Dear PPPC –

When I was serving as a hospital chaplain, family members would call the Office of Spiritual Care and request that someone from our office go visit their loved one. Often, I would know much of the background from said family member, before entering a patient’s room – perhaps their medical diagnosis, but also what their family member was worried about…emotionally, physically, and spiritually. So I’d walk to a patient room and knock on the door. Sanitizing my hands as I entered I said, “Mr. or Mrs. so and so?” and they responded, “Yes, and who are you?” A normal question, given the number of people in and out of any given hospital room. A normal question, considering that I knew their name, but they did not know me.

Who are you?

It is a question we ask again and again and again throughout our lives, but particularly in difficult times, in times of challenge and change, in times of heartache and loss, in times of transition and new beginnings. When are forced to self-reflect, or when we simply have the space and time to self-reflect. Who are you?

The world offers us plenty of answers – sometimes we feel as though our identities are wrapped in our political associations or professional position, or ideological leanings. Sometimes we think of ourselves as a collection of our deepest hurts….or a collection of our greatest accomplishments. The worst, and perhaps the easiest, is to think of ourselves as whatever everyone else thinks of us.

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The Rev. Nadia Bolz-Webber wrote her reflections to this question in a recent newsletter and her answer to the question is rooted in scripture, 1 John 3:2, Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.

She writes, “We are, no matter what traps we’ve fallen into, no matter what addictions we have given our hearts and wallets over to, no matter how many times we have focused on accomplishing something big, done it and felt nearly as empty after as when we began, we are more than anything else: God’s own. AND no matter how old we are, what we will be is still to come, still unfolding, and still closer to the core….

I cling to this as a reliable form of hope.

I cling, not to some delusional idea that everything will be better, that life will get only easier and never harder, that bad things won’t happen – no, I cling to the hope that I am known in my true form by the God who knit me together in my mother’s womb, and next to that, every identity….is ultimately meaningless.

I cling to the hope that God’s work upon me leads to new thinking about others and the world and even about myself.

Because this same hope is what allowed the hemorrhaging woman to reach for the hem of Jesus’ garment. She trusted that what she would be had not yet been revealed. She knew there was more for her. More than illness, more than impurity more than alienation.

Because this same hope is why Bartimaeus the blind man cried out when people told him to shut up already. He knew that who he would be had not yet been revealed. He trusted that his voice was hearable to the one who created it.

Because this same hope is why the woman who was described as being a “sinner of the city” busted into a perfectly respectable dinner party and covered Jesus feet with scented oil and tears and then wiped his feet with her hair. Because she knew her designation was not her destiny.

Same with me. Same with you. We are more than our designations, more than our preferences, more than our ideologies, more than what our families say we are, more than what society says we are, and for sure we are more than the sum total of what we buy.”

There is no simple way to answer the question “Who are you?” Perhaps the better question, spiritually at least, is, “Who are you becoming?”

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Food for the journey. Take what you need, leave what you don’t.

I’ll see you on August 25th for the picnic at Riverfront Park!

Yours for the journey,
Pastor Molly