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.
