Sunday 10th January 2021, Baptism of Christ
Today during Epiphany, we celebrate the Baptism of Christ.
Over the last few years, I’ve been slowly reflecting about a very significant theme in of our time – the question of identity.
Who are we?
Following Descartes, we used to say, I think therefore I am. A rather cerebral way of putting things. And one that’s been massively influential.
However, that has changed to: I shop therefore I am. So, are we what we consume? The things we own? Is our value based on that?
Or, are we who other people say we are? Are we what we look like? Depending on our colour, style of dress, our carefully crafted image that we project onto social media platforms to as to gain as many likes as possible. This can now be monetised - the more likes you get, the more money rolls in.
In terms of gender identity, are we defined as who were are at birth? Friends of ours are pregnant, and when asked whether the baby was going to be a boy or a girl, they responded, ‘We’re going to let them make their own decision about that’.
Judging by the rows on Twitter and elsewhere, gender discussions can get incredibly vicious. In fact, there seems to be very little discussion, very little listening, but a lot of shouting at each other.
What about racial identity? The author Afua Hirsch describes her experience in her book, Brit(ish): On race, identity and belonging.
She has a black Ghanaian mother and a white British father – she says, ‘You’re British, your parents a British, your partner, your children and most of your friends are British. So why do people keep asking where you’re from. At Oxford, University she was a self-consciously alien presence, irritated by porters who insisted she show her ID as she entered its colleges, while her white student friends weren’t stopped.
After uni, she goes to live (she thought forevermore) in Senegal, to reclaim her African identity. It was there that she realised just how British she was, returning ‘home’ after two years. She quotes Maya Angelou: ‘The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.’
So, in short, identity includes a heady mix of colour, gender, religious and socio-economic factors, class, sexuality. And much more. It raises fascinating yet complex issues.
I wonder whether part of our current struggle with the question of identity is that ours are rather fragile. In our post-modern world, there is a suspicion of any overarching narrative, a suspicion of belonging to something larger than the individual and being labelled or boxed in. Yet I believe that our faith can offer profound wisdom.
On this day when we reflect upon Jesus’ baptism, it’s important to acknowledge that identity is affirmed and reaffirmed by communal rituals and an overarching story of who we are – who we are in Christ. As Christians, baptism is the beginning of our journey – a foundational stone as we build our identity as children of God.
We are baptised into Christ. When water was poured on your heads, God adopted you. We become children of God. We have been adopted by God and become members of Christ’s body and family.
The words Jesus hears at his baptism are the same words he speaks over us: ‘You are my dear child… I am pleased with you.’
This is absolutely foundational to our identity: ‘You are my dear child… I am so pleased with you. I’m so proud of you.’
And yet, whilst we personally and individually hear these words, it is also profoundly communal in nature. Becoming a ‘member’ of Christ is not like signing up to join a gym. It means a person who is joined to Someone. Like the limbs and organs of a human body, we are joined to Jesus and to each other. And so in an organic sense we are each part of Christ and one another.
To embrace Christ’s baptism story is to embrace the truth that we are united, interdependent, connected, one.
The bond God seals by water and by the Spirit is truer and deeper than all others. It makes a stronger claim on our lives and loyalties than all prior claims of race, gender, tribe, nationality, politics, preference, or affinity. As important as those identity markers are. In short, our baptism is our belonging to a community of faith. Baptism is the door through which we enter not just the faith but the whole Christian community, past, present and future.
This is where our identity is affirmed and reaffirmed day by day, week by week. Every time we attend a baptism; every time we are sprinkled with holy water; we are reminded of God’s love, grace and forgiveness. And being adopted into the body of Christ in baptism, so we continue in that journey by being united to Christ, nourish by Christ, in the eucharist. We’ll never understand this mystery, but in the bread and the wine, we feed on Christ.
In addition, our identity may be grounded through prayer, particularly contemplative prayer. This allows us to live in a more spacious affirming place, free from the projections of others; free from personal need, beyond our constantly changing opinions and feelings.
Returning to our question: who are you? Who are we amongst the multiplicity of changing identities we inhabit as we journey through life?
In a world that projects its own values and identities on to us, we need to be grounded. Our baptism affirms that, first and foremost, we are children of a loving heavenly father, loved and cherished and delighted in. We discover and reaffirm this communally. We are organically linked to the body of Christ; we are part of one another. This is our anchor, our foundation, to be affirmed, and reaffirmed, daily, weekly, as we remain and are nourished through prayer and the eucharist.
Reference:
Debie Thomas, Journey with Jesus
Afua Hirsch, Brit(ish): On race, identity and belonging