Identity in... work... money... nationality... Christ

Since a very turbulent period in my life, I have been interested in self-identity. If someone asks you who you are, what do you tell them?

Often we mention that we are a student or an accountant. A nurse or pastor. We identify ourselves with what we do, or what we accomplish. I don't see too many things wrong with this, but often we hope to express our social class through what we do (or how much we make).

In college I remember being introduced to someone who said, "My name is John, I am from Brasil." It might have been pride of his country or anticipation of the follow-up question his skin color often caused that made him identify himself so quickly with his nation.

As a rather tall foreigner I am constantly asked where I am from. Hoping to aviod being identify with Hollywood's moral, New York's money or Washington's politics, I often say I am from Michigan, located on the boarder with Canada. I sometimes add that fact that my grandparents immigrated to the USA in hopes of further distancing myself from a certian part of Gringolandia's fame. Surely this second generation North American who grew up far from New York, Washington, California and Miami must be different from the common image of a U.S. Citizen.

Yesterday, a new chapter was written in the Identity 101 textbook. Walking back from church someone referred to my as a missionary, a comment that was overheard by a coworker. My coworker, having never identified me as a missionary before, suddenly was worried for having talked very directly with me in the past. She even remembers saying, "Hey, what's wrong with you?" in the past year at work.

What saddened me from the experience is that she would have treated me differently if she had identified me as a missionary. Why would I demand more respect and a new level of formality if I were identified as a missionary? What is attached with being a missionary?

I want to believe that an identity as a missionary would imply a strong identity in Christ. But I know that is not the case. Often missionaries have sought an identity as someone who knows everything, has the solutions, the cash to solve problems and the authority of someone or some being that is higher than the lowly people they interact with in a poor country.

If we are all made in the image of God, why are missionaries special? Does their nationality, money and education make them have a little more of the image of God in them?

Lord,

Help me bear your image. Teach me humility. Teach me to see the pain that has been caused by my actions and by the actions of people who share my earthly identities. Help me reconcile myself with you and with your children.

Amen.