I met him while sipping on a nice coffee and croissant. Not only was he a fellow pilgrim, but he was also an American.
While part of the camino experience is meeting people from all over the world, there was something nice and easy about two Americans speaking the same language over a cup of coffee, even if he was an Ohio State grad.
Things were about as normal as possible until we stood up to leave. As we headed back out on the path, my new friend told me it was nice to meet me and that he hoped we might meet again. Enjoying the company, I told him that I wouldn’t mind walking together for a bit if he didn’t mind. He responded that while that sounded nice, it probably wasn’t a real option.
Our first steps together taught me why. He walked slowly with a noticeable limp. I asked him if he had hurt himself on the journey. He said “No. I have MS.” We walked and chatted for a mile or so, when I asked him why he chose this walk given his condition. His answer was so good. “I will not let my illness define me.”
Last week I watched the Olympics’ opening ceremony. Apparently there was some controversy. I noticed it but couldn’t figure it out. I’m not talking about THE controversy. What I noticed was that after what seemed like 37 hours of watching a faceless individual run and even parkour through Paris, this person took the Olympic flag and slow walked what seemed to be a marathon and presented it to four individuals from the French military who would attach the flag to a pole and raise it for the world to see.
But here’s the thing, they never showed the flag! Now we know why. These members of the military, chosen for their precision and attention to detail, raised the flag upside down. Can you imagine?
As a veteran, I know two things. First, you could eat off any toilet at their base right now. Those things have been cleaned with a toothbrush. Second, they will never live this down. If they spend the next years fighting the Taliban, providing humanitarian relief to Gaza, and even winning the French equivalent of the Medal of Honor, these poor souls will always be remembered as the idiots who flew the flag upside down. It will define them.
As a pastor, and even just as a person, it has been a growth area of mine to see how we define ourselves and how we define one another.
We often define ourselves by our weakness. Whether it be by never living into our potential or constant attempts to overcome, our weakness is often at the forefront of our minds. These qualities are largely out of our control. Maybe it’s MS or another disease or our economic status. We often measure ourselves by how we don’t “measure up” to those around us.
If not weakness, we define ourselves by our faults. By faults I mean mistakes that we have made along our pilgrimage. Some of those faults are big which reshape our lives. Others are small but still kill us with a thousand cuts.
Both lead us to places of shame. And I, through the help of the bloggers here on RJ as well as others, am learning that my shame is no place to find my identity. Of course I want to be careful here, but in theological terms, we tend to define ourselves as sinners. Who are we? We are sinners saved by grace. Sure. But aren’t we more than that? Aren’t we first and foremost the image bearers of the loving God?
Where we find our identity is so important for ourselves, but it’s also important for how we see others. The bride of Christ has had a long history of seeing people through the lens of their weakness and their faults. In theological terms, we have defined people by their sin. And in doing so we’ve made sin too important. Sin is real, and it affects us and everything around us. God hates it and so should we. But sin does not define us. Sin is not where we find our own identities, and it shouldn’t be how we define others.
To my friend on the camino, I will follow your lead. I will not define you by your MS, your limp, or your poor taste in universities. You are a beautiful child of God. And to you French service members, keep scrubbing those toilets, but your mistake does not define you. For you are beautiful children of God.
And to all of us who continue to find our identities in our weakness, our faults, our shame, and even our sin, they are real, but they do not define us. For we are the beautiful children of God.
Croissant photo by ShengGeng Lin on Unsplash
Thank you for raising the question here, Chad. Your assertion will agitate some, but it needs to be said. Obsession with sin defined as total depravity is itself often a stumbling block. It leads us to judge, rank, purge, and self-delude. It leads many to despair. Total depravity is better defined as total insufficiency in terms of ability to save ourselves. It is not worthlessness, but rather blindness. “Unconfessed” sin is something we all live with. When we overplay the sin card, we do not win bonus points with God.
Amen. Thank you!
Reminds me of books by Dr. Anthony Hoekema many years ago: The Christian Looks at Himself and Created In God’s Image. We are Children of the King!
YES!
Just what I needed to read this morning. Thank you!
Thank you, Chad. I’ve so enjoyed finding you here on these summer Sundays, and have needed your words.
My husband and pastor in my life defines total depravity as “sin touches every part of life”. I would add not completely because we are made in the image of God and THATS what defines us.
I need to read this every morning. So good. Thank you!
Lots of good truth here. I have often noticed that the English language has many nouns for labeling people by their sins (murderer, adulterer, liar, robber, pervert, idolater, gossip, cheat, grouch, meanie, racist, crook, etc.), but correspondingly fewer nouns for “labeling” people who are kind, good, gentle, humble, loving, joyful, patient, generous, faithful, holy, righteous, etc. We seem to prefer defining people by their sins and not the good fruit they bear.
Thank you for the reminder!
Thank you. As a Chr Ref raised kid, sure, I learned about being a sinner–and saved by grace. But it took two memorable pastors of my youth and two campus pastors at–Ta Da!!!!–OSU to help me (and many others) absorb that the emphasis should ALWAYS fall on the “Saved by Grace” part. Thanks to you, I thought of those four servants of God today for the first time in some years and thanked God for all of them who have “gone to glory.” That’s a might lot of Grace.
I’ll give that at a “Go Buckeyes”
Your opening anecdote reminded me of the time a U.S. military colour guard flew the Canadian flag upside down at a World Series game between the Blue Jays and Phillies.
Amen, brother. God called us “very good” before sin even entered the world.
Mother always referred to folks down the street who did not go to church, “Not our kind”. How do you like that for a label that needs the “Chad Pierce Corrective” for me to work on the rest of my life”?
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