Our Identity: Gen. 9: 8-17; I Peter 3: 18-22
In Disney’s 1951 Alice in Wonderland, young Alice encounters a caterpillar smoking hookah. Through the puffs of smoke, he asks her a tough question, “Who are you?” Alice is caught off guard. She responds that she doesn’t really know anymore. She’s changed a number of times since this morning—grown, shrunk, encountered wild creatures—and can’t really say with certainty who she is. The nosy caterpillar asks her again with more assertiveness: Who. Are. You? We begin this Lenten journey with a new series—This Faith is Ours—looking at how our faith speaks to us in ways that deepen our spiritual connectedness to God and our call to seek justice in the world. As we begin today by looking at our identity, we need to ask ourselves the same question the caterpillar posed: “Who are you?”
Identity is defined as what a person is. There are many ways we identify ourselves in terms of work, relationships, hobbies. You may refer to yourself as a musician, or a singer. You may identify yourself as someone’s spouse. You may identify by who your parents are, or where you’re from. Identity is whatever you use to explain to someone who and what you are. One of the classes I took recently in seminary focused on the writings of a Catholic priest named Thomas Merton. In his book New Seeds of Contemplation, Merton writes, “The secret of my identity is hidden in the love and mercy of God.” (35).
As those who have chosen to follow Jesus and have placed our trust in him, we should say that first and foremost our identity is as a child of God. If you want to unravel the secret of your identity—of who you are—it is found in the love and mercy of God. I have a friend, who is a pastor and was having a rough week. He said, “I’m tired, I’m weary, I have nothing to give this Sunday. I can’t do this anymore!” In a sense, his trials and struggles had caused an identity crisis and had shaken him to the very core of who he was. The answer to that is found in remembering that relationship with God and the reminder that we are children of God first and foremost.
We will all experience times in our lives of mini or major identity crises. We will be unable to make music like we once did, unable to do the work we may have loved, not be able to go out and run around in ways we remember. We all live an experience here on earth where we gradually become less and less able than we once were. There is a temptation to see this as depressive and ruinous to our spirits and faith. But I Peter 3 offers a reminder, “Christ suffered for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God.” Focus in on those words, “to bring you safely home to God.” That struggle, as we pause here and say, “Wow, I think I’m losing it,” gives way to the promise of God that even as you lose it here, you have gained it all in God’s kingdom of hope.
Never, ever forget that you are child of God. You are created by the Holy One who loves you. You are redeemed by Christ who came to this earth for you. And you are guarded and led by the Holy Spirit which dwells as God with you. At all times, and in all your comings and goings here on earth, you remain near to the heart of God, loved and protected, redeemed and guided by the Almighty one.
There is another quote, however, in Fr. Merton’s book which we need to look at in terms of our scripture. Here is the quote, “Not to accept and love and do God’s will is to refuse the fullness of my existence.” (33). What exactly does this mean? Well, if you remember from your Sunday School Classes, our God is a God of promises. For example: God made a covenant with Abraham to follow God into the promised land, and Abraham would become the father of many nations. God also promised, or covenanted, to send the Messiah to save and redeem the people.
In our Old Testament today we see God making another covenant. A covenant is a promise or an agreement. As a modern example, if you own a home in new subdivision, you may have homeowner covenants. If you live in an apartment, you have a leasing agreement which are basically covenants. But in the Bible, covenants have a holy aspect because they are promises made with God or through the power of God. In the Disciples of Christ, we have many different people from different places, races and ethnicities, styles of worship, and yes, even political beliefs. But here we covenant with one another in and through God to work together as a church to show and teach God’s love and grace to all and to work in this world to heal, help, and save.
In Noah’s day, God punished the world for its wrongdoing. The judgment was to be destruction by a flood which covered the earth. And, as the story goes, only 8 people made it on the ark to be saved along with two of every kind of animal. When the flood was over, God gave a rainbow to make a solemn promise, a covenant, that floods would never destroy the whole world again. Fire may still be an option on the table depending on what book of the Bible you may be reading, but God promised floods are a no-go now.
We can rely on those promises, or covenants, as children of God because our God keeps the promises made to us. Even the old hymn reminds us that we are “standing on the promises of God.” For our part, though, we must seek God’s will and do what God calls us to do. That is where we find the fullness of our existence, the best of life, here on Earth is in knowing we are walking closely and carefully with that same God who is Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.
So, we come full circle. I doubt any of us will see a talking, smoking caterpillar philosophically asking us who we are while we are shrunk to 3 inches tall. And, if you do, please head to your doctor immediately. But the question from the movie still remains: who are you? The answer to that question of your identity is that you are a child of God—one whom God leads here on earth and will also lead home to everlasting life. But even as we walk here on earth, we should follow God’s will, listen to that still, small voice speaking to us and guiding us, for the fullness of life here on earth is found in following God with every step we take.
How do we find this identity? Charlotte Elliot, the writer of our final hymn asked this same question. She had wandered far away into a lonely, sad, and bitter place. The answer was simpler than she could have ever imagined, “Why, you just come as you are.” You are created by God, redeemed by Christ, and sustained by the Holy Spirit. Perhaps then, our identity is not found in who or what we are, but in the question of whose we are. Never forget whose you are.
Worship Video: https://www.facebook.com/135230076517491/videos/472537530789634