Who we are and what we have are two entirely different things, but we confuse them. We insist on identifying who we are by what we have.
Who we are and what we have are not the same thing. We are more by far than the material goods we possess. And yet everywhere we are identified by our stuff. I had parked in the garage at Georgetown Hospital, where sometimes you have to turn your car over to valet parking. When I came back from my visit, I turned over my ticket and waited while various cars were brought back. A long, sleek Mercedes came up the ramp, and the attendant said, “Is this Mercedes you?” Isn’t that an interesting question? Apart from the fact that it most certainly was not my car, he asked the question, “Is this Mercedes you?”. As if my identity and my car were one and the same. Definitely not so. And when the old Plymouth Horizon clattered up, and the attendant looked at it with pity on his face, I thought about saying, “No, I am the battered old junker.” But then that’s not quite who I am, a battered old junker. Is it? Tell me that isn’t who I am! No, who we are and what we have are not the same thing.
We are far more than the material goods we possess, and we are far more than the titles and the credentials we have I’ve known people who so confused their social status with their identity, that if you didn’t acknowledge that status, you had denied their selfhood. Speaking of Georgetown reminds me of one of the Catholic chaplains there, whom I got to know during my campus ministry days. Father Jacques had served a rural parish in France, and liked to tell us about the bishop under whom he had worked. The bishop visited his parish, and spent the night in the rectory. In the morning, the bishop came downstairs for breakfast, wearing pajamas, a dressing gown, and a large crucifix. Father Jacques asked him, “Sir, did you wear that all night? Did you sleep in all that gear?” His bishop answered, “My boy, suppose I were to die in the night. If the Lord were to come for me, how else would He know I am a bishop?”
No, no. We are far more than the material goods we possess, and we are far more than our titles and credentials. Let me take another step. We are also far more than who we are with. We are more than our trophy friends and our attractive lovers. Our identity is in ourselves and in who we are, before God, and not in the people we collect. Who you are is not a matter of whether you are in the right sorority or the high-standing fraternity. Who you are is not a question of whether you went to Harvard or Howard or Hampton or Hamburger College. Who you are is not even a question of which church you belong to – I hear that in the churches of Washington there is a pecking order, and that if you are really somebody you go to Shiloh or Metropolitan or you drive all the way out to Ebenezer. But Takoma? Well .... sorry ‘bout that!
Oh, brothers and sisters, who you are is not how much stuff you have. Who you are is not what credentials you have on your wall. Nor is it the connections you’ve made. Who you are and what you have are two entirely different things, but we confuse them. We insist on identifying who we are by what we have.
The Quaker spiritual writer Richard Foster did a book several years ago, titled, “Money, Sex, and Power”. Foster called false gods, idols. Money, sex, and power. Identifying ourselves by what we have instead of by who we are.
At some time after the birth of Jesus, wise men came bearing gifts. I want you to notice what they brought and why. They brought gifts to honor Him, of course. But maybe the gifts were also intended to remind both Him and His family of the false joys, the false identities, which might tempt them. Take Richard Foster’s phrase, “Money, Sex, and Power” and change the order just a little, make it “Money, Power, and Sex” – the same thing – and look at the gifts of the Magi: gold, frankincense and myrrh. You may discover that as they gave their gifts they were leaving lessons for this infant – you are more than gold, your possessions; you are more than frankincense, your power; you are more than myrrh, perfumed allure. Jesus, you are more by far than any of these things.
Sing the first verse with me to set the stage for the story:
“We three kings of orient are, bearing gifts we traverse afar. Field and fountain, moor and mountain, following yonder star. O star of wonder, star of night; star with royal beauty bright. Westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect light.”
Let’s look closely at the gifts offered the Christ Child. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Could they be warnings about money, power, and sex?
I
First they brought Him gold. Gold has for centuries been a precious metal. It shines, its color is attractive, it does not corrupt. When I was growing up in Kentucky, I used to go to Fort Knox and see the gold bullion depository, where the nation’s wealth is kept.
So when the Wise Men brought gold to Jesus, was that going to bring Him joy? Or was it also a warning to say to Him, “You are more than what you have. You are more than wealth. This gold will not bring you joy.” Is that possible?
Let’s start by singing about the gold they brought:
“Born a king on Bethlehem’s plain; gold I bring to crown Him again. King forever, ceasing never, over us all to reign. O star of wonder, star of night; star with royal beauty bright. Westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect light.”
Gold they brought to crown Him a King. I wonder what ever happened to the gold they brought Jesus. Did Mary use it to pay for a new kitchen in Nazareth? Did Joseph stash it all in an IRA? Or did the young Jesus take his inheritance and put it in Judas’ hands when He started His ministry? We don’t know. But we do know that Jesus did not define Himself by His wealth. Jesus did not get security out of the stuff He possessed. In fact, once He even warned somebody who wanted to join Him that He didn’t have so much as a foxhole where He could lay His head.
Philippians tells us that Jesus “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave.” Jesus, so far from defining Himself by what He had, gave it away. He emptied Himself, and took the form of a slave. Slaves own nothing on their own. Everything a slave has belongs to His master. Jesus owned nothing. He emptied Himself. That is where complete joy comes from. Not possessing, but emptying. Joy comes not from holding on to things, but from giving them away.
Money means a lot to us today. Political pundits are saying that if the economy keeps on improving, we might as well have a George Bush coronation and forget about the election, because people vote their pocketbooks. Of course, once you add up the grocery bill for Iraq plus homeland security plus a moon station and a Mars walk, the economy might go in the tank too! But money matters to us.
But we don’t get you that way. We don’t get security from things. We are defined by what we give away. We gain security and joy from how we share what we have.
After all, if dollars brought joy, pro athletes wouldn’t be getting arrested for all sorts of messes. If money brought joy, pop stars would have marriages that last longer than ten minutes (by the way, it really pains me that Brittany Spears got her start in a Baptist church in Louisiana. How far she has come from those origins! If I thought any of our kids were going to become what she has become, I’d pull the plug on Children’s Choir in a nanosecond!)
No, John Wesley spoke for me when he preached, “Earn all you can, save all you can, give all you can.” It is in giving that complete joy is found. It is in sharing that authentic happiness comes. Keep the gold to yourself, and it may bring you fun, but it will not bring you joy. Keep the dollars in your accounts, and they will bring you anxious nights of worrying whether there will be enough. Tell me you cannot afford to tithe and I will tell you you are setting yourself up for an anxiety attack. But empty yourself, as Jesus emptied did, and took the form of a slave, and your joy will be incredibly complete.
II
Now it is not only that we define ourselves by our goodies. We also describe ourselves by our power and our position. We prop ourselves up with titles and citations and status, and seem to think that we are who our titles say we are. We have this terrible need to be recognized. That’s where we think we get our power.
When the Wise Men brought gifts to Jesus, they brought not only gold, the symbol of wealth; they also brought frankincense. Frankincense was a costly substance that would have been burned in some temple. It was a sign that you were in the presence of divinity. Just as today, if you go to a Catholic church, someone will walk around the altar swinging a pot of incense as a sign of God’s protection. The frankincense was a mark of God’s power; they brought it to Jesus to show that they knew who He was. But did they also mean to warn Him against the abuse of that power? Did they also intend to alert Him that taking power and flaunting titles was a dangerous thing?
Let’s think about that by singing of what they did at Jesus’ cradle-side:
“Frankincense to offer have I, Incense owns a Deity nigh; Prayer and praising, all men raising, Worship Him, God on high. O star of wonder, star of night; star with royal beauty bright. Westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect light.”
Brothers and sisters, how badly we want props to remind us that we are somebody. But Jesus knew who He was and didn’t need to wear a sign to advertise it. You and I need props. We need titles and degrees and certificates and all the rest. We need the symbols of success; we think they will give us power. Jesus needed only to be Himself.
Titles don’t mean much, do they? Once I met a man and asked him what he did. He said he was a “sanitary engineer.” I discovered that meant he was a garbage collector! Titles and honors are props for sagging egos. We want to be known as powerful people, but we haven’t got a clue what that means.
Jesus did. Jesus knew. The frankincense did not go to His head. For Philippians says that He “did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited.” He emptied Himself of prestige and power. He climbed down from heaven and came to this dusty earth and lived among us, incognito, because He loved us. He wanted to teach us and lead us. Jesus knew that it is not in the pointless pursuit of power that joy comes; that’s a false joy. Jesus knew that it is not in tilting after titillating titles that we gain happiness; that’s a false joy. Jesus knew that it is in serving, simply serving, that we get complete joy. Think of Jesus, taking a towel and washing His disciples’ feet, saying, “I am among you as one who serves.” Jesus did not need to flaunt His place as the Word Made Flesh. He simply lived it. And from that grew His joy.
I give thanks to God that in this church there are people who do not need titles or recognition or props in order to feel good about themselves. They do not regard their standing as children of God something to be exploited. When there is a need, they just step forward. I’ve been hearing how many of you have driven the Faulkners to their medical appointments. When someone is hurting, many of you do not say, “I’m a deacon, I have important things to do.” You do not adopt the attitude, “That’s not my thing.” You just pitch in and do what needs to be done. I thank God for that. May your tribe increase. Because if you have to have power and prestige to make yourself feel secure, you will always be threatened. It will always feel like somebody is disrespecting you. But if you set all that aside, as Jesus did, the joy deep within will be unending and unexcelled.
III
But we are not quite finished. There is another false joy. There is another way in which we relentlessly pursue happiness and struggle to give ourselves a good time, but it never works out.
What else did Richard Foster write about? Money, power, and sex. Sex. That’s a blunt way of saying that some of us are so emotionally starved that we will grab on to any relationship, however destructive, to make us feel special. Some of us do not feel secure in and of ourselves; we have to have someone on whom we can lean, someone to tell us we are special. We have to have a trophy partner, or else we think we are nothing.
Unhealthy relationships are those that are not honest, not authentic. Any relationship that we use as a crutch to tell us we are somebody is a false joy. It’s unhealthy. It won’t last. It won’t go deep. And it won’t satisfy.
The Wise Men brought Jesus not only gold, the symbol of wealth; and not only frankincense, the symbol of status; but also myrrh. Myrrh was a perfume. It suggested mystery and allure. It was the Chanel No. 5 of its day – attractive and seductive. The Wise Men brought it to Jesus as a sign that He would be a sweet-smelling savor before God. He would be the Lamb of God, the aroma roasting before the altar. The myrrh spoke of how Jesus was to be in a special relationship to the Father. But did the myrrh also warn Jesus? Did the myrrh also alert the young Jesus that He must be His own man and not dependent on someone else to give Him security?
Maybe we should sing about it first:
“Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume Breathes a life of gathering gloom – sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, Sealed in the stone-cold tomb. O star of wonder, star of night; star with royal beauty bright. Westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect light.”
I have to tell you, on the basis of forty years in ministry, half of it on college campuses, that I’ve seen this emotional immaturity. We look for somebody else to validate us. Somebody else has to make us feel that we are attractive. This thing of sexual magnetism, interpersonal attraction – it is one of God’s great gifts to humanity. But it is also our downfall.
Gentlemen, most of you will remember the first time SHE acknowledged that you were alive. There was a spring in your step and a song in your heart. It was wonderful. I hope it still is. And ladies, though I do not presume to know how you express it, yet I hear that there is a little institution called the slumber party, at which the number one topic, the only topic, is boys, boys, and more boys. It’s all right. It’s normal, it’s natural. But the issue comes when we have to possess somebody in order to feel right about ourselves. The problem comes when unless we have on our arms a significant other, we are nothing. Because of the immaturity of our need to be needed, we get into all kinds of unhealthy relationships, some of them inappropriately sexual.
Don’t get hung up on my talking about sex. I’m really talking about how we feel we aren’t any good unless there is someone to sing our praises. I feel that myself sometimes, when I think I have preached my heart out, and nobody says a mumblin’ word. I know what this deficit feels like. But guess what? It’s never enough. It’s never sufficient. Having somebody tell you you are a big deal is a false joy that dies as soon as their gaze wanders to the next pretty face. It’s a false joy.
But Jesus! Jesus found complete joy in one and only one relationship. Philippians tells us how. It says “He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.” Obedient! That may not sound very joyful to you and me, but the Bible says in another place that He went to the cross “for the joy that was set before Him.” Jesus did not depend on popularity to give Him joy. Jesus did not depend on Hollywood coupling to give Him joy. Jesus did not look to anyone’s adoration to give Him joy. Jesus found His joy in obedience to the Father. Jesus found complete joy in a relationship with God that told Him who He was and that gave Him a direction in life. Jesus found complete joy in one and only one relationship – in obedience to God.
Oh, there was nothing alluring about great drops of blood, sweat for us in the Garden of Gethsemane; but there was joy there, where He prayed and found the will of God. Nor was there anything macho about hanging on a cross for three torturous hours, while the crowds mocked and soldiers gambled and friends ran the other way. Nothing sexy about any of that. But Jesus, obedient to the Father, obedient unto death, cried out in joy – I heart it, don’t you? It is finished. It is finished. Complete joy.
“Therefore God also highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”
Today, our knees bend, and our tongues confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. For neither wealth nor power nor unhealthy relationships defined Him. He did not fall prey to false joys. Jesus emptied Himself; Jesus did not snatch at status; and Jesus obeyed the Father. That’s the one I want to follow; He is worthy! He is worthy to be praised. The hymn-writer knew that too:
“Glorious now behold Him arise; King and God and Sacrifice; Alleluia, Alleluia! Earth to heav’n replies. O star of wonder, star of night; star with royal beauty bright. Westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect light.”
