Who Am I?

​No matter what else we do for Lent, we are all called to make this a season of self-examination and repentance. Lent is a time for radical self-honesty about who we are before God. Our readings help with that.
 
The lesson from our Gospel reading is a sobering reminder that we are sinners who need to repent.
 
Pilate had recently killed some of Jesus’ countrymen when they came to Jerusalem, an act of violence that foreshadows what will soon happen to Jesus himself. Apparently the person reporting the news assumed that the people Pilate killed had done something to deserve their fate. They were sinners being punished for their sin.
 
But Jesus will have none of that. “He asked them, ‘Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way, they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you.’”
 
Then Jesus brings it home to his audience, and also to us. The men who died were no worse than you are. “Unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.” Jesus repeats his warning a second time, and then tells a parable making the same point. Clearly repentance matters to Jesus!
 
For most of the year, we Episcopalians don’t talk much about sin. We are, after all, people of the good news, resurrection people, people invited to fullness of life and joy. But, particularly in this season of Lent, we need to pay attention to the darker side of our nature, to the barriers that we erect between us and God, and to our need to repent of them.
 
That is not easy. In my own less self-reflective moments, I struggle with passages like this one. I think to myself, I’m a pretty good person. Sure, I botch it sometimes. But my sins are not that bad. I don’t really need to repent. Or at least not to repent very much.
 
Then I remember that God does not call us to be pretty good. God calls us to be perfect in love. Any failure to love, perfectly!, is sin. By the standard of perfect love, I fall very short. By God’s standard, I sin a LOT!
 
That means, especially during Lent, but not only during Lent, that I need to hear and to respond to Jesus’ call to repent.
 
So, each night, I say Compline, and I include a few moments to review my day and acknowledge where I failed in my obligation to love.
 
If you are not already doing something similar, I encourage you to give it a try for at least the rest of Lent. Even a few minutes of regular self-examination and repentance can clarify for us the areas of our lives in which we need to grow. And unpleasant though that can be, it is also a great gift. It is one way of opening ourselves up to God’s forgiveness and grace, of choosing life over death.
 
Daily self-examination and repentance, using the standard of perfect love, is healthy and important for people like me who think of ourselves as generally good, but who remain far from perfect in love. We need to be reminded to repent.
 
But some people go to the opposite extreme. Some people are keenly, even overly, aware of the many ways they fall short of perfect love.
 
People who know they are sinners should repent, of course. But they also need to hear the good news. And, perhaps surprisingly, our Old Testament reading offers good news. Exodus reminds us that we are God’s children, no matter how unworthy we are or feel, and that God is with us always.
 
It is the story of the burning bush that was not consumed. Moses turns aside to look, but as soon as he realizes that God is calling, “Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.” Moses knew that God was holy and that he, Moses, was not.
 
It gets worse. God gives Moses a big job to do. God tells Moses to go “to Pharaoh to bring [God’s] people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”
 
Now Moses is really terrified. Moses knows that he can’t do it. Moses knows that he is not worthy of God’s trust. So, Moses asks, “Who am I” that I should be the one you, God, use for such an important task? I am not good enough. I am afraid. I am weak. I am a sinner. Send somebody else, anybody else. How about my brother? He would be good at this.
 
Moses had good reason to fret. Moses was a sinner. Most obviously, Moses had murdered a man many years before. In the decades since the murder, Moses had raised a family, but not done anything particularly special. Nothing in Moses’ life has prepared him for this moment or for this task.
 
So far, Moses represents everyone who is afraid to look at God, everyone who feels sinful or unworthy in God’s presence, everyone who questions their gifts or their calling.
 
But Moses has asked the wrong question. Moses has asked God, “Who am I?” As if what mattered most was Moses himself. But the better question, the question Moses get to eventually, is, “Who, God, are you?”
 
God’s answer is mysterious. “I AM WHO I AM.” Theologians have been trying to understand what that means for three thousand years! But this much is clear. God who is is the foundation of all that is, of all of creation, including us, who are created in God’s own image and likeness. God defines our nature.
 
Our sin is real. Our inadequacies are real. Our weaknesses are real. Moses was not wrong when he fretted about his unworthiness before God, especially when faced with the task to which God called him. We’re not wrong when we fret either. Like Moses, we need to repent.
 
But we should never lose sight of the fact that we are also God’s beloved children, created by God, redeemed by Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit. That was true of Moses. That is true of the great saints. And that is true of us, the ordinary sinners.
 
God also gives Moses the great promise. I who send you to do this great thing “will be with you.” In his very last words before ascending into heaven, Christ echoes and expands that promise. “I am with you [with us!] always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).
 
As we know, Moses fulfilled God’s calling. Moses confronted Pharaoh. Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt. Moses brought his people to the very mountain where he had met God in the burning bush.
 
Moses, who was unworthy and inadequate to the task, did what God called him to do, not because of who Moses was, but because of who God is. Moses accomplished his mission not because he was strong and capable and worthy, but because God was with him.
 
And that is true of us, too. We need to repent because we fail to love perfectly. We can repent because God, who created us to love, forgives our failures and strengthens us to do better.
 
And, with God’s help, we can do whatever God calls us to do. As the Apostle Paul, that other great sinner and unworthy servant, said, “I can do all things through [Christ] who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).
 
And so, on this third Sunday of Lent, I pray that God forgives us our trespasses, and also that God helps us to know and feel God’s forgiveness, love, and presence as we go about our Christian lives, loving as best we can. In Christ’s name. Amen.