Who am I? That’s a question all of us ask throughout out lives. It is a fundamental question, is it not?  It’s right up there with Who are you? and Who are we? It is a question that also goes hand-in-hand with, Are we alone in the cosmos?

If Shakespeare was right and all the world is a stage, then how those questions get answered depends on what role you happen to be playing at any given moment, any given day or week or month or year.  So what is your job?  You are likely to answer who you are by what you do.  What is your family configuration?  You are likely to answer the identity questions by reference to your place in your family. When do you play the role of the child and when do you play the role of worker?  There are many other roles of course and this is part of the complexity and fluidity of the human personality:  we are able to play any number of roles on stage.  What is crucial, it seems to me, is that the person who is sane, mature and comfortable in their own skin is that person who is able to direct those roles and provide a narrative that not only differentiates them but perhaps keeps them in their proper perspective.  If all the world is a stage then maybe each of us is a Director.

I’m blogging about this today because it’s the day after our worship experience on Sunday and I was reflecting on how wonderful it was to be together.  I was pondering the various and bright personalities that populate our community of faith. And I thought of something rather simple. Maybe it’s profound (though not original to me).  Those questions of identity and the questions about whether or not we are alone and where God is in all of this stand a better chance of being answered in a worshipping community than nearly anywhere else.  That is, when we step inside the sanctuary and pray together, hear scripture read, sing together and hear the Word of God proclaimed, we are no longer just this or that role. No, we are transformed by our collectivity before God. We are changed into the People of God and suddenly, we are the Hebrews standing at Mt. Sinai before the quaking epiphany of God; we are the crowds on the hills of Galilee listening to the Son of Man from Nazareth as he teaches us; we are the twelve disciples in the upper room passing the bread and cup to one another and to the Lord.  As you—as we—struggle to make sense of our lives and our journeys, consider this profound truth:  every week you have the chance to enter the stage door onto the stage of salvation history that has been written since Abraham and Sarah and continues to be written today.  You get to ask your questions within the sacred context of the worshipping community.

It is no wonder to me then that for many of us, we leave church on Sunday feeling different, feeling a little more put together, filled with a surge of hope and strength because within the time frame of a worship experience, we broke through into the eternities and discovered ourselves to be in communion with God and each other.  And that communion of selves transforms my self.  You are a child of God. You are part of a greater WE, the People of God.  You are not alone.

See you Sunday.

~Pstr

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