Our Living Identity
13th Sunday after Pentecost, August 30, 2009
James 1:17-27, with Mark 7:1-23 in the b.g.
I have a number of exercises that I like to do with couples who are preparing for marriage. One of the first exercises that I ask them to undertake is to tell me who they are. I do it in this way. I ask each one to tell me a bit about who their fiancée is. I don't want to hear only about the externals, their job, the color of their hair, eyes. Instead I am much more interested in who they truly are: What matters to them so much that they would be willing to give their life for that cause, those people? What/who is their fiancé deeply passionate about? Finally why have they become so committed to their fiancee, to want to invest the rest of their life journeying through life with that one particular person? Let me tell you, it's amazing to hear what people then say.
This morning I want to invite you to reflect on who you are. I am not talking about your externals, what you first notice in a mirror about yourself or even what you have worked at or are working at now. Rather, I want you to ask yourself what/who you are passionate about. What really matters to you. What and whom are you committed to? You don't need to tell anyone else this but I want you to wrestle honestly about this. (30 second pause)
Did you come up with any answers? Yes? Great! If not, well there is food for thought.
Now, I invite you to think about this. Where have your attributes , your identity come from? Have you always had this identity? Did your parents, your friends, even God contribute anything to your identity positively or negatively? Do they now contribute to your identity?
The author of the letter of James is writing to a small Christian community that is wrestling with living out its identity in their particular culture as followers of Jesus. They are experiencing various struggles, even temptations. Some of these may be familiar to us. How can they live authentically? How can they deal with the tragedies of their lives, the tragedies of those around them? How can they live with a hope that is real even though they are still broken people in a world that is often bitterly fractured?
Can you identity with any of that? Our world is certainly fractured. When 2 people are stabbed in a local McDonald's restaurant, there is brokenness. When thousands of women and many children can not sleep safely or live quietly and assuredly in their own homes there is brokenness. When children are among the most frequent clients of our food banks in this, one of the wealthiest nations of the world, there is brokenness. And when we as human beings continue to war with each other on many different levels, even literally blowing each other up, there is brokenness. Tragedies abound: personally and collectively.
And yet we are here, claiming to or at least wondering about following Jesus. Does such following mean anything, can it mean anything for our brokenness and the brokenness of this world? Do we impact our world, or does the brokenness of the world and our own brokenness shape and severely limit our identity? Does Jesus get swallowed up by all of that or relegated merely to some personal rules and piety that have little or nothing to do with the hunger, illness and brokenness of so much and so many?
The author of James wonders deeply about this. He or she desperately wants their community to live out their identity as followers of Jesus. The author has a strategy. He/she reminds them of who God is. This is a good place for us to begin also. The author says that every good and perfect gift comes from the Father of lights, that is the Creator of the universe, who does not change. But there's even more. This Father of lights, this Creator of the universe, gives those people in that community birth by the "word of truth". It is that author's way of saying that God, the Creator brings new life to people not just physically or even emotionally but totally and wholly in Jesus of Nazareth. How can this be?
Well, in Jesus the people not only hear about but are encountered by One who acts. He gives His all to love them. In His life, suffering, death and resurrection Jesus reaches out to those people in the midst of any and all of life's tragedies. He seeks to restore them to relationship with God. He wants them to experience unconditional love. Each day, regardless of what they done or been in the past, can now be new and different. Death, hatred, anger and fear do not control Jesus! Nor do they need to control his followers. Jesus' followers then can live differently. Because of Him we can too.
It's vitally important to hear that Word of Jesus, that Word which is Jesus – again and again and again. When we don't hear Him we lose track of who we are. We are encountered by God's love in Jesus. We are being, we can be forgiven! This is good news, incredibly wonderful not only for us but as the author of James says it is intended to be wonderful for others too! We who are so touched by and realize the love of God being showered upon us are to be first fruits of "his" creatures. We are to share this amazing love with all of the gifts God is giving us!
As with James' community following Jesus means that we are to be an example in such being loved and loving. No more hatred! No more grabbing and hoarding. Our identity is not to be found in things. The author of James spells out to so live means developing a discipline, a joyful and amazing discipline through which and in which we can hear this word of life in ongoing ways and so again and again be enabled to live it.
Hear some of the parameters of that discipline for those people: "Be quick to listen and slow to speak". Listening allows space for the other, so that we might cherish their perspective, refusing to try to come up with a retort or thinking only or primarily about ourselves and our point of view while others are speaking.
The author continues on about this discipline of hearing the word that gives us life and living from it. "Be slow to anger". Again, anger does not produce harmony with God or ultimately with others. How difficult this is for us! Anger seems to arise so quickly and almost easily within us. It is tempting to try to justify our anger.
The author of James summarizes the importance of all of this by saying to his people: "be doers of this word and not hearers only". Again the key here is "word". Word is that word that God meets us with in Jesus. This is a "word" that helps us to see ourselves as we are in the light of who God is: needy and broken with all of our unique manifestations and yet by God's grace in Jesus also deeply loved, uniquely gifted. In Christ we are given new life with real purpose here, now and always.
Indeed our lives are to be ongoing journeys of discovering and living such purpose through our identity as followers of Jesus. Each of us may have different passions, different realities we seek to invest our lives in. But these passions and realities must be much broader than just ourselves or merely for ourselves if we are to follow Jesus.
So I ask, who are you? Who do you want to be? May your identity, may my identity flow from God the "Father of lights"- the giver of every good and perfect gift – the One who seeks to implant that word in us which brings about new life for us and for the world. Listen for that word. Live from it, from Him, now and always. AMEN AND AMEN.