This is the text of a short piece entitled 'Identity and Incarnation' written for magazine called Focus which is circulated within our diocese.
Who am I? I am Julie.
We all have a name by which we are registered; some of us change it later on. That name may differ from the name by which we are known - Ju or Jules. There’s an intimacy to our name. It roots us in relationships as a friend, sibling, spouse, colleague and citizen.
Our identity is tracked in ultrasound scans and birth certificates and medical records; electoral rolls, tax returns and driving licenses; our passport, bills and membership cards verify who we are.
This paper trail and our digital footprint acts as a web of ‘identifiers’: necessary to prevent ‘identity theft’; a means of contributing to the safety of others. In death, our identity is carefully marked out, in an electronic age, in pen and ink.
Identity is more than documents and records. Our identity is also reflected in our appearance; our ethnicity, local culture, class and religion; our tastes in food, music, dress; our personality traits and our accent.
We express our identity in a rich variety of ways; we create a first impression and (whether we know it or not) make an impact on others. Who am I? A question answered in names, relationships, appearances; the memories we treasure and the stories we tell. We know that identity - yours, mine, ours - is composed of certain biological traits; but we are more than that.
This reality was expressed with profound assurance in a statement made by Archbishop Justin when responding to very public revelations about his paternity. He said: I know that I find who I am in Jesus Christ, not in genetics, and my identity in him never changes.
Who Jesus is has an impact on our identity: on our self-understanding and on our sense of kinship; on dignity in the face of our vulnerability and hope in the face of mortality. Why? Because in him, God is with us: with us in birth and speechless dependency; with us in grief and celebration, in feasting and sickness.
His teaching is challenging; his actions restorative. Possessions, biology, gender and authority aren’t the ultimate markers of identity. Samaritans, tax collectors, foreigners, children; the unwell, the ostracised, the powerful and the curious… and we ourselves are given new dignity as children of God. Ultimately, God is with us in betrayal, agony, isolation and death. By being with in human weakness and the depths of alienation, Jesus reveals that nothing can separate us from the love of God.
Through the mystery of Word made flesh, we become children of God. In baptism, we participate in his death and resurrection. We are in Christ. Our self-understanding shifts as we see ourselves as God does - ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven. Our sense of kinship is expanded too. No longer limited to ties of ‘our family’ we share a spiritual kinship with brothers and sisters who are not at all like us in terms of outward makers of ‘identity’.
The assurance this brings is a stability: at our most vulnerable and when we let go of life. As John Swinton writes with eloquent wisdom in his book Dementia, we are held in the memories of God. That memory is also our hope of life that really is life: full, abundant, transfigured and everlasting.
In the power of the Spirit we are to witness to this hope that is within us: that God was in Christ reconciling us. That means that our ‘identity’ is an ethic or pattern of life nor an exclusive tribal marker.
Who am I? In Christ, I am Julie.
© Julie Gittoes 2016
