Musings on the Daily Lectionary - Identity

In today's reading from Exodus, Moses commands the people of Israel to remember. "Remember this day on which you came out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." Israel can not be who she is called to be without remembering. Her own identity is caught up in this remembering. When Israel forgets that her very existence is a gift from God, that is the beginning of an identity shift. Israel will begin to become something other than God called her to be.

Identity and remembering are closely related. When married couples forget how their spouse used to make them feel, when they forget the sacrifices the other has made, and when they forget the promises made to each other, they can begin to lose their identity, to live as though they were not husband and wife.

In today's gospel, Jesus commissions the disciples and the Church saying, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you." But this task requires a great deal of remembering. "Teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you" requires us to remember. And here, remembering includes doing.

I think a good argument can be made that some of the Church's difficulties in our day are the result of a loss of identity, an identity crisis brought on by failing to remember. Very often we in congregations "believe" in Jesus but obey very little that he commands us. We have forgotten all that nonsense about taking up the cross, about giving ourselves totally to God, about our neighbors' needs - even neighbors who are from other cultures and countries - being every bit as important as our own. We've forgotten more than we remember, and so our identity has become so compromised that we are virtually indistinguishable from the culture.

One of the great medical tragedies of our time is Alzheimer's disease. A big part of its horror is the slow forgetting that accompanies it, the slow loss of a loved one who gradually forgets who he or she is. Sometimes we in the Church look a bit like someone in the early stages of Alzheimer's. We continue with some of the same routines, but increasingly their meaning is lost as we forget who we are.

But in the Church's case, this is not irreversible. Our identity can be recovered if we are willing to do the work of reclaiming it, of remembering who it is Jesus calls us to be.

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