Identity

St. Paul’s Church in Bergen, Jersey City NJ

January 7, 2017

Year B: The First Sunday after the Epiphany – The Baptism of Our Lord

Genesis 1:1-5

Psalm 29

Acts 19:1-7

Mark 1:4-11

Identity

            As some of you know, I recently celebrated the tenth anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood.

            It was very low-key, which was just fine by me, but I certainly appreciated the acknowledgement and the kind words I received at the 10:00 service a couple of weeks ago.

            As you might expect, reaching such a milestone got me reflecting – got me thinking about these past ten years (which, sometimes feel like they have gone by in a flash and other times feel like a whole lot longer than a decade!).

            And, this milestone got me thinking about how I got into this in the first place, my early days as a parishioner here at St. Paul’s, and then my three years at seminary.

            As you know, before I was a priest I was a high school History teacher.

            I taught for about 15 years, and for my last seven years in the classroom, I taught at my alma mater, St. Peter’s Prep.

            Over that time, being a teacher became a major part of my identity – maybe the major part of my identity. I think that’s how a lot of people thought of me (“Tom Murphy the teacher”) and, frankly, that’s how I thought of myself, too.

            And, teaching at Prep was a big part of my identity, too.

            I was never a total Prep fanatic like some other alums, but the school had played a huge role in my life and teaching there was such a thrill and such an honor – and it was also a wonderfully warm and loving experience because I had the chance to work beside many friends, including some of my best friends.

            At Prep, I had a clear identity – and, while I’m sure that there were some people who weren’t crazy about me (hard to believe, I know!), for the most part I felt loved and respected – felt like I belonged.

To me, teaching at Prep felt like:

            “This is who I am.”

            …Except for that gnawing sense of God calling me to something else.

            Deciding to leave Prep and go to seminary full-time was one of the boldest moves I’ve ever made – and while I thought it through carefully, there were a few consequences that I just didn’t consider, just didn’t anticipate.

            One consequence I didn’t consider was how traumatic it would be to lose such a big part of my identity.

            “Tom Murphy, the Prep History Teacher” was no more.

            I didn’t anticipate how hard it would be to leave a big, warm, loving place where everybody knew me and (I think) most liked me and go to a new place where no one knew me, where I was a student and not the teacher, and where and I had to introduce myself and allow others to get to know me while (and I definitely didn’t realize this at the time), in a very real way, I didn’t know who I was anymore.

            I’m guessing that even if you never left teaching to go to seminary, most if not all of you can imagine what that felt like - because I’m pretty sure that eventually all of us lose identities.

            We lose an identity when we leave a job.

            We lose an identity when an important relationship ends, either through break-up or death.

            We lose an identity when the last child leaves the nest.

            We lose an identity when we retire.

            We lose an identity when we become disabled or grow ill.

            You can come up with other examples I’m sure.

            And, if we look around our country and the Church we see people shedding all kinds of identities – we’re losing our identity as Americans devoted to the common good and replacing it with much smaller and often destructive identities – increasingly seeing ourselves as consumers or worker bees or, most unfortunately, as political partisans, concerned with winning at all costs, seeing our country – seeing life itself – as a zero-sum game: If you win, I lose. And, if I win, you lose.

            And, here in the Church, denominational identities are fading away. It wasn’t too long ago that there were a good number of absolutely rock-solid committed Episcopalians, but now, I think most people simply choose a particular church that meets their needs or their tastes.

            Some of this is good and some not so good, but all of this shedding and loss of identity forces us to face some essential questions:

            “Who am I?”

            “Who are we?”

            “What is my truest identity?”

            “What is our deepest identity?”

            Yesterday morning, a few hearty parishioners braved the bitter cold to celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany here at St. Paul’s.

            We retold the story of the wise men from the East, eluding a frightened and murderous ruler, to visit the newborn King, to give gifts to this King born to nobodies in an out of the way place.

            It’s a beautiful story – the Epiphany – the manifestation of Jesus as Messiah for the whole world.

            But, today, on the First Sunday after the Epiphany, we remember an even more important event than the visit of the wise men. Today we celebrate the Baptism of Jesus

            You know, just like all of us, Jesus had lots of identities.

            He was a Jew, a Galilean, son of Mary, a brother, a friend, a craftsman, a teacher, a healer, …

            But in the water of Baptism, God reveals Jesus’ truest, deepest identity.

            We’re told that just as Jesus “was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.

            And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’”

            In the water of Baptism, Jesus recognizes his truest, deepest identity: beloved Son of God.

            And then, right after his Baptism, Jesus begins his work, first by resisting temptation, and then by heading out into the world, gathering a few friends and followers, teaching and healing, challenging the powers that be, and finally getting rejected and abandoned by just about everybody, and finally getting killed in an especially shameful and horrific way.

            There were surely lots of times of fear and frustration, thoughts of ending the mission and just going back to the carpentry shop, but Jesus stuck with it, saw it through, because, I think even when pretty much everything else was stripped away, he never forgot his Baptism, never forgot his truest and deepest identity:

             Son of God – loved with a love that was - and is - greater even than death.

            And, the best news of all is that what was true for Jesus is also true for us.

            It’s in our Baptism that our truest and deepest identity is revealed to us and to everybody around us.

            We are beloved children of God – loved with a love greater even than death.

            And so, just like for Jesus, our Baptism should send us out into the world, loving and serving one another, proclaiming that life is not a zero-sum game, that when we give to others, when we “allow” others to “win,” we are all blessed.

            And, just like for Jesus, there have been and there will surely be hard times, times when we might want to end our mission, times when we might want to just live like everybody else.

            There will be times when we will lose some of our cherished identities - times when we lose jobs, times when we lose those we love, times when we just can’t do what we used to be able to do - but there is nothing, nothing, that can ever steal our deepest, truest identity:

            Beloved children of God.

            This is who we are.

            Amen.