Identity

Fall is such an amazing season. There is a feeling of excitement as the sweltering of summer begins to recede, people come out of their homes to play outside, and from most living rooms on Saturdays the reverberating sounds of cheering crowds and obnoxious sports commentary are filling in all the gaps. While I love football season, something in me has changed since this strange obsession has taken over. Perhaps it is staleness in the disillusionment that Georgia will ever actually be a contender for a BCS title; or it’s the realization that what drives us, as a people, is an inherent lacking. To what end do we invest ourselves so intently on identifying with a sports team? Such passion is displayed that dogma is more associated with winning seasons than our freedom or God’s sovereignty. But why? Why would we be drawn so readily to this identity?

It is so easy. Our colors, slogans, fight songs, and ‘history’ are already outlined for us with little to no real commitment or suffering. A losing season simply means withdrawing from sport debates or avoiding wearing our team’s logo until it can be done with only minor scrutiny. There is little to no cost for us. However, this is only a short-term diversion. When the sounds of competition quiet, what we discover is that the lack we were trying so desperately to fill remains and has grown during our little distraction.

Who are we as a people? Christ has called us to a higher vision of community and belonging. First, he has called us into community with himself. We are caught up into Trinity—the very nature of belonging. From that relationship, we find our identity and hope. Yet, this identity costs us dearly. It is a wrestling with the character of God, which, like Jacob, causes us pain. This mutual suffering that we share gives us what we are so desperately trying to find. In this relationship, we are led to our deaths on the cross that has been revealed in Christ. Second, from this relationship we discover true community among ourselves. We do not all know the same slogans, share common colors, or even speak the same language; however, our voices are sonorously intermingled and rise in the same mournful yet hopeful song—“come, come, Emmanuel.” Finally, our identity is founded on our modeling the character of God to a world that has grown deaf to His voice. No longer should we squander in shame with what Christ has honored us—a cross.

Perhaps, we are innocent in our obsessive sports associations; however, I would venture to assert that it is a minor symptom to a more devastating truth. We are lost seeking identity in all but what we are created to be. We chant our mantras trying to drown out the sound of God calling us to be the church in community. I look forward to the day that the sleeper awakes and discovers her true beauty—the church whose identity is finally caught up in the love of God and each other. Though you should be warned! This identity is costly. This identity will cost you everything.