Who Are You?
A few weeks ago as I was driving somewhere the song Who Are You by the British rock band The Who was playing on a radio station. The song is largely about identity and is a great example of how funny a song can be if it is simply said and not sung while accompanied by loud instruments. The refrain is:
“Well, who are you? (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
I really wanna know (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
Tell me, who are you? (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
‘Cause I really wanna know (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
July 24, 2011
Ephesians 1:3-14, Who Are You?
Douglas Scalise, Brewster Baptist Church
[print_link]
[powerpress]
Other than sounding like an owl and being incredibly simple and repetitive like so many popular songs (including if we’re honest some praise songs and the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah), there is no mistaking the question the song is asking: Who Are You?
It got me thinking how I would answer that question. How would you answer that question? How do we describe or define ourselves? What categories or words would you use? We might use words related to our relationships: I am a son, a brother, a husband, a father, a friend. We could use terms related to what we do and our interests, “I’m a pastor, or an artist, a plumber, a teacher, an engineer, a business person, an electrician, a student.” Some of us as we think longer about who we are might add other words that affiliate us with groups or organizations to which we belong including book clubs, musical groups, sports teams or even nations. We might use words related to our skills, talents, gifts, or personality.
Sometimes people with an overinflated sense of self-importance will say to someone who they feel is beneath them or treating them poorly, “Do you know who I am?” Other people whose social skills need further refining will approach someone and say the same thing or “Do you remember me?” Both questions put the other person uncomfortably on the spot and should not be asked. It is always more gracious to say to someone, “Hello, I am ….” – that is your Miss Manners Moment for the Morning.
Who are you? One of the challenging things about answering this question is that some of the basic ways we define ourselves can be taken away. Jobs can be lost or changed or left. People we love in important relationships pass away. At one point I was a grandson, but my grandparents are all long gone so am I a grandson any more in the same way I once was, I’m not sure.
One of my favorite examples of someone who knows exactly who he is comes, somewhat surprisingly, from the 2000 film Gladiator that won five Academy Awards. Russell Crowe plays Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius who is loyal to Emperor Marcus Aurelius. The emperor is murdered by his ambitious and evil son Commodus and Maximus is condemned to death and ends up a gladiator. Through his skill as a fighter, he makes it back to Rome, and after a victory in the Coliseum he stands before the man who killed the emperor and had Maximus’s wife and son murdered as well.
Commodus: Why doesn’t the hero reveal himself and tell us all your real name? You do have a name.
Maximus: My name is Gladiator.
Commodus: How dare you show your back to me! Slave, you will remove your helmet and tell me your name.
Maximus: My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.
Wow. Talk about having a clear sense of who you are. Maximus knows his name, he states the titles that reflect his vocation and the result of his dedicated skill and faithful service, he is clear about where his allegiance lies, and his most important relationships. He knows who he is and whose he is.
It has become my growing feeling as I listen to people I know and observe our culture at large that there are many people who don’t know who they are with the clarity of Maximus, who, I grant you, is a character in a film which is almost always easier than being a real person.
In recent months I have listened to people speak to me about fractured family relationships, lost jobs, financial crises and a subsequent loss of self-confidence, and a decline in clarity about one’s sense of self. Others who have lost a spouse after a long period of marriage or those who have suffered a significant decline in health that may be chronic or even terminal may struggle with who they are when they can no longer do so many of things they used to do. That all led me to share on this subject of identity – who are you – in worship.
It seems to me that it is helpful and wise to review the bedrock source of our identity, the foundation of who we are, so that we can have clarity and confidence even in the most difficult of circumstances.
The New Testament book of Ephesians begins with a rich passage that has a great deal to say about who we are and whose we are. Listen closely:
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. 5 He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace 8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight 9 he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. 11 In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, 12 so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. 13 In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; 14 this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.”
It is amazing to look carefully at these verses and try to list everything that God has done for us or given us. If you have your own Bible that you can underline or highlight feel free to do so; or maybe write some of these words or phrases on the back of your bulletin.
3 God has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing
God chose us in Christ to be holy and blameless before him in love.
God adopted us as his children through Jesus Christ, simply because he wanted to. God freely bestowed glorious grace upon us.
7 In Christ we are beloved, we have redemption through his blood, forgiveness, the riches of his grace 8 that he lavished on us.
With all wisdom and insight 9 he has made known to us the mystery of his will, 11 In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance,
12 so that we might live for the praise of his glory.
13 We were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit;
14 this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.”
If we can truly grasp all that God has done for us, it has the power to give us a sense of identity even clearer and stronger than that of Maximus.
God has blessed, chosen, adopted, and bestowed glorious grace upon us. Who are you? You are a blessed, chosen, child of God and the beneficiary of God’s glorious grace. That is not a purple dinosaur telling you that you’re special, that is the God of the universe telling you that.
What about Christ? If we’re feeling lonely, guilty, or poor, we are to remember that in Christ we are beloved, redeemed, forgiven, and the recipients of a great inheritance.
What about us? Ephesians says God and Christ have done all this so that “marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; we, as God’s own people, might live for the praise of his glory.”
Allowing God’s word and the words of people we love, trust, and respect who have our best interest at heart shape our sense of self is healthy and wise.
Who are you? I really want you to know that you can be a child of God, a disciple of Jesus, and part of the community of people who live for the praise of God’s glory. Those are things that we can build on, rely on, and depend on, for the rest of our lives. They are foundational to our identity.
Even people of great faith can struggle at times with this question, “Who Am I?” so we shouldn’t beat ourselves up if we have periods of struggle also.
Dietrich Bonhöffer a young German theologian, Christian leader and author was martyred by the Nazis for his participation in a plot against the life of Adolf Hitler. While in prison he wrote a poem titled Who Am I?
“Who am I? They often tell me
I stepped from my cell’s confinement
Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
Like a squire from his country-house.
Who am I? They often tell me
I used to speak to my wardens
Freely and friendly and clearly,
As though it were mine to command.
Who am I? They also tell me
I bore the days of misfortune
Equally, smilingly, proudly,
Like one accustomed to win.
Am I then really all that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I myself know of myself?
Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
Struggling for breath, as though hands were
compressing my throat,
Yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
Thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,
Tossing in expectation of great events,
Powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
Faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?
Who am I? This or the other?
Am I one person today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
And before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am Thine!”
Several years ago I preached a series called “Who Is Jesus” based on the “I am” sayings of Jesus in John’s Gospel. Not surprisingly, Jesus had a very clear idea of who he was and all the “I am” sayings of Jesus in John’s Gospel are about the gift that God offers to the world in Christ, using a number of images to further illustrate the work of Christ described in Ephesians 1. In John, when Jesus says, “I Am the bread of life” (6:35), he is saying he is “the bread of God…which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world,” through his death on the cross (6:33, 51).
When Jesus says, “I Am the light of the world” he tells us he came to give “the light of life” to all who experience the darkness of sin and death, (8:12).
When Jesus says, “I Am the gate,” he explains that he came to open a way so that people might be saved through him and have abundant life.
When Jesus says, “I Am the Good Shepherd,” he promises to give eternal life to his sheep by laying down his life for them (10:11, 28).
When Jesus says, “I Am the resurrection and the life” he emphasizes what he provides to all who believe which gives us hope even in the face of death.
When he says, “I Am the way, the truth, and the life” he describes a gift that is extended to all people whom sin has separated from God.
When Jesus says, “I Am the vine,” he invites people to abide in him because he will sustain us with divine love (15:1, 4, 9).
John’s Gospel and Ephesians both tell us what God has done for us in Christ and how much each of us has been given and how valued and important every person is to the Lord. The truly amazing thing about our identity in Christ is that we don’t earn it, it is offered to us as a gift. Our task is to believe it, receive it, and live as though it is true.
A young Indian girl, who grasps this quite well, wrote a poem with the same title as Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s. Moushmi Sahu, was a student at St. Joseph’s Girls High School in India when she wrote:
“Who Am I?
A gift of God,
a blessing to this earth
That is what I am.A person of substance,
a person who matters,
a person who can make others feel her presence
That is what I am.A person who learns from each day,
a person who has courage for facing each day,
a person who has hope for each tomorrow
That is what I am.A person having a yearning desire,
to get more and more knowledge
from the ocean of wisdom
That is what I am.Someone who can give to others
If not the moon, if not the stars,
If not just gifts, if not just flowers
But a sweet smile on the face
which spreads happiness as long as it stays
That is what I am.And this is the reason
why I am the happiest
When I am what I am.”
In response to who Jesus is and to all God and Christ have done we can live confidently knowing who we are:
We are a child of God, a disciple of Jesus, one of God’s own people. No matter what else may be taken away or lost during the course of our life, those are things that we can build on, rely on, and depend on, for the rest of our lives and beyond. I pray we can all be clear about where our allegiance lies and about our most important relationships. With the help of the Holy Spirit may we know with unshakeable faith who we are and whose we are and we will have our redemption in this world and the next.