Discovering Our Identity, Part 7

Most of us have identities that have been shaped, in part, by our earthly fathers. Who am I? I am Al Schock’s son. His life stamped my life in abundant ways. I still share his love for thunderstorms, weather, South Dakota, the soil, hunting pheasants, and politics. He was also a potent model of forgiveness, generosity, and care for others. At his funeral several people told me that working for Al Schock was their best and most enjoyable job.

As a child of God, I am called to develop and display God-like character in this godless world: Don’t complain or argue so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars. Phil.2:14-16.

During my college years, I played a lot of pickup basketball with the school’s coaches and wellness faculty. One day after a rather intense session, one of the coaches took me aside and scolded me: “Bernie, you are one of the best players on the court. But no one wants to play with you because you are such a whiner. You call little touch fouls, especially if you miss a shot. And you seldom admit you committed a foul when someone calls one on you.” Ouch! As a child of God who wanted to “shine like a star”, I had a lot of work to do. My star was clouded over by my obnoxious character.

Jesus proclaimed that love for our enemies demonstrates that we belong to the Father’s forever family: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your father in heaven. (Matt.5:44)  During World War II, German pastor Heinrich Gruber couldn’t join his nation’s plunge into unspeakable evil. He observed that when his German brothers don their uniforms, they doff their consciences. But that didn’t stop Gruber from sheltering Jews and boldly sharing the gospel with many Nazis. When the infamous Adolf Eichmann asked Gruber why he wanted to help the Jews, Gruber bravely recounted Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan: “Once there lay on the Jericho road a Jew who had fallen among thieves. Then a man passed by who was not a Jew, and helped him. The Lord whom I alone obey tells me, ‘Go and do likewise.’” Though sharing the gospel with the Nazis greatly increased the risks he was taking, he “believed the Gospel of Jesus Christ was powerful enough to change the heart of even the most ruthless Nazi. Therefore he tried to approach every Nazi he met as someone who needed redemption.”

Discovering Our Identity, Part 6

I HAVE A NEW FAMILY

Jesus could be downright rude. When He was told that his Mom and his brothers had come to see him while he was teaching a crowd of his followers, he certainly offended them when he asked the crowd: ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.’ (Mark 3:31-34)

Jesus’ birth family had planned an intervention. In their minds, the family’s oldest son was clearly delusional: When Jesus’ family heard about [all that he was doing], they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind”. . . (Mark 3:21) Their big brother had gone crazy. He needed to be rescued for the sake of himself and the family’s honor.

In the ancient Mediterranean world

the individual draws his honor from the group, and likewise, has the potential of dishonoring his family. How Jesus fares reflects on his family as a whole. . . If Jesus had permitted them to take control of him, he would have given into their agenda for the sake of family peace. . . . Jesus rebuffs his family by referring to a higher standard than family, to a different kind of family, a new community.”

Jesus did not bow to their will. This encounter shows that Jesus was advocating a new priority for his followers—faith family takes precedence over blood family.

Jesus was not a cult leader who wanted to cut his followers off from their families so he could control them. Jesus still believed that we should care for our relatives. When he was hanging from the cross and noticed his mother and the Apostle John standing there, he told his Mom: Dear woman, here is your son. And to John he said, Here is your mother. Though our faith family should be our first priority, we can’t ignore the needs of our biological family as well.

How do we live out this truth in practice? Who receives the bulk of your hospitality? Who do you vacation with? Who do you spend your holidays with? A simple way to begin living out this priority is to include people from your faith community when you celebrate a holiday or go on a vacation. Everyone will be enriched by the experience.

Discovering Our Identity, Part 5

“I Have a New Father”

The Sermon on the Mount is the longest recorded speech of Jesus. In that message he has a name for God which he uses again and again. In just over 100 verses he calls God “Father” 17 times. Who am I? I am a child of my Heavenly Father.

What kind of father is he? As I wrote this, Christmas wasn’t far off. So I wondered, What should I give my precious grandchildren? Then it came to me! "I will get a large box and fill it with rattle snakes. Boy, will that surprise them when they open it on Christmas morning and the snakes jump out and bite them!" 

Could anything sound crazier? Could there be a grandfather in the history of the world who would give such an awful gift? I hope not. Jesus explained:

Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

Our Heavenly Father, even more than our earthly fathers, delights in giving good gifts to his children. He is our perfect parent who is “faithful in love and care, generous and thoughtful, interested in all we do, respects our individuality, skillful in training us, wise in guidance, always available.” Wow! What a Father!

The Biblical concept of adoption also helps us understand the gracious goodness of our Heavenly Father. In biblical times people seldom adopted young children. They usually chose young adults who had shown themselves worthy to carry on the family name. In our case, however, God adopts us despite the fact that our character and record show us unworthy of bearing his name. “The idea of his loving and exalting us sinners sounds ludicrous, ...  more like a fairytale – – the reigning monarch adopts waifs and strays to make princes of them – – but, praise God, it is not a fairytale: it is hard and solid fact.”

 

Unfortunately not everyone is included in this heavenly family. Though God’s fatherhood is available to all, it is not experienced by all. We must be born into this heavenly family. John made this clear when he said: To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural dissent, not of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” (John 1:12,13). Thus, we become part of this eternal family “not through being born, but through being born again.”

When we are adopted into this Family, we aren’t simply a single ant in a colossal anthill. Nor are we a tiny drop of water in the celestial ocean (as the Hindus believe.) Unbelievably the God who created an infinite universe has become my attentive and loving Father who is concerned about the very details of my life.

Your Father is waiting. He wants to converse with you about the trivial and the eternal issues in your life. Will you talk with Him? Now?

Discovering Our Identity, Part 4

God Knows My Name

Names are special: “Nothing is as musical to the ear as the sound of one’s own name.... We yearn to be known and known by name.” In a world where we are known by our numbers: Social Security number, bank account number, customer number, credit card number, library number, and on and on, it is invigorating when we hear our names.

Amazingly, the Good Shepherd calls each of his sheep by name.(John.10:3) Who am I? I am Bernie Schock and my Creator knows my name. God is not an impersonal force. Not The Great Ocean of Being that swallows and abolishes our identity at death--as eastern religions believe. God knows my name and will call me Bernie Schock for all of eternity!

God often renamed people in the Bible so that the new name reflected a new or a heightened identity. When God changed Abram to Abraham, his new name pointed toward God’s earlier promise to make his descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. His new name, his nickname was now: father of many. (This may have seemed like a bad joke to childless Abram!)

We also give each other nicknames. One of the boys on the soccer team that I coached for seven years affectionately called me “Snoop Bern Dog.” No one remembers how it started but it is alive today and reminds me of that mostly enjoyable experience of coaching boys.

I find intriguing a promise that God makes to some of his faithful: “To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.” (Rev.2:17) Is it possible that when I stand before Jesus he will whisper in my ear a new, intimate name that will only be known by the two of us? What a wild thought!

Discovering Our Identity, Part 3

God Knows Me

 

God promised the aging Abraham and Sarah a son. But when God was unexpectedly slow in fulfilling his promise, Sarah came up with a ”brilliant” solution. She offered her servant Hagar to her husband as a surrogate child bearer. It didn’t take long for this harebrained plan to run amok. When jealous Sarah mistreated pregnant Hagar, Hagar ran away.

But God chased after Hagar, finding her in the desert. He asked her: Where have you come from, and where are you going? Hagar was stunned by this conversation: You are the God who sees me. I have seen the one who sees me. Hagar then gave God the name, You are the God who sees me.

Ben Patterson explains Hagar’s perspective: “For a slave girl who had no rights of her own, who was no more than a piece of property to her master, . . . there could  be no better name. He cared for her. He saw her. He saw her! To God she was not a slave, she was Hagar. Certainly Abram and Sarai had not seen her. But she was a person, and she now knew that God saw her as such and that what happened to her mattered to him.”

Similarly, when Jesus went to the home of Simon, the Pharisee, and a prostitute lavished her perfume, her tears, and her kisses on Jesus’ feet, Simon was horrified.  Jesus confronted Simon’s blindness: Do you see this woman? Simon could not see that woman. To him, she was a category, a classification, a kind of woman—a whore. She was not that to Jesus. She was a person, his sister, a daughter of God. Jesus has never seen a kind of person. He sees only you and me. To know that, to really be struck by that truth, is to be transformed.”

Who am I then? As David contemplated the glory of the heavens, the work of God’s fingers, the moon and the stars, he asked: What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? When we contemplate the vastness of the universe and an earth with billions of people, it is mind boggling to think about a God who actually sees me and knows me, a God who knows me down to the number of hairs on my head!

In other ancient Near East religions, the gods remained “remote and aloof . . . They created and observed, but they did not intervene in events.” The concept of a personal God who wanted to have a relationship with a servant girl, was wildly radical. Like Hagar, you may think you are disposable—but God doesn’t! He sees you. He sees you! He sees you!! And he wants to help you become the person he created you to be. God sent Hagar back to Sarah. Her God-given task was to serve Sarah and raise up her own son. She obeyed the God who had her in his sights.

Discovering Our Identity, Part 2

“For me to live is Christ”

When we become Christians our identity has an extreme makeover. “Christ is not an accessory to our identity, as if one were choosing an option for a car. He takes over identity so that everything else becomes an accessory.”  When we become Christians, Jesus does not become another spoke on the wheel of our lives. He is the hub who wants to hold the pieces of our life together. All these spokes—family and friends, health and hobbies, work and leisure, find their unity and purpose through Jesus.

When Christians put God in charge of their identity, they are allowing him to inform and transform their identity. Unfortunately, “we have reduced God to our helper, bowing to our agenda. A God to help us when we are stuck or weak. . . . We don’t abandon ourselves to God for his purposes, but we want him to bless our purposes. This Jesus is not the Lord of our lives; he is the servant of our desires.”

What is the purpose for your life? God informed Jeremiah that his identity was set before he was born:

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,

before you were born I set you apart;

I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. (Jer.1:5)

But it isn’t just Christian leaders whose identity precedes  birth: “We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Eph.2:10) We all have unique work that God has assigned before the world was created. Finding this work is a big part of discovering our identity.

When lesbian professor Rosario Butterfield gave her life to Christ, her friends thought she “was loony to the core.” So why did she abandon her lesbian worldview that she believed was “open, welcoming, and inclusive for one that believes in Original Sin, values the law of God, seeks conversion into a born-again experience, believes in the truth of God’s word as found in the Bible, claims exclusivity of Christ for salvation?” Only one reason: “Because Jesus is the real and risen Lord and because he claimed me for himself.”

When Rosario was confused about who she was, she turned to prayer: “I did not know what to do, so I prayed the Way I had heard my Pastor pray. He often would call upon the Lord to teach this or that. So I prayed that the Lord would help me to see my life from his point of view.”

Prayer is where all of us should begin if we want God’s view of our identity, if we want to understand the purpose for which he created us. I may not know who I am but God does! That is why I must start with him.

Discovering Our Identity, Part 1

Defining Identity 

As a young boy I fantasized about being a cowboy who brought justice to the wild frontier. I owned a cowboy hat and boots, a six shooter and its holster, a bandanna for my neck, and chaps to protect me when I rode my imaginary horse. I even took to the stage one summer on a family vacation. I wore my cowboy outfit while I whistled “Home on the Range” for the kids’ talent show. I won first place in my age group (6 years old?), receiving a cup and five dollars! Now I was a rich cowboy!

Questions of identity surface throughout our lives. Who is Bernie Schock? Who are you? When my cowboy identity had faded into the sunset, it was replaced by other dreams. In my teen years I hoped to become a professional baseball player; a few years later a doctor; next I wanted to be a dairyman like my dad; during my seminary days I tried out the idea of being a foreign missionary; and on and on.

Identity has been defined “as that stable core of defining factors in which a voice says, “This is the real me.” But the “real me” is difficult to define because there are so many factors that make up our identity:

• Our physical characteristics: gender, size, race, talents, tendencies toward shyness or aggressiveness. (Look at the body of an elite athlete like Lebron James. His childhood dreams of becoming a professional athlete had a basis in reality!)
• Our histories: I am the son of the respected Al Schock. Most people would treat me differently if I was the son of a serial murderer. Our families have a great impact on our opportunities, education, trauma, failures, successes. Furthermore, the friends we choose, the people we work with or serve, the famous people we try to emulate, all have a weighty impact on who we become.
• Our commitments: to a location; to investments of interest, time and money. I am a Midwest boy who loves open spaces and seasonal changes. When we lived in Florida for two years and I lost my job, we prayed: “Lord, we are willing to go anywhere. But we would sure prefer to return to our northern roots.”

The quest for identity is always a fluid matter. Today I am  no longer the parents of pre-adult children. And as I see my identity as a professor shrinking, I wonder: Who I will be in my retirement?

Why is a study of identity important? Each of us was created by God for special purposes, for the good works which he prepared in advance for us to do. (Eph.2:10) My lifelong challenge is to discover those purposes so that I can be faithful to my Creator. Some of the greatest joys in life come to those who have discovered and are becoming the person God created them to be.