Pastor Judy's Blog

Identity

Throughout this month in chapel we have been talking about Identity, who you are, whose you are, who names you, and the work required to answer any of the above. To some, the focus on identity can seem a bit egocentric as it does require a good hard look at your own life and a significant amount of time spent with yourself. However it is not wasted time and energy, for without this focus it is difficult to step into your true calling. Without knowing what of “you” is God-given and what is world-shaped you may end up chasing after things that will never satisfy. And if your identity is buried under layers of lies, wounds, and misinformation you will caste more of your shadow than your light into whatever work that you do.

Several years ago I made an honest assessment of my identity, the good, the bad and the in-process. It took pages of mental meandering to begin but in the end I was able to narrow it down to one very honest paragraph.

I’m normal. I struggle and I sometimes succeed. I doubt and I trust. I love and sometimes people make me crazy. I’m open and yet stubborn, honest and yet a master at self-deception. I’m generous and I’m materialistic, gracious and stingy. I know that within me there is an eager child, a peer-driven adolescent, a loving wife, a mother who has yet to have children, an impatient pastor, a passionate evangelist, a child who is just getting to know her father, a reconciler, a vagabond of the obvious, and both a workaholic and the laziest person I know. I am all of these things and more. But the thing I would like you to know most about me is that I am seeking to understand what it means to be a child of God, fully known and fully loved.

This paragraph has helped me to claim what I know and to be honest that there remains so much that is a mystery to me. It has allowed me to claim my goodness and acknowledge my growing edges. It has helped me define my “yes” and my “no” when people invite me into new work and it has given me direction as I seek to understand how God is inviting me to engage with his world and all his people with in it.

The apostle Paul wrote in the opening of his letter to the Romans, “I am a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.” He was a man who knew who he was and to whom he belonged, the call upon his life and the good news that this calling would be to the world. He was able to claim his identity in less than a sentence.

This week I encourage you to write a statement about your identity, an honest assessment of who you are and to whom you belong, where or how you believe you are called and what that means for the world around you. You might not be able to do that in less than a sentence, I know it took me an entire paragraph but I invite you to begin the process. I truly believe that if each of us steps into this difficult work that we at North Park University will have a far better chance of stepping into our true calling and a good shot at casting more of our light than our shadow.

This morning, Larry Acosta will deliver the final message in our series on Identity. He is the President and Founder of the Hispanic Ministry Center, Urban Youth Workers Institute. Larry's passion is to envision and shape the emerging generation of urban leadership for transformational ministry. Larry’s claim to fame is that he is married to his lovely wife Jayme and they have four wonderful children. He is a leader who knows the specifics of who he is and how he has been called and as a result his ministry casts far more light than shadow.

Join us this morning as we continue to figure out our true identity.

Message for September 23

I have had several conversations this week about disillusionment. As a general rule the statement that has been made has had a fairly negative connotation attached to it, as in “I’m disillusioned with the church.” Meaning of course that the church isn’t what they thought it would be and generally speaking that it is messier, more complicated, or not nearly as fun. I made that statement once to a professor in the seminary and he said, “Thank God you are finally disillusioned. How do you think we can get more people to be disillusioned?”

As you can imagine that was not the response I was expecting but as the conversation continued I began to understand. We need more people who have no false illusions about what the church is or isn’t. We need more people who know full well that a church made up of people will certainly be messy and that a gathering full of diverse people will be inherently complicated. And we need far more people that recognize that being the church is not about entertainment but about a deliberate living towards God’s dream, which is sometimes fun but often a lot of work.

I have become disillusioned with the process of claiming and forming my identity in Christ. I used to have the illusion that when someone became a follower of Christ that they were supernaturally transformed into a person who was kind and generous, patient and hopeful, able to easily put others first and fluent in the scriptures. However, I have been disillusioned and now have no (or not as many) false illusions about the ease of this process. I now understand that if I want to become a follower of Christ that it will require a lifetime of deliberate decisions and simply put…a whole lot of work.

However, let me encourage you that the hard work does pay off and along the way we do see results. In fact just last week, after years of work trying to be a Christian when I get behind the wheel of a car, when someone pulled out in front of me I yelled at the top of my lungs, “You scared me!” I couldn’t believe I said it…it was a miracle. My spontaneous response included no cursing and did not attack the other drivers’ character. For the first time after years of work deliberately choosing to say words that were different than the ones in my head, it appears at least on this occasion that the words in my head had changed.

As we seek to form our identity in Christ, let’s become disillusioned about its ease and let’s begin the difficult work together. Let’s choose kindness, decide to be generous, work on our patience, keep hope in full view, opt to put others first, and take the scriptures off the shelf and read them together.

This morning at 10:30 we gather for Chapel to hear from Reverend Alise Barrymore, former campus pastor of North Park University and current Lead Pastor at The Emmaus Community in Chicago Heights www.theemmauscommunity.org/. She is a friend of North Park, an eloquent communicator of God’s word and most importantly a follower of Jesus Christ who has committed herself to this difficult and deliberate work.

Shalom Aleichem.

Message for September 16

In most of the world a person is defined either by what they own or by what they do for living, in their possessions or professions. What they own might be two luxury cars and a mansion or just a small duffel bag but either way people will determine their worth by how much they can call their own. And we know worth is determined by one’s profession because of the first ‘get-to-now-you’ question that people ask one another? Most of us say within minutes of meeting “What is it that you do?” We use the responses, “I am a professor” or “I am a mechanic,” for more than just identification we use the persons profession to determine their worth.

Possessions and professions are the shorthand methods we have learned to determine not only our own worth but also the worth of those around us. This is not a new sin it’s just one that we’ve gotten particularly good at and one that we’ve grown particularly comfortable with. Our comfort with this particular sin is testified to by our selection of friends, who receives an invitation to our gatherings and who fills the chairs in our churches. This equation of worth is so deeply ingrained in all of us that even those of us who follow the God who chose the last and the lowest and the least likely rarely break away from it.

Through the length and breadth of the biblical story God reveals a well-er way to live. He takes the least likely group of people, slaves on the bottom rung of worth and he says to them “'So you will be my people, and I will be your God." And when the people wanted a king the person God chose was from the smallest of the tribes and the least of the clans. God commanded his people to look out for those who had no possessions or professions, the widow, the orphan and the foreigner. And in the genealogy of the Son of God we find widows and prostitutes and those whom none of us would pick. To make sure we understood that God did align himself with the ways people were determining worth, when God put on skin and came to sit around our tables he sent out invitations without thought of possession or profession.

This month in chapel as we talk about understanding our identity as followers of Jesus Christ I encourage you to step into three new disciplines. First, let me encourage you to shape your identity around the fact that God chooses you. You are his beloved and not his second pick, his friend, his child, and the one with whom he desires to spend time. Secondly, the next time you meet someone see how long you can carry the conversation before you ask them what they do for a living. Find out who they are, what they love, why they struggle and what they dream about and then if you find there is nothing left to say, then and only then, ask them what they do. Try to withhold value judgments until you know their heart and even then hold out a little longer. And lastly, I challenge you to invite to one of your gatherings someone whom the world would call the last, the lowest or the least likely. Let’s see if we can’t figure out how to live lives of significance and service by loving and serving those whom the world says are insignificant. This would be a well-er way to live.

This morning in chapel we have extended a special invitation to our athletes whom I am confident will not be the last or the lowest this season. We have invited them to stand among us today so that we may stand with them and pray for them both as individuals and as teams. We invite you to join us in this blessing this morning

This morning in chapel we also have two special guests. Grammy nominee Ayiesha Woods will be co-leading us in worship this morning as a preview of her concert here on campus this evening at 7pm in Anderson Chapel (a great opportunity for you to extend an invitation to someone who might otherwise find themselves on the outside). Also this morning in chapel Pastor Peter Hong from New Community Church will help us dig deeper into the discussion of identity by delivering a message entitled “Whose Are You?”

May you seek after a well-er way this week.

How God is Present...

I spend much of my time in the basement of the men’s dorm, Sohlberg Hall. Unlike many pastors that I know I work where my congregation lives. This provides endless opportunities for meeting new students, plenty of awkward moments where I find myself in view or earshot of life in a men's dorm, as well as easy access to conversations of all kinds. One of the blessings of the casual context of my office is that it seems to ease the way into the difficult and deep conversations that in other contexts seem to take years to unfold.

One of the most common questions is “Where was God…” And you can fill in the blank “…. when my parents divorced?”, “…. when I was sexually abused?”, “…. when my dad died?” or “…..right now?” I know this is a question about God’s character for I have asked the question as well. What is implied when one asks about the proximity of God in any situation is that if he were close he is culpable for what happened. For if He were close and chose not to intervene how can this kind of god be trusted?

Not long ago a young woman found her way to my basement office and sunk down into one of my office chairs. She folded her arms across her body and kept her chin toward her chest and her gaze toward the floor. She jumped right into the deep end of the conversation and asked, “Where was God when I was a child and people took advantage of me?” As soon as she got the words out it was like a stopper had been pulled and a flood of tears followed.

I waited until the sobbing ebbed and the tears became droplets rather than torrents and then I ventured into these dangerous and difficult waters. Dangerous because I’m not sure I have the answers and difficult because I know that my lack of knowledge can so easily cause further damage to the one whom is already so wounded. “He was there.” I said and I could see the anger rising in her face. “Wait,” I said, “before you direct all that anger at God let me finish.” I ventured in deeper, even though theologically I was in way over my head. “It matters how you believe God was there. If you believe he was standing over in the corner of the room indifferent to your pain or if you believe he was standing on the side of your attacker teaching you a lesson then you rightfully question the character of God. But what if God was standing in front of your attacker begging him to stop but yet allowing him the same free will he allows all of us. Or what if God had his arms wrapped around you trying to shield your heart from the attack and what if God was weeping with you because his of his great sorrow over how broken it has all become?”

It matters how we believe God is or was present in any situation. And the conclusions we draw will radically affect how we engage both our relationship with God and the work to which we are called. This month in chapel we are talking about what it looks like to embrace and be embraced by the One who is called Sar Shalom, the Prince of Peace. We are digging deep into our identity as people who live in relationship with the God who wants things to be well but who have to live in a world where all is not well.