20th Sunday of Ordinary Time: Core Identity

Today’s readings—Isaiah’s prophecy, but also the interaction that Jesus had with a Canaanite woman—they speak about the idea of all God’s children, whether Jewish or Gentile, coming together and becoming unified.

In a few minutes, we’ll stand up and proclaim our Creed, which among the things we declare in it, are our belief in a Church, characterized by four descriptors: we say, “I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church”. While there is a lot to consider about what it means to be a Church that is holy, that is catholic, and that is apostolic, given today’s reading, I’m compelled to consider the notion of being one.

What that declaration—that ideal—says is that we see Jesus as what unites us. More than our secondary identities, such as being already retired or still in high school; whether I believe gender is a fluid reality or that we are concretely either male or female; whether I have skin of any particular color or ethnicity; whether I am troubled by the current presidential administration or fear the potential of his opponent being elected—Jesus is where I find my foremost sense of identity.

All this has me thinking of the cancel-culture in which we live, in which it seems that we’re almost looking for reasons to shame people or dismiss them. Maybe it’s some public figure exposed for a regrettable moment in their past, or maybe it’s just a neighbor whose views are contrary to mine. We are so quick to put labels on people, and write the off, especially when they don’t fit neatly into our order of things. The devil loves it when we become divided.

I want to suggest that we tend to get too hung up on secondary identities, whether it’s our own or those of others. I’ll give you an example—and I ask you to please hear me out, as I do so using what can be a thorny subject. There are those who self-identify as being gay. Aside from being called to love and respect these, our brothers and sisters, our faith also would say that, that attraction is not their core identity. Respectfully, we would say that they are first a beloved son or daughter of God, who happens to have attraction to the same sex, as a secondary identity, not as their core identity.

Even more, I think of all the loud and contentious responses that have been ignited by the sad and unnecessary death of George Floyd. That event brought to life a whole lot of angst that had been brewing for however long, further ignited by the effects that the Coronavirus has had on us as people and a collective society. But since then, there have been sustained tensions regarding racial equality, the role of police and government, as well as what posture to assume during the national anthem. I’m not suggesting that any of these issues are simple or trivial.

But the responses seem to have only enflamed the wounds and the divisions among the human family. As I say again and again, from all sides there needs to be a desire to be open and to understand, to hear and to be patient, if there is to be any healing and restored bonds. Right now, we’re not doing a very good job of any of that. Like many of you, I’m tired of the disconnect. I’m tired of the angst and the responses that unnecessarily sustain it and even magnify it.

Isaiah’s proclamation and Jesus’ response make it clear that despite whatever differences exist between us, or whatever way we make things challenging for each other, God’s desire for us is to be brought together in Him, and to be the core of our identity.

We get a sense of this one-ness in God when we think of the sun in the sky, serving as the one source of light, warmth and energy for all people in all different parts of our vast planet. We sense it when the monstrance is placed on the altar, its shape and visual design that convey how it radiates outward to the people, sitting in every direction. And yet all the people, regardless of whether they are close or far; in one direction or another; or any other variations among us that might be—all of us look together, and are drawn in by those rays to the center of what is held in the monstrance: Jesus himself. In that, we are drawn in to being one with him and thus in each other.

“Thus says the LORD.…my salvation is about to come, my justice, about to be revealed…all who keep the sabbath free from profanation and hold to my covenant, them I will bring to my holy mountain and make joyful in my house of prayer….for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” As we receive the Eucharist today, let us do so with a desire to overcome what divides us, to be united in our one God, who is love and the source of our being.