Soul: Finding Identity by W. Rian Adams
Lectionary Reading: John 15:9-17, Sixth Sunday After Easter, Year B.
Soul identity is confusing. It’s also often faked in light of a desired persona. Listen carefully to this week’s lectionary Gospel and you will hear a call to find the soul’s true identity in God. It is often the challenge of true spirituality to find the true self as rooted in the compassionate Christ. Jesus confronted this in the Pharisees and warned his disciples of the dangers of the false self.
The Gospel:
Jesus said to his disciples, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”
Jung on Soul Identity
I am reminded of what the great Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Jung, once said about identity. He suggested that “we cannot change ourselves until we accept ourselves. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.” When there is a refusal to see ourselves (and others) through God’s eyes of compassion, we oppress our soul’s identity. Oppression has been a theological buzz word for a few decades. Normally we use it in conjunction to liberation theology and we apply it as a stance toward the poor. However, I wonder what happens when we apply the theological idea to a personal spirituality rooted in self-compassion…
After all, good spirituality finds its root in identity.
It’s easy to identify with personal belongings, or the desire to attain them. I’ve heard, and probably preached, many sermons that reminded people not to become possessed by possessions. Sure, that’s a great starting point. The problem is we’ve heard it so much that it no longer resonates.
I suggest a different approach. I think it is helpful to hear the words of Jesus, abide in me as I abide in God, in light of our identity in God. His words are a call to accept our relationship with the divine.
But it doesn’t stop there. We are not simply connected to God but we are identified with God.
The English Christian mystic, Julian of Norwich, said “We are not simply from God, but we are part of God.” Julian knew that we are intimately intertwined with the divine. We know we are in and of God when the person of Christ comes out in action. Mercy and compassion were his hallmarks. The soul’s identity is the compassion of Christ. Not sacrifice, not condemnation, but mercy.
One of my favorite quotes is by John Sanford who said, “If we judge others, it is because we are judging something in ourselves of which we are unaware.”
-Rian
Lectionary Gospel: John 10:11-18
Fourth Sunday after Easter, Year B
Mercy
By W. Rian Adams
I’ve always found “Good Shepherd Sunday” a bit forced. In my experience the church uses this Sunday to show, prove even, that we are in the hands of a good God. A God who will take care of us. The message is, we are the sheep in the Christian fold and Jesus is the good shepherd. While this message is heartwarming and filled with nostalgia, it seems to overlook a small portion of the passage, the “other sheep.” It piques my curiosity. I wonder if the other sheep are, in fact, sheep because of mercy.
Traditionally the church has taught that there is one way to God. Of course, the way is through the church. The church has taught that receiving its sacraments, praying it’s prayers, or giving one’s heart to God was the means of salvation. That is how one gets into fold. The church says that the sheep fold is surrounded by precise boundaries. On one hand we have those who are “in” and on the other hand those who are “out.” This division is unfortunate.
This past week I saw a video of the Bishop of Rome embracing a young boy who suffered through the pain of his father’s death. The boy, perhaps four or five, asked the pope if his father went to heaven even though he didn’t believe in God.
Pope Francis continues to amaze me as a pastoral theologian and spiritual teacher. The boy’s father baptized all his children. The pope said this was an act of faith and should tell the boy what kind of man his father was. He went on, while the boy cried, to embrace him and tell him that it takes more faith to baptize when you don’t believe than when you do. He told the boy that his father was with God.
You can watch the video here:
Understandably traditionalists were upset because the pope didn’t hold a hard line on church doctrine. One person said, “He let the man off the hook.” One woman commented that the pope is a “heretic who used a child to promote the destruction of the church.” However, I see the pastoral exchange differently.
The pope highlights a theme that is great among the spiritual and mystical… mercy.
I’d like to use my imagination and apply the passage, not to myself, but to my treatment of others.
I do not think the passage is just a simple story about God loving us, the in-crowd.
Such a reading insults the complexity of the relationship of the shepherd and sheep of other pastures. I hear this passage as a call to be the shepherd, the Christ, to the world. If we want to follow Christ we begin by following his example and, like the pope, focusing on God’s mercy. The “other sheep” – the ones who do not met our standards of behavior and belief – need mercy too. They need someone to show compassion when they disappoint us. Jesus never ostracized a sheep, quite the contrary, he left the ninety-nine to find one. May his mercy be my guide.
If you would like to read more of my lectionary blog each week, it can be found here.