Who Are You?

A photo of New York City before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

 

This sermon was preached on the 16^th Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 19B) at All Saints Church, Birmingham. The readings which inspired the sermon were the following:

 

Proverbs 1:20-33

Psalm 19

James 3:1-12

Mark 8:27-38

Who are you? No, I’m not quoting a classic The Who song. I really wanna know. (sung:) Who are you? Okay, now I am singing The Who. I do want to know though.

Let me ask this question like the Gospel for today did, “Who do you say that you are?” What about other people? That’s an interesting thought. What if I were to poll the five people closest to you—who would they say that you are? Would those two descriptions match up? Who you say you are and who others say you are? These questions revolve around the concept of identity—one’s personality or distinguishing characteristics that are formed by genetics and experience, nature and nurture, successes and failures. While discovering our identity is of crucial importance to healthy human development, within our church community there is another side to this identity coin.

Determining our true identity invites us into wondering about our vocation. Vocation differs from an occupation or simply a job—vocation’s root is the Latin word vocare, which means to call or invoke, and has everything to do with hearing what God’s voice is calling us to do and who God is calling us to be. So, vocation has everything to do with figuring out our real identity.

For many of us our identity was shaped by something that happened twenty years ago yesterday. The terrorist attacks that transpired on September 11, 2001, invoked within the United State of America a noble unity and a pure patriotism. We cared for our fellow Americans in beautiful ways that I had never seen in my life. Slowly through the years though, our good desires of safety, security, and comfort morphed into cynicism, distrust, and isolation. A chasm ripped open between us as neighbors. Two decades on, I wonder how will these wounds heal and what impact does that event still have on our identity and our calling?  

When I began college, two years after 9/11, my dean of students seemed obsessed with vocation—and helping students to discern their identity better. He often said, “There are three questions of vocation worth pursuing over and over again—‘Who am I?’ ‘What are my gifts and talents?’ and ‘What is my place in the world?’” These questions revolve around identity. But, with all due respect to my dean, there is one element which is missing from these inquiries. We need something more, especially in light of our divisive world.

To figure out who we are—our identity—we must also figure out who Christ is. To determine how to repair the chasms that exist we must know who Jesus was and is. Our calling, our purpose, and our identity take their roots in the life of Christ Jesus. So, before we can answer for ourselves, “Who am I? What are my gifts and talents? and What is my place in the world?” we would be wise to answer, Who is Jesus? Why does that answer matter? and How is our world different as a result? The first question—Who is Jesus?—helpfully gets answered in today’s Gospel lesson.

“Who do people say that I am?” Jesus asked his disciples as they journeyed into the Gentile city of Caesarea Philippi. Halfway through the Gospel according to Mark Jesus wanted to know his effect on the crowds, the scribes, and the Pharisees. The disciples quickly listed off three figures: John the Baptist, Elijah, and a nameless prophet. Let’s look closer at these:

Jesus’ connection to John the Baptist made sense, as they both preached of repentance and the coming of God’s Kingdom. Elijah was a mighty prophet of the Hebrew People; Jesus could be seen as the second coming of this great teacher. Jesus being likened to another prophet appeared logical as both Jesus and the prophets prepared the way for God’s people to turn back to God. While these are all nice answers, none of them hits the nail on the head. They were not Jesus’ true identity.

And, apart from the narrator in Mark giving us Jesus’ real nature—the Son of God—in the first verse of the entire Gospel story, we have not heard who Jesus was until what happened next.

Jesus asked his disciples, “But who do you say that I am?” And, for the first time we hear someone in the Gospel call Jesus, “The Messiah” that is the Christ. The anointed one who came to heal and to save—not just the people of Israel—but all nations. In last week’s Gospel lesson Jesus healed the daughter of a Gentile woman, a Syrophoenician woman—sure it was after the woman adeptly checked Jesus’ cultural boundaries. But, then he brought sight to a blind man in the Greek area of the Decapolis. And today, we see him traveling in the Roman stronghold of Caesarea Philippi. He was the Messiah of all—not just the People of Israel—not only those who would walk in the Christian way, but everyone!

Who was Jesus? Peter claimed for the disciples and for all, “You are the Messiah.” Plain and simple, Jesus was—and is—the Christ who came to heal and to save us all. So, we know who Jesus was, but what claim does that make on us?

Why does it matter that Jesus was…is the Messiah? 2,000 years later and half a world away, why should we care that a backwater rabbi impressed his followers enough that they thought he was the Savior of the world? Well, immediately after Jesus heard Peter’s words in today’s story, he sternly ordered his followers not to share this information. Why? In part because the disciples’ view of what it meant to be the Messiah and why it mattered was different than Jesus’ view. So, Jesus began to reveal the full view of what it meant to be the Messiah. It is in this description that we hear a claim on our lives—it’s here that we begin to discover our purpose and identity in light of Christ’s own purpose and identity.

According to Jesus, the Messiah had to undergo suffering, rejection, and even death. This is not glamorous or glorious or even gratifying, but it was God’s way, and it still is. We are so accustomed in our time to pride and pomp and pageantry being associated with being great. We throw parades for victors. Jesus’ parade on Palm Sunday was instead the anti-parade, as he came into Jerusalem not on a stead, but on a donkey. We shout words of honor towards those we respect. Jesus instead heard cries to crucify him on Good Friday. We heap praise on the celebrated ones of our day. Jesus instead endured jeers and mockery when he hung on the cross.

What claim does Christ make on our lives? He claims that if we are to be his, if our identity, our being is to be united with his own, then we too must take up our cross. We must not seek praise. We cannot go in search of our own vain glory. We are to deny these pursuits of puffing our egos, so that we might take on a new identity in Christ. We must be like Saint Paul who wrote to the Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who lives, but it is Christ who lives in me.” How does our identity change? We no longer live for ourselves, but we unite in Christ and allow that new creation to be born through us.

This is a life-long journey. We never reach the finish line of our faith. We find ourselves every day at a new starting line. Always we begin again. Each day we have the opportunity to unite with Christ—yes, even in suffering, betrayal, and death—so  that our identity is resurrected in Christ’s likeness. You may be saying, no way! I am not going to put my life or my family’s lives at risk. I hear you.

Since we are here at All Saints, let me tell you about how we celebrate Saints within the Church. We have beautiful vestments and liturgical hangings that go with the color of the season. Sometimes though we celebrate a particular Saint, like St. Stephen. Stephen was a deacon in the Early Church who died because he would not renounce his faith in Christ. He bore his proverbial cross even unto death. We remember martyrs like Stephen using the liturgical color red—he died because of his faith. It is much like those who gave their lives to share the love of God with others on September 11, 2001.

There are other Saints though who we also consider martyrs—just martyrs of a different kind. St. Mary the Mother of Jesus did not die because of her faith—instead she lived out her faith. She bore a different cross than Stephen. We remember her with the liturgical color of white because she still gave up the life she would have otherwise lived and instead said to God, here am I, a servant of the Lord.

All of you are actually practicing martyrdom right now—and not because you are listening to a long and tedious sermon. No, you gave up what you would otherwise have been doing and you are here, participating in what we call liturgy—the work of the people—prayer, song, silence, Scripture, and communion. And it is in this way that our world can be different—it’s in this living martyrdom that Christ transforms the world. Here we become a new creation—reunited—as God grafts us into Christ’s Risen Body. God makes a claim on our lives. God yearns for us to see the sometimes difficult truth that we are all children of God’s family through Christ. So that we can become fully alive in Christ and see our true identity in light of God’s Son Jesus.

Who am I? What are my gifts and talents? What is my place in the world? As we explore these questions of vocation, may we keep a broader perspective understanding that our true identity becomes clear in the light of Christ. There we see that we are members of Christ’s Body. There we hear an invitation to share the gift of God’s self-sacrificing love with everyone—even through suffering, betrayal, and all kinds of death. There we know that our true place is picking up our cross and following after Jesus. May we deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Christ. Amen.

 

Turning

The Rev. J. Seth Olson © 2019

An Interfaith circle protects the Al Noor Mosque during Friday Prayers

March 24, 2019—The Third Sunday in Lent

Exodus 3:1-15
Psalm 63:1-8
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9

Audio for this sermon may be found here. 

In the midst of a conversation about the immediate need for humans to turn to God, an age old debate broke out. The question at hand? Are tragedies enacted by God? Jesus phrased it this way: “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?” We might ask, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” or maybe “Why do bad things happen at all if God is good?” This argument surrounding theodicy—or why a good God would allow evil to persist—began to break out at the beginning of today’s Gospel lesson. While we may not ever be ready to engage in such a heavy conversation, Jesus drags us into one today whether we like it or not.

In those days two separate tragedies had recently affected the larger Hebrew community: one a state-sanctioned multiple homicide at the hands of Pilate and the other a tragic tower collapse that left eighteen dead. The surrounding crowd pushed for an answer from Jesus. They wanted to know, “Were these things punishments for sinful behavior? Why did God make this happen?”

We too might be wondering something similar. Questions like these though form a trap that often capture us, even if we logically know better. Yes, we can easily discount the loud voices of rogue preachers who claim that tragedies befall those with hidden sins. We can quiet those who wrongfully argue that natural disasters only impact sinful cities. Still, even if we don’t believe these hate-filled voices, we sometimes connect the imaginary dots between a tragedy and a victim’s behavior.

Deep within ourselves we want to know what the crowd pushing in on Jesus wanted to know. Specifically, “Did this bad thing happen because these people were bad?” We ask these questions in the wake of natural disasters, untimely deaths, and even suicides. We cannot help but get bogged down wondering “Why?” or  “How did this happen?” or “What could I have done differently?” And, while today it may be difficult to answer these questions in the abstract, what we are never ready to do is answer these questions in the midst of our own personal tragedies—when a loss, a death, or a disaster happens to us. 

In our lives—both individual and corporate—we have suffered so many losses, deaths, and disasters recently. There have also been so many acts of hatred that we may not know what to do anymore. We may have just become numb to all the destruction. Or, we might try to explain all of it away by saying that God wanted the victims to suffer. As human beings, we may come by meaning-making honestly, but to shame victims is a route that leads only to more devastation. So, what do we do? How then shall we respond to tragedies? What’s the answer to all of these questions? If we look to Jesus in today’s Gospel lesson we may very well see a path leading us beyond the endless questioning.

Jesus was not interested in theodicy—he did not talk about why bad things happen to God’s beloved children. He did not even pause long enough to speak about the morality of the Galileans or the Jerusalemites who had died except to say that, like all of us, they were sinners and in need of God’s redemption. And, in that moment long ago, Jesus bypassed the conversation others were having about God and evil and suffering so that he could talk about something he found even more pressing.

The question of “Why do bad things happen to good people?” often distracts us from the real matter at hand. We can wonder all day long about God and evil and suffering, but when given the chance to speak on the subject, Jesus himself chose to cut through the distractions of why, so that He could talk about turning back to God. Jesus spoke on our inherent need as human beings to turn to God instead of blaming victims or wondering why God would let something happen. So what about us?

In the midst of the most recent tragedy that our world suffered, the terrorist attack on the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand we may be tempted once again to begin with the litany of questions wondering why. But, this massacre, which killed 50 faithful people, 50 children of God, this massacre is not an opportunity to put the blame on someone else--worst of all those who died. No, this is a time when each and every one of us are called to repentance. We are called as individuals and as an entire species to turn back to God. What might this returning to God look like?

God calls us to turn away from remaining silent about the hatred that lives within our society and our systems, which we perpetuate often unknowingly.

God calls us to turn away from simply hoping that someone else will change the inherent bigotries that persist in our world. To turn to God is to turn from racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, or fear of those who practice another religion. We are called to turn from these and to turn toward loving our neighbors as ourselves.

God calls us to turn away from being like ostriches with our heads in the sand, ignoring the ugly truth that, while God sees all of us as equal children, this world does not inherently value everyone equally.

While these unredeemed parts of ourselves may be difficult for us to confront, the saving grace is that God already knows all our faults, and God still loves us. This we see in the parable from today’s Gospel lesson. Even when we are spiritually or otherwise fruitless, even when we are like the fig tree who has done nothing for years, we are not left alone to wither. God is always willing to give us another opportunity to turn back to the Son, to be quenched by the living water, and to grow. 

Jesus tends to us like that gardener tended to the fig tree. The good gardener knows what each plant needs to grow. God knows what we all need to grow. So in those moments when we put ourselves before others, or “protect power over people,” or “turn the spotlight on others before taking a good, hard look at ourselves.”[1] God already knows this. And, God knows the best way to help us grow. Painfully this might be by pruning those unintegrated, unhealthy, and unloving parts of us away, or it might mean putting a bunch of manure on us. (Yes, that was meant to make you chuckle.) The repentance is needed before the growth can occur! This is why Jesus wasn’t interested in a theological debate.

Jesus was interested in changing people’s lives. Jesus is interested in changing your life. Jesus came to end the suffering of the marginalized. He came to end oppression, degradation, famine, violence, and corruption. He came to end the separation that we feel from one another and from God. How did he do all this? He came to do all this by calling us to repent, to turn away from these things that lead to nothing, so that we can turn to the One who made us, the One who still molds us, the One who makes us whole. “Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?”[2] We will with God’s help. Amen.

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[1] Karoline Lewis. “Fig Trees and Repentance” from The Working Preacher Blog. Written: March 19, 2019. Accessed: March 21, 2019. https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=5301

[2] The Book of Common Prayer 1979. 304.