I was 17 and over 600 miles from home when I saw them. It was my first day on campus, and they were hanging out the windows of dorms all around the quad. I turned to a guy I had just met and asked, “What’s with all the flags?” There was a Norwegian flag, a Swedish flag, an Italian flag, a German, among others. He frowned and said, “They’re making a statement. They want everyone to know who they are.” I said, “How about their name, isn’t that sufficient?” He said, “Don’t you care who you are?” I said, “Sure I do. I’m Doug. I’m an American just like them.”
Years ago, a friend of mine was in China on a university campus giving a lecture. After he was finished, he was asked to stay for a question-and-answer session. When he agreed, hands shot up all over the lecture hall. It seemed that more than a
thousand Chinese students had questions. They all wanted to know the
differences between Americans and Chinese. It was all about the differences in food, in tastes, in culture. Finally, after fielding more than a half dozen questions Ken said, “All
you’ve asked me about are the differences between us. Let me tell you about the
similarities. Every one of us in this room has two basic needs: to love and be loved, and to have a
sense of worth. It doesn’t matter where you come from, or the color of your
skin. Deep down we are all alike.” And from there he pointed to Jesus.
In 1782 the Great Seal of the United States was approved
by an Act of Congress. In addition to the words, “annuit coeptis”, Latin for “he approves the undertaking”, are the words E pluribus unum, Latin for, “Out of many, one”. The meaning of this last phrase
originates from the concept that out of the union of the original thirteen colonies emerged a single nation. It’s emblazoned across the scroll and clenched in
the eagle’s beak on the front seal of the United States. At the same time the metaphor of a “melting pot” was used to describe the fusion of different
nationalities, ethnicities, and cultures into a cohesive union. That was the dream America offered to the
world. “Here”, wrote John de Crevecoeur, “individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose
labors and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world.” Crevecoeur was quite prescient, for the changes wrought by the United States over the past 200 years have caused world-wide changes.
But today we live at a time of identity politics when the opposite ethic is being propounded. Today the image of “melting pot” has been called outdated, even dangerous. Assimilation is seen as a
threat to one’s identity and that of his/her group. Instead of E pluribus unum there is rising pressure to go the other way, toward the many,
rather than the one. In 2016 David Victor Hansen wrote an article entitled, “America: History’s Exception". His last sentence reads: “We should remember that diversity is an ornament,
but unity is our strength.”
So, what is our primary evidence of unity? What guide do we have in
answering the question, “Who am I?” “Why am I here?” Unlike so many modern-day sources, the Bible addresses that very topic in its first and second
chapters. This Sunday, under the title, “The Mark of a Man”, we will examine Genesis 1:24-27 and 2:18-23 and get some answers.
In preparation for Sunday you
may wish to consider the following:
1. Someone
has said, “The root of all my struggles in life is knowing who I am.” Do you agree?
2. What is an identity crisis?
3. What are the more common ways of discovering one’s
identity?
4. What is the image of God?
5. What does it mean to have been created in it?
6. How do you explain the pleural pronouns in 1:26?
7. What’s the difference between “image” and “likeness” in
verse 26?
8. What does “dominion” mean?
9. What’s the significance of linking the image of God to
gender in verse 27?
10. How does Jesus’ post-resurrection act in John 20:22, 23 relate to all of this?
See you Sunday!
