In the name of God . . .

Right after Erica and I were married, she embarked on one of the most arduous and trying odysseys of her young life. No, I'm not talking about our honeymoon. Nor am I talking about our moving halfway across the country to begin a life of service to the Church. I am talking about her nearly month-long effort to formally change her name from Erica Moore, to Erica Callaham.

Now, don't get me wrong, my wife is no shrinking violet, too easily overcome by adversity or bureaucracy. She is, as many of you know something of a world traveler - a veteran of three foreign exchange programs. She has bathed in railways stations, eaten snails and even walked among the dead in the crypts beneath Paris, all without batting an eye. But the mountains of paperwork, endless lines and marathon phone conversations needed to change the name on her Social Security card, credit cards, student loans and passport not only came to over shadowed the bliss of being a newlywed, but somehow thwarted even her road tested diplomacy and patience. She was driven nearly to madness when a clerk at the Elgin DMV told her that despite having a valid passport, social security card, marriage license and lease, she lacked proper identification to prove her identity as a married resident of Illinois. She would have to come back another day - and bring a piece of postmarked mail with her new name on it.

What this sad story shows is not only the reality of the storied inflexibility of the Illinois Department of Motor Vehicles, but the way in which efficient navigation through the structures and strictures of this world depends more on valid identification than it does on valid identity. Under this world's gaze, you are what your papers say you are, no more, no less. And heaven help you if someone steals your identification, for it is as if they have stolen your very identity.

But we know better than that. While so-called "Identity Theft" is a serious problem, and certainly not a laughing matter to those who have been victimized in this way, it is still something of a misnomer. No matter what someone takes from you, or how they use your identification to fraudulently mis-represent you, they cannot take your identity. Who you are is far more than the sum of your identifiable parts, whether or not it is totally familiar to you.

The metaphor of the mirror, in the first chapter of the Letter of James, is one of the more confusing pieces of biblical literature. For those of us living in the modern world, where we frequently examine ourselves in the mirror or consider photographs of which we are the subjects (something I've had plenty of opportunity to do given Sandy Patterson recent good work). It seems impossible that anyone could look in a mirror, and "upon going away, immediately forget what they are like." But for the Hellenistic Greeks to whom James was writing, the likeness of their face was one of the few things they just couldn't see.

Think about it. You can look at most parts of your body: your hands, your feet, your torso, arms and legs. But you cannot see your face - arguably the feature most closely linked to your identity without the help of a mirror. And imagine if you we're used to seeing it every day. Perhaps you would, after encountering it - say for even the second, or third, or fourth time - forget what it is like. Shoot, if it was anything like remembering the name of a parishioner that you've met three or four times, I can testify that it is easy to forget.

And so it is with our true identity. Unlike the image of our face we are not often presented with the features of our true nature. The bible tells us that we are the children of God, images of the creator himself, brothers and sisters all of God's Word, living and active in the world. We are loved, above all creation, the first fruits of the kingdom of God which is coming into the world. And James tells us that it is through looking into the law of God - reading, marking, studying and celebrating the law of liberty that we become acquainted with ourselves as we truly are. The Bible, and this gathering, as I will (have) say to the 9 o'clockers is a mirror on our true selves.

But this is not a view of ourselves that we get all of the time; it is certainly not like the view of ourselves we find reflected in the shiny surfaces of the world out there. We, like those ancient Greeks get only an occasional glimpse of ourselves - when we come to church, when we study the Bible, when we are in communion with our brothers and sisters in the Lord. But then we leave. We re-enter the world of identification and status and symbol and we readily forget what we have learned. We, as hearers of the word forget ourselves and go back to believing that the woman at the DMV is right. We are incomplete without the proper ID.

So what can we do? How do we remember what we experience about ourselves in this place and take it out into the world. One way might be to never leave - to so withdraw from the world into the study of the Scripture that you are never parted from it. But this has its dangers. Though the contemplative lifestyle works as a vocation for those called to it, for the rest of us it tends toward the same kind of self centeredness and narcissism that gazing to long or to often into a physical mirror does. No, we need a more pragmatic approach. And I think James offers it.

"Be doers of the Word," James says, "and not merely hearers." Go out and do those things which God asks of you. Be a part of God's work in the world. Act like you are the image of the holy, loving and creative heart of the universe. And do so not out of a sense of works righteousness - that is, out of a sense that you have to do things in order to make God loves you. But because in doing these things you will be reminded of who you really are. God love you anyway, and he could do the works of God without you. But by participating in the works of God you put the knowledge of yourself to use and you begin to internalize it and make it your own. The works of God are not identity creating, but they are identity sustaining - a source of blessing to you and those around you because they help to remind you of who you really are in spite of what the cards in you wallet say.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we are blessed ith the opportunity of peering into God's laws and participating in God's sacraments. In both, we see a clear vision of ourselves as we really are. We are doubly blessed to have been given a way to maintain and remember this image - by participating in the works of God. Do not squander this opportunity. Do the works of God. Remember what you are like.

Amen.