Today we are going to talk about Identity. It has been a big part of my life, and I believe it is a big part of our faith. How we define ourselves is important, because ultimately we, made in God's image, need to find our identity in him. So let's jump right in. There are 4 laws of logic:

Law of noncontradiction

Law of excluded middle

Law of rational inference

Law of Identity

According to the Law of Identity “all that exists has a specific nature; A is either A or identical to A” and Aric is either Aric or identical to Aric. So, what is my specific nature?

When I was born I was almost immediately odd. How many of you guys have ever been told that you are “normal” or “special”? Who noticed that “normal” or “special” aren't necessarily complements!

I was told this all the time as a kid in elementary school: Aric is a very special child. Don’t worry, Aric, this is very normal. And 5 year old me figured out pretty quick that the way those words were being used on me, and what they actually meant, did not jive.

Most kids know when an adult says “special” they mean stupid. And “normal means the opposite; it means that the system was not meant for you.

So, here are some of the things that made me “normal” and “special”

Reading gave me a headache.

I was easily overwhelmed by lights, sound and touch.

And my personal favorite is how I would be talking with someone and they would just randomly walk away. Then I teacher would talk to me and say: “Aric, you were being very rude”

I had no idea I was being rude, and I didn’t know what I did wrong.

Finally, I did not play at recess I would pace, in the same place, every day.

So! Diagnose me! Subject has:

• Hypersensitivity to external stimulus
• Difficulty procesing normal emotions
• Inability to understand social cues
• And obsessive repetitive behavior

What am I?

A specialist came into my school to meet with me about an hour a day for a week. By the end, my parents had a piece of paper and I will never forget when my dad took me out to ice cream so he could tell me that I was “learning disabled”

If you have a learning disability, there is no shame in that, and I’m sorry if this is insensitive, but it hurt so much to have my father explain to me that it was the official policy of the State of Oregon that I was rude, stupid and autistic. Of course, it was much more polite than that: “Aric will need special accommodations, and will be pulled out of class on a regular basis to foster a positive and productive learning environment. Also! He won't be allowed to do anything above a second-grade math level, and a third-grade reading level.”

The world was telling me who I was and I was sick of it. I was so angry all the time. People told me I was a mean person, people didn’t let me learn what I wanted too. The world was telling me who I was and I didn't know why, and I didn't know what I did wrong.

So one day, I took a deep breath, and I wasn't angry anymore. I was not sad, nor happy, nor melancholy nor any. I emotion. I felt nothing, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t care what people said about me. And for the first time in what felt like my whole life; I knew peace, as the dead know peace. And this emotional death allowed me to a freedom I would not have had otherwise. But it was a dangerous, evil freedom.

So! Change of Stratagem! The world had its chance to tell me who I was, now I am going to tell the world who I am.

First and foremost world, I am not stupid. I started reading way above my grade level.

• The Prince by Machiavelli
• Computing Machinery by Alan Turing
• Diplomacy by Henry Kissinger
• The Federalist papers
• Shakespeare

What else? When I got to middle school I skipped 5 years of math. Second-grade level math my butt.

Second, I won’t be rude anymore. I will be loving. Patient, kind, slow to anger, keeping no record of wrong doing. Also, It is so easy to love people by that list in Corinthians if you don’t care about them on an emotional level, but that is a different talk for a different.

So here is the question I hope you guys are asking yourselves. Where is Jesus? The all-powerful maker king whose image I have been made in and who should be the center of my very existence? Going through all this I loved Christ, I worshiped Christ, I was a believer, but he did not get to define me. I spent so much time and found so much pain in letting other people tell me who I am, that is my job, I decide who I am. And I AM WHO I AM.

You guys check that minor blasphemy I just walked into. Maybe it's not my job.

Here is the point: Our culture is obsessed with identity. Identity politics, sexual identity, the racial identity.

The greatest good, says the world, is to: “be yourself.”

What does that even mean? In the words of John Green “whose self would I otherwise be being?”

As an actor, as an expert in make believe, as a person who has wasted so much time finding “myself”, this is something I know as absolute fact: Identity is malleable. Everything that you call you is subject to change. Intelligence, ability, looks, personality or the food you like. To quote a pissed off old dude who wrote a book of the Bible it is meaningless, vapor and dust in the wind.

It's okay if you disagree with me on this but I think identity is where we put ourselves in relation to the rest of the universe. Where we put ourselves in relation to the rest of the universe, is where we put our faith. When we put our faith in material, temporal, worldly things; those things change and our faith is without foundation.

My life has been marked by two great sins 1) I let the world define me. I let enemy lie to me and it broke me. 2) I committed a blasphemy, I took God's job and made it my own. I AM WHO I AM.

Everyone here, in the world, wants to know “Who am I?” I am going to tell you something unhelpful. You will never know and it does not matter. It is okay to “look for yourself” and improve yourself and strive for greatness! But it can become an idol so quickly.

For me this may be the greatest struggle of my life just two days ago I found out there is this group of people who think I am just the rudest person. Immediately: what am I doing wrong? What can I change? What do I care what they think? I AM WHO I AM! I AM WHO I AM! Stop, stop!

It is okay to think about how people look at you, what people think of you. But when it engulfs you, it's evil, it is the devil, it is the enemy lying to you.

But as I end I want to leave you with this. When it comes to identity I agree with theologian Karl Barth “The greatest theological insight is ‘Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so”

When all else in this ever changing glob of consciousness I call me is changing when all else is sinking sand; upon that solid rock I stand.

Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.

That is who we are.