So who are we?
Let’s look at what the Apostle John had to say in the third chapter of his first letter:
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! … Dear friends, now we are children of God.”
We are children of God. Each one of us. Remember, God has no grandchildren! We are all first-generation heirs with Jesus!
Who we really are is what matters to God.
What we DO doesn’t matter! Jesus mingled with the poorest of the poor, and held no titles or recognized position of authority.
What we HAVE doesn’t matter to God! Jesus owned a single seamless robe, nothing more. The treasures we stockpile here will remain behind when we pass on to the next life.
What PEOPLE SAY ABOUT US doesn’t matter to God! God sees through all the false praise to our true selves. Likewise, He sees through the false criticism to our true selves.
And, I’ve got to tell you, I really believe we would care a lot less about what people think of us, if we realized how rarely they do.
If we remember who we really are, we can stand up to any adversity life has in store for us. In the third chapter of Gospel of John he writes: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
God so loved the world. That’s us. Not the trees and flowers. Us, his children. We need to remember who we are. We need to remember that Jesus is part of each of us. And we need to look for the Jesus in each other.
Above all, realize that all the billions of other people He created were not enough for God. He had to have you. You are God’s beloved child.
God bless you.
