Rowan Williams has written that, “all human identity is constructed through conversations, in one way or another.” First, we have to become aware of someone other than ourselves. Jonathan Sacks says, “we must learn to listen and be prepared to be surprised by others … make ourselves open to their stories, which may profoundly conflict with ours … we must learn the art of conversation, from which truth emerges … by the … process of letting our world be enlarged by the presence of others who think, act, and interpret reality in ways radically different from our own.”
Second, by these conversations we become aware of ourselves. As people, we are not autonomous constructions. Instead, our individual identities are gifted to us by the people, events, stories and histories that we encounter as we go through life. If there was no one and nothing outside of ourselves, we would have no reference points in life, no way of knowing what is unique and special about ourselves. In conversations we become aware of how we differ from others and therefore what is unique about ourselves.
Finally, in conversations we also become aware of what we have in common with others. Conversation is something that you can only do with someone else. Therefore, Charles Taylor has argued that, opening a conversation is to inaugurate a common action. A conversation is ‘our’ action, something we are both involved in together. In this way, conversation reminds us of those things that “we can only value or enjoy together” and is, as Rowan Williams has said, “an acknowledgement that someone else’s welfare is actually constitutive of my own.”
Although this is our natural way of learning our identity, there is an inherent danger which we see St Paul address in our New Testament reading today (Galatians 3.23-end). That is, by defining ourselves against others we can come to see ourselves as being so different from them that we either look down on them and consider ourselves as better than them or view them as our enemies. When we get into that mindset, we can ultimately scapegoat and attack others, as is the case currently when political parties blame migration for all the problems experienced in our society.
Jesus gave a good example of this happening when he told the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. The Pharisee in Jesus’s parable arrogantly compared himself over and against other people: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ The fundamental comparison that we make should not be with others, but with God. Jesus challenged us to ‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.’ On the basis of that comparison, we all fall short. As St Paul writes, ‘for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.’
In Galatians 3, Paul says that, once we find our identity in Jesus, there is no need for other comparisons and we can see ourselves as all being children of God: “in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.”
When we find our identity in Jesus, we know that we are loved absolutely and fully as we are and, therefore, have no need to compare ourselves with others, whether we think we are better or worse that others. Then, all the labels that we put on ourselves to identify ourselves – old or young, white or black, gay or straight, Catholic or Protestant, West Ham or Spurs, whatever – cease to matter and we see ourselves as equals, brothers and sisters of Jesus, all together members of God’s family.
This is the route to harmony within society. It is the path to peace between nations and races. It is the kingdom of God on earth as in heaven. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.
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