Knowing Who You Are
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
May 8, 2009—Baccalaureate Service
Exodus 3:1-15; Matthew 5:13-16

Exodus 3 : 1-15 ¶ Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. 3 Then Moses said, "I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up." 4 When the LORD saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am." 5 Then he said, "Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." 6 He said further, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. 7 ¶ Then the LORD said, "I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, 8 and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 9 The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. 10 So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt." 11 But Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" 12 He said, "I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain." 13 ¶ But Moses said to God, "If I come to the Israelites and say to them, "The God of your ancestors has sent me to you," and they ask me, "What is his name?" what shall I say to them?" 14 God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." He said further, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, "I AM has sent me to you."" 15 God also said to Moses, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, "The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you": ¶ This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations.

Matthew 5:13-16 "You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.
"You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven."

I. BEGINNING

There is a phenomenon in psychology known as the "impostor syndrome". It is a persistent nagging belief that all the success we've had, or all the responsibility we've been given, or the work we've been asked to do, is somehow undeserved. That is, sooner or later someone is going to realize that we're frauds. We're impostors. We're not good enough for the work we've been assigned. We're not deserving of the praise or the pay we receive.

It's a remarkably common feeling. Some of the most famous actors in Hollywood will go off to their day's shoot thinking: "They're going to discover that I'm no good at this." Somehow we've managed to fool everyone and it's only a matter of time before we are exposed for the frauds we are.

I remember having felt this way a number of times. (The ministry will do that to you often enough.) Certainly when I was in law school on the verge of graduating. I remember thinking that I was in no way competent to actually do this work. Sooner or later I'd be found out. One of the things that got me through was a sudden epiphany I'd had. I had turned twenty five and realized that I was now older than the age my parents had been when I was born. I remember thinking: wow, I'm twenty-five and I don't know anything. And then it dawned on me: I bet my parents didn't know anything either. I bet they were making it up as they went. Trusting their instincts and having to make their own choices.

That was a liberating feeling. It meant that my situation wasn't all that different from anyone else's. And while that feeling of solidarity helped me to cope with the transition from law school to the legal profession, it doesn't really address the deeper nagging feeling that we all have. That deeper feeling that somehow we're still not really ready enough. Somehow we're still not good enough.

II.  The Text

I imagine Moses was experiencing something like that in the passage from Exodus we just read. The scripture lesson from Exodus we heard read this afternoon happens to be the first scripture lesson I preached on on the first Sunday of the fall semester of 2005, when the members of the class of 2009 were freshmen. I won't check to see how many of you remember that. In fact, I won't even check to see how many of you have been regular attendees since then. I promise that in the receiving line after worship, for those of you putting on appearances for your parents, I will act like I know all of you.

We all know the story. Moses is tending sheep on Mount Horeb. There he sees a bush burning, but not being consumed by the fire and he turns aside to see.

There he hears a voice calling to him out of the fire: "Moses, Moses!" and he responds, "Here I am." The voice says, "I am the God of your Father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob," and then goes on to say that God has heard the sufferings of the people in Egypt, and has come down to deliver them out of Egypt to a good and broad land, flowing with milk and honey. And then God continues:

"So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt."
But Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?"

"Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" It is a very telling question, and one that many of us have asked. I suspect that it is a question that is looming large on the minds of our graduates this weekend. Who am I that I should go?

III.  Who Am I?

In many ways, the question "Who am I?" is the question of our college lives. For eighteen years of our lives, very well-meaning people, our parents, our teachers, our friends, pastors, counselors, all tell us who we are. They tell us what groups we belong to. What belief systems we embrace. What is important to us. And then we come off to college and we ask ourselves: "Is any of that really true? Am I the person everyone says I am. Who am I, really?"

And so begins the process of self-discovery that is college. A journey with many detours and dead ends. Lots of circuitous routes. We might be republicans our freshman year, libertarians our sophomore year, socialists our junior year, democrats our senior year. Our journeys of faith take us from being perhaps a traditionalist to an experimentalist to being a nihilist to something really bizarre like Methodist. Our very understandings of ourselves change throughout this period. We come to a fuller sense of who we are during this time.

Paradoxically, we may become less convinced that we're ready than when we first started. I've said it often: no one knows more than a college freshman--just ask one. And no one knows less than a college senior--just ask one. There has been a growing sense of wisdom, a growing humility, but also a growing uncertainty as to whether one is truly ready to head out.

"Who am I that I should go?"

IV.  Who Is God?

When Moses asks God, "Who am I?" it is interesting to note that God does not answer him. At least not directly. God does not tell Moses who he is. Instead, God says, "I will be with you." Now, if God were a witness I was examining in court, I might be tempted to object to this answer as non-responsive.

But it is not non-responsive. God answers Moses by giving Moses an identity that is bound up with God. Moses is trying to get out of this awesome duty of being liberator of his people by objecting: I'm a nobody. God responds: to the contrary, you are a somebody, a somebody that I will accompany. Moses can no longer understand his identity simply as an individual. When he saw the Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave, he understood himself as part of the Hebrew people. Now, at the Burning Bush, he understands himself as one in relationship to the God of the Hebrews.

And that elicits Moses' next question. I understand that I am in relationship with the God of my ancestors, but who exactly are you? What is your name? It's an audacious question! Imagine asking God for her ID! But that's what Moses does. Okay, if I am to understand myself in relation to you, I had better know who you are. And God gives Moses an answer with one of the greatest statements in the Bible: Ehyeh asher ehyeh, I AM WHO I AM. The Hebrew could also be translated as "I will be what I will be."

The Hebrew name of God, called the Tetragrammaton is four letters: Yod-He-Vav-He, roughly Y-H-W-H. These consonants form a Name of God so Holy that even to this day very few Jews will utter it for fear of profaning it. That name, interestingly, appears grammatically to be a verb. The third person masculine singular imperfect form of the verb that means 'to be.' In effect, God's name means "He is." At Mt. Horeb, God says, "I AM" and Israel responds "He is."

Moses now understands himself as one who is intimately related to the God who is. Moses is not alone and will not be alone. A more powerful answer to his question he could not have received.

V.  END

The God who is. The God who is present.

The college experience is one in which we discover new understandings of our selves. We ask ourselves who we are and what our names are. As part of this process, we take on many names. We may adopt all manner of labels we use to identify ourselves. We may adopt names that testify to a commitment to faith and confronted by the reality of that confession, we ask further "Who are we that we should go?" And as was Moses, so too are we answered: "I will be with you." We are not alone as we come to understand who we are. We are part of a community of those in relationship to God, to the God who was, who is, and who will always be.

In all the stages of our lives, we are not alone. We are connected to one another and connected to the God who brings us together. No misfortune, no sorrow, no pain, not even death separates us from God, who never forsakes us.

Our graduates are on the verge of heading out. This four year sojourn is at an end. A new era in their lives begins. A challenging time. A time of change. We face economic challenges. Political challenges. International threats. Environmental degradation. All manner of new problems face us. And a lot of the old problems are still here, too: war, poverty, violence, racism, famine. There's a lot going on that you're going to have to face. A lot going on for you to do.

But you are not impostors. You are not frauds. You are not about to be exposed or found out. You are the ones we've been waiting for. The ones you've been waiting for. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. Called to be a shining light to a broken world. Called to let that light shine.

It's daunting. At times it seems impossible. But no more impossible than it must have seemed to a Hebrew shepherd who'd just been told that he was going to have to go back and win his people's release from captivity. "Who am I that I should go?" he asked.

And so you might today ask that question: "Who are we that we should go?" And to that question, God answers again: "I am with you." And a more powerful answer to our question we could not have received.