Living with Your Honest to God Self: The Private Self
by Ken Wilson

We're in a devil of a pickle. Myth of straight line progress challenged by events on ground. First generation to expect a "less than" future than their parents. [current generation of students is less likely to graduate high school than were there parents]

Myth of individualism also under strain. We can lift ourselves up by our bootstraps. Each of us autonomous, self-contained, self sufficient.

We've stretched this rubber band as far as it can go, and it's about to snap. We lack instincts to deal with a reality so darned inter-dependent. Global economy. Interconnections that constitute the environment on which we all depend. Plain fact we are all in this thing together. The individual matters, has great dignity in eyes of God. But no man is an island. No woman either.

We are in a great cultural crunch--hemmed in from opposing sides. On one hand crave meaningful connections. Average home has more TV's than people because we can't agree on what to watch. We travel to beat of our own IPOD play-lists. 1 in 4 men doesn't have a single close buddy to turn to. (Playing online video games with a guy in china doesn't count.) So we need to develop our communal selves.

At same time, our private selves need tending. Our inner life…

Try it sometime: You unplugged. Turn off all the voices from the outside that can get into your insides: television, radio, mp3 player. Enter your house or apartment and close the door. Go into a private room and close the door. Then one more step inward, close your eyes. That is your private self in there: you unplugged.

Jesus was a communal man in a communal time who valued the private self.

Excavations of Nazareth indicate it housed 480 inhabitants. In a hamlet like that everybody knows your name and your business.

Everybody knew Joseph wasn't his father. They weren't known as the holy family but the shamed one. The sting of communal shame must have fueled his human need to know God as his Abba, Father.
As oldest son, on him to care for his mom & siblings after Joseph died. He didn't have time to date or find a mate. A communal man in a communal time who had to go out to the wilderness to be alone.

In public years, hemmed in by people: rabbi with tag along students. Remember "What about Bob?" The psychiatrist whose patient, Bill Murray, wanted to be part of his family? That's what it was like for a rabbi to take on disciples. Followed you everywhere.

And crowds! Watch c-span. Time these candidates spend pressing the flesh before and after a speech. Imagine they weren't just celebrities but their prayers healed sick people. Aimee Semple McPherson, who by all accounts had most powerful healing gift, back in 1920's was a nervous wreck. Eventually she shut down her healing meetings because she couldn't handle the wall to wall people 24/7.

Last Sunday we considered the sibling self (self in community.) Today, the private self.

There's a movement in 10 commands from public to private acts.
First 9 commands are outward acts, pretty much: bowing down to idols, using Lord's name in vain, working on Sabbath, caring for parents, murder, adultery, stealing, lying. But last command is doozy: thou shalt not covet they neighbors Prius. Where does it take place?

Sermon on mount has same trajectory: moves from public to private. Murder-adultery--outer acts, have inner analogues. Homicide is one thing, but hating your brother is not essentially another. Adultery is one thing, but leering at a women lustfully, dubbing your version of Basic Instinct with a Barry White sound track in your head, is not essentially another.

"Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Prayer is how we love people behind closed doors, when they aren't looking.

"When you give to the needy, don't insist they name the family room you. Then your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you."

"Be sure to save some of your prayers for when no one but God is listening. Go to your inner room, close the door, and your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you."

Sermon ends with heart matters of treasure & trust. Treasure & trust kingdom of God, not money. Don't worry about it. Worry about my kingdom and I'll worry about yours. Don't trust yourself to judge your neighbor. I don't.

The Bible has a storyline: In beginning there is a place where we're at peace with God, others, ourselves. We're walking with God--nothing to hide. Then we break faith. Trust is violated and we withdraw. We hide--look for a place where God isn't and go there. [The essence of hell isn't it?] As we withdraw from God, he withdraws from us. How could it be otherwise? He won't stalk us.

The storyline of salvation is toward God letting us back into his house, and us letting God back into ours.

Drama moves from the garden in Genesis to temple in Ezekiel's vision which like Eden has river running through it, to Jesus on last great day of the feast as priests carry the water back in festal procession and pour it out on the altar in the temple: "If anyone is thirsty let him come to me and drink and out of his heart will flow rivers of living water…. I go to prepare a place for you so that you can be with me where I am… In the last days I will pour forth my Spirit on all flesh…."

God letting us back into his house and us letting God back into ours.

"My prayer is not for them alone…. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me." (Jn. 17: 20-23.)

God letting us back into his house and us letting God back into ours.

With this in mind, back to his teaching about going to the inner room.
"When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you."
"Come, my people, enter into your rooms and close your doors behind you; Hide for a little while Until indignation runs its course. (Is. 26:10)

Variously translated closet, inner chamber, inner room, private room. Only room in house with a door was inner room. God's house, temple had outer rooms and inner rooms. Court of Gentiles, of women, outer court, inner court, holy place, holy of holies. His presence intensified form outer to inner. Holy of holies, God's private space.

The embodied person is conceived of as a house or temple in Jewish thought, and the heart is the innermost place.

Think about where you go to have privacy. Into your house. Then from common space into personal space. Once you close that door, only one place more private: inner landscape of consciousness.

Children think mom & dad can see in there. When kids learn their thoughts are private, the boundaries of the self are established.

Our consciousness is something we can never share directly with another human being. We can share it indirectly with words. With songs, art. But not the direct experience. (No way of knowing that what's going on when you see red and I do is the same.)

There is this innermost private self, in other words.

This is where God comes in or doesn't. No other merely human being can experience our inner experience as we do.

Oh we try. We get tantalizingly close to the experience of truly having our private self be shared space. As when we sing together, we're all in rhythm & rhyme together--my experience and yours almost same.

This is the itch that almost gets scratched with sex. Two people joined together physically and emotionally.

But for all that it's at best an "almost" experience.

Only hope we have for company in our private space is God's company. A particular kind of God who is personal. A God who has something analogous to a mind or a consciousness and can experience ours as we do. Does that make sense?

This is the God Jesus reveals. A father who knows as we can know what only we can know--the unsharable secret of the private self.

"But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and)your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

There's an old English word for secret. Huddles.

"But when thou shalt pray, enter into thy bedchamber, and when the door is shut, pray thy Father in huddles, and thy Father that seeth in huddles, shall yield to thee." (Wycliffe)

Football players huddled to share secrets so they can act in concert.
Y to Left Weak, Purple Drive 7. On one, on two, ready…break!

Prayer in secret is where we huddle privately with God.
Father-Son-Holy Spirit linked in relation surrounding you.

Let's draw some conclusions.

1. The private self is holy and is to be respected as such.

When after the flood, Noah, the first to plant a vineyard discovered fermentation, like many a naïve young man, had too much to drink the first time around and ended up in a compromised state.

Then he drank of the wine and was drunk, and became uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. But Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness. So Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done to him(Gen. 9

Not talking about covering up misdeeds of an alcoholic father here. We are talking about violating a person's private space. Ham violated his father's privacy by barging in without knocking and telling his brothers. Ham's brothers took pains to protect Noah's privacy.

The sin of gossip is a violation of private space. Private space is sacred space. Telling other people's private business for entertainment. Uncovering the nakedness of others, so to speak.

Ground rule in our small groups: no unsolicited advice giving. It's up to each person to invite others into their private space. We're not to go barging in uninvited.

2. Once we accept the holiness of the private self we can accept the responsibility to make ourselves known to others.

Jesus said, "If your brother sins against you go to your brother"
Because your brother might not know that he sinned against you.

Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened." We have a responsibility to make our needs known even to God who knows everything! (Part of being in his image? We are responsible to reveal ourselves?)

What initiative are you taking to be known by others? In your relationships, are you willing to take the risk of self-revelation?
If you are part of a small group, are you willing to share needs?
Have you let all your relationships become merely functional ones?
[Refresh Weekend]

3. The private self needs company that only God can give.

The company of God is the itch we're trying to scratch when we pray in private. Jesus, who grew up knowing Joseph wasn't his father, the open secret, was driven by this painful awareness to seek God's company as his father.

It drove him to lonely places where he prayed. Maybe he was lonely even after he got there. And had to press into the loneliness before knowing the company of God as his father. It says in Hebrews he prayed, "with loud groans and tears."

Private prayer scratches the deepest itch: are we alone in private space? Maybe that's why it's so intimidating to so many of us. And yet we can't let it go.

Jesus went to lonely places to pray. He brought his loneliness with him to prayer. His ache invited God's response.

His invites us to "get a room" so to speak.

Do you have a space in your place to pray? Think about designating one, if you don't have one. Go there and sit quietly, if only for 5 minutes a day at first. Just sit there and be aware that God is in that private place with you.

4. The private self is the known more than the knowing self.

The first principle of modern philosophy: I think, therefore I am.
That's deep: The knowing self.

But this is deeper: You are therefore I am. The known self.

We don't name ourselves do we? The fact that we are named means we are known by a prior knower. Self-discovery is not self-invention.

In the biblical era, the fathers had the job of naming the children.
Probably because the mothers did all the heavy lifting.

This is perhaps why the parental metaphor for God is more commonly father than mother in the Bible. God is the namer. God is the knower.

The private self is the Father-named, the Father-known self.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it. (Rev. 2:17)

In the kingdom, God will speak a name that will be known only to us.
The name of our truest self. Our name will be called and then we'll know as we do not now know: that is who I am….and we will come.

Ever after, this, and only this will be the self we reveal to others.
No other faces, no other personas, the self-same true self only.

If this be so, the search for the true self begins with a simple act of trust: that though we may not know, we are known.

Being known in community helps us to know that we are known by God.