Identity

January 07, 2007

Baptism of the Lord
Isaiah 43:1-7; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
The Reverend Stephen P. Bauman

The American religious scene is complicated. I’m thinking you’d agree with that statement. Made all the more so, in the last ten years, by the increased visibility of various religionists in the political realm. Maybe you noted the nation’s first-ever Muslim elected to congress and the flap over his desire to use a Qur’an at his personal swearing in. There is also a more visible group of secularists and scientists emerging who are evangelists of a “no religion” agenda.

Pollsters have told us for decades that Americans are very religious; more than 90 percent claim they believe in God. Apart from considering the more vocal fundamentalists, this may seem counterintuitive, given the lack of convincing evidence of this in our cultural environment. Of course, anyone can say it. For lack of a more satisfying answer, any average-type person stopped on a sidewalk might respond to an anonymous pollster that God is as opposed to isn’t, especially if no definition of God is provided.

But, the same pollsters tell us that just less than half the population admits activity with an organized religious group, which must mean that, for the rest, it’s enough to hold to some sort of private notion about God. That’s confirmed by my informal experience. I’m always on the look out for anything that smacks of God-talk in the general population – cocktail parties, bus and taxi rides, and in other social environments. And, I find that religion is often treated as a “hands-off,” private affair, a matter of personal taste. Surely that’s so in our trendy urban environment.

This attitude is informed by democratic notions of tolerance, which can lead to the dubious conclusion that all truth claims are equal – none is more authoritative than another. This engenders what I call “squishy religion” that is very personalized; it might take a little Christian love-ethic here, a little Buddhist detachment there, with an analysis of a past life regression and some astrology thrown in for good measure.

Generally, there’s nothing very demanding in this amalgam, and it’s perfectly tolerable for most folks; it stays private, indeed, there really is no public place to go with it, as highly individualized as it is. An occasional stop at a church gives some sense of being connected with a wider spirituality, while watching an Anthony Robbins motivational program instills the necessary sense of personal worth so one can tap into the rising tide of American wealth.

Now, there is little in this that is bad and much that is somewhat useful. But what it isn’t is profound, life-defining, and soul-making. It skirts along the surface of things, pretending to be something it can never really be. It is a religion of sorts, but one that is an individual’s own concoction. And as such, is unaccountable to anything or anyone else – for the most part it is bereft of meaningful connection.

What I’m doing here is simply reporting to you. As I understand it, part of my job is to stay attuned to what’s going on with people spiritually and to help them think through their life issues when they walk through our door. If I had to generalize about the life-fix in which many find themselves, beyond the circumstance of any immediate crisis, I would say it pertains to the question of identity, as in, who am I really?

In contrast to the answer provided by the closed up, rigid tribalism of fundamentalists, the other extreme in popular culture answers the question by saying we can be anyone we want without any obligation. We have been cut free from traditional moorings of family, caste, geography, and this offers unprecedented opportunities, leaving us responsible to no one but ourselves and our various desires and appetites. But this seeming freedom comes at great cost.

In the last century, the famous psychiatrist Carl Jung wrote this: “Among all my patients in the second half of life…every one of them fell ill because he had lost what the living religions of every age have given their followers, and none of them has been really healed who did not regain his religious outlook.

“When you study the mental history of the world, you see that people since times immemorial had a general…doctrine about the wholeness of the world…they were considered to be holy traditions taught to the young people as preparation for their future life…

“In our civilization, this spiritual background has gone astray. Our Christian doctrine has lost is grip to an appalling extent…people don’t understand it any more…

“People are no more rooted in their world and lose their orientation. They just drift…life loses its meaning. The problem itself cannot be settled by a few slogans. It demands concentrated attention, much mental work and, above all, patience, the rarest thing in our restless and crazy time.”[1]

That’s how Jung described the circumstance in 1959, a time we hardly consider crazy by comparison today. Even a casual observer in 2007 would see that the situation of “slogans addressing questions of meaning” has reached absurd proportions.

So, walking into a place like this may have something of a counter-cultural feel to it. For some, I suppose, it may feel like a step backwards, as though the robust spiritual tradition will put the brakes on an otherwise free-wheeling life of endless opportunity or experience.

But the fact is, as I mentioned last week, to varying degrees everyone is a seeker. Everyone seeks fulfillment of some sort, a fulfillment that would then tell them who they are. They may not be consciously reflective about this, but they nevertheless drive their lives forward seeking some consummation, something that fills the otherwise empty place in their lives.

I said that on any given Sunday, some percentage of the congregants feel like outsiders, like alien visitors who don’t quite understand the customs and language of this place. They may not get the music, the hymns, the robes, the rigmarole. Even if you grew up in church, one morning it might occur to you what an odd occasion Sunday worship is. And still, we all come seeking that which will meet our heart’s deepest desire.

And what do we desire most of all? Here’s one way to answer that: We want to know who we are, really. I think this is so whether we’re struggling through the turbulence of adolescence, or the last years of a long life. As I think about my own life, it occurs to me that at various points along the way I’ve had to revisit that question – to remember and clarify how I’ve answered it. To make course adjustments. What is a so-called mid-life crisis other than a confrontation with this question?

The circumstances were very different, of course, but surely the people who went down to the Jordan River to hear John preach and to receive his baptism were going, in part, because they were on the hunt for their true identities. It doesn’t say so, but surely that’s inferred. John was waking them up to the facts of their existence. Different time and place, different local customs, and so on. As Luke tells the story, Jesus slips in among them and is baptized as well.

It’s sort of anticlimactic really, the way Luke says it. But then, the fantastic corker of an image: the heavens open and the voice of God is heard! And what question does this voice seem to address? Well, if one had asked, or even if Jesus himself had wondered at this opening scene on his adult life, “Who am I really?” the answer is heard loud and clear: “You are my Son, the Beloved. With you I am well pleased.”

Since you’ve come today, I want you to be clear that this is the fundamental issue we’re addressing, in case you were wondering. Underneath and embedded within the hymns, the robes, the processions, and the praying we’re addressing the question of who we are, really. We’re joining the throng at the river’s edge on hearing about what’s going on there. We’re slipping in with Jesus and giving ourselves over to the water.

In baptism we make a fundamental claim – we are God’s. Or more accurately, we should say God makes a fundamental claim: “You are mine! You have been mine from the moment you drew your first breath!” Baptism is a mark of what is. What is true about us in our most fundamental being. We learn we are this, not that. We are part of this community, this people, which paradoxically is a community open to anyone and everyone. That’s part of the miracle in the discovery – everyone has the same spiritual genetics. John’s invitation rings out this way: “Come, discover who you really are. Wash away the grime so you can see the astonishing jewel beneath.”

Friends, it’s time to make our way to the river’s edge and discover who we are….

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[1] Part of an exchange of letters between Carl Jung and Ruth Topping, a prominent Chicago social worker.

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