“Discovering Our Identity in Christ” - 2nd Sunday OT (B) – 1.14.24

St. Mark the Evangelist Parish (Cranberry/Butler, PA)

Mass Readings - https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/011424.cfm

By: Fr. David Schmidt

Every one of us is searching for a deeper sense of who we are and what we are called to be. The trap that many people fall into in our culture is that they seek to discover the answer to this question apart from God. They seek to create for themselves their own identity.

However, our faith teaches that our identity comes from the Lord. He created us. He made us in His image and likeness. He made us for a specific purpose. Only God can help us to discover who we are and what we are called to be.

In our readings today, we learn from the examples of Samuel and Peter on how we are to discover our identity. In the 1st reading we saw how Samuel hears the voice of the Lord, and he mistakens it for Eli as he goes to Eli and says that Eli called him. Eli tells Samuel that he didn’t call him, and to go back to sleep. Samuel goes back to sleep. This happens a couple more times, and by the third time Eli realizes that it is the Lord who is calling Samuel, so Eli tells Samuel next time you hear this voice say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” And Samuel hears this voice again, and Samuel says to the Lord, “Speak, Lord, for you servant is listening.” And it said that Samuel grew and the Lord was with him, and as we know Samuel became one of the great prophets of the OT.

Then in the Gospel, we have the account of Andrew, who is the brother of Simon, and who encounters Jesus. Andrew goes to his brother Simon, and says to him, ‘We have found the Messiah.’ Andrew brings his brother Simon to Jesus, and when Simon encounters Jesus, Jesus says to Simon, “You are Simon the son of John; you will be called Cephas” which is translated Peter.

Jesus gives Peter his new identity in Christ. As we learn later in Scripture that Peter’s name means ‘rock’ and that Peter would be the first Pope and leader of the early Church.

Only Jesus has the authority to give us our identity. He says to each one of us, “You are (name).” “You are my beloved son.” “You are my beloved daughter.” “You are mine.”

Why does Jesus have this authority to give us our identity? One, because as we said, He created us. He created us in His image and likeness, and in creating us, He has the power and ability to give us our identity. But then secondly, as we heard in the 2nd reading today, it says that we “have been purchased at a price.” What is this price? The price that we have been bought at is the price of Christ’s Blood which was shed for each one of us on the Cross. He shed His Blood for us to save us from our sins. To save us from slavery to the devil, so that we may be free to live in Christ Jesus.

So we learn from this that we are not our own. We don’t have the authority or the power to create for ourselves our own identity.

Jesus gives us our identity in Christ to us at our Baptism, and we are to receive it as a gift.

In some cases, Jesus will change the name of the person to indicate a new mission, a new identity in Christ.

We see this multiple times throughout Scripture. In the Old Testament, we see the example of this with Abram having his name changed to Abraham, as he became the Father of nations, and the covenant of the Lord with Israel was promised to Abraham as his descendants became as numerous as the starts in the sky. And his wife Sarai became Sarah as the descendants were to be born through Sarah. And Abraham and Sarah were given this new mission in Christ. We see the example of Jacob having his name changed to Israel. Or the example of Saul being changed to Paul as we know St. Paul’s powerful encounter with the Lord, as he was a murderer of Christians, but in this encounter, he has this conversion, and his name is changed to Paul. And he becomes of the great evangelizers in the Church. Finally, we of course have the example of Simon having his name changed to Peter. As he was a fisherman who now became the leader of the Apostles and the leader of the early Church.

Another good example of this are those who enter a religious order. They are no longer called by their baptismal name but are given a new religious name as they take on a new identity and mission in Christ. For example, a girl named Allie enters the Sisters of Life and is now called Sister Lucy.

Only way to discover our identity and mission in Christ is by saying to the Lord, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

We learn to hear the voice of God through prayer, Sacraments, Mass, Confessions. If we aren’t praying and living out our faith, we will fail to hear the voice of God, thus failing to hear Him speaking words of truth into our hearts about who we are and what we are made for.

Another obstacle to hearing the Lord speaking to our hearts is living a life of impurity and immorality. In the 2nd reading, St. Paul tells the Corinthians, “Avoid immorality” “The body is not for immorality, but for the Lord.” St. Paul in this passage speaks of all sin, but specifically sins of lust.

We learn from this passage that our bodies are not meaningless, but contain great meaning, so what we do with our body matters.

St. Paul says, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?”

We can fall into the trap in believing that ‘who I am’ is more of an interior reality that I decide for myself and doesn’t relate to my body. We can view our bodies as mere tools or instruments that we use to walk this earth, but it has nothing to do with my identity. There can be a disconnect between body-soul. However, our faith teaches us that our body and soul are inseparable from each other, so we can’t discover our identity apart from our body.

So again, what we do with our body matters. If we live lives of impurity and immorality then it hurts our entire being, body and soul, and this disrupts our relationship with God. It cuts us off from His grace, and it damages our ability to hear Him speaking into the depths of our hearts.

Now the beautiful thing about our God is that He is a God of redemption and healing. He is a God of forgiveness and mercy. If we have strayed from Him and have been falling into sins of impurity, lust, and immorality. He offers us forgiveness in confession. He restores us back to Himself and restores our ability to clearly hear His voice once again, so that we can hear Him speaking His words of truth and love into our hearts as He helps us to discover more completely our identity and mission in Christ.

Today, may we ask the Lord for mercy and forgiveness for all the ways in which we have sinned against Him. May the Lord give us a deeper sense of our identity and mission in Christ. And may we hear the Lord speaking into the depths of our hearts as we pray to the Lord every day of our lives saying, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”