who am i? do i matter?

January 8, 2023 • Third Sunday of Christmas
Scripture Readings: Psalm 139:1-10 (The Inclusive Bible)
Rev. Jeff Wells

[You can view the full worship video recording at: https://fb.watch/hXWDFMi734/]

Today, we begin a new worship series we have titled, “Work in Progress.” In one sense, the “work” in the title refers to all of us – each one of us is a work in progress. In another sense, it is the ongoing work of exploring, grasping, evolving, and implementing an understanding of who God is, who we are, what is our place in the cosmos, and how ought we to live our lives. All of this falls under the broad category of theology. Over eight Sundays, we will cover a range of topics including God, Jesus, the church, ethics and beliefs, and putting faith into action. We want to make space for each of you to develop your own theological perspectives. We hope this series will foster a rich atmosphere for mutual sharing, learning, and exploration.

We start off the series by asking, “Who am I?” and “Do I matter?” Those are deep existential questions. To answer them adequately requires consciousness. But as my psychoanalyst once said to me, not everybody wants to be conscious. I would paraphrase that and say not everyone is willing or, perhaps, able to be conscious. Because consciousness – perhaps especially about oneself – is difficult and often painful. It requires a lot of time and effort. 

I am focusing most of this message on the question, “Who am I?”, but let me first address the second question and then I will weave it in at a few other points in the sermon. “Do I matter?” Rivers of ink have been spilled and an ocean of words spoken about that very big concern. I think we need to ask, “Do I matter to whom or what? Do I matter to myself? To those who love or admire me? To the world around me? Do I matter to God?”

Psalm 139 points us to the theological and spiritual implications of that last iteration – “Do I matter to God?” The psalm asserts that God is in intimate and constant relationship with us and that this is our longest and most foundational relationship, even though we are not conscious of it. Unspoken, but implied, in the psalm is that we ought to understand ourselves as fully loved by God. Psalm 139, and many other parts of the bible, encourage us to take in the profound truth that we do, indeed, matter to God. 

Now, let’s go back to “Who am I?” The question demands much more than knowing the details of our biography, although those are important. It demands we explore how we became who we are today and what contributed to that. How much of “who we are” do we avoid, suppress, or hide from ourselves? It takes a lot of self-exploration, and often a lot of therapy, to move toward a deeper self-understanding.

And perhaps we need to reshape our question to get closer to the fullness of what we are seeking. It may be more illuminating to ask, “Who am I now? Who am I becoming? Who do I feel led, lured, and inspired to be?” Nothing about us is fixed and immovable. I have been named Jeff Wells my entire life.

And, although now my hair is grayer, I am a little thicker, and a little less muscular, you can see a strong resemblance to who I was in my high school graduation photo. Yet, I am a very different person than I was then. Each of us is a combination of some aspects that have been a part of us through most or all of our existence and other aspects that have changed, grown, been added, or have been dramatically transformed over time. Therefore, to get to the heart of it, each of us would need to answer the question, “Who am I?”, quite differently for various points of our lives.

Also, exploring this question is not an individualistic endeavor. We cannot answer these questions separated from the relationships and communities of which we are a part. Diane reminded me of the Simon and Garfunkel song, “I Am a Rock.” When they sang, “I am a rock, I am an island,” they were lamenting the ways people try to isolate themselves to avoid pain and suffering: “’Cause a rock can feel no pain and an island never cries.” But, on the contrary, there is an old adage that says, “No person is an island.” It echoes the idea expressed in the philosophy of Ubuntu, widely held in African nations and tribal groups, which says, “a person is a person through other people” or more simply put in the Shona language, “I am because we are.” I cannot be who I am now without all of my connectedness past and present. Who I am and who you are results from a complex interaction of our internal thoughts, feelings, desires, dreams, contradictions, and so on, mixed with all of the influences, relationships, historical context, outside of ourselves, including our relationship with God. So, “who we are” is neither completely our own doing, nor completely beyond our own influence. 

So, let me share with you some highlights of my own story, and my coming to an imperfect consciousness about myself, as an encouragement to you to explore who you have been, who you are now, and how that shapes, and is shaped by, your understanding of God and your place in the world.

I was born in a small town of about 6,000 people in western Wisconsin called Sparta. It’s the county seat and there was a fair amount of light industry there, but the surrounding region was filled with dairy farms. My father grew up on a farm and my mother in a city of 50,000 about 30 miles away. Neither of them attended college, although before World War II, the dad dreamed of designing airplanes. When I was seven, we moved to that small city, La Crosse. Most of the years I was growing up, my family was lower middle class – my father having switched from working as a carpenter to being a life insurance salesman.

From early on, I wrote with my left hand. Left-handedness was still considered a disability or abnormality at that time. So, for a few months, my mother tried to get me to practice being right-handed, but it didn’t take and, finally, she gave up. Although, interestingly, I can do a lot of other things better with my right hand and many things with either hand. 

I was very shy and introverted as a kid. I was never very athletic and my father was on the road a lot, so I never participated in Little League baseball or other groups that boys often joined. I was a Cub Scout, but when I graduated to the Boy Scouts, never made it past Tenderfoot. I was much more interested in spending time alone in my room teaching myself to play guitar and learning songs by ear.

Around the time I was entering the fourth grade, I was diagnosed with rheumatic fever. I spent a month in the hospital undergoing tests and observation. For the next year, I had frequent blood tests and injections of penicillin. The doctor, and I assume the school also, mandated that I spend the rest of the school year at home. My teacher would visit periodically to collect my work and drop off new assignments. I was not allowed to have friends over and rarely went outside the house. I remember feeling very isolated. My mother was instrumental in helping me get through that year and graduate to the 5th grade.

I always enjoyed reading, but I was a slow reader, which made me feel inferior. Late in elementary school, I checked out from the library, a self-administered, self-paced audio course called, “Speed Reading with Dick Cavett.” I diligently practiced the exercises, but it didn’t seem to have much effect. Also, math did not come easy for me. That and the slow reading made me believe I was not smart enough to be a good student. So, I made up for it by working very hard. I remember my father helping me a lot with homework and school projects, like the time he built a beautiful display case for the butterflies I collected. 

My parents did not stand in the way of my development, but neither did they provide much inspiration or encouragement for my budding interests and passions. I don’t think either of them were well equipped to want to be more conscious about who they were and why. Therefore, I don’t think they were capable of offering much support to me in my self-exploration. Yet, as imperfect as my family life was, in so many ways, my parents showed me that I mattered to them and they loved me deeply.

From an early age, I was a philosophically- and socially-minded kid. As some of you have heard, when I was 12 years old, I was walking in the field one day looking up at the clouds and suddenly had a very strong sense of being called to devote my life to making the world a better place. Now, I believe that invitation came from God. At the time, I don’t think I considered where it came from. I just felt it deeply and it resonated within me.

I do believe that moment in the field impelled me on a long, winding, and sometimes strange, journey. It gave me a general sense of purpose – a sense that I could, perhaps, do something that really mattered. That led me, in my early teens, to being briefly entranced by evangelical Christianity. Then, in the mid-1970s, I became radicalized by the Vietnam War and civil rights, Black liberation, national liberation struggles. After college, I spent 16 years in a Marxist group. During those years, I broke free of the American infatuation with individualism and came to believe that collective well-being is just as important as individual freedom. I felt I mattered and was valued in that organization, but later I came to believe that it did not have a viable future. After I quit, I wandered for a few years, working in information technology and experiencing a profound spiritual awakening. In 1999, I was led to join a church in Manhattan and within two years, I was enrolled in seminary and three years after that becoming an ordained minister. That was the beginning of a whole new journey – a new version of me.

I have plenty of regrets and remorse. I have made so many mistakes and hurt many people, mainly out of thoughtlessness or selfishness. I have also grown, become wiser, more caring, more loving, and I am still passionate about social, economic, and racial justice. 

Some might say I took a lot of detours, but I don’t see it that way. I don’t regret any of the avenues I explored because they all contributed to who I am today. And I believe what the psalm says – that God was there the entire time, accompanying me, nudging me, offering possibilities, even when I was not conscious of it. I am still very imperfect, but I understand much better who I am. And my compassion for myself and others, my desire to deepen my relationships with God and others, are all still evolving and growing. I continue to ponder how I might still contribute and make a difference in the world. Who I may still become is unpredictable because I cannot know who might become an influence on me, what might happen in the world that will shift who I am, or what decisions and directions God may lure and invite me to take. So, the adventure continues.

The answer to the question “who am I?” is never fixed or static. We are always changing and growing, just as God is not immutable, but is always changing because God is in relationship with and changes in response to all of us and the whole cosmos. One thing is sure: the response to the question, “Do I matter?”, is always affirmative: “Yes, you matter!” You matter to the ground of all love, goodness, and beauty in the universe. You matter to those who love and admire you. And you matter to this community. 

Today’s message is much more about me than I would normally share, but my hope is that, in doing so, it will inspire you to think about your own life and evolution in new ways or at least reinforce the understanding you already have of who you have been and who you are becoming.

So, I invite you to consider for yourself or engage in conversation with others around the following questions: 

Who am I now and how did I get here? 
Who do I feel lured or inspired to become at this stage in my life?  

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