Marked As Christ's Own

I spent most of my sixteenth summer in Michigan with a friend and her family. Every year this family rented a spacious cottage in a resort community. All summer various family members would come from around the region and find respite for a few days or weeks. This community rested on a small private inlet lake which connected to a beach on Lake Michigan.

One day we all went to the beach on Lake Michigan. It was a beautiful warm day, with small but vigorous waves. The usual freezing lake water had warmed over the summer to a perfect temperature for swimming. After lounging in the sun, on the pristine white sand, I decided to go for a dip in the lake. The water was a clear blue. I waded out into the deeper water and then, after awhile, walked back toward the shore. I was standing in water, about waist high, when something knocked me off balance and I fell into the water. I felt myself being pulled under the water by a force stronger than myself. I managed to stand up, only to be knocked over again and pulled under.

It took me a few minutes to understand that I had been caught by an undertow; each time I surfaced I was further from shore. After several rounds of falling, standing, pulling under, and falling again, one of our companions noticed my distress. He waded into the water and was able to pull me to shore. It was only when we were finally sitting on our towels in the sand that I fully realized how helpless I had been, and the power of that undercurrent.

There are many occasions in life when we cause our own undertow. Those are the occasions when something happens that leaves us feeling vulnerable. Then the old tapes begin to play in our heads reminding us of all the ways we are less than perfect. These occasions require us to do some internal work in order to get past the impression that we need to be perfect.

First we have to recognize that these old tapes are playing again. These are recorded impressions of ourselves gleamed from our history, and our struggle to integrate who we are in a complex world. We live in a world where bigger is better and yet we are a small church. We constantly face the challenge of seeing our strengths matched up against what the world would define as strong. And so when we face situations that challenge our identity it takes time to unpack what is true about the “tape” in each situation, for there is often a glimmer of truth.

But it’s the hint of truth that gives the tape its potential power over us. To retrieve ourselves from the pull of a message that would debilitate us we also need to recognize what is not true.

As a church community we have a particular sense of our identity, who we are. Some of our identity is a given. We are a Christian community who worships God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Our Christian faith grounds our identity as a people of God, as God’s beloved. This identity is given to us in and through the incarnation, an assurance that God loves us in our full humanity.

We are an Anglican community connected in broad ways to a larger, global Christian community that knows itself as the middle way. Of course we live in a time when the strains of understanding that middle way pull strongly at the edges of how we know ourselves.

We are also an Episcopal community and gain much of our identity from the Book of Common Prayer. This particular version of the Book of Common Prayer focuses our identity, in particular, on baptism. Our individual identity as Christian is given to us in our baptism when we are marked as Christ’s own forever. Of course it begs the question: what does it mean to be “marked” as Christ’s own forever?

In “A 3rd Serving of Chicken Soup for the Soul,” there is a story about a student who was unlike most students. One day in the 11th grade he went into a classroom to wait for a friend. The teacher appeared and asked him to go to the blackboard.

He replied, "I'm not one of your students."

The teacher said, "Doesn't matter. Go to the board anyhow."

The student told him he couldn't do that and when the teacher asked "why not?" the student told him he was mentally disabled. The teacher came over to the student and said,

"Don't ever say that again. Someone's opinion of you does not have to be become your reality."

It became a liberating moment for the student, a time of great learning. The teacher, Mr. Washington, became the student's mentor. Later that school year Mr. Washington addressed the graduating seniors. And in his speech he said,

"You have greatness within you ... You can touch millions of people's lives."

After the speech the student went up to Mr. Washington and asked him if he had greatness within him. The teacher replied, "Yes, Mr. Brown, you do." The student thanked him and told him that one day he would make the teacher proud.

In his senior year it happened that Brown was placed in Mr. Washington's speech and drama class. Although Brown was a special ed student, the principal realized that this would be a good match up. Mr. Washington gave Brown a larger vision of himself. While other teachers passed Brown from class to class, Mr. Washington made more demands of him. He made him accountable. He enabled him to believe in himself.

Years later the famous, Les Brown, produced five specials on public television. Mr. Washington saw the program and called Les Brown to tell him how proud he was of his achievement.

As a church community we have our own story to tell. We can tell that story through the lens that focuses on our weaknesses and the areas we are lacking. Or we can tell that story through our strengths and the amazing we ways we are a small strong faith community making a difference in the world.

Jesus asks the followers,

“What are you looking for?”

This is a spiritual question meant to prod at the deepest level of our being. What are WE looking for?

The second question,

“Where are you staying?”

is also a spiritual question. This one points us to look deeply into ourselves. It asks us to look at the very structure of who we are. What is our identity?

The gospel suggests that when we go looking for who we are we focus on our strength as a community. It is a call to wrestle through our individual identities in the context of a worshiping community. In the incarnation we believe that the incarnate Word expresses the fullest sense of God’s love into the world.

The Gospel of John begins with that very image of the Word of God expressed now in human flesh. As a human, Jesus shows us how to live in relationship with one another, with God, and with ourselves. When the Word becomes flesh we are shown how to love. This love that God offers is not bound by the limitations we humans might impose. It is a boundless love able to love us just as we are. But it is also a relational love, it requires a response.

In calling the disciples, and in their response, we learn that it is not enough to have an individual personal sense of faith; we need a community with whom to be in relationship. We need others who will help us tell our stories and help us remember details we have forgotten or misunderstood. We need others to prod us along when we feel stuck. And sometimes we need others to pull us out of the undertow and save us from ourselves.

We need others to remind us that we have greatness within us ... and can touch many lives; for we have been marked as Christ’s own forever.