A Word About Authenticity
Her given name was Sarah, but everyone called her “Ma” Jones. She was my great-grandmother. Ma is not an uncommon title for people in the hills of Missouri’s Ozark Mountains, when referring to the senior members of a particular clan. She cooked on a wood stove in her tiny kitchen; a kitchen that had no running water, only access to a well. As a little boy, I ate at her table many times. And the best biscuits I’ve ever had were a huge part of breakfast at Ma Jones’ house. Those biscuits were often slathered with sweet butter and molasses. Usually, fried eggs and perhaps bacon or a thick slice of sugar-cured ham. Wonderful conversations around the table, and I remember with total clarity that after everyone was finished, Ma would often cover the biscuits and perhaps the sliced ham that was left on the table with a cloth. Ma didn’t have a refrigerator. Just an old fashion ice box, that needed a new block of ice every couple of days.
If someone in the late morning showed up at Ma’s house to visit, she would invite them in, uncover the table and offer a biscuit with sweet butter and molasses; perhaps even bit of sugar-cured ham, left over from breakfast. Ma Jones offered hospitality that was warm and totally genuine. But one thing I never knew her to offer was an apology. She never said, “I’m sorry I don’t have anything but a biscuit to offer you.” In fact, she never acted insecure at all about her home, about the fact that her plumbing was outside and down a path. She knew who she was, and let that identity speak for itself. She was, I think, one of the most authentic people I have ever known.
When I was a little boy, I didn’t know the definition for the word “authentic.” But I knew what it looked like when I saw it. Ma Jones wasn’t trying to impress anybody. She didn’t measure her worth by what she lacked, but by what she lived and offered to others. She never tried to appear more than or other than who she was; she was one-of-a-kind, and totally authentic. Authenticity in my mind is an embracing and understanding of identity. It’s being comfortable in the skin of the person God had in mind when he thought of you.
Jesus was the perfect example of authenticity, of course. The world has never known a more authentic life than the Lord Jesus. Fully God, fully man, and never pretending to be either one. He didn’t wear his divinity like a costume or his humanity like a disguise. The carpenter from Nazareth was the Creator in work clothes. He laughed, wept, grew tired, told stories, touched lepers, washed feet, all with a deliberateness in his life, slow and sweeter than molasses dripping of the end of a spoon.
Ma Jones baked her faith into her biscuits. She didn’t quote verses; she lived them out. That’s what Jesus did. He was totally comfortable in his own skin; the word that became flesh and dwelt among us.
Authenticity isn’t about trying to be perfect; it’s about understanding and owning life’s limitations. When who we are on the inside quietly agrees with what others see on the outside, the fragrance that lingers is the same one I remember from Ma Jones’ kitchen: warm, simple, and unmistakably real.