who am i? the 16th sunday after pentecost a.d.2008

yesterday's propers were an embarassment of riches: moses and the burning bush, wonderful exhortation to a loving life from paul, and jesus' rebuke of peter, whom he had just called a rock on which the church would be built, but whom he now reminds, as he reminds us, that disciples of christ must deny themsselves and take their our cross and follow him. the temptation to the preacher, and also to the blogger, is to try to exhaust these readings in one year. at least one reading a blog can stop to argue or consider.

lately i have heard a lot of sermons talking about moses as a murderer, a wanted man, who has fled egypt to escape prosecution. but i suspect it was not a crisis for moses because he has killed a man that led him to flea to midian. if indeed he had been raised as the pharoah's grandson, such a crime could probably be overlooked. if he were found out to be a hebrew, however, the situation would be very different.

it is in the context of self-identity that i find these readings so challenging, especially coming as they do after jesus' question last week of "who do people say that the son of man is?" we are only able to know who we are if we first recognize who jesus is. moses had been able to identify with the empire, with the people in power. now he recognizes that his true identity lies with those who are enslaved, with those whose labor had provided the wealth he enjoyed.

often when we speak of "our cross," we think of abusive husbands or sick relatives. these are, i find,very different situations from what jesus must mean when he says "if any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." jesus, by taking up the cross, took on the suffering of the world. and it seems we are called to do no less. we must deny ourselves. we are not called to send a check to the suffering from time to time, but to join them. our identity as followers of christ jesus does not derive from those who claim power and glory, whether they call themselves pharoah or king or president. rather our identity is given us in baptism by the true king of glory, about whom we many of us each friday pray this collect:

"almighty god, whose most dear son went not up to joy but
first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he
was crucified: mercifully grant that we, walking in the way
of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and
peace; through jesus christ our lord. amen."

let us not forget who, and whose, we truly are.