Once upon
a time there was a young woman who went to see a woman friend play soccer in a
big tournament being held at her university. When the game was over, as she
waited for her friend to get dressed, so they could go out for dinner with some
friends, she noticed something beside a trash can at the refreshment stand. She
bent down to look and there was a wallet. When she opened the wallet, she found
that there were hundreds of dollars in it. Without thinking, she took the
wallet to the soccer field office and turned it in.
Afterwards,
at a restaurant, she told her friend and the rest of the group about finding
the wallet and turning it in. To her great surprise, they all told her she
should have taken the money, and left the wallet behind. “No one would know”
they said, and then she would have all that money. But all the young woman
could say to them, was that she would know, and that to do something like that
is not who I am. Well as you might imagine, they all gave her a rough time
about that, and by the end of the night, she seriously questioned her choice in
friends.
As you
know, most places that receive money in lost an found wait a week before giving
the money to a person who turned it in. About 2 days before the week was up,
the young woman received a phone call from the field office, telling her that
someone had claimed the wallet, but would like to meet the person who had turned
it in. It seemed that the couple who lost the wallet had come down for the
weekend to see their child play in the tournament. They had not been able to
come to any of their daughter’s games, and this was the only time in four years
that they had enough money to come and see her. The couple was so grateful that
the money had been returned, that they left $100 for the young woman. Just
because of who she was, and she felt good about that.
I know that was a
very simple story. But for many people, who we are is very important to us.
It’s important that we are good mothers, fathers, partners, parents, friends,
and citizens. It is important that we are honest, just, faithful, forgiving,
loving, understanding, and compassionate. Who
we are is the foundation of our sense of self, and who we are informs the ways
in which we act and live our lives.
The reason I bring this up this morning is because of our
reading of the Old testament lesson this morning. There on the mountain Moses
stands before the bush and asks God’ name. God’s answer is that is name is “I am who I am” in short, the Israelites used the letters
from this statement to name God Yahweh. With this statement God tells Moses
that God is not bound by the human ideas that result in idol worship. God is
God’s own self, and is free from human interpretations.
Yet at the same time, through the history of Israel, we are
given a very good outline of who God is. God is faithful to those who believe
in God. God is a blessing to the lives who trust in God. God cares about the
weak and powerless. God brings down the greedy and the unjust. God shows mercy
and forgiveness to those who are repentant. God is concerned with his chosen
people, but is always ready to reach out to others and invite them into the fold.
God does not operate through the force of arms, but by the power of the spirit.
God is ready to bring back sinners, and nothing can separate us from God’s
love.
And the same is true for those who believe in God. Both
Abraham and Jesus us I am statements. Whatever happened around them, whatever
hardships or cruelty they faced, these events did not force them to be someone
or something different than who they were. The image of faithfulness, love,
light and life, that was the image of God shining in them. Even when Peter,
tried to make Jesus afraid to go to Jerusalem, to face the cross, and to do
God’s will. Jesus stopped him – get behind me satan. Jesus would not allow
fear, or anything else to keep him from who he was, and from doing the will of
the Great I Am.
Which brings me to my
final thought. We live in a world swirling with fear, confusion, anger,
temptations, and trials. Some people give in to these spirits in their lives,
and then often blame others for having made them do whatever it is they have
done wrong. But as Christians, followers of the God Yahweh – I am who I am. We
do not have the luxury of blaming others, we are who we are, it’s up to each of
us. But the Good news is, that when we are who we are, and who we are is the God
revealed to us in Jesus Christ, then the spirits of this world will no longer
control us, and we will have the peace of life in God’s presence forever. In
this life, and in the next. And that’s the good news of Jesus Christ.
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