Bumper Stickers

Bumper stickers say a lot about us. A stick figure diagram depicts our family configuration. A campaign sticker shows who we voted for. The three-letter black and white oval identifies our favorite vacation spot. Team logos tell who we root for and a University emblem shows where we went to school. A fish or a fish with legs provides insight into our worldview.

Some of these distinctions are trivial and some monumental but all represent identity. These are some of the ways we define ourselves and the way we want others to see us. Whether we’ve completed a marathon, are the proud parent of an honor student, or have a baby on board, our bumper stickers show the world what we’re about.

Increasingly, our identities are less a point of interest and more a means to divide. Racial, political, sexual, and cultural lines have been drawn to separate us into groups. These categories have become the most salient aspects of our personhood and form the basis of what we know as “identity politics”.

This week’s passage from Galatians indicates that humans have been separating themselves based on various identities since ancient times. The apostle Paul made a point to erase those distinctions when he stated that “there is neither Jew nor gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”. Very simply, that is who we are.

Pastor Ben’s challenge to us was to consider where our identities are rooted. Are they rooted in the types of things our bumper stickers depict? Or are they rooted in the only identity that matters…our identity in Christ?

We don’t see too many “Jesus is my Co-Pilot” or “My Boss is a Jewish Carpenter” bumper stickers these days. Why? Is it because there aren’t many Christians? Our numbers are certainly in decline but I would submit that the culprit has more to do with what we find relevant, what we want others to know about us, and what is most salient in our own minds.

In Romans 1, Paul writes to his audience that he is “obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish”. He follows this obliteration of barriers with a powerful statement,

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew then to the Gentile”.

The cross is offensive, Jesus is divisive, and religion (along with politics), is not for polite conversation. If we proclaim a gospel that everyone loves, we can be sure it’s not the Gospel. What’s more likely is that we aren’t proclaiming any type of gospel at all.

What if we were as willing to advertise and advocate for Jesus as we are for our favorite politician or sports team or charitable cause? What if we focused less on the identities that divide us and more on the one that unites us? What if we followed Paul’s instruction regarding the formation of our own identities?

We’d only need one bumper sticker. But I would miss the funny ones…

~ Melissa Gibbs has been a member of LIFE Fellowship for over 10 years, is the mother to four boys and widow of the late JD Gibbs.