The Grammar of Identity

February 9, 1992

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Scripture: “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you…and I consecrated you….and I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah 1:5

The theme for today is IDENTITY...and Jeremiah’s contribution to helping us find it. Do you know who you are.... who you really are? That’s what we’re talking about this morning. It was just a little squib in the paper. I almost glossed over it. They found him wandering around in the streets of Miami, it said. He was a young man, reasonably, if not stylishly dressed, just wandering aimlessly, from here to there. He wasn’t bothering anybody, he was just.... randomly drifting.

They took him to a counselor, who began to question him--- What is your name? He didn’t know. Where do you live? Same answer. He had no identification, no papers. He didn’t know who he was, or where he had come from. He couldn’t tell them anything, his name, or his parent’s name, or his address, or his telephone number. The slate was a blank.

He was just there, a person without context. Apparently, they determined, he’d been struck on the head, somehow, and was suffering at least temporarily, from what is called AMNESIA, loss of memory.

It happens, they say, more frequently than we think. AND MAYBE IN A BROADER SENSE, IT HAPPENS TO MORE OF US THAN WE THINK. Do you know who you are.... who you really are? Without stretching it excessively, you could almost turn this incident into a parable, couldn’t you?

Why does that young man look so familiar? I think I recognize him. In fact, I think I know his name. His name is LEGION, for he is many.

Would you let me suggest that maybe a lot of us.... not this dramatically, of course — I don’t mean it literally---but I wonder if a good many of us today, EVEN IN THE CHURCH, aren’t suffering from a loss of identity.... when we forget, or allow ourselves to be cut off from our source, from our heritage, from our rootage, and from the essential nature of our being.

We come pretty close to being spiritual amnesiacs. Our appearance may be reasonable

enough, even stylish, but the truth is, we’re just wandering aimlessly, unanchored, unrooted, isolated, and out of contact with who we really are. The theme for today is IDENTITY.

Jeremiah can help us recover it. The Scripture is the record of his call, an experience that formed and energized everything else he became. The one thing you can say about Jeremiah is that he always knew who he was....

Now, there were a lot of things he didn’t know..... He didn’t always know how to hold his tongue. He didn’t always know when to back off---- He wouldn’t have lasted 2 weeks in a Dale Carnegie course.[1] He didn’t always know how to use the most exquisite form of tact..... Very few of those old, rough prophets did. That just wasn’t a matter of high priority with them.

And you need to see this about him. To me it only makes him more endearing, more human, more somebody-I-can-identify with. Not only did he have trouble with people sometimes, he had trouble with God sometimes, too. He didn’t know why God couldn’t be more dependable--according to Jeremiah’s definition of dependability.

Do you know what You’re like, he screamed at God one day in a fit of pique when he

couldn’t get an answer he thought he ought to have? YOU’RE LIKE A SPRING OF WATER THAT DRIES UP JUST WHEN SOMEBODY’S THIRSTY. Imagine the gall. That’s throwing it back in the Almighty’s face.

How very human, and fallible, and even petty at times he comes across in the account that has passed down to us.

He was not a perfect man. HE WAS A GREAT MAN, a giant of a man, make no mistake about that, but he was NOT a perfect man. He could be petulant, he could be stubborn, he could be irascible, he could be cuttingly sarcastic.... he was a mood, brooding kind of personality, ultra-sensitive, and agonizingly introspective..... ALL OF THAT IS TRUE, all of it is reflected in his writing.

AND YET....and yet, you still have to come back to it. HE ALWAYS KNEW WHO HE WAS. And what’s more, HE KNEW WHOSE HE WAS, to Whom in the final analysis he belonged. That’s why God was able to use him so mightily.

Whatever his inadequacies, whatever problems he may have had, he didn’t have an identity problem.

And I think I know why. It comes through in this passage which is our reading for today. As I read it and studied it.... trying to let it speak to me, trying to commune with Jeremiah across the centuries, I realized how his sense of identity came out of his relationship with God. It started way back there at the time of his call, and was molded through years of continuing encounter.

It’s all right here.  It gave him a rootedness, a stability.... It gave him a compass, a means of keeping his balance in a world that often seemed topsy-turvy. It gave him something I’d sure like to have more of in my life, and I suspect you would, too.

Listen to Jeremiah’s distilled recounting of his call as a young man. Looking back on that early moment from the vintage point of time and reflection, he remembers....and draws his strength--“Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you...and before you were born, I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.’”

GOD SPEAKING....FIRST PERSON, PAST TENSE! I knew you,I consecrated you, I appointed you. THAT’S HOW HE KNEW WHO HE WAS. That’s the grammar of Jeremiah’s identity. Let’s examine it for what I can say about ours.

1) First, I knew you.  Jeremiah is looking at his life from the perspective of as high above it as he can stand.... He’s looking back on it, on tip-toe, stretching, transcending himself and recognizing that as far back as he can see, and BEYOND, he held firmly in the knowledge of God. “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you” he hears God say.... YOU’VE NEVER BEEN OUT OF MY MIND,  or out of my care.

Now that’s where it starts, that’s the bedrock of the recovery of identity, knowing that God knows you. You know who you are when you know God knows who you are. Baptism points to it. Indeed, baptism, liturgically, is the chief sign of it. I’m glad we’re having a baptism this morning. We’re going to baptize little Mallory Nebel next service. Now do you want to know the truth? She, herself, is not going to get much out of it. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth. She probably won’t even enjoy it very much.

She’ll be dressed up in fancy, uncomfortable clothes.... she’ll have to wear shoes. Then she’ll be dragged up here probably from a nap, and she’ll have to be held in the arms of a total stranger,  who is wearing a funny smelling Aqua Velva on his face, and a peculiar aroma of deodorant under that scratchy robe....

He doesn’t possess nearly the smoothness of handling technique her mother has, or even her father, though I will say that he’s now recovering some of the skill of yesteryear.

She’ll have her little bonnet taken off of her head and some cold water splashed over it. She’s not going to derive much enjoyment from that. She’ll neither understand nor appreciate it. She’d much rather be home gurgling and cooing in the comfort and familiarity of her cradle.

But the significance of Baptism is not dependent on the feelings or understanding of the recipient, not even when the baptized is older, and especially in the case of an infant.

Do you realize? The baby isn’t even the star of the show when a baptism is performed.

He or she is pretty special as far as mama and papa, and grandma and grandpa are concerned, but theologically, the chief actor in baptism is not the baby at all, nor the parents, nor the grandparents. GOD IS THE CHIEF ACTOR WHEN THE SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM IS ENACTED.

When we baptize, we are visually re-enacting the Gospel. We are expressing the Church’s

faith that God has already done something to claim this precious life for Himself.

“While we were yet helpless, Christ died for us....” Paul put it in Romans...as helpless as

a baby. Before we had any awareness of it, God had already claimed us. Just as little

Mallory is loved, and accepted, and claimed as part of the family before she has any understanding of what these experiences are all about---she’ll come to know them, in time---so we profess our faith that God’s love and acceptance and claim on us far precedes our consciousness of them.

When we baptize we are claiming a child for God, incorporating that child into God’s family, and it’s that claim on the child’s life which molds the child’s identity. He or she may not know it yet, but from henceforth, that child is God’s child.

Do you know who you are...who you really are? Jeremiah knew. “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.” You’ve always been special to me. You belong to me. WHAT A DIFFERENCE IT MAKES WHEN THAT GRABS YOU.

Remember how it held Martin Luther to his post during the Reformation? In that turbulent 16th Century, when the Christian world seemed to be coming apart at the seams---it was like Jeremiah’s world---when all the old certainties seemed to be collapsing, on every side, and he was being hounded from pillar to post by those whose vested interests he had undermined, or the naked Gospel had undermined.... remember how he fell back for strength on.... what?

His will power? His stubbornness? His own inner resources? NO,... He fell back on his BAPTISM. “Baptizatus sum”, he said, “I have been baptized.” I belong to God. Nothing can take that away from me. I know who I am because I am HIS.  Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you...” Hold on to that when nothing else seems solid..... Hold on to it when you’re tempted to despair about whether life has any meaning, about whether your life can count for something, about whether what you do or think can make any difference.

You are important because God knows you and claims you. You are a part of His people, and a part of His plan. You have an identity in his bestowed recognition. HE KNOWS YOU, and that gives you dignity and worth.

2) Now, let’s move on. What’s more, Jeremiah hears God saying, “I consecrated you.” “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.... Before you were born, I consecrated you.”

Something more than mere acquaintance here, something deeper. I SET YOU APART AND CALLED YOU TO BE HOLY. Holy. I wish we didn’t have such a fear of that word “holy”. I wish it didn’t have some of the negative connotation's we moderns have attached to it.

I wish the use of it didn’t make us so nervous. It’s what consecrate means, literally, to make holy, to make sacred, to set apart for a holy purpose. It’s not a casual thing. If I were preaching this sermon to preachers, to ordained clergy persons, at a Pastor’s School, or a workshop, or somewhere, I’d remind them of their ordination vows at this point, the time they were “set apart” for a holy purpose...... the day God’s representative in the Church, the Bishop, through the divine prerogative vested in that office, placed his hand on their heads as they knelt at the altar and said, “In the name of Jesus Christ, take thou authority to proclaim the Word and administer the sacraments in the congregation.”

I remember that day. You think it’s a light thing when that happens to you?

WELL, IT DOES HAPPEN TO YOU WHEN YOU BECOME A PART OF THE BODY OF CHRIST. That, too, goes back to your baptism. YOUR INDUCTION IS YOUR SETTING APART, Your baptism is your consecration. Not all the members of the Body are ordained to the ministries of Word and Sacrament, but ALL, without exception, are consecrated to the life of holiness, to a lifestyle that seeks to reflect the Father’s winsome goodness.

I consecrated you. That’s who you are, who you really are. You may not have lived up to the fullness of that holy purity; you may have stumbled, maybe plenty of times, when you got off the path. You may, along the way, have effaced the beauty of the nobility that was implanted in you, but you were consecrated for something higher than your achievements. Don’t forget that YOUR IDENTITY IS TO BE FOUND IN YOUR BIRTHRIGHT....

You may have sold it for a mess of pottage, but you’ll never be what you were meant to be until you come back and claim it..... until you ask God to restore to you the purity of the original image..... BECAUSE THAT’S WHO YOU REALLY ARE.

Your worst thoughts and basest motives are usurpers. That’s not the real you. God has

set you apart to be clean and holy. Your identity is in your willingness to let him make

you that.

They tell a great story about Henrik Kraemer, a Dutch theologian, who is no longer living, but who wrote a number of influential books, including one entitled A Theology of the Laity. During the 2nd World War, while he was enduring the horrors of Nazi occupation in his native Holland, there came to his door one day a delegation from a certain Christian congregation. They came to seek his advice. We know the Nazis are arresting Jews from around our homes, they told him. Those people are our neighbors. They are taking them away and they don’t come back. They are not bothering us, yet, but what is happening is terribly disturbing to us. What should we do?

Should we stand up and protest? Would it do any good? If we did that, would it only make things worse? What would happen to us if we got involved? What is our Christian responsibility?

Dr. Kraemer replied, “I can’t tell you what to do. But I can tell you who you are. And

he read to them that passage from I Peter, which spells out the Christian understanding of identity: Do you remember it? “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you.... Once you were no people, but now you are God’s people....”THAT’S WHO YOU ARE!

I consecrated you. Hold on to that when the pressure comes to conform to a reduced standard. Hold on to that when the lower way looks so inviting, and the higher way looks so difficult. Hold on to that when the temptation to be less than you know is right for you is urging you to succumb.

You were born for something better than mediocrity, for something nobler than just getting by. YOU WERE CONSECRATED, set apart for a holy purpose, and in the admission of that is your true identity.

3) Now a 3rd word was seared into Jeremiah’s consciousness as he looked back on that

call that had come to him years before. It also formed him.

I knew you.... I consecrated you.... I appointed you. That’s the third word. It’s a good Methodist word, of course, which only goes to underscore the Bible’s orthodoxy. If the Baptists can claim John the Baptist as their own, then the Methodists can claim Jeremiah. He was appointed the First Church, Jerusalem, by the biggest Bishop of all.

But, you see, it’s the inevitable outgrowth of consecration, the logical extension. To consecrate is a call to BE, to appoint is a call to DO... they go together. Jeremiah was given a job, an assignment. He was sent to perform a task, as God’s representative at a critical time in God’s unfolding plan. I appointed you. Jeremiah found his identity in being faithful to the stipulations of his assignment.

Do you know who the most joyous people I know are, the most fulfilled people, the people with the strongest sense of unforced identity? THEY’RE THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE SUBMERGED THEMSELVES IN SOME UNDERTAKING, some assignment, some appointment that’s bigger than they are, and draws out of them, calls out of them even more than they think they have. It’s a paradox, I suppose, but it’s the way life is. The more you lose yourself, the greater sense of self remains. The more you don’t worry about it, the more you know who you are.

Ida Scudder would be a classic example of it. Do you know her story, a part of 20th Century missionary lore.

Ida Scudder was the young, single daughter of a medical missionary, serving in India during the early part of this century. She was, by her own admission, pretty, flighty, and not overly given to sacrificial causes.

One night, when she was alone in the house, her father being out on a call, there came a knock on the door. She answered it and there stood a well-dressed, high caste Hindu man with a beseeching look on his face. “You must come at once”, he said to her. “My wife is in the midst of delivering our baby. There are complications. She needs attention badly. You must come and help.”

Ida Scudder said, “I’m not a doctor. My father is the doctor. He’ll be back soon. I’ll send him as soon as he gets home.” The Hindu said, “No man will ever look upon my wife. It would be wrong. You are a woman. You must come.”

Ida Scudder said, “I can’t. I wouldn’t know what to do. I can’t help you.” The man turned away, and went out into the night. Ida Scudder trembled.

A short time later another knock came. This time the caller was a member of the Sikh

faith, and to her astonishment he made the same plea. “My wife is delivering NOW. She

is having trouble. She will die without medical attention. The nearest hospital is miles

away and there are only male doctors there. Please come.”

Again Ida Scudder protested. “I can’t do anything. I’m not trained. Please let me tell my father when he comes back. He’ll be able to help.” The man shook his head and departed.  Ida Scudder began to sweat. It happened a third time. Impossible coincidence, but it did. 3 times the same story in one night. 3 cases of childbirth complications where for religious reasons the presence of a male doctor could not be tolerated.

Ida Scudder got no sleep that night, and when in the morning she heard the village bells

tolling, signaling the death in the night of 3 persons, she knew what she had to do.

She returned to the United States and pursued a medical degree, almost unheard of in that early day, and then she went back to India to practice obstetrics. She was the founder of the Women’s Hospital at Vellore, India, which is still in operation today.

Looking back on her life near the end of it, even as Jeremiah did when he put down the

record of his call, Ida Scudder reflected, “To me the important thing is to find what God

wants you to do with your life, and then do it with all your might.”

She had discovered through the giving of herself in a big task who she really was.

I appointed you.  Hold on to that when your task gets tough, and the hours get long, and the cheering stops, and the returns don’t seem to validate the investment. When God hands out assignments, he doesn’t accompany them with a guarantee of ease.... not even with a guarantee of success---that’s His department----

But to those who persevere, who stick it out faithfully, who stay at the job, as Jeremiah and Ida Scudder did, and countless others have done, from his day to ours, there is the sustenance of the conviction that you are where you are supposed to be, a sustenance which will feed you, even if the rest of the cupboard is bare. Identity comes out of that. You know who you are because you believe in what you’re doing.

YOU WERE APPOINTED...and in the faithful execution of your assignment is your peace.

I knew you, I consecrated you, I appointed you...the grammar of Jeremiah’s identity....and OURS. Oh... and one more thing.  Is it too big a challenge, too big an assignment, too big a responsibility this calling God lays on us? It IS awfully big. Maybe the word awesome is not appropriate. Jeremiah thought so too at first.

But then he remembered the NEXT word God spoke to him.

I knew you, I consecrated you, I appointed you.... heavy stuff. But Jeremiah, or whatever your name is, “Don’t be afraid, for I am with you to deliver you.” I AM WITH YOU. When you know  Who is with you, you know who you are.

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[1]Self-Improvement class