When you ask yourself, “who am I?” what is the answer that comes to you? Of course, we might begin with our name. And then? Do you begin with relationships that are important to you? “I am so and so’s daughter, wife or mother?” Or “I am so and so’s son, husband, or father?” Or where you come from? Perhaps we might identify first with our nation, our culture, religion, or race- which might serve as the foundation for many of our relationships and who we call “family,” or “my people.” (I even know people who might identify first with the football club they follow as fans!) The sense of “to whom I belong” is strongly connected with identity, and for those of us who are primarily oriented toward a sense of belonging and connection, relationships take precedence before all else.
There is also often a connection between the way we understand our identity and what we do. Perhaps you begin to answer the question of “who I am” with the roles and responsibilities that you hold. For example, “I am an educator”, “I am a religious sister”, “I am an engineer.” Those of us who are more task focused and action oriented might very well think of these activities that shape our identity even before relationships. This doesn’t mean we don’t value the people in our lives, but we might have a more individualized sense of ourselves, and what we value is what we can do, our skills, contributions, and impact.
What does all this consideration of the question, “who am I” have to do with Jesus’ experience and his baptism in the river Jordan by his cousin, John the Baptist? To begin with, I invite us to explore the question with an emphasis on his human experience, beginning with the fact that Jesus’ mother was discovered to be pregnant with him out of wedlock. The fact that the identity of his father was a scandalous public question quite likely created human feelings of shame, embarrassment, or uncertainty. Nazareth was a small town, a close knit community, where rumors no doubt persisted throughout his childhood. We know that kids can sometimes be cruel in the ways they treat one another, and that social stigma could easily have led to taunts or bullying.
But even if Jesus was spared such humiliations, it was natural for him to wonder… as anyone who has ever spent time with young children knows that a frequent preoccupation (and a favorite topic of conversation) is “where did I come from?”
Is it possible that Jesus was entirely exempt from such preoccupations? Not if he was fully human. Whatever he might have heard from Mary and Joseph, we can imagine that he must have experienced uncertainties, doubts, and curiosity about where he came from, about who he really was.
”You are my beloved son…”
If this speculation about Jesus’ early life is plausible, we might imagine just how important this experience of baptism was for him, when he and many witnesses heard the revelation of his identity as God’s beloved son.
Perhaps we can recall when we heard someone important to us say, “you are my beloved,” how it felt, and why it mattered.
I remember once when I was younger, after making a terrible, hurtful mistake that left me feeling ashamed and embarrassed, my father came to me and told me, “I love you, no matter what.” At the time, I was so stuck in my negative thoughts about myself and in a state of such desolation, that I could not even initially hear my dad’s words. But gradually, as the desolation passed, I heard him say again, “I love you. I love you very much.” Even now, as I write this, many years later after that event, and twenty two years after my dad’s death, I hear his words as if he were speaking to me right now. How these words sink into my heart as if it were a dry sponge, and still touch me in ways that are hard to express.
Hopefully, we have had such a concrete experience of unconditional, all embracing love that we too, have been not only disoriented and disillusioned about whatever we might have believed about ourselves, or worth, or even about who we really are. Hopefully, we too, on the foundation of that love, have discovered our real identity, worth, and meaning. Of course, for me and for us, we might also need to hear and experience this repeatedly in order for it to sink deep enough to fully replace all the stories we tell ourselves about why we are or aren’t worthy of love.
For Jesus, this foundation of identity as God’s beloved was quite complete, and carried with it a sense of purpose, calling, and task. It was for him the basis for what he described as his Father’s kingdom, his sense of how he related to things of the world, to other people, and for what he desired to reveal to others. I don’t think it is an exaggeration to suggest that Jesus’ identity as beloved of God was the existential basis for his whole mission, to proclaim this reality as an invitation to all people, for his own spiritual inner freedom and the healing and liberation he desired to share with others.
Identity and a deep sense of mission… the basis for his leadership and ministry, and for ours as well. How can this be? Through our own humanity, and in a particular way through our baptism, each of us has come to share in this love. But perhaps we also know how important it is to return again and again to this foundation, to allow God’s love to sink in and fully liberate us from all the ways we try to prove ourselves, or from the ways we think we are unloveable. Of course this is not a gift to be taken for granted or presumed, but this love of God for us as his beloved children is an inheritance we receive because we are God’s.
Ultimately, the question then may not be “who am I,” but “whose am I?” While identities can separate and divide us from one another, the question of “to whom we belong” can ultimately bring us together.
As leaders, this question of our identity and mission is not by any means irrelevant. It underlies everything about the roles and responsibilities we undertake, our sense of purpose, the values that orient us, and the ways we relate to all of our brothers and sisters- indeed to all God’s creatures and creation itself. We are all God’s beloved. As we begin this new year, perhaps this reminder of “whose we are,” might pierce through all the other darkness and confusion, and provide the foundation and path we need for moving forward with hope.
With you on the road,
