"Identity and Disambiguation: Come and See"
Homily on January 20, 2008
2nd Sunday after the Epiphany
Isaiah 49:1-7; Psalm 40:1-12; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9; John 1:29-42
Good morning! In our time we hear a lot about identity. Gender identity and racial identity have become issues in the current election campaign. Sexual identity continues to be at the center of the so-called "cultural wars" still raging in our society and spawning schism in the Church. Identity theft has become a real problem in our age of digital communication and on-line business and banking. Identity, it seems, is one of those words, which have taken on many new meanings and have high emotional impact on us personally and collectively. Who am I? Who are you? What is my identity? What is your identity? In computerese, the lingua franca of the 21st century, the problems of identity have even generated new words and concepts. Have you run across the word "disambiguate?" We all know what "ambiguous" means, but what in the world does it mean then to "disambiguate" something. Well, it seems that it's a term used by computer search engines to designate the process of resolving conflicts in article titles that occur when a single term can be associated with more than one topic, making that term likely to be the natural choice of title for more than one article. In other words, disambiguations are paths leading to the different article pages that could use essentially the same term as their title. (Don't panic, dear friends, this does have something to do with today's Gospel. Trust me.)
John's Gospel - in particular the reading today - wants to disambiguate Jesus. Who is Jesus? In the passage today we have no less than four titles, four different "identities" of Jesus: Lamb of God, Son of God, Rabbi (teacher), and Messiah (anointed one). John's Gospel will not let us "pin" Jesus down to just one identity. John's Gospel disambiguates Jesus into many identities, even more than just these four, which certainly are four of the major ones associated with him. John's Gospel, dear friends, gives us pause for caution as well as for celebration: caution against limiting Jesus to preconceived categories and expectations, on the one hand, and celebration, on the other hand, of a panoply of titles which are quite appropriate for Jesus while encouraging us to keep our eyes open for fresh possibilities, new revelations, which allow the fullness of his identity to unfold for us and in us.
"For us and in us," dear friends, means we are all asked the question Jesus himself asks in today's Gospel: What are you looking for? The actual and the implied answer to that question is this: Come and see. Whatever it is, I am it, says Jesus in effect. Some are looking for a teacher, others for a messiah, others are looking for God-in-human-form, still others are looking for a reconciler, someone who will "get us right" with God. You and I are called to bear witness to what we see in Jesus. There is no one "right" thing to see in Jesus. Today's Gospel makes that quite clear. Equally clear is the challenge to "come and see." And then to share what you see. May we do just that. Amen.
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