rich’s blog

Preface:

So. We’re continuing to talk about things that we need to talk about, church things. And if we ignore the stuff that surrounds today’s topic, I think there will be a part of us, as a church, that will always be “less than” instead of “greater than” or even “equal to.”

We’re talking about authenticity today. This morning we’ll talk about potential paths to authentic living, abuses and misuses of the phrase, we’ll talk about how this relates to church life & our own souls.

And if I’m honest, today’s topic really is one that’s hard to say is something that’s just our business. What we’re talking about can’t help but overflow outside of the church, because we’re talking about a basic pattern of living today, inside or outside the times we gather together, and it’s one that affects the people we come across, Christian or not.

Too: today’s message is shorter than usual. It was just hard for me. I think I was too close. (hahahahahah!)

But before we talk more about this, let’s pray.

Prayer:

Glory overwhelm us.

Introduction

So. Authenticity.

It’s not an unfamiliar word, right? It’s popular, actually, common: everyone wants to be authentic or be around authentic people, to provide an authentic experience or to have an authentic experience with authentic people.

I mean, even as consumers, we want authentic brand-name goods, no knock-offs, right? And when someone has some item that’s rare, unusual, or valuable we wonder, or even ask, “is that an authentic such-and-such.”

Actually, we never wonder that.

“Real”

What we wonder is if the thing is real or if its fake. Is it real or is it fake, that rare, valuable thing. A purse or a piece of furniture might be real, or it might be fake, right?

And beyond this, one of the most common judgments that our world is always making is whether a person is “real” or “fake.”

Anyone ever labeled another person as “fake?” I’m guessing most of us have, at some point or another; and what we’re really wishing when we do this is that the person who we’re labeling would just be “real.”

And what we mean when we say we want someone who is “real”–well, honestly, this is what we’re talking about this morning.

Being authentic is about being “real”–it’s a hard thing to define, but, as it’s been said about something else, we know it when we see it, don’t we?

Authentic people are real; when they show up and present themselves, you know that you’re meeting who they really are, not some version of themselves that they’ve prepared for you, not some imitation of themselves that’s missing a few key qualities here and there, a thing that’s “fake”–whether purposely or accidentally so.

This morning we’re talking about authenticity. And what that simply means is that we’re talking about what it means to be real people. People who are real about who we are.

A Foil:

Howard Thurman, a theologian, once declared “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you came alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” This quote was popularized by a different author.

And it’s a good quote; I’d use it in a different message, probably: It’s really inspirational. But I’m a little bit cautious of just tossing it out there.

Because most of us don’t automatically think to ourselves that if we were to “come alive,” then we’d bring with us all our sin, and our troubles, and our terrors & our meanness. When I think of myself as “coming alive,” I think of myself with bigger muscles, you know, and a stronger jaw line, and the ability to choose a course of action and act with deliberate willfulness. I am without sin, self-possessed, can run a 3 minute mile, and have a string of successful entrepreneurial ventures. I am fantastic.

I will be someday; so will each of us. On the other side of the resurrection we will embody fantastic, and in the meantime we train ourselves for the life that is our destiny by living it out as best as we’re able. This is true; the destiny we have that determines how we live right now.

But a desire to “come alive,” usually doesn’t bring to mind a desire to be ourselves; it brings to mind a desire to be someone else. Someone who doesn’t talk with his hands, and ramble on and on, and constantly feel unfulfilled & dissatisfied–oh wait, talking about me again!

What it seems to me the world most needs is people who are comfortable being who they are, people who are aware of who they are, and are real with the rest of us about it. Authentic people, real people.

The Problem:

Because there are a thousand pressures to be inauthentic. The world positions us for schizophrenic living; we are one thing monday-friday, another thing on the weekends. We have work lives & home lives & faith lives.

We’re trained to compartmentalize aspects of who we are, passions we have, follies & sins, and everywhere we go–but maybe, unfortunately, especially the church–we’re supposed to be anything but ourselves.

Right? In the church we’re supposed to be nice, and never frustrated, and pleasant, and hard-working, angelic really, as though we’ve just woken up from heaven and stepped down to live among one another, with perfect manners & breath & thoughts.

And even though everyone of us knows that none of us are like that, we still, sort of think that we really should be, at least “at church.” (vomit sign)We should be anyone except ourselves, and anything but “real.”

I’m not saying anything new here.

But I need to remind us, maybe, that Jesus came to save real people, all of us, not just the parts we want other people to see.

Imagine what would happen if the only part of us that was resurrected was the part we presented to people even this morning. Could be lousy. I don’t know where we’re all at.

But let me share for a second how this authenticity jag came from for me.

Paul:

Paul in his letter to the Thessalonians is reminding them just how much he cares for them, how he lived among them, and the type of life he lived. It’s a beautiful passage that was read to us this morning.

And he says one line in it; it’s just another line in this building argument about how much he loves them, but he writes “Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well.”

“Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well.”

I noticed this line for the first time, oh six or seven years ago; it was pointed out to me by a friend. And–man, you know how sometimes an idea or a phrase is introduced to you that is just surprising and interesting, and gets stuck in your head and just rattles around in there bouncing off other things and showing up when you least expect it.

This was nothing like that.

I’m kidding. It was just like that. This notion that Paul had such a deep concern for the Thessalonians that his love for them led to him being delighted, more than willing, to share his life with them.

I get sharing the gospel; that’s important, right; so important. But Paul seems to imply that sharing his life with them was a bonus, was something he didn’t even expect, something extra.

A Principle:

For Paul, his delight in sharing his life was borne out of love, it started there. And some of us know what that is like; if we have loved deeply, we do want to share with those we love who we are, want to be real with them, and we drop our guards and let them in in unique ways. In fact, love makes us feel “safe,” right? Safe to share our lives with the one we love.

But it seems to me that this is a chicken & egg sort of thing: what comes first? Do we love people, and so we begin to share our lives with them? Clearly, right? But sharing your life with others–being authentic and real with others, which is what we’re talking about–can help love happen.

And we need to remember that Paul is writing here to a church, not a girlfriend or boyfriend. He’s not talking about romantic, “will you go out with me” love; he’s talking about the sort of love that’s always patient, always kind, never fails; you’ve heard of it, right? I pray we’ve all experienced it. It’s the sort of love that expects nothing in return & keeps a short account and has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with a caring commitment to the good of love’s object, another person.

And the more interactions I’ve had with people who are desperate for authentic relationships, who themselves want to be authentic, real people in what can feel like a fake world, and the more I’ve thought of the way Paul talks to these friends of his, loved by him, the more sure I am that the church has to be a place where we are sharing our lives with one another.

Church life means authentic life. Church people need to be authentic people.

Splitting Hairs:

And I would argue–take it or leave it–that there’s some sort of difference between me sharing my life with you, because I love you know or now that I should and sharing life together.

I lived in a dorm; I know about sharing life with people. Eating together, playing & working & resting together. This is good stuff; sharing life together is what Matt talked to us about a couple of weeks ago, community, right?

But I can share life with you all, and do a pretty good job–time has a habit of wearing this down–but do a pretty good job of you never really knowing me. Of never really sharing my life with you, avoiding as much as I can being authentic, being real with you.

Remember how good we are at knowing what we’re supposed to be like at church? (vomit noise)

And so; this friend of mine points out this verse to me, and over the thousand conversations I’ve had since it first settled into my gut, I’ve just come to believe that we must, as Christians, share our lives with one another, be as authentic & real as we can be–which is probably never perfectly, but is also probably better than we usually do.

This has become for me a principle for living; be as authentic as you can be. Share your life with others; those in the church and those outside it. Practice being real, and avoid being fake.

A Position:

And strengthening this is another conviction that you may not have, but I’d like us all to at least think about it.

I’ve pretty much taken the position, that the only thing I have to offer another person is myself. Myself used by God, of course. Formed by the Spirit & shaped by scripture; but nonetheless. Me, myself & I.

It’s all I’ve got. It’s all anyone of us has to offer each other.

I think that each of us is like Samuel, saying “Here I am, Lord.” Like Isaiah, who says the same “Here am I, Lord.” All we have to respond to in this life is ourselves, saturated in grace, and trusting that “all things work together for our good” if we can continue to hold fast to our love for God.

With all my errors & sin & problems & strengths–quite a few–this is what I’ve got. Use me, Lord, right? This is what I’ve got.

And as corny as it is, and it is so corny: there’s only of me. There’s only one of each of us. It makes sense to me that God wants to use me, as I am, in this world.

Can’t & Can:

And here’s what I can’t do this morning. I can’t address all the stuff that sets us up to do everything we can to hide. I can’t address the mess that keeps us from being authentic, being real–sometimes even to ourselves, right? I can’t deal with that this morning.

But for those of us who really need to deal with some of that stuff–Inward Journey sort of stuff, if that makes sense–I really do believe that trying authenticity out now and then can help us. It positions us for love. Eggs come from Chickens.

But: what we can do is look at a few things that we need to keep in mind if we’re going to try at all to be authentic people, people who share our lives with one another.

So let’s set up a simple plan. Those always work out well, right? A Simple Plan to help us lead authentic lives, real lives.

A Simple Plan: Stop

We have to stop thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought. We have to practice humility; humility is like a gateway virtue; it sets us up for more and greater faithfulness in all sorts of areas. Here’s what humility does, at base; it reminds us that we haven’t saved ourselves. No one muscles their way into the Kingdom of God; and if it weren’t for the grace of God on our behalf, we wouldn’t be talking about any of this stuff. This is common denominator information; each of us share this, that we are the recipients of grace.

And further, humility, practiced long enough, can help us own the fact that any one of us, at any given moment, if we’re set up with the right mix of insecurity & neediness & temptation & pride could, at any moment, do a thing we think right now we’d never do. Humility reminds us of our own capability to sin & the grace that covers us.

A Simple Plan: Drop

We have to drop the belief that what other people think about who we are matters. This is the basic lesson we tell kids, right? It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks about you, I love you.” We the church train our children to orient themselves to God’s perspective on them, not other people’s. Let me read what Paul says about the appraisal of others in 1 Corinthians 4:

“I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.”

We need to remember that it’s God’s perspective that matters, and drop the perspectives of others that we cling and hold onto.

A Simple Plan: Rock

That’s right.

You thought I was going to say roll: but really, we have to rock. We have to rock the cradle of love. God’s love for us. I could have said we have to roll with God’s love for us or something.

My dogs will find a thing–wood, shoes, this part of our bannister that drives me crazy–and they will gnaw at it, gnaw and gnaw and stare off into space. We have to do the same thing with God’s love for us.

And ultimately, this simple plan, it’s just a basic foundation for authenticity, a basic thing: We have to stop thinking that we have earned God’s favor upon us, we have to drop our dependancy on other people’s appraisals of us, and turn instead to God’s love for us, which has to matter above all things.

We are sinners saved by the grace of a God who loves us. And everyone of us has that in common.

Do you all agree? Or are some of us saved by our attendance record? None of us are right?

Foundation: Stop, Drop, & Rock

This is foundational.

Because if I can understand that at the end of the day, at the beginning of the day, and all through out it, you and me, we’re foundationally equal, I can begin to turn down the volume on all those other records that play in my head, that say that I am less than you or I am better than you, my perspective isn’t as important as yours or more important. That in the eyes of God we are of different rank. It’s not true; we are both and all children of God & will inherit together the earth & the resurrection.

We can meet as individuals in the same place: two sinners saved by the grace of a God who loves us both; equally. And really owning the fact that you are equals with another person is a foundational key, critical key, to being able to live authentically and real around them.

Because we begin to have nothing to prove. Nothing that can be taken away from us–certainly not God’s love, right? And nothing to gain by taking something away from someone else–because what’s more valuable than God’s love?

This is partly why the devil is so angry with us; like an immature child who broke his party favor, while we still play happily with ours. And he wants them all.

But let me mention a few observations about authenticity, living really, authentically.

Observations: Others’ Perceptions

We cannot be authentic, real with who we are, if our identity is tied tightly to other people’s perceptions of us. I can’t share weakness with you if I need you to think I’m wonderful; I can’t bless you if I need your failure to make me feel special. This is why I think it is so critical for us to claim the stop, drop & rock foundation of who we are in the eyes of God. It frees us to be ourselves.

I’ll qualify this soon.

Observations: Provisional Identity

But while what is most basic about us is permanent: we sin, but God is love with us, and we await his appraisal, no one else’s–while this doesn’t change, we do, right? I’m not the person I was 10 years ago, or 2 years ago. And ten years from now, although I’m sure I’ll still make the same lame jokes, I know that my perspectives & attitudes will likely change. Who we are right now is in some sense provisional; it’s not finished. We await Jesus’ return for that stuff. Right now we grow & change, and this is a blessing, it provides depth to our relationships, and as we share our lives with each other over time, we get to take part in the ongoing discoveries that each of us is making about who we most truly are.

I wrote a song once, it was during a period where I talked about this topic in terms of my own pursuit of my true “name.” I adopted or adapted this picture of the stone with our “new name” on it that we’re given in Revelation, as a way to talk about who I really am. And so I sang this song, it was to the tune of a pop song entitled with an unrepeatable word. But, it goes like this:

I am rich,

I’m a plumber,

I am wild,

one bad mother.

I’m a sinner & a saint; I really like to paint.

I’m your hope, I’m your dream; I love chocolate creams

you know you wouldn’t want me any other way.

That was me. When I was most authentically myself, I was a plumber who liked to paint. Right? And there are connections to who I am right now, and who I was when I listened to Meredith Brooks on WNCI; but there are dramatic differences, too.

We can only authentically present ourselves to one another as deeply as we are aware of who we are; and that is provisional; it changes as time moves forward, and while we may stall out now and again, get in a rut, we should pray that we never think we’ve fully arrived; we don’t fully arrive until we’ve overcome death.

Observations: A One Way Street

None of us would turn onto a one way street and refuse to drive down that sucker unless traffic starts headed our way. Right? That’s not what a one way street is.

My perspective on this may change, but I don’t think that Authenticity is a two way street. Living authentically, being real: there is no gaurantee that if we do that, live this way, people will respond in kind.

We wish they would. We wish that when we shared our lives with other people, other church people, they would share their lives back with us. This isn’t a given. And we can’t expect it. Because again, our motivation to live authentic lives can’t be so that we get other people to live authentic lives. That’s soft manipulation. We need to live authentic lives because the world & the church needs to see, simply, that we who are in Christ are the safest of all people.

Now: authenticity breeds authenticity. Nothing is more refreshing than moments with someone who is comfortable and expressive about who they are. And disclosure–the giving of information about oneself–often echoes disclosure. These things do echo; authenticity sounds out, and it echoes back and on and on.

But if we wait for external things to be just right in order for us to lead authentic lives in the church, then we’ll never lead them. It would be like waiting for oncoming traffic on a one-way street.

So. Two more negative things to be aware of, and then we’ll conclude this little tirade, cool?

Warning: Sensibilities

When we are authentically ourselves, guess what rises up? Our opinions, right? And we people, saved or not, we can tend to make law out of our opinions & perspectives, make rules out of things that are not “given,” not established since the dawn of time.

We percieve as “given” some attitude or behavior or code that others perceive as “not given.” This is why things like conflict resolution exists.

Here’s an example; and I share this without any ill feelings. Okay; it’s just a great example. I have preached three Easters, now, on this little cubic yard of carpet. And each time I have worn something different, because I felt like wearing whatever it was I wore; I felt like presenting myself as I was. And further, I felt like I was doing the right thing. And each Easter I have received both critical and positive comments on what I’ve worn.

This is just life. We are floating in a sea of sensibilities. And when they are shared they can be wounds to us, if indeed we let out too far the stop, drop, & rock tether that we’re on.

Warning: Hypocrisy

If we act authentically ourselves, it will mean that people will learn about us. They will learn about us, right? Because we’ll be broadcasting, in some sense, our real self to those around us.

And for some reason, it really does make us feel better about our failings when we see inconsistencies in people. Doesn’t it? I mean it’s somehow a comfort when other people are inconsistent, especially if they are people who seem to have it together most of the time.

It’s like we collect the things: “Well, you said earlier that blah, blah, blah.” But now, you’re doing or saying whatever.

But if we’re people in process, people who are only living out our provisional selves, doing our best to become more like Jesus, doesn’t it stand to reason that we’ll in fact be inconsistent now and again. That we won’t be perfect; and perfect, often for us, means unchanging.

This life is one long journey that prepares us for what it will be like to live in a world where everyone is really authentic, and truly themselves. On the way we are not going to be unchanging, ever-consistent people, no matter how saintly we are. Our perspectives–our sensibilities–may change, and if those perspectives & sensibilities are public, we may find ourselves charged with being hypocrites.

All we can do, of course, is remember to the “two by” out of our eyes before pointing out the fuzz in someone else’s. We’ve got to model compassion & love & all the things that we want to be met with when we fight to be real with other people.

And that leads me to this:

Conclusion:

Living authentically, being real, sharing our lives with one another–we can never allow it to become an excuse or a justification for dysfunctional behavior or sin.

We can’t be Christian jerks, and say in a month, “Hey, I’m just trying to be me.” A big jerk. We can’t say, “I’m authentically lusting right now, I think I’ll go have some porn time. I’m just being me.”

Our attempts to be real must coincide with the bigger call in our lives which is to become like Jesus and to position others for the same. We are not free to do whatever we want in the pursuit of being true to ourselves. For us, we’ve got to be true to the Lord, the rightful king of the kingdom we’re a part of.

And this kingdom, it’s big enough for all of us.

I mentioned earlier that I’ve really come to the conviction that the best–all–I’ve got to offer the world or any of you is myself, remember this? Paragraphs ago! For us to be complete, function as best as we’re able, we need to be real to one another, and real for one another.

We need to be real iron that really sharpens each of us.

There is nothing more refreshing that being in the company of a person who knows who they are, and is okay with it…and at the same time, is working to become more like the Lord that gives them their confidence & their freedom. That is a person that I want to be around, don’t you? Some of us are that person; and we should praise the Lord for it, and talk about it more. “I am secure in who I am because…” Some of us are miles away from that, and what we need most is your witness to an authentic life, just so that we can remember that it’s not flat-out impossible.

So let’s be a place where we consider this. What does it mean to be real? What would it really take for me to live an authentic life among these people? It’s not easy, right? But it might be the rarest thing in the whole world, and one of the most powerful witnesses to God’s secure, safe love. Let’s pursue it.