Trying to Live an Authentic Life
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Pastor Bob Henry
March 3, 2024
Good morning, Friends. Today, we continue looking at a Quaker Values and the scripture I have chosen is from Psalm 51:4-6 from The Message Version.
You’re the One I’ve violated, and you’ve seen
it all, seen the full extent of my evil.
You have all the facts before you;
whatever you decide about me is fair.
I’ve been out of step with you for a long time,
in the wrong since before I was born.
What you’re after is truth from the inside out.
Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life.
As we continue looking at what I am categorizing as Quaker Virtues, I want us this week to follow the path from Truth last week to a virtue that many are talking about today on many levels.
As I was reviewing seeking and telling the Truth last week, I stopped before reading this line,
“For Friends, having integrity means being authentic and having consistency between one's values and one's actions.”
Being Authentic has become a rather large topic in our world, today. For some, including Quakers, it is seen as a virtue or at least a foundation when discussing truth and integrity.
The great theologian and TV shrink Dr. Phil McGraw once encouraged his viewers and readers,
“Be your authentic self. Your authentic self is who you are when you have no fear of judgment, or before the world starts pushing you around and telling you who you’re supposed to be. Your fictional self is who you are when you have a social mask on to please everyone else. Give yourself permission to be your authentic self.”
Not often can I pull off a Dr. Phil quote and say, I think he is on the right path. But I agree that we often need to give ourselves permission to be our authentic selves.
To illustrate this, let me share with you a story. It is called, “The Emperor and the Seed” by an unknown author.
Once there was an emperor in the Far East who was growing old and knew it was coming time to choose his successor. Instead of choosing one of his assistants or one of his own children, he decided to do something different.
He called all the young people in the kingdom together one day. He said, "It has come time for me to step down and to choose the next emperor. I have decided to choose one of you." The children were shocked! But the emperor continued. "I am going to give each one of you a seed today. One seed. It is a very special seed. I want you to go home, plant the seed, water it and come back here one year from today with what you have grown from this one seed. I will then judge the plants that you bring to me, and the one I choose will be the next emperor of the kingdom!"
There was one boy named Ling who was there that day and he, like the others, received a seed. He went home and excitedly told his mother the whole story. She helped him get a pot and some planting soil, and he planted the seed and watered it carefully. Every day he would water it and watch to see if it had grown.
After about three weeks, some of the other youths began to talk about their seeds and the plants that were beginning to grow. Ling kept going home and checking his seed, but nothing ever grew. Three weeks, four weeks, five weeks went by. Still nothing.
By now others were talking about their plants but Ling didn't have a plant, and he felt like a failure. Six months went by, still nothing in Ling's pot. He just knew he had killed his seed. Everyone else had trees and tall plants, but he had nothing. Ling didn't say anything to his friends, however. He just kept waiting for his seed to grow.
A year finally went by and all the youths of the kingdom brought their plants to the emperor for inspection. Ling told his mother that he wasn't going to take an empty pot. But she encouraged him to go, and to take his pot, and to be honest about what happened. Ling felt sick to his stomach, but he knew his mother was right. He took his empty pot to the palace.
When Ling arrived, he was amazed at the variety of plants grown by all the other youths. They were beautiful, in all shapes and sizes. Ling put his empty pot on the floor and many of the other kinds laughed at him. A few felt sorry for him and just said, "Hey nice try."
When the emperor arrived, he surveyed the room and greeted the young people. Ling just tried to hide in the back. "My, what great plants, trees and flowers you have grown," said the emperor. "Today, one of you will be appointed the next emperor!"
All of a sudden, the emperor spotted Ling at the back of the room with his empty pot. He ordered his guards to bring him to the front. Ling was terrified. "The emperor knows I'm a failure! Maybe he will have me killed!"
When Ling got to the front, the Emperor asked his name. "My name is Ling," he replied. All the kids were laughing and making fun of him. The emperor asked everyone to quiet down. He looked at Ling, and then announced to the crowd, "Behold your new emperor! His name is Ling!" Ling couldn't believe it. Ling couldn't even grow his seed. How could he be the new emperor?
Then the emperor said, "One year ago today, I gave everyone here a seed. I told you to take the seed, plant it, water it, and bring it back to me today. But I gave you all boiled seeds that would not grow. All of you, except Ling, have brought me trees and plants and flowers. When you found that the seed I gave you would not grow, you substituted another seed for it. Ling was the only one with the courage and honesty to bring me a pot with my seed in it. Therefore, he is the one who will be the new emperor!"
In this story, the challenge was different than it appeared. Ling thought the challenge was about growing a plant, but really it was about honesty. Likewise, sometimes you think you know what a situation asks of you, but maybe you’re wrong. In that case, the best you can do is to just act true to who you are and hope for the best.
Well, this is called being your authentic self.
What does it mean to be “authentic”?
Psychologists, theologians, and educated people throughout time, have tried to come up with an agreeable definition, but reality is that it is not that simple. Instead, most educators today, want to look not at defining the term as much as what are the core qualities of being an authentic person – and there are some qualities they can agree on.
I find these qualities shape, fill out, even help create a more robust understanding of authenticity in our lives.
Most of this research has been done by Humanistic Psychologists, yet the characteristics speak volumes to people of faith. Take for example the following qualities or characteristics they consider authentic and mature people possess. These were compiled by Dr. Stephen Joseph, professor of psychology, health, and Social Care at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom. Authentic people…
1. Have realistic perceptions of reality.
2. Are accepting of themselves and of other people.
3. Are thoughtful.
4. Have a non-hostile sense of humor.
5. Are able to express their emotions freely and clearly.
6. Are open to learning from their mistakes.
7. Understand their motivations.
Do you notice how linked authenticity and personal awareness are? That means if we want to be more our authentic selves then we must become more personally aware. And that is going to take some self-examination.
Every week, we provide queries for you to ponder. Those queries are part of this self-examination. Even if you only wrestled each week with seeking answers to those queries, you would at least be seeking a personal awareness.
A couple weeks ago, many of you talked to me, contacted me, even stopped by to talk with me about patience. Many in sharing with me were wrestling with their own answers to the queries. They were becoming more personally aware of how patience or the lack of patience affected them.
This is something that I believe makes Quakers unique. The church I grew up in, frowned on asking questions, they did not want people to wrestle with their own lives, beliefs, and understandings. They feared doubt, and thus made sure the church had an answer for every question that could come down the line. But the reality was the church was not being authentic in how it dealt with questioning people.
Let’s be really honest, authenticity is why many of you have wondered from the churches you grew up within? Maybe it was the fog machines, big screens, dramatic lighting, or the religious art, the robes, the incense, or the stadium seating, café’s, and low-pressure participation, that all could be categorized as simple entertainment value. This stuff will not mask the lack of depth and community that create authentic churches and people.
This is why Quakers always stated that the church was not the building but the people. To be an authentic church or meeting, means to first be authentic people.
And don’t get me wrong, we, Quakers, can get just as caught up in our traditions, our properties, our sacred cows, and then must reassess and pull ourselves back into a more authentic presentation.
So, let me get off my soap box and return to those qualities and characteristics I was discussing earlier.
The same study by Humanistic Psychologists, not only gave us those qualities and characteristics of authentic people, it also gave us a list for inauthentic people. Inauthentic people…
1. Are self-deceptive and unrealistic in their perceptions of reality.
2. Look to others for approval and to feel valued.
3. Are judgmental of other people.
4. Do not think things through clearly.
5. Have a hostile sense of humor.
6. Are unable to express their emotions freely and clearly.
7. Are not open to learning from their mistakes.
8. Do not understand their motivations.
Wow, I thought preaching about integrity was hard…but as we delve deeper and deeper, it gets harder and harder. I admit being more self-aware so I could become more authentic is not easy – it is much easier to put on a mask and avoid dealing with it. But the reality is that over time it will eat away at you from the inside out.
I appreciate what Dr. Stephen Joseph says,
“If behind what a person says and does is a defensive and self-deceptive approach to life, then no matter how passionate and committed they are to a cause, ultimately they are not being true to themselves.”
Last week, I slowly shared a list of queries for you to ponder during my sermon. What if this week, we simply took those qualities and characteristics that came out of this study on authenticity and turned them into queries for us to ponder.
· Am I self-deceptive and unrealistic in my perceptions of reality?
· Do I look at others for approval and to feel valued?
· Am I judgmental of other people?
· Do I think things through clearly?
· Do I have a hostile sense of humor?
· Am I able to express my emotions freely and clearly?
· Am I open to learning from my mistakes?
· Do I understand what motivates me?
Folks, I will be the first to say that I have answered every one of these queries in the negative. And exploring them personally is not easy. But I believe these are things we all wrestle with.
Part of being Quaker for me is to always be working on and trying to become better at being authentic and having consistency between my values and my actions, as I said at the beginning of this message.
I sense the Psalmist in our scriptures for today, was at a place of self-awareness and crying out for God to help him continue to delve deeper. Let his words be our prayer as we close out this message:
What you’re after is truth from the inside out.
Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life.
May it be so!
Now, as we enter waiting worship, I encourage you to go back and look over those queries I shared and let this be a time of personal awareness, and opening ourselves up to God conceiving a new, true (authentic) life in us.