IDENTITY!

I flew through John Wayne Airport, Orange County, last week on my way to a preaching conference at Talbot Seminary, near Los Angeles. A huge statue of its namesake greeted me in front of an American flag in the arrival lounge.

John Wayne. Quintessential American hero. Rugged. Individualistic. Drenched in testosterone. One of the “Greatest Male Stars” of all time (American Film Institute, 1999). An icon.

But all may not have been as they appeared. Apparently this guy who denounced those who refused to serve in Vietnam got out of serving in WWII. Apparently this star of innumerable Westerns hated horses. Garry Wills’ John Wayne’s America describes the making of the myth. In fact, this knight in chaps wearing a six-gun, was born in Iowa with the very unmacho name of Marion Morrison. One of his early directors, who had discovered John Wayne, thought up the stage name “Anthony Wayne.” The head of Fox Studios changed it to “John Wayne.” Indeed, Wayne himself was apparently not present at this conference that consigned that caption to his concocted character. So John Wayne he became! A fictional persona, an invented façade, created to project authority, autonomy, and almightiness. Designed to make John Wayne what he was not.

Identity crises of this sort are not uncommon. Making ourselves out to be what we are not. And, unfortunately, this true amongst us Christians, too. The egocentric power plays. The vying for position. Striving to be noticed. Struggling to get ahead. The buffing of image, often hollow. The polishing of achievements, often imagined.

In the body of Christ, among believers, this ought not to be the case.

Do nothing from selfishness
or empty conceit,
but with humility of mind
regard one another
as more important
than yourselves.
Philippians 2:3

There is a reason for such humility.

For who regards you as superior?
What do you have
that you did not receive?
And if you did receive it,
why do you boast
as if you had not received it?
1 Corinthians 4:7

What we have, what we are, what we have become, our talents, our gifts, our capacities, are all God-given, for specific purposes, to fulfill God’s plans for our lives and for the church, for the glory of God.

Now God has
placed the members,
each one of them,
in the body,
just as He desired.
To each one is given
the manifestation of the Spirit
for the common good.
1 Corinthians 12:18, 7

Where then is boasting and the fabrication of false fronts?

For through the grace
given to me I say
to everyone among you
not to think more highly
of himself than he
ought to think;
but to think so as to have
sound judgment ….
For just as we have
many members in one body
and all the members
do not have the same function,
so we, who are many,
are one body in Christ,
and individually
members one of another.
Romans 12:3–5

In God’s wisdom and in the exercise of His sovereignty, He makes us who we are and enables our participation in the work of God, with God. But make no mistake, it is all His work. Of the different roles of those in God’s service, Paul says:

I planted, Apollos watered,
but God was causing the growth.
So then
neither the one who plants
nor the one who waters
is anything,
but God who causes the growth.
1 Corinthians 3:6–7

Let there be no more those sad superficialities. No more those dissimulating duplicities. Instead …

He who boasts
is to boast in the Lord.
2 Corinthians 10:17

May God get the glory, not we.