Some of us were scolded as children for “being selfish”—we learned that others’ needs were more important than our own.  Others believe it’s a virtue to put others first, often to our own detriment. Often, we lose ourselves in our efforts to conform or comply with the agendas others have for us. Today, we focus on the ancient saying “Know thyself.” Self-knowledge, that is, who-we-really-are, is the ground from which a flourishing life grows.

Sociologist Brene Brown says that her research has shown over and over again that the most compassionate people are the most boundaried people. They have the capacity to reach out in ways that foster wellbeing. So today, we gather in worship to pray, to listen, and to be in such a way that we hear the divine call to an integrated and robust life through the practice of self-knowledge and self-care

A sermon based on John 8.25 and several other ancient texts.

Who are you?

Do you know who you are, who you really are? Not who others say you are. Not who your parents wanted you to be. Not who your fears or ambitions drive you to be. But who are you, really? Do you know? And does it make any difference in the way you live your life?

“Who are you?” That’s what the crowds asked Jesus one day when he was teaching in the Temple at Jerusalem.

It’s a question every human being needs to hear.

“Who are you?” has the potential to awaken us from the numbness of a life of duty to demands that push and pull at us, obligations and expectations that are often required of us, but which may have little to do with who we really are at our core—with our soul’s true identity.

One evening the poet, David Whyte, who was running a non-profit at the time, slumped into a chair across a table from his friend and Catholic monk, David Steindl-Rast. [I’ve told you this story before.] They often met to read poetry and let poetry and their friendship nourish their souls. But on this night, David Whyte felt far from his soul; work was wiping him out. And reading poems felt futile. So Whyte said to the older monk, “Brother David, I’m exhausted. I think I need a vacation, a long vacation. Talk to me about exhaustion.”

The monk thought for awhile. Finally, he said, “My friend, the antidote to exhaustion isn’t a vacation.”

“Then what is it?”

“Well, it’s not rest,” said the monk. “You can go on vacation and get your rest, but when you return, nothing will have changed. You’ll be exhausted again in a week.”

“Hmmmm,” grunted David Whyte.

“David,” said the monk, “the antidote to exhaustion isn’t rest, it’s wholeheartedness.”

Wholeheartedness.

To be unified at the core of your being; to be grounded in your true identity; to be aware of the push and pull of outer expectations on your inner life but not to lose your true self to any of them—to be one with God and with your own soul, that’s what it means to be “wholehearted.”

The Fourth Gospel, the one we call The Gospel According to John, paints a portrait of Jesus as one who lived “wholeheartedly.” And by describing Jesus this way, the author invites us to do the same, for we are to follow in the Way of Jesus, we are summoned to live alert to the outer calls and claims upon our lives, their push and pull, but not to lose ourselves to any of them, not to betray the inner call of the divine that comes to us through our souls.

“Who are you?” they asked Jesus long ago. Some of the earliest versions of the Fourth Gospel tell us that Jesus said in reply, “[I am] What I have told you from the beginning.” What Jesus is saying is this: “I’m still true to what I know the divine made me to be; I’m staying true to what the divine has sent me to do. I am one with God and with my own soul, no matter what or who lays claim upon my life; I live my life from the inside out not the other way around. I take my cues from the divinity of my soul, not from the designs and dictates of others.”

Jesus, the Gospel wants us to know, lived wholeheartedly, unified at the core of his being, one with God and one with his own soul, grounded in his true identity. How? Because he knew himself.

Jesus didn’t march to the drum of another drummer. Jesus didn’t follow the agenda handed to him by others. Jesus didn’t mold himself according to the desires, designs, or demands of his parents, his friends, his priest, or the needs or wants of his village—or anyone or anything else.

Sociologist Brene Brown is a researcher, storyteller, who’s spent the past two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy. Dr. Brown is the author of five #1 New York Times best sellers, and her TED talks have over 41 million views. Brene Brown is one of our favored teachers here at Davis Community Church.

One of the key findings rising up from her long term research into human empathy and compassion points us in the direction of self-care through self-knowledge. She has found that the most compassionate people are the most boundaried people.

Popular opinion generally believes that compassionate people are open to whoever and whatever comes their way, that they have an almost limitless ability to care and give themselves away. But that’s not what the science shows us. The data shows that compassionate people have boundaries. They know who they are. They know what matters to them. They know what they can and can’t do. And that’s why they have something worthwhile to give. Compassion flows from an inner river with strong banks and a deep channel. Because they have boundaries, compassionate people don’t let the calls and claims of others intrude upon their lives, pushing and pulling them in directions they can’t sustain, to do things they weren’t made to do, to be something they weren’t made to be. Like Jesus, compassionate people know who they are, and they know who they are not.

Knowing who you are is core to the care of what you value most, yourself. Knowing who you are is therefore key to caring properly and well for other people and things. If you don’t know who you are, you can’t offer your unique gifts, in your particular way, that can help bring about the wellbeing of the places and people around you.

Today is the first of three sermons in a short series we host every autumn as the year comes toward a close. Each year, we as a congregation renew our spiritual lives around three key spiritual practices: self-care, service, and sabbath. Today, self-care, over the next two weeks, service and sabbath.

In years past, I’ve talked about the importance of self-care and urged us to make it a priority. I’ve talked about the ways many of us were warned as children not be be “selfish.” We were taught that others’ needs were more important than our own.  And so a lot of us believe it’s a virtue to put others first, ignore the needs of our bodies and minds and souls—often to our own detriment. Consequently, it’s terribly easy to lose ourselves (or to have never really found them in the first place) in our efforts to conform or comply to the needs or agendas of others. When we do, when we ignore self-care, we lose ourselves, we lose our energies, we squander our uniqueness, we don’t revel in the wonder of our God-breathed identity, and we can’t bring it forth, then, for the common good.

“Who are you?” they asked Jesus long ago. “I am myself,” he said. “I am true to what I know the divine made me to be; true to what the divine has sent me to do; I live my life from the inside out, from the God-presence within me.”

Who are you? Who am I?

If you and I do not know who we are at the depths of our souls, we will find ourselves called and claimed by the purposes of everyone else, and no matter how good their intentions may be, others can never hear the call of our own souls. Only you can hear that inner call of your soul. Only I can hear my soul speak my truth.

And so, “know thyself,” is bedrock to the wisdom tradition of every culture.

Four thousand years ago, above the doorway into the great Temple of Apollo at Delphi in ancient Greece, three core instructions were inscribed in stone:

“First, know thyself; second, nothing to excess; and, third, certainty brings insanity.”

Eighteen hundred years ago, somewhere in North Africa or Palestine, an anonymous Christian teacher quoted the Jesus tradition and said:

“Those who do not know themselves know nothing at all. But those who know themselves know the deep mystery of all things.”

Fifteen hundred years ago in China, the great strategist and sage, Sun Tze, wrote of the same wisdom in his famed military handbook, The Art of War

“Know others and know thyself, and you will not be endangered by innumerable threats.”

This bit of wisdom isn’t just ancient, it still weaves itself even into our modern culture, a culture adrift and our souls longing for guidance:

Twenty years ago, the ancient injunction, “Know thyself,” appeared above the Oracle's kitchen doorway in the movies The Matrix and The Matrix Revolutions. “Know thyself” appears again as a tattoo on the arm of Nomi, the transgender character in the recent Netflix show Sense8.

If we do not know the will of our own souls, we are lost to the whims of what others want from us. If we fail to know ourselves from this inside, we become prey to every force pressing in upon us from the outside.

“Know thyself,” is the key to self-care, to living fully, to loving well.

Yesterday, I had brunch with our new 40s and 50s group. It was our second meeting. About twenty of us gathered in a friend’s backyard in Woodland.

The group ate and then sat in small groups, sharing our honest answers to a simple question: “What are you learning these days?”

In my group, one of us talked about the hard work of no longer trying to please others. Another talked about learning to face the fears that push and pull at his life. Another spoke of wanting to reclaim passion for life in the drudgery of a career that is no longer fulfilling. And another talked about the way she’d taken a day off from work recently. It was the first time she’d ever used a sick day when she wasn’t actually sick. It had taken no small about of persuading herself to do that. She had to repeatedly tell herself that she really needed it, that she needed the break from her kids and job and housework and the endless list of obligations. So she put a pack in her trunk, her needs right beside her, and all her guilt in the backseat, and headed to a state park for the day.

“I didn’t realize how much I’d lost any real sense of myself; I didn’t know how much I needed space to reclaim something central to my life: my own self who I’ve neglected. I’m learning to set clearer boundaries in order to start this process of reclaiming my own life. I don’t know where it’s leading, but I know doing this is non-negotiable.”

When we all reconvened and briefly shared insights from our groups, a common twin themes emerged: boundaries and self-care. As I listened I realized the incredible relevance of these texts we’ve explored today—the ancient and perennial wisdom that teaches that self-knowledge is core to self-care, that to “know thyself,” is the spring from which a good life flows.