One of the first things we do in the class preparing for Holy Communion is to figure out who we are. It's a simple exercise. I ask the children to write down as many of their "identities" as they can imagine: son or daughter, niece or nephew, student, friend, 4-H member, singer, grandchild, etc. The list is usually pretty long. But then we add one more...if it's not already there: Child of God. And we celebrate...giving thanks to the God who names us, claims us, loves us and feeds us.
We seem to have spent a lot of time during these days after Epiphany talking about identity. Primarily, it's been about Jesus' identity...Lamb of God, Son of God, Rabbi, Messiah, Savior, Healer, the One who bestows blessing. A part of what we learn from this is God's identity, too, as we realize that it is in and through Jesus, the God made visible, we come to know and love the heavenly Father whom we cannot see.
But more: we are given insights into our own identity in this process. We are the Father's beloved children, not fearful slaves of an angry judge. We are formed as body of Christ, not just individual believers. We are the means by which God's mission continues to unfold in the world...and not merely consumers of religious stuff like sermons, anthems, and a bit of bread and wine on Sunday morning when we feel like it.
Hmm. It turns out that who we are is pretty important. Taking seriously who we are is the difference between being Church and merely going to church. Our identity as children/body/mission means that the Spirit is at work, lending perspective on the world and our place in it, and granting us the privilege of sharing in God's own holy prejudice towards reconciliation and new life.
Of course it's more complicated than this, but...if there is a single, primary reason why the Church finds itself increasingly irrelevant and marginalized in today's culture, I'm convinced it's largely because we've forgotten who we are. Whenever we settle for being the moral police force or the local ritual store or just another club with fine ethics but an inability to live up to them, we sell ourselves short.
Sisters and brothers, we are the body of Christ, the beloved of God who get to be (by grace, to be sure) the redemptive and transformative love of God in, of and for the world. And lest that sound too grand, remember: this is a love that works itself out not only in big, flashy projects, but in every mundane and countless word and deed: from forgiveness given and received between old enemies to the kiss on your grandchild's forehead...from tears shared with a grieving friend to the feeding of a hungry neighbor.
This is who we are: Body. Mission. Children. Those who, though dead, have been raised to live in freedom and love. May we never forget it.
