Holding a Three-Sided Coin

Holding a Three-Sided Coin--January 31, 2018

"And we urge you, beloved, to admonish the idlers, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with all of them. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all.  Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil. May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this." [1 Thessalonians 5:14-24]

This is who we are.

This is who we are--because this is what the living God calls us to be.

This is who we are--because this is what the living God makes us into.

Identity.  Calling.  Grace.  

I wish that somehow the laws of geometry allowed us to make three-sided coins, because what I want to be able to say is that these three are really three different "sides" of the same reality.  Our identity--who we are as followers of Jesus--is both something that we are called to do and to be by God, and something that we are transformed into because God graciously accomplishes it in us.  And did you notice that?  In one flowing thought here from the tail end of what we call First Thessalonians, Paul describes who we are, summons us to live in this particular way of life, and then also says over all of it, that the God "who calls you is faithful... and will do it."  God is the One whose power and presence makes us able to live out the calling... the calling that comes from God in the first place.

I remember the year in my middle teens that my parents bought me a guitar as a birthday present.  And I can remember the conversation, at some point after the instrument itself had been revealed, where I said to my mom, "But I don't know how to play the guitar..." to which she immediately responded, "Well, part of the gift will be that we will help get you lessons to learn, then."  So now when I put my guitar strap around my shoulder and look back, it is simultaneously right and true that I can think of myself, my "identity," so to speak, as being among other things "a guitar player."  I am now someone who knows, at least in a rudimentary way, how to play the guitar--that is way of talking about who I am.  And that also means I can look at the practices, the work, the time, and the energy I have spent and continue to spend trying to get better at making music with this instrument.  That is a way of talking about the work I do, or the practices I keep up with, to live into the gift that was given to me.  That is calling talk.  But in the very same breath it is accurate (indeed right and salutary, one could say) to recognize that I am only able to do what I can do because the gift was given and included the time and wisdom of a teacher to train my hands and mind to move with the strings.  Identity, calling, and grace--all intertwined.

And that's how this life following Jesus is lived: we learn who we are, as we practice the way of life we are called into, and at the same time as a faithful God refuses to give up or let go until we are made into the likeness of the Jesus whom we follow.  Identity.  Calling.  Grace. We lose something critical if we forget any one of those. 

Without the reminder that our calling from God is also our identity, we would imagine that God calls us only to exotic distant mission projects or headline-grabbing acts of heroism, rather than to be the persistent, moment-by-moment presence of blessed weirdness like salt or light or yeast.  Our calling is about who we are all the time, not simply a stand-alone project or event.

Without the reminder that our calling is also God's work of grace, we would turn Christianity into a never ending to-do list, which (to be perfectly honest) we could never keep up with on our own energy alone.  Christianity without the grace of Christ becomes just an "-ism," an ideology, or a set of instructions we lack the power to carry out.  Our identity needs to be understood as a gift of God as much as it is a calling.

And without the reminder that that this God-given identity is also a calling, we might think it was an optional thing.  We might think that Christianity is simply a label, or a club, or a heavenly fire-insurance policy that leaves me unchanged.  We need to know that God calls us, most fundamentally, to lives that do not return evil for evil, to patience with those I have the hardest time getting along with, to constant prayer and gratitude, to the same kind of love and courage we have found in Jesus... and that this is not up for discussion or debate.  

Today, then, remember, as these ancient words percolate in our hearts, this is who we are.

Lord Jesus, remind us who we are, who you call us to be, and who you are making us into.