"WHO ARE YOU?"
John 1:6-8,19-28
Posted December 22, 2000
M. Basil Pennington has published a book, Living in the Question. In this little book he takes a look at several questions that come up in the gospels and encourages the reader to use these questions in meditation to hear the word of the Lord. The concept of this book has led me to be sensitive to the questions in the gospels and to let them work their work in me.
In today’s reading the people from Jerusalem ask John the Baptist, “Who are you?” That is an important question for everyone.
Who are you? I’m Bob.
That’s your name, but who are you? I’m pastor. That’s your profession, your occupation, but who are you?
I’m a man, husband, father. More labels, but who are you?
Generally when we talk about ourselves, answer the question, who are you, we say something about our name, our family, our profession, our relationships. But the question remains: who are you? The answer is more illusive than we first think.
Try another conversation. I’m indebted to a recollection of some of Stephen LaVine’s work, which I read many years ago. Imagine a conversation that runs something like this.
A person seeks out a counselor. After gaining some confidence in the counselor, the person begins to talk about the problem, which involves pain and confusion.
“And tell me who is hurting.” The person is totally silenced. Is this counselor for real? Who’s hurting? But to appease the counselor the person answers, “I’m hurting?”
“Who’s telling me that you’re hurting?” Once again the person is dumbfounded by the question. It feels so ridiculous. But once again the person goes along, “I’m telling you.”
“Is the I who’s telling me the same as the I who’s hurting?” The person is silent now trying to figure out what the counselor is asking. So the counselor continues, “How do you know you’re hurting?”
“I know.”
“Is the I who knows you’re hurting the same as the I who’s hurting or the I who’s telling me you’re hurting?” Now the person gets a flash of insight. It lasts only for a moment. It is like the insight we all experience when we see ourselves watching ourselves as if we are outside of the scene. We normally don’t ask the question at that point, but it might be worthwhile to ask, “who is it that is watching?” Or another way to ask the question is, who am I. The self is more illusive than we imagined.
Carl Jung wrote a little book with an interesting title, The Undiscovered Self. In this book he proposes that we really don’t know ourselves and that we are on a quest to discover that unknown self. He talks about the human personality having various aspects—the ego, the shadow, the persona, the anima (animus). The ego is what we project. It is a way of thinking about ourselves and showing ourselves in the world. The shadow is that dark side of each of us, those things about ourselves we try to hide because they don’t look so good. The persona is the mask we wear or the role we play. I’m the preacher is one of the persona I wear. The anima for a man, or the animus for a woman, is the feminine or masculine side of the self opposite to the gender of the body. In the end, Jung concludes that each of these is only an illusion of the undiscovered self.
Who are you? It is not such an easy question to answer. In popular culture we hear people saying and singing, “I’ve got to be me.” In reality this is often an excuse to be what the culture has conditioned us to be. Under the guise of being who we were meant to be our behavior degenerates becoming selfish, often crude, rude, and base. We go back to LaVine’s question, which I is living out in such a way? We have been fooled into thinking that some illusion, manufactured by the culture, is who we are.
John becomes a model for us. The people from Jerusalem ask him, “are you the Messiah?” They tried to put him into a prescribed role. He answered clearly, “I am not the Messiah.” They asked, “are you one of the prophets?” Once again they tried to put him into a role, to make him wear a persona they understood. He answered clearly, ”I am not.” In frustration they ask an open-ended question, “Who are you then?” John answers by quoting scripture, an authority outside of himself, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.” Even in this answer there is a recognition that identity is influenced from outside. Rather than allowing the contemporary culture define who he was, John turned to scripture.
The evangelist tells us that “John was not that light but he came to bear witness to the light.” The evangelist answers the question who is John in terms of John’s function and his relationship to Jesus. John himself tells the religious leaders that Jesus is greater than he is. Even though John and the evangelist answer the question, who are you, in the same ways we do—role, relationship, function or profession—they both have a clear understanding that John is a witness to a greater power. In a sense this recognition of Jesus’ power is a surrender of self to Jesus. Instead of asserting, “I’ve got to be me,” John points to a greater power, Jesus. In so doing, to use a phrase from Jesus’ teaching, John looses himself that he might find himself.
Do you hear the quest of which Jung speaks—the quest to find the undiscovered self? Do you hear how it happens—by loosing oneself in Jesus Christ?
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