Fourth Pentecost

              June 24, 2007

    A good old boy from down home had his identity stolen.  A couple of days later he got a condolence card in the mail that said:

     Dear Friend,

     Please accept my humblest apologies.  I am sorry I stole your identity.  First, I had a phone installed under your name.  The dang thing wouldn’t stop ringing!  Bill collectors, lawyers, and your cousin Billy called collect from the State Penitentiary every day!

     I applied for credit cards but instead of receiving cards I received balance due notices threatening to take me to court if not paid within 7 days.  I’ve consequently had to move twice already!

     I came home from a night out on the town last week and found your wife and kids sprawled out all over the house.  My house is trashed; they’ve eaten all the food, and refuse to leave.

     I promise to turn my life around and never commit another crime for as long as I live if you will come and pick up your family.

    Sincerely,

    Penitent Thief

    The fellow wrote back and said, “Nope!”

    The moral of that story, I suppose, is to be careful whose identity you set out to steal.

    The Gospel for this Sunday is about identity.  The Lord of this life and the life that is to come wanted to know if people understood who he was.  Has anybody made the proper connection?  Have those closest to him truly grasped what the Incarnation is all about?  Have we?

     So, Jesus the Christ asked his followers, “Who do the crowds say that I am?”  The answer comes back like a scatter-gun.  “John the Baptist, Elijah, and still others, that one of the ancient prophets has arisen,” the disciples respond.  Jesus decided to change the tenor of the question from the general to the specific.  He smashed the ball back into the disciple’s court.  “But who do you say that I am?”  Peter, never hesitant to speak up, responded, “The Messiah of God.” 

     For the first time in a long time a smile probably crossed Jesus’ face.  He had been praying about asking these questions.  What if they get it wrong?  Have I done enough to demonstrate what I’m all about on this mission?  To Jesus it was important that his disciples know who he was.  His effectiveness from this point on, his credentials as the Paschal Lamb, and his challenge to them after he was gone all hung on somebody making the proper identification.  Peter, bless his loving heart, knew that his friend, teacher, mentor, and brother was so much more than his eyes could see.  Even if he did not yet understand it all, he would say what he knew to be the case.  This man whom we are following is the Messiah of God!  He was who he was.  He was not a recycled John the Baptist, or Elijah returned to take his place at the Seder table, or anyone else, as important as those figures were.  He had to be recognized as who he was, just as anyone can be effective only as they are understood and accepted for whom they genuinely are.

     There is a true story from many years ago now about a woman named Florence Foster Jenkins, a very wealthy socialite.  She had convinced herself, with a little help from doting parents, that she was a gifted operatic singer.  She used her private wealth to rent Carnegie Hall, invited every person who might be considered a “somebody,” and to a packed house, sang her rendition of “Queen of the Night,” the opening aria of Mozart’s Magic Flute.  The audience erupted in laughter after a few opening bars.  It was a tragic account of one woman’s opinion of herself, which bore little resemblance to the actual reality of things.

     Who are the people you know who are whole and respected; those with little or no pretense to themselves?  I would dare say they are probably not the ones who set out to win friends and influence people.  It has been my experience that the least charming people I’ve met are the ones who set out to be charming.  A plastic, contrived personality is as shoddy as it is superficial.  I suspect spotting the phony has something to do with despising that which is phony in and about me.

     In most circles there are individuals who maneuver themselves into the limelight and invite attention.  They are always able to match a good story with an even better one, they talk a good game.  Yet with all their brilliance we do not like exhibitionists.  They too closely resemble hucksters, snake-oil salesmen, pushing their wares on us.

     The people who are truly respected and admired are those who know who they are and do not have a need to be someone else.  In human development that is called “ego integrity.”  Those who know who they are become most free to give of themselves to others and are not busy trying to meet their own needs.  Such people are liberated from self and are at liberty to share themselves with others, in the name of the living God who set them free for such ministry. 

     There is an old Benedictine rule that anyone who comes to a monastery is received on the basis of who they are.  They don’t ask anything other than your name.  Questions about where you’re from, where you went to school, what you have achieved in life, how much you’re worth, are not asked.  They are initially interested only in whom you are and they find out who you are apart from any of the accumulations or awards you may use to build a wall or with which to construct a mask behind which to hide the real you.  There is a central truth behind this Benedictine rule.

     I would also want to suggest that the inner authenticity of the Christian faith is found in much the same approach.  We are washed, through our baptisms, of all the accumulations and wax build-up of labels and titles and came become who we truly are in Christ.  We may then identify with Christ as a new, honest person.  St. Paul said it best.  In Christ there is “neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for all are one in Christ Jesus.”

     So, dear friends in Christ, we have our identity.  We do not need any more labels, stereotypes, or efforts to put people into neat little categories.  We are who we are through Christ and by baptism.  The choice we face is accepting that new reality or continuing to live by a false identity.  I pray every day not to have our identity stolen.  Amen.