Who am I, really?

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"Over my head, I hear music in the air . . ."
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life,

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. (Psalm 23:5&6)


A church whose website I viewed recently characterizes itself something like this: “We are sinners saved by grace.” In his recent publication, Anabaptist Essentials: Ten signs of a Unique Christian Faith, Palmer Becker writes about his father:

My father, whose first language was German, understood Christianity as Nachfolge Christi, which means, “following Jesus.” When it came to baptism, he was perplexed by the question, “Are you saved?” His answer was, “I am a follower of Jesus.” He was baptized upon that confession of faith. (p. 36)

I’m curious about how any one of us would answer when pressed to provide a single sentence, key characterization of ourselves. Question: “What or who are you?” Answer: Well I’m a Rotarian/Anglican/wine connoisseur/real estate agent/photographer/husband/contractor . . ..

How often—do we think—would, “I’m a follower of Jesus,” or “I’m a sinner saved by grace” be the answer?

True, one can be an Anglican (even a Mennonite) and a Rotarian and a contractor and a husband, and, and, and. So how significant would our knee-jerk answer to such a question be? Would it give away the key self image that drives us day to day? Would it be an admission for most of us, most of the time, that we are not really all we like to say we are? Or would it just mean that we know what kind of answer is expected by the one asking the question, and so we oblige with a nationality, career, family, membership . . . answer?

Given a church context and depending on who’s asking, the two answers with which I began might occur occasionally. But to say “I’m a follower of Jesus” rather than “I’m a sinner saved by grace” might reveal a significant difference in what key understanding we wishfully think is central to who or what we are. Both saved and following are words with pretty distinct meanings and when we observe the lives of those who claim either word to be key and central, we might well come to the conclusion that it’s not reality that’s being described, but a humanly-near-impossible kind of ideal.

Mostly, we are humans struggling to stay alive, searching for love and acceptance, trying to make a mark on the world to prove that we’ve existed. Our appearance, our personalities, our outlooks, our talents rest on the foundation of our genetic and cultural histories, modified by mostly-serendipitous contacts with what we call environment or learning in psychology. Pretending that we are fully and irreversibly “saved from sin,” or that we are literally “disciples and followers of Jesus” does little more than provide occasion for us to beat up on ourselves . . . and others.

Both things nobody needs.

And yet, to allow our outlooks and our lives to be coloured by the metaphor of a Christ who placed such a high value on us that he would die sacrificially on our behalf, or to be conscious every day that we have a teacher who illuminates the crossroads before us, thereby urging us toward ever better choices among the many, these revelations have proven again and again to provide a sense of fulfillment, belonging and peace. We are being saved, and we follow our teacher and Lord, at least as well as the gifts we’ve been given and the circumstances in which we’ve landed allow.

We are inspired to add a little salt, shed a little light in our world, in our time. But the burdens of this world were never meant to rest on your shoulders, or on mine.

Who or what are you? Am I? Maybe “I’m a lonely little petunia/onion in an onion/petunia patch,” most often fits how we feel. But as I said in an earlier post, God doesn’t create trash, and, heaven knows, he wouldn’t die for junk.

Shedding our self-loathing, embracing the knowledge that we can be co-creators with God in the making of that New Jerusalem toward which all the prophets strove, toward which they still strive, that developing, growing epiphany about who we actually are can be so life-changing that Jesus likened it to being born all over again.

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,” (Philippians 1: 9-10. NIV)




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