Who am I?

Christ Episcopal Church, St. Joseph, La.

One of the many prayers attributed to St. Francis of Assisi is a simple, two sentence prayer: Who are you, God? And who am I?

Legend has it that St. Francis spent entire nights on his knees praying those same two sentences over and over again: Who are you, God? And who am I?

 

St. Francis in Ecstasy, by de Ribera

This prayer addresses two crises rather common among humans. The first sentence—“Who are you, God?”—is about our sometimes frantic search for some evidence of the Divine in this seemingly God-forsaken world.

We often look for God in all the wrong places. Like our deist founding fathers, we think God is way up there hovering overhead, instead of right down here, within and among us. You can find a sermon on my blog preached a few weeks ago at St. Andrew’s in Mer Rouge that explores that theme.

The second sentence of St. Francis’ prayer—“And who am I?”—is about that human rite of passage known as “an identity crisis.”  In the 1960s—which I trust most everyone here present remembers—having an identity crisis was all the rage!

But whether you had yours in college or much later in mid-life, all of us had to figure out who we are, or who we would be in this world. For many, especially older generations, the identity crisis came disguised as merely a choice of career, or how we would earn a living.

We did not necessarily—indeed, I would say we most likely did not—connect that decision with our religious or spiritual identity. We grew up in a world of dualistic thinking: the sacred vs. the secular, good vs. bad, right vs. wrong, us vs. them.

But in putting these two things together in one simple, short prayer, St. Francis smashes dualistic thinking. Who I am and who God is are deeply interconnected, perhaps even.. the same thing.

Now… what if Jesus had to go through the same rite of passage? What if Jesus had to undergo a bit of an identity crisis? He was, after all, fully human.

You see, I don’t think the hipppies of the 60s invented the identity crisis. I think it has been going on for a very long time.

Let us briefly consider Moses. Talk about a man with an identity crisis! Born Hebrew, stowed in a papyrus basket to be found by Pharoah’s daughter, to be raised as her son but nursed by his own mother, who was hired by the Egyptian for that purpose. Moses the Hebrew grew into a position of privilege in Egyptian society, only to find himself irrevocably drawn to the plight of the Hebrews.

In fact, drawn to the plight of the Hebrews to the extent that he kills an Egyptian who is abusing a Hebrew, thereby becoming a fugitive in the wilderness, where he comes face to face with God once again.., to become a savior of his people, confronting Pharoah and leading the Hebrews out of bondage.

Who are you, God? And who am I?

So Jesus was hardly the first to wonder who he was and what his role on earth was to be. And like many, he turned to those around him: Who do people say that I am? he asks his disciples.

And they give a reasonable and feasible answer, one that satisfies the secular approach to identity: People say you’re another in a long line of prophets. Your predecessors in this career were John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah and the like.

The disciples did not need to provide the job description. They and Jesus knew what prophets do: They preach, they call us to account, they do signs and wonders.

But Jesus is not satisfied. Jesus already has a relationship with God, an awareness of God in his heart, an inkling that there’s more to it. And so he probes with another question of these, the ones who know him best: Who do you say that I am?

St. Peter

Now comes Peter. Good old Peter. What a saint! What a sinner! I mean, he dares to step out of the boat and walk on the water. And then he gets wet feet and has to be rescued.

On the one hand, he drops his fishing net and follows Jesus everywhere. On the other hand, Jesus must, at one point, say to him, Get behind me Satan.

On the one hand, here he is proclaiming boldly: You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. On the other, he will soon deny that he knows Jesus of Nazareth.

Peter was a saint and a sinner, rolled into one, a living challenge to dualistic thinking. And a lot like us. Or, more accurately, we’re a lot like him.

But, of course, Jesus himself is the best answer possible to dualistic thinking. Fully God and fully human; divine and earthly; eternal and mortal. What more could you ask for as proof of God’s determination to eradicate all divisions and reconcile all things!

And we have a role to play in that because Jesus is our brother. Through him we can know ourselves as beloved children of God. It is essential to see the connection between who God is and who we are.

Today’s generation does not have the same set of dueling categories we grew up with. They probably have some of their own! But most of them don’t have the same ones we grew up with.

The traditional divisions of race, religion, social class, gender and sexuality by and large make little sense to them. The strict moral code we grew up with makes little sense to them. They tend to not see the world in terms of categories of right vs. wrong, black & white, us vs. them.

And that has led to a bit of a church identity crisis! The church is supposed to be Christ’s body in the world, as Paul explains to the Romans.

But what young people see when they look at the church is that we say all the right stuff, but we don’t follow Jesus. In fact, we reconstruct Jesus and try to make him the originator—or at least endorser—of our dualistic categories of right vs. wrong, us vs. them, “our church” vs. God’s church.

But that’s not what Jesus taught and it’s not what Jesus did.

Our Bishop has asked us to read this book, “People of the Way: Renewing Episcopal Identity,” by Dwight J. Zscheile. The titles of the chapters are revealing.  

Who are Episcopalians? How about “A People… Sharing Communion.” Sure! No shock there. We love our Holy Eucharist! But that’s followed by “A People… Reconciled in Difference.” Not “reconciled in sameness.” “Sameness” does not need reconciliation! Reconciled in difference.

How about “A People… Seeking the World’s Hospitality”? That’s about the church becoming homeless. Fr. Whit Stodghill and I are working on starting a worship service with the homeless of Monroe in an empty lot next to the Desiard Street shelter. One of my Canterbury kids has already requested that we have an open-air Eucharist in Bayou Park on campus this fall.

What if the church gave up its addiction to buildings and became homeless like Jesus was? What would that do to our us-vs.-them categories?

Who are you, God? And who are we?

To know that we are God’s beloved, that we are in Christ and Christ is in us, is to be people of the way. And to be people of the way is to be saints and sinners every one, but to be living as disciples and organized for mission—God’s mission that we the church carry out as Christ’ one body in the world.

AMEN