The Venerable Richard I. Cluett
Isaiah 40:21-31; 1Cor. 9:16-13; Mark 1:29-39
February 5, 2006
This season of Epiphany - which might also be called the season of Revelation - recalls the revealing of the true identity of Jesus to the world.
In the lesson from Isaiah we hear the prophet identify on behalf of God just who the Lord God is:
“The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and strengthens the powerless.”
In this morning’s gospel, Jesus restates for himself, his family, his disciples and us, just what his identity is, what his ministry is. “Let us go on to the neighboring towns s that I can proclaim the message there also, for that is what I came out to do.”
We are reading Paul's letter to the Corinthians, too. Paul is living out his identity, his faith, his ministry in the midst of all the human concerns which distract the world. At his core he is a disciple of Jesus Christ and an evangelist. He is willing to intentionally take on the various identities, the various images, of the world in order to convert the world. “I have become all things to all people, that I might by all things save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share its blessing.”
These are the concerns I want to probe a bit this morning: who we are and what are the conse¬quences of our identity as children of God and disciples of Jesus.
Today, for many of us, our culture and the media that manufacture it are working to distract us from our identity as children of God and disciples of Jesus - to such a degree that when others look at us they cannot quite tell who it is that we are at our core. We have so many conflicting images that we can present to the world - and to ourselves, too.
Jesus is concerned that we live with integrity. That if we say we have faith, we live as if we have faith, and that as others look at us they can see evidence of the power and effect of that faith in our lives.
There are today so many places, forces, and powers which seek to have us identify ourselves through them. Here are some examples.
We human beings have come to identify ourselves by our things. What we fashion with our minds and imagi¬nations, and then make with our hands, have become the models by which we seek to know ourselves. When my boys were young, it was Knightrider and his Pontiac Firebird - that black, magical, mystical, marvel of a machine. For those of us males a bit older it may be Paul Newman and a Porshe. Different images, but based on the same thing. We all have different images of ourselves, but there's a car for each of us, to give us our identity be it SUV or Corvette.
When you are introduced to a person, you are not usually asked, "Who are you?" You are asked, "What do you do?" What we do has become who we are. And if we happen to be unemployed or retired, that reduces us, in the eyes of the world, to "a used to be" If we are fortunate enough to be employed, we have become a function.
Whether a teacher, a salesperson, mechanic, technician, or business person, or a "keeper-of-the-home-hearth" – our occupation is always less than who we are. But our technical, pragmatic, functional culture is comparing, measuring and evaluating us from the image of our function. We are seen as a function, given our worth in our function, are identified as a function. And that is a false, and a graven image.
Another place we receive identity is Other People. We find our identity by looking to other people and emulating them; our parents, our friends, our therapists, our neighbors, and actors and players on the video and silver screens.
It is not uncommon for children to pattern their behavior, values, and work after a parent. It is also common for children to have iden¬tified ways they do not want to be like their parents; in other words they have, at least in their perceptions, clear views of parental inadequacy. And looking at my life and experience as a person and as a parent, there is some validity to the perception of my children as to my not being quite up to the standards they held for me in their early days. Which is, I believe what God intends. No one of us was created to be a clone of our parents.
What often happens, though, is that young people then look to other people for their models: teachers, scout leaders, sports figures, TV personalities, stars, heroes and, musicians and their peers, to name but a few of the possibilities.
These others inform about what clothes to wear; how to cut, brush, tease, iron or mousse one's hair; what deodorant to use; how many earrings to wear where; what brand of jeans or sneakers to buy, and what cars to crave. And, if they are retired athletes, they tell us all what kind of beer to drink.
But, again a problem. No person is an adequate model for our identity, other than ourselves - with one exception.
Jesus is the image. In him, we find our true identity. In him, we discover the truth about ourselves. In him, we see whose image we have. What is God like? What are we to be like? We look to Jesus to see. God is our creator. God is the One who saves and sustains, who guides, who nourishes; who has meaning and purpose for us, who gives us our identity. And we worship that God who shows us himself and ourselves in Jesus.
The question for us is not whether we worship, but who is worshipping whom? The issue is not whether or not we have a spirituality; rather it is, what is our spirituality? Where do we find our identity? In whom do we find our identity?
You and I have come here, to this sanctuary. We put ourselves in physical, spiritu¬al, psychological, and emotional postures of worship so that we can catch something of the Spirit of the Living God – Who would have us renew our strength, mount up with wings like eagles, run and not be weary, walk and not faint -- so that we can become more like the God in whose image we have uniquely been created . And then we go from here to serve this God and God’s people in the world.
Let me tell you a story to highlight this. A teacher story. A teacher, after a particularly difficult lesson, gave her ninth grade students an assignment. She told them to list all the members of the class on a sheet of paper leaving space between each name. In that space they were to write what they believed was the nicest thing about that person. At the end of the class she col¬lected the papers and took them home with her. She spent the week¬end collating and on Monday morning gave each student a list of all the things that his or her classmate had written about them. You can imagine the responses and the feelings of surprise, joy, and affirmation.
Years later, one of the students was killed in the Gulf War. The whole town came out for the funeral. The teacher and a number of members of that ninth grade class also attended the funeral. After the service, the father of the young man came up to the teacher. “We want to show you something. They found this on Mark when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it.” The father took from his pocket two worn pieces of paper that had been folded, unfolded, and refolded countless times. It was the list of all the good things his classmates had written about him. His mother said, “Thank you so much for doing that. He treasured it.”
Some of his former classmates gathered around, One said, “I still have my list, its in the top drawer of my desk.” Another, “Mine’s in my wedding album.” Another, “Mine is in my diary.” Another pulled hers out of her wallet and showed a worn, frayed list to the group. “I think we all saved our lists. I carry this with me at all times. It reminds me who I am and who I need to become.”
Unless we bear the image, unles we are true to our God-given identity, how will the world ever know the wonderful truth about what God did in Jesus Christ and is doing in each of us?
Amen.
