Last week I attended Choral Evensong at Westminster Abbey and afterwards a tour of the Abbey and then a reception of the Anglican Lutheran Society. Upon arrival I was ushered into the Quire and seated in a top stall adjacent to the Commonwealth stalls and, you might have guessed it, at the conclusion of Evensong, I moved a few seats and sat in the stall marked Australia! (Because I could!) I was enjoying the moment and simply thinking that three of my identities were intersecting – Australian, British, and Christian (in alphabetical order).

Of course, there are specifics pertinent to each of them which I have to navigate. This week Charlotte and have finalised our British and Australian tax returns – and the two countries don’t calculate the same things identically. Should I wish to be a Member of Parliament (I don’t) that would be possible here in Britain but not in Australia. And for my Christian identity I am very much a Lutheran because I believe that the Lutheran teaching (the confessions of the Faith) about God, Jesus, salvation, human beings, sin, death, judgement, the Means of Grace, discipleship, and more present Jesus and Christianity most clearly, accurately, Scripturally.

You also will have various identities related to your birthplace, your family, your profession(s), country or world events you’ve lived through – or ones we’re living through now – and there is also your faith, what you believe, whom or what you ultimately trust? We are all negotiating our identities – what to say and do in what environment, among which group of people.

We also work through and live through loss or change of identities – often through death – where a spouse becomes a widow or widower or perhaps a sibling dies and the birth order or expectation of other siblings change. Loss can come by choice such as a change of employment or as a result of personal behaviour whether criminal or not or it can be opposed upon you. I personally think it is wrong for countries to revoke citizenship on its citizens no matter the offence – and to make a person stateless – because I think just as families should not deny their members but work as best as possible for as much harmony and good relationships as possible, so countries are unwise to cancel their citizens because, if nothing else, it does not foster loyalty and harmony among all citizenry.

But in the world we make with our laws and morals and philosophies – none of them are perfect and we do not create utopia; where we use words to create our own version of reality and are now increasingly suspicious of words and burdened by assessing what is truth, I think all our identities have a fragility about them. We can lose some of them, destroy some of them, and some of them can be taken away from us. So who are we?

For Christians, the answer is found, their identity is grounded in what God has said and done in Jesus Christ. In Jesus we encounter God for us, not against us. The proclamation that comes from Jesus’ cross and empty tomb is that God is the Faithful One who is gracious and merciful. Living in our all identities, negotiating them, working out how to live in this country and according to that law requires a foundation which can be relied upon and that is heard in what we call Law and Gospel – the Biblical account of sin and grace – and that certainty of forgiveness that takes away terror about God and inspires us to live as Jesus’ disciple in all our identities.

And so we begin another Church Year and God is still faithful to his people!

GS