Last week, we began a new series called Stages of Life. We spoke about the key need of children to have security in life. Children are
small and the world is large. They need the 
defense of adults and God to even survive to the next stage. There is
nothing more basic than staying alive.
Today, we continue the series with Teens and Identity. As I said last week, these labels that I am using are not going to fit perfectly. I’ve thought more about this during the week and I think the trouble is that none of us have had perfect lives. As you will hear in today’s Scripture reading, ‘it is written: "There is no one who is righteous, not even one’ The problem is that if you did not have a great childhood or if you did not have a great teen experience, you can’t just dust off your hands and move on to the next decade.
They tell us that children of divorced parents often marry someone like their parents and then try to relive their parents life and work out the problem that cause their parent’s marriage to collapse.
So if you are 60 years old, and your parents did not provide enough safety in childhood, you may still be dealing with that issue. Maybe your parents could not provide the safety. I speak with many people who have gone through a refugee experience. I never met a refugee who was sure it was going to work. If you are a refugee, you are fleeing danger and hoping that you’re in time to escape. And your children as they run with you cannot be protected from the sense of vulnerability to the evils of this world.
Today we continue with the challenge for teens – to develop a secure sense of who they are. Our identity is largely provided and reinforced by finding people who love us and tell us who we are. Isn’t that a scary idea? You have to survive until you get large enough to not be stepped on, and then you have to find people who actually like you to get a confident identity.
I saw this interesting article on Identity Theft. Teenagers and young people are more vulnerable to identity theft than adults because most have not established credit records that can be monitored. The teen years are where the identity is being formed.
Now, we are going to look at Romans Chapter 3 this morning and discover why we have trouble getting an identity we like. I have thoughts for parents on how to offer support as your child works on identity issues. We are going to look at the effects of racism, sexism, and homophobia and how you can recover if you have struggled with the effects from people close to you who wanted you to be – different.
But friends, where I am headed and what this is all going to resolve with is – Have you let Jesus give you a sense of identity as a child of God? A lot of people hold back from an encounter with the Christ. It makes us feel vulnerable. And since we are working on identity and now we are asked to approach the most powerful person we know, what if you get close enough to be vulnerable, and God takes a long look at you and you realize that you are not good enough to get that identity forming affirmation? A lot of people would rather hold on to 10% than risk everything for 100%.
But as the song says, if you have had the encounter with Christ, then you know ‘You’re Somebody’. I’m going to speak plainly on this topic, because I’m a rather confident person. Now that confidence is made up of several elements – 10% is pure ignorance. If I knew what was coming next, I’d be more humble. And 30% is acrilo polyester. But a good 60% is just the sense that as I stand here this morning, I’m in contact with God and that God is affirming my life and equipping me for this day. If you do not have that identity affirmation – you need to seek the encounter with Christ.
Teens have to secure an identity just as they encounter puberty and the knowledge that they are under the power of sin. They talk about the age of accountability. Jews seemed place it at 12 years old. But teens first encounter what seems to be an impossible question- how can I resolve needing a good identity and accepting also that rebellion is in my life?
And again, as throughout the whole Scripture, we see that the rebellion in verse 17 is mostly about turning peace into violence. Satan preoccupies the Christian community now with talk about homosexuality and replaces the struggle against war with the struggle against abortion. According to the Bible, the cursing and shedding of blood are not against embryos but the image of mob violence and war.
To have a secure social identity, you have to accept just how bad the rebellion is, not come up with fake rebellions, and then also find something positive that allows you to feel accepting of self. I want to say a word to parents, a word on the effects of hate, and a word on the role of Christ.
Parents have an incredibly important effect on identity. If you affirm your kids and keep pointing out their strengths, that connection provides a backdrop against which all other interaction takes place. Teens with these kinds of positive relationships with their parents on the whole struggle less with depression, and have higher self-esteem. Relationships characterized by kindness and devoid of unkind words or acts appear to be important to healthy adolescent development.
Parents tend not to like experimenting by teens. Parents tend not to like puberty in teens. So of course we want to make comments when we see a mistake about to happen. But the best thing you can consistently do is ignore some of the debris of a life under construction and keep affirming your own support and respect.
And identity comes when parents start taking less ownership. This is about them, not about you. I got a lot of my early parenting with my foster sons. They had been through a war so I was fairly certain they knew how to stay alive until bedtime. So I set a rule that they had to home at 11pm. And it was their responsibility to make it work. We all knew where the house was. What I did not know was where they were . And it was their job at 11pm to find the house. The house was not going to go looking for them. I loved them, but it was their job to make a successful identity and my role was to support them during construction.
We have had two instances of racism in the school this year. Mel Gibson from the Passion of Christ shouted anti semitic hatred the other night when he was arrested for driving drunk. Knowing that someone close or powerful hates us because of something we can’t change has a devastating effect on identity. I have seen those posters in the subway recently of babies with the caption, If you knew I was gay, would you still love me?
I think we have to say it out loud that we are living in a world that benefits most white males who are straight. And so if you are not white, male and straight, there is a war inwardly between wanting to be who God has created you to be and wanting to go along for the identity forming affirmation. Hate speech and slurs are powerful and deadly. The Bible says there is only one real sin – murder. We arrest people who murder the body but it much harder to make a law against hate that murders the soul.
And this is where the role of the church is so important. You have got to be living in a supportive community to have healthy identity. The Annual Conference recently approved a mission statement and one of the first phrases was the dream that United Methodist Churches in New York City could be beloved communities. That phrase speaks to my heart. I have spoken recently on the book, The Children, and how important James Lawson was in the civil rights movement. He started his work in Nashville and gathered students each week for 6 months before they went out to do civil rights work because he wanted them to feel supported by a beloved community.
My dream for this church is that we would be more than a nice church, but be a beloved community. We are wrestling with core issues that determine whether we have satisfying lives, rich lives, worthwhile lives and we need more than a little inspiration and a wee prayer. We need a beloved community.
And then I return to the encounter with Christ. [Rom 3:23] since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; [Rom 3:24] they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
The identity security comes primarily as a gift. Paul is careful to state that without grace we are lost. Without grace, we cannot resolve those haunting fears about our identity. We are always threatened by our self knowledge of the rebellion and the hateful opinions of others.
And that is why I invite you to pray at the altar this morning. Perhaps you are a teen and you need a sense of affirmation from God. Have you met Him? Perhaps you are an adult and have never had the encounter with Christ where you receive the gift of a new and blessed identity as a child of God. Or perhaps you are in the middle of stress in life that is threatening your identity and you come to ask for grace this morning. The purpose for worship is to come and meet God. Don’t let anything else stand in your way. We are the beloved community waiting before God this morning. Ask for grace. Ask for blessing. Christ is here. I wonder – have you met him?
