Identity

 

Sunday 26^th February 2023

 

Introduction

 

Hello and welcome to the Open Space podcast: I’m Reg Bartlett and in the chair today. You can contact Open Space Scotland

 

It’s all around us, ‘The Identity Question’ Who do we say we really are. Scots or British perhaps Trans British, Male or Trans Male or Female or Trans Female, Non-Binary, the possibilities seem never ending. To miss a defining characteristic out runs the danger of being labelled oppressive, discriminatory and as silencing that identity.

 

Lots of research work has and is being done on this subject; we can see this in the online document from the Scottish Government regarding question creation for the Scottish Census Survey. There are some fascinating discussions at the moment on the questions surrounding identity. These are not simple or straightforward. 

 

I have to say right at the outset of this podcast that as far as I can see the teaching and practice of Jesus of Nazareth, situated in the 1^st century is clear to me. Jesus was and is inclusive. I mean radically inclusive. He broke lots of identity taboos of His time to reach out to people. People were ‘People First’ fully human and deserving of the same respect no matter how they personally identified. According to Jesus people had a need and a right to live like and with other folks who may proclaim different personal identities as citizens. Jesus taught and practiced that human need was both personal and social. One area of life did not ‘trump’ the other; acceptance of difference, choice and ‘peaceable disagreement’ were practiced as a way of living together in a valued, developmental and progressive way.

 

Now there are different interpretations to this inclusive and diversity valuing interpretation of Jesus life. The life, words and practices of Jesus have been used as a reason to create discrimination; some argue that Jesus teaches and practices that there are a ‘chosen saved elite’ and a rejected ‘created damned’; They have a Heaven and Hell view of the gospel. But I don’t get that at all from the Jesus of the Nazareth found in the New Testament.  Jesus seems to teach a Heaven and Earth story.  You see, words are slippery, elusive, ambiguous stuff. In the end they mean nothing. That’s right, words mean nothing! It is people, writers and readers who mean something. People bring meaning to words. Our physical, social, psychological and environmental worlds interacting with that of others. We create new experiences and interpretations in this never ending (that’s how it feels) dynamic of life. Language, writing, ideas are communicated through symbols; we them call words. Agreement between us is possible, peace and understanding is possible, growth and development is possible but it takes the recognition, acceptance and valuing that diversity and complexity is needed and is a valuable and good thing.  As Paul, the often maligned writer regarding  identity wrote in   2 Corinthians 3: 8 … ⁸ And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. 

 

The ‘Trans(ition) State’ seems to be a process we are all in? At least according to Paul.

So the question for us is; ‘Are those of us who are in a state of transition from identity to another given a voice by Jesus?’ 

 

John 4

Now when Jesus^[a] learned that the Pharisees had heard, ‘Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John’— ² although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— ³ he left Judea and started back to Galilee. ⁴ But he had to go through Samaria. ⁵ So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

⁷ A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. ⁸ (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) ⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)^[b] 10 Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ ¹¹ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? ¹² Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ ¹³ Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ ¹⁵ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’

¹⁶ Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’ ¹⁷ The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; ¹⁸ for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’ ¹⁹ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you^[c] say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ ²¹ Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²² You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. ²⁴ God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ ²⁵ The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ ²⁶ Jesus said to her, ‘I am he,^[d] the one who is speaking to you.’

²⁷ Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’ ²⁸ Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ²⁹ ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah,^[e] can he?’ ³⁰ They left the city and were on their way to him.

³¹ Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, eat something.’ ³² But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ ³³ So the disciples said to one another, ‘Surely no one has brought him something to eat?’ ³⁴ Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. ³⁵ Do you not say, “Four months more, then comes the harvest”? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. ³⁶ The reaper is already receiving^[f] wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. ³⁷ For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.” ³⁸ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.’

³⁹ Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’ ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. ⁴¹ And many more believed because of his word. ⁴² They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.’

 

The controversy around Jesus continues. People being baptised, coming out if you like. I like that, Baptism is a coming out statement. It causes some folks a great deal of anxiety. In publicly stating that our world is challenged and changing, other people will get anxious regarding the implication for their worlds. Sometimes we must move on to take the threat out of a crisis moment for some. Jesus moves on in the story but he does not move back. He is not on the run. He simply moves to a place that is equally controversial and finds himself through a basic human need in another ‘Transition Moment’.  Jesus is thirsty, he asks for a drink from a women at a well in an avoided neighbourhood, at least avoided by some;  but not Jesus. 

 

Wells, water, thirst, have a ‘well-established’ imagery in the scriptures…. Look some up. You know how to do it? If not email for a copy of some online recourses to help.  John the writer here gives us a starter for 10. We are at Jackob’s well, on a piece of land given by Jackob to Joseph. These are big characters in the Hebrew scriptures. John is asking us to get familiar with them and use them as starting point to understand what’s going on. John sets the scene for a reason but so we do not get confused he also explains. Some believe that being thirsty is not a good enough reason to ask someone from a different gender, social status and cultural background for a drink. They are who they are, and we are who we are. No crossing boundaries, no transitioning into who we know we really are. That’s not a possibility. Unless your Jesus. 

 

Here goes the taboos again! Jesus and the woman are both human beings, one in a state of need and one in a state of plenty.  Or so it seems, one thirsty, one has got a well and a water bucket. But as the story unfolds we discover that both are thirsty in one way or another and both have a plenteous supply of what the other really needs. 

 

The implications of the story are huge then and now. We don’t need to be in a state of poverty amid plenty. We can give what we can and receive what we need. This is the ‘Spirt and Truth’ of it. Identity is not fixed but in state of flux. We are in a state of becoming and it starts by just being. Just being who we really are; just come as you are. The effect of transitioning affects the whole community when we come as we are. When we come as we are we all change to who we are meant to be. 

 

We can be like some of the disciples and get very anxious about challenging taboo subjects and coming out as a people for whom there are no untouchables. There are no fixed identities but rather, in the flux of life, we are constantly being challenged to care and to share the wealth of good world. We are challenged to receive gifts of community and love from the hands of those we once were taught were untouchable. 

 

Jesus has crossed the social and psychological divide. This is the radical care of meeting people where they are, listening to them and empowering them to be who they really are, fully human, valued and loved by us by supporting them to become the people they have been created to be. Jesus gives the silenced a voice.  Being and becoming may not be binary opposites after all. They, in fact, are non-binary. They are one and more than one thing, both at the same time. A bit like Jesus, human and yet something more. Jesus is becoming, transitioning to something more. At least he was for the women at the well and some of her community and he is for me; anybody know where I can get a drink, I’m thirsty? 

 

Until next time, may Jesus words become for you living water; Jesus spoke these words regarding identity formation…

 

So…. “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; ³⁰ you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” ³¹ The second is this, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.’ 

 

 

May these two commandments made up of our shared humanity; our physical, social and psychological values become one in our community…. Amen