admin

Proper 16 – Year A and Baptism of Julian Thomas

August 21, 2011

Preached at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church

Brookline, MA

The Reverend Jeffrey W. Mello

Isaiah 51:1—6; Romans 12:1—8; Matthew 16:13—20

Who are you? Consider that question for a bit. Who are you? How would you answer that question? There’s your name, of course, but what’s after that? Who are you? Who do you say that you are?

This question has been very much on my mind as of late. Last Saturday, I attended my twenty-fifth high school reunion. In the week before, I dragged my yearbook off the shelf and did some research on Facebook trying to answer that question about those who had been my classmates over two decades ago. Who were these people I was going to see?

To be honest, I had not kept in touch with most of them. Apart from a mini-reunion twenty years ago, I’ve seen only two or three in the intervening years. All of a sudden, though, I was filled with curiosity as to where they were now, what they had been up to, who was in their lives and, frankly, how the twenty-five years had treated them. As I looked at their picture in the yearbook, I remembered who they were, at least to my memory. As I combed the internet, I was learning who they were now, at least according to Facebook and Google.

You can’t spend much time in an endeavor like this without realizing pretty quickly, that you are, in truth, really trying to find out who you are. I was really wondering who I was by seeing what the internet had to say about who my classmates were.

If you used my yearbook as your guide, you would see your average high school kid who pretty much got along with kids from different groups. I was active in the theatre program, edited the literary magazine and worked as an aide with those who had learning differences. If you look at my picture, I was quite skinny, with a big head of hair (it was the 80’s, after all!).

If you look at my Facebook profile, that paints another picture. My education, my work history, my family and some interests. And there are pictures, which offer a story all on their own.

As I drove down route 95 toward my reunion, all of this information swirled in my head. Who am I? Who would my former classmates think I am? And how do I tell the difference?

How do we tell the difference? How do we answer the question of who we are without using external data sources? No matter how much information we have on Facebook, no matter how many Google searches we embark on, no matter how many memoirs we may or may not write in our lives, none of this information is complete. None of it comes close to being able to answer, in any real fullness, the question of who we are.

It seems, that over the course of our lifetime, we accumulate adjectives to answer this question. We get job titles, roles in our families, experiences, good or bad, with co-workers and friends which, over time, begin to develop into some sort of picture of who we are. Or rather, of who others say that we are.

Who do you say that you are?

In this morning’s Gospel, Jesus is trying to figure out the same question. Jesus is wondering who the disciples think he is. He wants to know if they have become confused by all the many adjectives the world has started to place on him. He’s hoping that they can see through all that to the truth of who he is.

And, it turns out, Peter can. Peter responds to Jesus’ question in similar words God spoke to him at his Baptism. Peter tells Jesus he knows him to be the Savior, the Son of God. No matter what else happens in Jesus’ life, that remains the truth of who he is – the beloved child of God.

This morning we will Baptize Julian Thomas into the family of Christ. This morning we will pour water over him and anoint his head with oil as signs that he is, above all else, a beloved child of God. And nothing can ever change that. That, above all else, is the essence of who he is; of who God made him to be.

Sure, adjectives will come. He is already a son and a brother, but he will also become student, and friend and who knows what else. But no matter how many of these other titles will get applied to him, he will remain always and unshakably a beloved child of God – the words God spoke to him at birth, speaks to him today and will speak to him every day of his life.

These are, of course, the words God speaks to each one of us, every day of our lives. In the quiet of the morning, in the rush of our work day, over dinner and at our bedside, God is there, whispering into our ears. Longing for us to remember that, no matter what else people may think of us, we remain God’s beloved child.

No matter how hard a day, we are God’s beloved child. No matter how many people we feel like we failed, we are God’s beloved child. No matter how many names are spat at us, and no matter how many titles are given us, we remain God’s beloved child – no more, no less. Ever.

Sometimes we feel so very far away from who we are as beloved children of God. Sometimes, like when we are going to a reunion, that very core of who we are seems to fade and we wonder who we are. We wonder how we got here. Sometimes we wonder if this is who we were meant to be. We aren’t the first to go through periods feeling as though we are in exile from ourselves.

The prophet Isaiah, speaking to a nation in exile, calls them to remember, too, who they are. Isaiah asks them to put aside the words that are used to describe them now – slaves and foreigners, strangers in a strange land, and to remember who they really are. “Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug,” Isaiah says. “Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you.”

So, we too, can feel like strangers in a strange land. So, we too, are called to look to the rock from which we were hewn. Created by God, in the image of God. That is who we are. That is who we will always be.

This morning we celebrate that Julian Thomas is a beloved child of God. And we pray that no matter how far life takes him, he will always remember that he is, first and foremost, God’s beloved child. And the words and promises we say are true about him this morning are true for each and every one of us.

Who are you? You are a Beloved of Child of God, that’s who.

© 2011 The Reverend Jeffrey W. Mello