Who am I?

 Grace Episcopal Church, August 27, 2017

A few years ago, I was sitting on a friend’s couch in his living room writing a profile for some social media platform on the Internet I wanted to try. I don’t remember the details, like what social medium it was or what I wrote. I’m pretty sure that profile no longer exists today.

But I do remember turning to him and asking questions that sounded a lot like the ones Jesus asks his disciples in today’s Gospel story. What’s the most important thing about me? Who am I to people? Who am I to you?

Many interpretations of today’s Gospel story focus on Peter’s declaration of faith: You are the Messiah, the son of the living God.

Awesome, Peter! You nailed it. But remember that this recognition of the divinity of Jesus is not new. Just a couple weeks ago we were looking at the story of Jesus walking on the water, and Peter’s similar declaration of faith when Jesus stills the storm.

We all must consider and decide who Jesus is, and I do believe that for us today, especially us “good church people,” coming to that declaration of the divinity of Jesus is a good bit easier than it was for the disciples.

Early Christians struggled mightily with the question of who Jesus was and is. You don’t have to be much of a church historian to know that it was a gathering of Bishops in Nicea in AD 325 that finally ended the debate.

Today we reaffirm what the Bishops decided every time we say the Nicean Creed—which is pretty often! And I doubt we hesitate for a moment when we say those words affirming the divinity of Jesus.

Today I want to come at this story from a different angle, that of the questions Jesus asks his disciples: Who do people say I am? Who do you say I am?

Why would Jesus ask those questions? I don’t think he was just testing the disciples. I think he was asking a genuine question: What does all this mean? Who in the world am I? It must have been confusing at times, being fully human and fully divine.

This Gospel story is one of those moments when I experience Jesus as fully human. We do believe that, too, you know, even though I think for us today, it can be hard to remember.

So that’s my first question for us today: When and how does it become really, really real to you.. that Jesus was just as fully human… as he was fully divine?

Now here’s my bigger point: Like Jesus, we need to ask the question, Who am I? Who do other people say I am? Who do those closest to me say I am? Who.. am.. I?

I’m not suggesting some sort of shallow preoccupation with what other people think. My mother, may she rest in peace, always made sure her children had on clean underwear. “You might be in an accident,” she would say, “and what would people think.”

No, I’m talking about who we are at the deepest possible level, and that is who we are in relationship to God. It is just as fundamental to our faith to ask, Who am I? as it is to ask who Jesus is.

One of the stories told about St. Francis of Assissi is that he often prayed all night, and one of his frequent prayers was, Who are you, oh God? And who am I?

Back in 2010, I decided it was time to add my own voice to that massive outpouring of verbiage on the Internet commonly known as “the blogosphere.” I created then, and continue to maintain—albeit somewhat erratically—several blogs. One is a sermon blog, where you can find this sermon later today if you’re so inclined.

And, of course, one of the first things I had to do to begin blogging was create a profile. Unlike the one I mentioned earlier, this profile still exists. And on the day I created it, I was apparently in a good place, because here’s what I wrote:

To my students of communication at a regional university, "Dr. K." To the people of the Episcopal parish to which I'm assigned, "Deacon Bette." To myself, beloved of God, lover of humankind.

Pretty cheeky, don’t you think?! If only I knew exactly what that last part meant: Beloved of God, lover of humankind.

Don’t get me wrong. I do have an explanation, a reason I believe it, if you will. But it’s mostly an exercise in thinking, less so one of experiencing myself and other people in those terms.

I was being pretty glib when I wrote beloved of God, lover of humankind. But I’ve never changed it. I haven’t changed it because it makes me think. It still makes me ponder.

I ponder it because it seems so implausible. I’m with the psalmist all the way in saying ‘who are we, God, that you should take note of us?’

I have had moments, not only of thinking it true, but of experiencing being held in the arms of a God who loves me. I cannot imagine a life more desolate, more despairing, more meaningless… than one lived without glimpses of the love of God—of the intimate, personal, experiential kind.

So here’s one thing I do know from those experiences: The second part of what I wrote, lover of humankind, is completely impossible without the first part, beloved of God.

And here’s another: Way too much of the time, I don’t act like I know.. that I am beloved of God. I can tell that by how I think about and treat other people.

That’s why this is an important question. If we don’t know who we are, then we can’t possibly know who everyone else is. It is precisely when we are being impatient, defensive, argumentative, resentful, judgmental… angry enough to want to lash out, whether physically or with our snappiest verbal put-down… In those moments, we have forgotten we are God’s beloved.

So I invite you to ponder these questions….

In your own life, how do you know yourself as God’s beloved? At what moments do you experience the enough-ness.. –may I make up a word? –the absolute enough-ness of knowing you are God’s beloved? And how does that shape your view of yourself? The world? Other people?

And then try this: Think about people behaving badly—and I mean behaving badly, as in marching in the streets spouting slogans and waving flags historically saturated with racism, homophobia and anti-Semitism. I mean behaving badly as in proclaiming the supremacy of people of their own kind, striking terror in the hearts of people who do not look like them, or were not born here, or who practice some other faith. Behaving badly as in blowing up other people in the name of religion.

Then ask: How do we call out the hate? How do we name the evil and take a clear and unequivocal stand against it, all the while knowing ourselves AND the hater—that other person preaching and doing the evil… How do we know.. and show.. that all of us… are fully.. and equally.. beloved of God?

That is the question that keeps me awake at night. I have no easy answers, no formulae, no list of practical steps. We will not always get it right. But we cannot compromise with evil. Name it and call it out we must.

Jesus is Love Incarnate. That’s who he is! And love is what he does.

We are his Beloved. That’s who we are! And if we know that, love is what we will do.

So let us ask as Jesus did, Who does a sad and broken world--out there beyond these sacred walls--say that we are? Do they know us as… love?

In the name of God, Father, Son & Holy Spirit. AMEN