I'm Maximus Automobilibus Who are you?

Only if we grasp that we are God's Beloved will we be able to serve him well

During my teenage years I worked the summers with my dad in his panel beating workshop. Hard work it was and great motivation to study hard in school, which he has told me was his main motivation. The garage was to the rear of the house my dad grew up in and my grandmother still lived in that small council cottage. So everyday I got to see my grandmother. Anyway, whenever a new customer would come to the garage, I could see my granny peering through the net curtain with great curiosity. Then later at tea break in her kitchen she'd say "Kev (my dad) who was that fella and what does he do". I think all the activity really kept her going.

I've thought about her question many times since "who is he and what does he do". They were the essential things she needed to know about someone.

Who are you?
What do you do?

We often answer the first question with the answer to the second. Who are you Eddie? I am an priest. I'm a plumber. I a photographer.I am a (slow) runner. I am the football coach.
Or
We might answer by saying who we are related to someone else.  I'm Kate's husband. I'm part of St Columbanus Church. I'm a Tim's dad. I'm Tom's friend. It's hard to say who we are without referring to some activity or some other person outside ourselves.

I want to show you a scene from the movie Gladiator. It's when the hero Maximus faces down the cruel Emperor who has had his wife and child murdered. This is how he answers the question "Who are you"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNdKBPcVGJI

"My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next." Maximus Decimus Meridius

Maxixmus knows who he is and because of this he knows what he is going to do.

Let's look at Jesus and how he approached it.

When God speaks to Jesus and tells Him who he is, this is what he says. 

This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. 

So as Jesus was just stepping out into his ministry, He was in no doubt that the Father loved Him deeply. He hadn't done anything yet. He hadn't done the miracles, done the teachings, the great Sermon on the Mount, given his life to save mankind. Yet God was pleased with Him. God said, " in whom I am well pleased". God was pleased with who Jesus was, not with what He had done. He was pleased with Jesus because Jesus was His Beloved. So Jesus wasn't setting off into ministry to make God like Him. That was settled. He was going into ministry because of God's great love as a response to it. Look at what it says in John chapter 13.

Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.


Jesus knew that He had come from the Father and was returning to God, so...

As we embark on a new year of serving God in our parish let's see if we can relate this to ourselves. We can see that Jesus knew who he was. He was God's Beloved. And we know that when God told him that, He believed it. He acted upon it. He didn't doubt it when he faced resistance to his ministry. It was the foundation of all he did. It was his engine room. I am the "Father's Beloved. Nothing can change that. It isn't based on what I do, success or failure, fame or abandonment. It is based on who I am. "in whom I am well pleased". God loved who Jesus was, not what he did.

So let's take a look at ourselves. Jesus inhaled his identity as God's precious Beloved. When I say that God loves you just as much, how do you react to that? Do you believe it? How much do you believe it? 50%, 5% -50%. 

Can I ask you to trust me a little with this one? I want you to close your eyes and let me lead you in a little imaginative exercise. First, I want you to remember a happy memory from when you were a small child, say under 10. I know for some of you that was a long time ago! It could be anything. Maybe a day at the beach with your family, having an ice cream. Or maybe scoring a goal at school. Or giving the right answer in school and getting praise from the teacher. It can be anything at all. Can you picture your surroundings, the room, or, if it's outside, is it warm or cold? Can you remember the smells? Can you see the people around you? What are they wearing? Can you remember the feelings? How happy you felt. Can you step outside of yourself, and as if it's on camera, can you look at yourself in this happy moment? Look at your face, at the expression, at the smile, at other people enjoying your happy moment. How do you feel about that little boy or girl as you picture him or her? What feelings arise in you? Do you feel compassion? Do you smile at this child? Do you want to reach out and give him/her a hug? Do you feel protective towards him or her? You know the child isn't perfect, but that doesn't matter, does it? If you can feel this way about the child version of you, why do we find it so hard to believe that God can feel this way about the inner child in you who is alive and well today?

Sometimes we find it hard to accept that God really loves us. We desperately want to, but we think that we have disappointed Him so much that he couldn't possibly love us. I honestly think the biggest adventure possible in life is the one of coming to terms with the fact that God is head over heels in love with us and that we really are the apple of his eye no matter what we have done or not done. Jesus was the first person ever to completely believe God when God said that He loved him. That belief freed Jesus up to serve God with his whole heart. He didn't need others' approval and didn't have to waste his time to get everyone to like him or approve of Him. He was secure in who He was. If the God of the universe thought he was the bee's knees, what did it matter what others thought?

How can we move forward in this? If trusting in God's love is the foundation and the engine room of us serving him, what can we do about it? I think the answer is how we pray. Can we sit with passages of Scripture where God sings his love songs to us and let them soak into us? Can we ask God's Holy Spirit to speak these words deep into our hearts that are so hurt by life and disappointment? Maybe we need to learn to pray in a different way that allows this to happen. Maybe we need to slow down a little... and learn to be still and held in his arms where we can cry or be happy like the giggling child that we really are inside. If I can help at all on that journey for you, I'd love to. 

So that's it really. The quality of what we can do in serving Jesus this year is greatly affected by us seeing ourselves as God's Beloved and us fueling ourselves out of that love. It'll keep us going when we want to give up. It'll give us more compassion for the people we are trying to serve. And we'll see God more clearly at work because we'll be more tuned into his wavelength.

Hiding in Religion

I read a piece from Siddhi Temple on Facebook this morning that struck me deeply. Its central idea was that the spiritual journey can itself become a place for the ego to hide. 

 We can genuinely believe we are searching deeply for God and our true selves, while the very mechanisms of that search give our egos another place to flourish. 

We can become identified with being spiritual. We can confuse surrender with a lack of courage to stand up for what is right. We can mistake obedience to a leader for avoiding responsibility for ourselves. We can even tell ourselves that when we are closer to God, we will finally be better able to love others.

I think about my own experience of the evangelical world, from around 18 to 40. I saw—and experienced—many people hiding in churches. Church could become an escape from a crazy world. It offered belonging, meaning, purpose and love. 

 But how real and honest were we? 

Was church like an AA meeting, where we could be completely honest about our failures, selfishness and pain? I'm afraid it often wasn't. I saw the same protection of reputation, the same cliques and inner circles, and the same hidden pain that existed outside the church. And I did the same.

 If church is a hospital, why isn't it safe to bleed?

 Perhaps the spiritual journey is ultimately about allowing our real selves to meet the real God. That means being seen in love, even in the places where we are afraid to look at ourselves. We need people who love us enough to show us where we need to grow, where we are fooling ourselves, and where our spirituality has become another form of hiding from reality and our hurt. That's big love. 

Yes, we need encouragement, fellowship, worship and teaching. But without a commitment to radical honesty and a willingness to be truly known, these good things can become the walnut dashboard and leather seats of a car with no engine. 

They can make the journey look beautiful. But they won't take us anywhere.