A few weeks ago, I told a story about Steve Jobs
in my sermon. It was related to his adoption, a story I had heard an NPR
interview with his biographer, Walter Isaacson (Fresh Air with Terri
Gross on Oct. 25, 2011). In my sermon, I reiterated the story about the
conversation Jobs had with his parents on the meaning of being chosen.
My sermon was on baptism, on God’s choice for us. But I left something
unsaid…on purpose because it seemed like a tangent, but a tangent I’ve
been considering since I first heard the interview. As an adopted child,
Isaacson reports that Jobs dealt with fundamental questions about his
existence: where did he come from? Why was he here? He observed that
Jobs always had this underlying sense of being haunted by another world,
this even in spite of his devotion to his adopted parents. My mother,
who was adopted, has spoken of similar feelings: she has wondered about
her origins in a profound way -- of this world, and yet not of this
world. In her preteen years, she started reading the Bible, the Bhagavad
Gita, and other foundational religious works always with this driving
question: where did I come from? These are biblical questions. I always
think of God approaching Hagar in the wilderness: where did you come
from? And where are you going?
While acute for people like Jobs
or my mother, I think the experience of faith is like that: this quiet
yet persistent sense that there is another place for us, or at least
another place that might reveal something of ourselves. We are of this
world, but always at the same time, a little exiled from it. We came
from somewhere, we turn and return. In the meantime, how do we live?
We are in a liturgical season after Epiphany; we are in days of
appearances, when fleeting encounters with stars and voices and miracles
entice us to follow this beloved Son named Jesus. How do we live? What
does this life look like? All of the scriptural readings in these weeks
bring us back to these questions of identity. Who is this Jesus who has
called us to follow? What does his world look like?
May
scripture prove fruitful in showing us the Kingdom. May our lives be
that Kingdom. May we know Christ in our days and Way.
In peace,
Pastor Amy
