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We live in a world of hidden identities, of double,
triple, quadruple lives.
In a world where social media brings more and more of our
lives into a public arena – Facebook, Google +, Twitter, and many more – it
could be said there is less and less privacy.
Our friends know what we’re up to.
They always did – but not necessarily on a day-by-day update
system. I now know what all my friends
are up to. With excrutiating details in
some instances. Almost in real-time.
I know more about some of my friends than I perhaps wish
to. But I have also been able to stay in
touch with friends and colleagues I now longer live near but, if I did, I would
certainly have remained in regular contact.
It doesn’t stop there however. Vast databases are built up by the
supermarkets and others on our shopping preferences. What food you like. What newspapers you read. Which colour toilet paper you have a
preference for. Whether you buy cat
food. And how often you appear to buy
cleaning products.
And I’ve been amazed recently at how clever some of these
internet trackers seem to be. I will be
travelling to Amsterdam next year, and I have been looking online at ticket prices. Just looking at these has clearly left a
trail – I think the technical term is a cookie – and now, when I look at other
completely unrelated pages, the usual random adverts down the side are now
showing me ticket prices of flights to Amsterdam and other European
destinations. It knows what I have been
looking at. It knows more about me than
I sometimes manage to remember myself some days.
So, is the real me so easy to identify? If you brought
all these things together – my dietary habits, my occasional train tickets, my
cinema visits, the colour of the socks I have recently bought from M&S – if
you had all these things would you really find out much of true interest about
me? Or you?
Can you truly describe someone by these things?
Of course, the internet has provided a wealth of
opportunities for people. It was
invented by a Unitarian – Sir Tim Berners-Lee – but even so, amazingly, it can
be used as a front for hidden things.
There are numerous tales of how people use the internet
to deceive others. I am sure all of you
with e-mail have received an e-mail from Nigeria at some time, letting you know
that you are the lucky recipient of the proceeds of some long forgotten aunt. If you could just send your bank account
details, and your PIN, then they’ll kindly arrange a transfer.
I don’t think they really are from a solicitor in
Nigeria, you know!
The notion of identity is so very confused. Who are we?
And who do others think we are?
Is it the same? And does it
matter?
In the first reading this morning, from the stories
recorded, we think, by a man named Mark, we heard a fairly well known story of
Jesus. It happens some time after Jesus
has started his ministry, and after he has started to make a name for
himself. Jesus is being followed by
crowds. Crowds who can see something
special in this man.
In the passage I read, Jesus, surrounded by his friends,
asks who the crowds are saying Jesus is.
‘Who do the people say I am?’
And the answer is interesting. The people are saying he is John the
Baptist. They are saying he is
Elijah.
They are, in effect, identifying Jesus with other well
known holy men. John the Baptist was a
contemporary of Jesus – a holy man who was seen as someone to follow by people
of this time. The Bible records that
John himself baptised Jesus.
Elijah, on the other hand, was a prophet from many
hundreds of years before. Elijah was one
of the greatest prophets from the Hebrew Bible.
Elijah was the prophet that heard the still, small voice of God. A man seen to be close to God, a man who was
at one with God.
So, Jesus’ followers told him that others saw him as
someone special, someone holy, someone who could lead them to God.
This was a perception.
‘Who do the people say I am’.
The question is perhaps also
‘Who do people judge me to be,
on the basis of what they have seen of me’.
It’s all about perception.
On the basis of what could be seen. On the basis of his actions, and the way in
which he lead his very public life, Jesus was perceived to be a holy man, a man
of God.
Not because he told them this. But because his actions led to that
conclusion.
I often wonder who Jesus thought he was at that time in
his life. Did he think of himself as a
holy man. Did he believe he was, at this
early stage in his ministry, any closer to God than others were or could be?
I really don’t know.
The question could even have been a genuine attempt by
Jesus to try and understand what it was that seemed to be driving him on. Many theologians and Christian historians
will claim that Jesus was tormented by his apparent holy character – that he
would have been wrestling with his own mind to try and understand who he truly
was.
If only Jesus had a Tesco clubcard and some internet
cookies, it would have been so much easier.
Except, of course, it wouldn’t. It wouldn’t because those things that think
they are building up a picture of you as a person are doing no such thing. They are working from external views
only.
Jesus was not John the Baptist. Nor was he Elijah. He was Jesus.
The perceptions gave an indication to the type of person
he was, but did not reveal the whole truth about a unique human being. Just as the external perceptions of our
credit card purchases do not reveal the whole truth about each of us as unique
human beings.
I said earlier that, perhaps, we have numerous
identities.
I’m not sure however that this is possible. We can have only one identity. There is only one person within each of
us. Different people may see us in
different ways, yet these are facets of our single identities.
The big news story of the moment, as it has been for some
time, is the continual stream of revelations about the broadcaster Jimmy
Savile. Savile, there is now very little
doubt, was a man with an extremely complex and varied life. The entrepreneur, the inventor of the
discotheque, the first disc jockey, the crazy marathon runner, raising millions
and millions for charity. They lined the
streets of Leeds to say goodbye to Jimmy Savile just twelve months ago.
Yet was now know there was another Savile. Not a different person. Not a different identity. The same man, but a different facet. The stories are dreadful, and the scores of
lives he has affected and tormented too numerous for us to truly contemplate.
Yet this was a terrible part of the man who did so much
good. An ugly facet. Yet a hidden one. Savile must have known that what he was doing
was wrong. Not just wrong. But terrible.
Many others, it seems, knew this was happening too – or
at least suspected it. Yet, for whatever
reasons, no-one said anything.
So how do we see Jimmy Savile now. Do his good deeds mitigate in any way the bad
ones? I don’t believe they do.
Who are you? Who
am I?
It is one thing to not know someone else – to be unaware
of a hidden facet, a little known or well-hidden part of someone elses life.
However, how well do we know, or believe we know, our
true selves?
In our second reading, the poem by Alexander Pope, we are
challenged to ‘know thyself’.
And do we? Do you
really know yourself? Or do you
sometimes wish and hope you knew a different you? When you look deeply at
yourself, are there hidden facets you would rather were not there?
Do we know ourselves?
This perhaps takes us back to the reading from Mark. Perhaps, as others have suggested, Jesus was
in fact asking how others saw him as a way of filtering in his own mind
who he truly was.
Perhaps, this was a way of trying to identify traits in
himself. A way of see how he was
perceived and, thus, who has was.
For me, though, that is not enough. How I am perceived by others, the person
other people believe I am, is not the whole story. Only by truly searching the very depths of my
being can I truly know myself.
And that, as they say, is a complicated process.
From a personal, and a spiritual, perspective, I wonder
whether there are, or should be, any differences between our known and unknown
lives.
This doesn’t mean that we should necessarily swan around
telling everyone about every piece of our lives.
But, and this is a genuine question, should we be happy
with any part of our ‘unknown’ lives that we would be ashamed or embarrassed to
be revealed?
Are we happy with our deeper selves? Are we aware of our deeper selves. Do we know, and do we accept, who we really
are?
There are, perhaps, two questions here. One follows the other. Do we know who we are? And, if we do, are we happy with it? And, if we’re not, what might we do about
it? OK, that’s three questions.
I doubt there are any easy answers to finding out the
questions about ourselves. There are no
shortcuts to a simple version of a complex human soul. Each of us unique, and each knowable only to
our deepest selves.
But perhaps this is where our spiritual natures can play
a key role. It is through our spiritual
practices – through prayer, through meditation, through shared experiences –
that we surely start to truly know ourselves.
As a spiritual and religious community, we do, as
Unitarians, believe in the unique nature of each individual, yet we also
recognise and value the help and strength that a congregation might provide to
us in our personal life journeys. This
does not mean we are expected to share every foible or every personal fault
with one another.
Rather we might recognise, and take comfort, from the
likelihood that we are not alone in our attempts to understand ourselves – to
know thyselves – and that we are, all of us, at different times and in
different ways, grappling with aspects of our lives we find hard or
confusing. We all do it.
And meeting here each week, or how ever often you are
able to come, provides that opportunity to simply be. To make a connection to God, to the wider
Universe, to this body of similarly-minded souls. Whatever it is about this place that gives
you strength, you can be assured you are accepted as you are, for the person
you truly are.
In this world of light and dark, hidden and seen, we need
to be able to understand how we are perceived and, more importantly, know who
we really are.
In that first reading, Jesus concluded by asking his
disciples who they thought he was.
They said they believed he was the Messiah. And Jesus told them sternly not to repeat it
to anyone.
We are never told why Jesus was so concerned about
this. But perhaps it was because he
wanted people to form their own judgements based on the life he was
leading. He wanted people to determine
who he was as a result of his actions, not because the disciples said so.
And this lesson holds good for me. I can only hope and try to ensure I live as
good, and honest, and truthful a life as possible. I know it’s not easy. I know I am not perfect. But I can try.
To live a life of honesty and love must surely be the aim
of all he seek to live life in the glory of their God, or of this
interconnected Universe of which we are all part.
In a world where others can try to determine who we are
by our habits, let us know instead who we are by the message in our hearts, and
the loving actions in the world
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