Yesterday I met in a conference room on the 19th floor of 50 California St. with a handful of City Churchers for our initial Downtown Professionals Group. It's another way in which group life at City Church is growing and meeting the needs of it's diverse congregation. The topic we discussed is one for everyone.... who are we? The answer you have for that fundamental question will drive all sorts of things about how you view yourself, others, and the world around you.

We are called in the earliest parts of the Bible "the image of God". There's balance in that title. We aren't God for starters. But we are made in the image of God. Dignity and humility from the get go. In Ancient Near Eastern cultures using this kind of language wasn't uncommon. This idea that people could be God's image and rule the world was used as a tool for oppression, as a means of keeping the elites at royal status, and the peasants and the poor were dirt that needed to stay busy building the pyramids and the splendors of Babylon. The language of Genesis says something radical: all are made in God's image. There are no "little people" in the biblical vision of human beings. Including you.

I think this is good news for high achievers and performance oriented people, not that we have any of those kinds of people at City Church! This makes it possible for us to ground our identity and worth into something other than the treadmill of success. Whether we are still pursuing it or have attained a great deal of it, the overwhelming report I hear is that success is a failure. I talk with people all the time who are burned out pursuing it or worn out having reached it and both are asking "is there something different I can do here?" Not necessarily. I'd suggest the problem isn't doing, it's being.

Nathan Hatch was the provost of the University of Notre Dame from 1996-2005 and in a speech to the student body at the beginning of classes he reminded these high achieving students not what they should be doing, but who they are as the image of God and how it impacts how they view themselves and their fellow students. I think it's good medicine for anyone living in a culture of achievement.

As we begin a new academic year, which appropriately calls each of us work to our full potential, let me offer two words of advice: Your true identity does not derive from how successful you are. All of us, from the top of the class to the bottom, derive our tremendous worth because God, our creator, knows our name, calls us sons and daughters, and takes joy in our own unique gifts. Who you are does not rest on a fickle ability to write brilliantly, to solve the experiment correctly, or climb the organizational ladder.

My second word of advice is this: living in a pressure cooker of achievement, how do we view our neighbors. Our reactions are often twofold, to envy those who seem more gifted and to look past people who seem ordinary. In his essay, The Weight of Glory, C. S. Lewis asks us to attend to a proper theology of the human person. He challenges us with the awesome reality of the human person, bearers of the very image of God. "There are no ordinary people," he concludes. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization––these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, exploit. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself," he continues, "your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses."

He goes on to suggest that our work must be "leavened" by this reality: Neither you nor your neighbor is an ordinary person. So as you work, as you interact with your family, as you reflect on how you are "doing"... remind yourself of who you are whether you feel like it or not. Remind yourself who others are whether they act like it or not. The image of God, with the capacity to represent God in this world. I know, we might be royal, but mostly it seems a royal mess. More on that next week. But take time this week to reflect on this central theme. Do I value myself appropriately without slipping into narcissism or self flagellation? Do I value others appropriately without demanding they jump through my hoops or idolizing them or what they have? I think our way to balance is remembering our royal lineage.