May I See Your Id? Preached on September 20th, 2020 at Wollaston Congregational Church Scriptures: Psalm 139:1-18, 23-24 and John 4:5-29, 39-42 May I see your id? It’s a common question we encounter in the doctor’s office, or the bank and for the younger ones among us, maybe when ordering a drink at dinner, or buying alcohol in a store. And so we pull out this little card: our driver’s license, or something else with our little picture, hair color, eye color, height and a long string of numbers. This is our identity, according to the government. Of course we know that it is not our identity at all. Our true identity is something much deeper, more personal, truly unique. Our true identity is something so beautiful and complex that it take us our whole life’s work to discover it. For those of us who follow the way of Jesus, our true identity is all about our identity in God. Our identity is the image of God reflected in us, God’s beloved children. Last week we talked about a sense of belonging as one of the elements of spiritual health. Identity is another equally important element, closely related to belonging. When someone feels a loss of identity, perhaps by moving from independent living into nursing care; perhaps by being taken from their culture of origin to be forced to conform to a new community; perhaps by being denied the rites of their community, they feel as though their very self has been taken away. Those who identify strongly with their career, their marriage, or their role in the family, feel a loss of identity, when they retire, lose their life partner, or when their children grow up. When I worked with the spiritual care department in an eldercare facility, we’d be careful to check each resident’s sense of identity: Did they serve in the military? Were they born in another land? Were they a respected member of their community? Do they have a strong connection with their faith tradition? Are they a parent? Were they a singer or dancer, a musician or an artist? The best facilities lift up these identities. They share photographs of the residents in the roles that form their sense of identity. They honor their families of origin, cultures and faith traditions. Our faith tradition is grounded in the scriptures of Israel, the texts that formed Jesus of Nazareth’s identity as a Jewish man. Today we read from the book of the psalms, Israel’s hymnal or prayer book. Psalm 139 addresses the question of the Psalmist’s identity, through his relationship with God. The writer’s identity is understood because of who God is. God knows the psalmist intimately. God anticipates every word from the psalmist’s tongue. The psalmist simply cannot flee from God’s presence. He acknowledges that he is fearfully and wonderfully made. God knit him together in his mother’s womb, his frame was secretly and intricately woven in the depths of the earth. The gospel reading we heard today is from the gospel of John. John is a gospel looks back on the life of Jesus as the elevated risen Christ. And so, when we see Jesus encountering other characters in the story, he encounters them as God would encounter them. Jesus knows them intimately and fully before they recognize him. In the story we heard, Jesus approaches a woman at a well in Samaria. The Samaritans are the rivals of the Jewish people. They worship in a different setting, on a mountain instead of in the temple. They are “other” and “foreign”, they are suspicious. But Jesus does not hesitate to engage this woman in conversation alone at the well in the heat of the day. There is a back and forth. First she asks him who he is. His reply is enigmatic, it will take her a while to realize that he is the Messiah. And yet his reply reveals that he already knows who she is, and what her life has been. She has had five husbands and now lives with a man who is not her husband. That is her story, but for Jesus it is not her identity. She is not defined by her outsider status, or her marriages and relationships. She is known and now she can know God. She will be the one to bring the news of God come in Jesus to the Samaritan people. Historian and author Diana Butler Bass, says the question “Who am I?” is a fundamental human, religious and spiritual question. [1] I have attempted to answer for myself. As we go along, I invite you also to think about how you might answer. This is not necessarily an easy question for those of us who belong to the dominant culture. If you are, like me, white, you may not think much more about your ethnicity. Those of us who read the book “Waking Up White” by Debby Irving will remember the exercise we did on thinking about our own ethnic heritage. [2] If you are, like me, straight and cis-gender – that is, you identify with the gender you were assign at birth – you may not think to specify these things. When you meet someone who looks like you, you may assume they are all of the above unless they say differently. In order to make space for people who identify differently, I am trying to name some of these things and to remember to share my pronouns, “she/her/hers” when I meet someone new. Articulating my identity is a work in progress. This is how I have begun … “I’m a straight, cis-gender woman, white and northern English. The northern part important to me. My last name, Williams, is Welsh and is my husband’s family name. My last name at birth was Raby. My grandfather told me our family name indicates we were descended from Vikings who invaded and inhabited northern England long ago. I don’t look particularly Scandinavian, but then I had 3 other grandparents, last names: Scott from Scotland, Kershaw (English) and Hornsby, another Norse name. And no doubt there are many other strands in there too. “I am the daughter of Margaret and Paul, the wife of Simon, and a mother to three amazing young adults with unique identities of their own. “I’m a pastor, and I served in the United Church of Christ. I respect those of all faiths and none. I was raised in Anglican and Methodist churches.” Your identity is not the same as mine, of course. I invite you to try this exercise, maybe this can be an ongoing project for us all. Claiming our identity is empowering, as it was for the woman at the well. Far too many times, in history, different groups of people have been denied their identity. To take away someone’s identity is to rob them of themselves. Louise Erdrich writes about the attempts to remove Native American identity from generations of children, in the book “The Night Watchman.” The story is fictitious but refers to the experience of Erdrich’s grandfather as a child. In Erdrich’s culture, a boy’s braid would only be cut when someone had died. But the nuns at the school would cut all the children’s hair. Erdrich tells the story of Thomas, being taken away to boarding school “Thomas’s mother, Julia, or Awan, wept and hid her face as he went away. She had been torn—whether to cut his hair herself. They would cut his hair off at the school. And to cut hair meant someone had died. It was a way of grieving. Just before they left, she took a knife to his braid. She would hang it in the woods so the government would not be able to keep him. So that he would come home. And he had come home.” [3] Children in the boarding schools were not allowed to speak their own language, wear their own clothes, or practice their own religion. They were robbed of their identities. [4] Sometimes, though, a loss of identity can be restored. Perhaps you have attended the Bar or Bat Mitzvah of a Jewish friend. This ceremony usually takes place when the child is 13 years old, following rigorous preparation studying Hebrew and the Torah. The Bar Mitzvah is a right of passage, in which a boy is said to become a man. These days most Jewish sects hold the equivalent Bat Mitzvahs for girls, but this rite was not available until around the 1970’s. And so there are many Jewish women who never had a Bat Mitzvah. Over the summer, I met Rabbi Lior Nevo who serves as a Rabbi for the Hebrew Seniorlife organization at the Jack Satter House in Revere. Last year Rabbi Lior was approached by one of the women at the residence, asking if it would be possible to hold Bat Mitzvah classes. A group of women was assembled, their ages raging from 71 to 100 years old. They began their studies as a class but were interrupted by the COVID shutdown. And so Rabbi Lior figured out a way for them to continue, delivering the weekly texts for study to their apartments and running classes by conference call on the telephone. Each woman was recorded separately, reading their Torah portion in the residence’s synagogue. On August 21st, they assembled outside, socially distanced and with beautiful blue masks and prayer shawls, to complete the mitzvah. Thanks to Rabbi Lior and Hebrew Seniorlife, even in their older years, the women’s Jewish identity had been affirmed. This morning we sang or heard a hymn that tells of God’s loving presence in our lives from the moment we are born. The hymn resonates with Psalm 139, and celebrates who we are in God. Earlier this week Marian told me she loves this hymn, but feels that there is a missing verse. There should be something that speaks about God’s presence in the later years of our lives … in the time before we “shut our weary eyes.” I think she is right. Our life’s work is discovering our true, deeper identity: that is, our identity in God. Diana Butler Bass puts it this way: we discover our identity in God “through a process of intuition and discovery, we peel back layers of falsehood, dark motives, and hidden character to reveal the truth that has been there all the time.” [5] And so, here is the way I might write that missing verse: “I’ll be with you in your later years, marveling at all you’ve done, As you learn exactly who you’ve been, all those years along. You’ll reflect on all that’s gone before, you’ll recall my constant love, You’ll let go your criticism of self, and join in the sacred song.” “I was there to hear your borning cry, I'll be there when you are old. I rejoiced the day you were baptized, to see your life unfold.” May all God’s people say, Amen [1] Diana Butler Bass, “Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening”, (New York, Harper Collins, 2012) [2] Irving, Debby. Waking Up White: and Finding Myself in the Story of Race. Elephant Room Press. Kindle Edition. [3] Erdrich, Louise. The Night Watchman . Harper. Kindle Edition. [4] https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/traumatic-legacy-indian-boarding-schools/584293/ [5] Diana Butler Bass, “Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening”, (New York, Harper Collins, 2012), 186
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