9/1/19 “Gospel Defining Identity” by Nancy Petty
Luke 14:1, 7-14
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
I am an American. I am a woman. I am a pastor. I am a former athlete. I am a mother. I am a wife. I am white. I am a Southerner. I am a Baptist. I am upper middle class. I am a social justice activist. I am a daughter. I am a sister. I am a liberal Baptist lesbian pastor serving a Baptist church in the South that is known historically for its social justice activism.
How do you identity yourself? And, what is the most important part of your identity? Is it your sex, your race or ethnicity, your sexual orientation, your class status, your nationality, your religious or political affiliation, your age, your physical or cognitive abilities, your educational credentials? Is there one part of your identity that stands out from the rest, or does your identity change depending on who you’re with, what you’re involved in, where you are in your life?
It is not unusual in our culture today to hear a speech begin, “As a white, straight, cisgender male…” Or, as I recently heard a young girl say on a news program, “I am a Latinx teenage girl from South Los Angeles.” I remember the first time I heard someone name their identity in this way. I was in seminary and was listening to Carter Heyward, an Episcopal priest give a speech. She began: “I am a white, southern, Christian lesbian.” Now if you don’t think that will wake up a first year seminary student who herself is secretly trying to understand her own identity as a “white, southern, Christian lesbian” while attending a Southern Baptist Seminary in the mid to late 1980’s well, let me just describe that moment to you this way: the heavens opened up, a white dove descended as the angels sang, and I heard the voice of God. (Have the choir sing a line of the Hallelujah chorus.)
The word identity is showing up more and more in our cultural lexicon. We hear a lot today about identity politics, a political approach and analysis based on people prioritizing the concerns most relevant to their particular racial, religious, ethnic, sexual, social, cultural or other identity, and forming exclusive political alliances with others of this group. It may seem like this is a new phenomena but its not. Identity politics has been around for some time; but with our nation’s last presidential election it gained renewed attention giving rise to identity politics of white nationalism. But this sermon is not to debate identity politics or white nationalism. I simply speak of it as an example of how our culture is experiencing and wrestling with questions of identity.
Another example that is quite new for our culture is the practice of identifying which pronoun one wishes to be identified with. Maybe you have noticed when receiving an email from a millennial (or a hipster baby boomer), under their name it will read: “Preferred pronouns: he, him, his; or she, her, hers; or they, them, theirs.” As we have learned more and more about gender identity as a society, our awareness of non-binary identities has grown. While this may be new for our American culture, for many cultures this is not new. Non-binary identities have been recognized for millennia by cultures and societies around the world. But here in this country, we have been slow to recognize non-binary identities. But that is changing. As our nation has taken significant strides to be more inclusive of non-binary persons and relationships, we have opened up space and acceptance for the recognition of other gender identities.
Why is this important? Because asking and correctly using someone’s pronouns is one of the most basic ways to show your respect for how they identify themselves. No matter your gender identity, gender can be very important to someone’s sense of self. To incorrectly gender someone can cause the person to feel disrespected and alienated. If you have ever experienced being labeled with a gender you don’t identify with you know how confusing and upsetting it can be. To have others correctly address you by the gender pronouns you identify with is not just a fad of a new generation – it is an act of deep respect and of recognizing a person’s self worth. It is an affirmation of how they understand being created in the image of a non-binary God. Yes, that’s right. God is neither male nor female. God is non-binary. But this sermon is not about God’s gender.
How we speak of our identity and how we identify greatly shapes with whom we identify. And with whom we identify greatly shapes how we see this world. And how we see the world greatly shapes what we do and how we live in this world. And what we do in this world and how we live in this world greatly shapes how we live out our faith as people of faith. And so now, I move the identity conversation from sociology and psychology to what I am calling: gospel defining identity. And that IS what this sermon is about: Gospel Defining Identity.
At the heart of Luke chapter 14 is this question of identity: how and with whom one identifies. Luke tells the story about a great dinner banquet. He records a story of Jesus giving instructions to the guests who had been invited to this dinner party. He says to the guests: if Governor Cooper personally invites you to the mansion for dinner, when you get to the mansion don’t start looking for your name card to be at the table with the governor. Cause if you do that you might just embarrass yourself. Because it might be that the Mayor also got invited. And Mark Nance got invited and their seats are at the table with the governor in the main dining room. No, when you get to the mansion assume your seat is in the small room next to the great dining hall where the overflow guests and mansion workers are seated. Look for your name card to be among theirs. And then if the governor wants to sit next to you, he will come find you and move you to his table. Some would say that the story of the great dinner party is a lesson in humility. I say it is a lesson on identity. Do you identify with the people at the head table or sitting at the tables on the front row? Or do you identify with those who are serving your table?
But Jesus doesn’t stop there. He also has some words for Governor Cooper. He tells the governor: when your throw one of your shindigs at the mansion, don’t just invite the Mayor and Mark Nance and all those good folks who voted for you. No, invite the city workers who pick up your trash every week and the day laborer who is painting the mansion you live in and janitor who cleans your office every night and the mother who is working two jobs to provide for her children and the man who is suffering from a workplace injury but doesn’t have health insurance or the trans woman who just lost her job because the law doesn’t protect her rights. Identify with these folks, governor, because they are the ones who need you to shape policy on their behalf.
Identity—how we identify greatly shapes with whom we identify. And with whom we identify greatly shapes how we see the world. And how we see the world greatly shapes what we do and how we live in this world. And what we do in this world and how we live in this world greatly shapes how we live out our faith as people of faith. Do you identify with the people at the head table or the people in the overflow room? Do you identify with the people who hold places of privilege like you do or with the people who are counting on you to use your privilege to lift them up and fight for their rights? Identity—how you identify yourself and with whom you identify is at the heart of Jesus parable of the great dinner party.
The writer of Hebrews is even more direct in speaking to how, as people of faith, we are to address the question of identity: Hebrews 13:2 says, “Remember those who are in prison, as though you are in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured.” In other words, put yourself in the place of those who are oppressed, marginalized, victims, misfits, those who have made mistakes, those who need mercy and kindness and compassion. Identify with them. Walk the preverbal mile in their shoes. Gospel defining identity ask us to share in the identity of those who are sick and hungry and imprisoned and falsely accused and treated differently because of their ethnicity or religion or gender or class. This, I believe is what the writer of Hebrews means when the text says: “let mutual love continue.” This is what it means when the text says to “show hospitality to strangers for in doing so some have entertained angels.” This is what it means to ground one’s identity in life and teachings of the famous misfit from Nazareth. Put yourself in the place of the Latinx teenage girl from Los Angeles. Put yourself in the place of the father who has risked his life and his children’s life to cross a border to get to safety. Put yourself in the place of the older widowed man who eats most of his meals alone. Put yourself in the place of the recovering addict who has relapsed for the third time but is back at their AA meeting starting over again. Put yourself in the place of the young black minister serving in a predominately white congregation.
The only way mutual love can continue is if we summon the courage to live a gospel defining identity. What do I mean by that? Instead of my primary narrative being: I am an American. I am a woman. I am white. I am a Southerner. I am a pastor. I am a lesbian. My primary narrative shifts to: I am that mother standing at the border looking for a better life for my daughter. I am that father working two jobs to provide for my family. I am that family living out of their car because the primary bread winner of the family got sick and lost their job making $60k a year and the bank foreclosed on their home. I am the parent with a differently labeled child who is not getting the resources needed to keep up at school. I am the person whose job doesn’t provide healthcare coverage and on minimum wage I can’t afford healthcare. I am the migrant working on a farm in Johnston County far away from my family so that I can send money to my family living on 50 cents a day in Mexico.
Gospel defining identity says: I am compassion—compassion for the most vulnerable. I am kindness—kindness for those marginalized in our society. I am acceptance—acceptance of those who are excluded. I am mercy–mercy for those needing forgiveness. I am God’s love—love for those who society has deemed unlovable.
How we identify greatly shapes with whom we identify. And with whom we identify greatly shapes how we see this world. And how we see the world greatly shapes what we do and how we live in this world. And what we do in this world and how we live in this world greatly shapes how we live out our faith, as people of faith. So I ask: How do you identify yourself? And how does Pullen Church identify itself?
