thoughts on identity

"I don't want to talk to him, you do it!"

"Shh! No, you do it."

"Why?"

"Because I'm staff, you're the student. You should talk to the new stu-dent."

So begins another Sunday morning at the Campus House. New, unplugged students sit quietly fidgeting in their seats, instantly betraying their newbie status while the vets circle the wagons 'round the most interesting conversation, or the coffee (depending on the morning). Some dutiful leader will trudge over to the nearest of these new kids and try to strike up a conversation. Yet the answers come too quickly; flat responses not begging a response or further questions. Two minutes later, the stock questions are used up, the awkward silence begins, and the defeated leader returns to the group. Guess they didn't really want to belong, or they would've answered my questions better. Oh well, mission accomplished. Count one more jewel in the ol' crown and pass the creamer.

...All we wanted was to belong, to be included; for the circle to open towards us and for that exchange of stories and life-experiences to begin. The couple to our left (both fellow campus pastors) smiled and introduced themselves. We began said exchange. Yet our answers quickly came, our return questions begging only the smallest concessions from their target. All we wanted was to belong, to be included. Why then did we resist that which we wanted most? I turn to ask another question, to somehow keep the conversation moving forward (to where...?), and they dutifully answer. The stilted, forced conversation ground on for a few minutes more, until they saw old friends and slowly pulled themselves out of our sphere and into another. All we wanted was to belong, to be included - and they wanted to include us, to help us belong.

So who's fault was it that we didn't? Who must take the blame for the breakdown of community? Is it the ones inside the circle who legitimately try but fail? Is it the outsider who just can't get comfortable?

God, why is this so hard!?
Why does this community thing give us so much trouble? I mean if we were made to do it, if God hard-wired the desire and abilities for deep human interaction within our psyche, why do we find it so difficult?

For that matter, why do we find it so hard to do, well, anything we were created to do? Why is it that every single thing we were created to be - those things that should be at the center of our existence, at the very core of our being and self-perception, are the most elusive of all? Our retreat speaker says that "horses were made for running, dogs for hunting, and humans for worship - to dwell in the presence of God." Dwelling? How could I ever dwell in the presence of the Almighty? It's hard enough for me to force myself before His feet in the 20 minutes provided by the music leader, or in my contrived, bored devotional moments. Dwell in God's presence? I have difficulty just visiting! Worship is just one stop around the board, one corner along the way to my $200 and "GO". How can I encourage a lifestyle of worship from those I profess to teach, when I find it so hard to practice?

She just won't leave me alone! She slammed it down my throat in high school, she followed me to college. Oh I never saw her, she was too good for that, but I heard her. When I was studying for a test, reading for a report, or researching a paper, she was there whispering in my ear ... barely audible to anyone else, but present nonetheless. I thought I'd left her behind once I graduated, but she keeps popping up!

I am, of course, talking about my senior AP lit teacher.

"Identity!" she'd say, "It's all about identity! Raskolnikov, Frankenstein and his monster, Hazel Motes, all the Bundren's, Invisible Man, Marlow, Kurtz... they're all after identity!" And it was true. It seemed that every book we encountered found someone searching for identity - for who they really were in this messed up world. I don't mean by vocation, nationality, ethnicity or any other way that men try to define one another. I mean personally, deeply. These characters wanted to know who they were at the root of themselves. When all else was stripped away, what was the truth that would remain? Would anything?

Discussing this idea of "identity" brings other characters to my mind. Other men and women who just wanted to know who they were... King David - "What does it mean to be 'God's anointed'? Am I still worth anything once the crown is stripped away? When I'm exiled from my own city?" Or take Moses - "How do I lead God's Chosen People? Where's the balance between self-degradation and over-weaning pride? Am I still worth anything if I delegate my responsibilities to other men?"

What of Sarah or Hannah (lacking the one thing a respectable eastern woman needed - sons)? Who were they if not just dry wells, objects worthy of scorn and derision?

Zachaeus? Just a mean, wee little man (one sympathizes)!

And Peter? So impulsive, so "leap first" - just a cover for insecurity.

And on, and on...

It's probably cliche to say that Jesus got it right but well, He did. He must have had questions... right? I mean, what was all that business with His baptism? Did He need to be confirmed by John? Or when He asks His disciples who they think He is. Does it really matter? The very embarrassing Gethsemane ordeal? And what in the world was all the loneliness of the cross? All that "forsaken" business? Sounds pretty depressive for someone who knows He is God's one and only begotten Son!

Yet I think it's in that last example - of the Messiah's final cry of despair - that we find the answer to our own question of identity. Jesus lived His earthly ministry and life (interchangeable ideas for Him. Hmmmm... ...ahem, anyway) with a confidence and a well, humble swagger that had never before been seen. He was so confident in His place with His Father that He was literally unflappable. It astounded His audiences, it mesmerized His disciples. It drove His enemies crazy. Yet it drew all of the above to Him like a magnet. But why? I mean, why was the Saviour so irresistible to those He met?

By now you can probably guess the answer is "Identity." Jesus knew Who He was on the deepest level. To sum up like 5 hours of talking, our speaker says that God gives us two things - unconditional love and freedom. Jesus had both of those - a knowledge that He was completely, unchangeably, deeply loved. And, because of said love, He was free to pursue eternal, Kingdom-driven dreams. Now since He was God and He kinda came to save the world, His dream was pretty focused but you get the idea.

So when did this twofold gift - the promise of love-everlasting and freedom-eternal - come to us? Well, we were originally created to know and enjoy both gifts, but the Fall pretty much ended that dream. It was not until Jesus came and showed us exactly what that kind of life looked like that we were able once again to appropriate these gifts. He showed us what a real Human Being looks like. See, the times we act most like "humans" is not when we fail. It is not when we get angry or depressed, or our pride is bruised, or we get this overwhelming desire to prove ourselves. Those desires are carnal. They're animal. No, we act most like humans when we live comfortably rooted in the knowledge of the Twofold Gift. Paul described it as Jesus becoming the "Second Adam" - the One who could reverse the first Adam's damage and could show us again how to appropriate and live out the knowledge given in The Gift. Lewis describes it as Jesus beginning a "good infection" at the root of humanity - one that will slowly - sometimes imperceptibly - yet relentlessly transform the whole Tree. We're called to "catch" this infection and follow our Kinsman Redeemer where He will lead.

Where are we following Him? Into humanity. Sweaty, dust-covered, flawed, glorious humanity. Slowly, as we begin to appropriate the Gift - as I begin to not only believe but actually live as though God loves me without condition or stipulation, and that His love sets me free - we can pass it on to others.

And now we find ourselves at the end (or back at the beginning). You see, we long for community. All of us. We all want to know and be known by others. To have them encourage and challenge us with Truth. To have "a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner." But that desire will forever go unfulfilled until the day we catch Jesus' Good Infection and pass it on. Until the day we live as though nothing in this world can take us because we "are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:26), that through the waters of our baptism we have truly "clothed ourselves with Christ" and become God's true and rightful heirs... until that day, we cannot have true, lasting community because we do not yet have it with God ourselves. So you see, it's really up to you, and me. Whether I am the insider or the new kid, community begins with me. We cannot invite people to share a gift we have never received, cannot lead people down a road we have never travelled. But I have faith that one day, when I can finally just believe what I should have always known about myself, I can shake off the paralyzing rust of sin, take up the privileges and responsibilities of The Gift and become, for the first time, truly Human.

Then I can ask you to come along.