A Question of Identity

Judges 13:15-24
Acts 6:1-15
John 4:1-26
Each of our passages today raise issues of identity. In the Judges passage Manoah, soon to be Samson’s father, converses with an angel of the Lord, but does not recognize him as such (Judges 13:16). By contrast the Acts passage tells us that when the members of the council “looked intently at (Stephen)…they saw his face was like the face of an angel” (Acts 6:15). So Manoah sees an angel and thinks he’s a man, and the council sees a man who appears to them to be angelic. But even more significant questions of identity come in John’s account of Jesus with the Samaritan woman at the well. In the course of their conversation Jesus tells the woman, “If you knew who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water” (John 4:10). Even this is not enough of a clue, though, for moments later the woman asks Jesus, “Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob…?” (v. 12)

Most of us have a number of identities based on the number of roles we play in our lives. I’m a husband, a father, a son, an uncle, and a cousin. I’m also a minister and a writer. I am a sports fan and a Facebook user. I’m American, southern, white, Presbyterian, right-handed, an Arkansan who enjoys Cool Whip on pumpkin pie. But at the very heart of my being, right down at my core, who am I really? Once I take off all the masks and identities and characteristics, what do I have left? One contemporary Children’s Catechism begins with the question, “Who are you?” to which the answer is, “I am a child of God.” This is a really good place to begin understanding who we are in our very essence. We are children of God and we bear on us the marks of God’s creative activity, God’s fingerprints as it were. Once we recognize that we are children of God, then the rest of “who we are” can be shaped and ordered accordingly. But if we forget that at heart we are God’s people, products of God’s creation, then we will forever struggle to answer the most basic questions of identity and meaning.

Prayer: God of creation, by whose hands we were pressed into being, help us to recognize our dependence on you and to live as your people. May we also see your love in those whom we encounter, allowing ourselves to be built into a community of faith and light. In Jesus’ name. Amen.