Sermon on August 23, 2026
“Be Who God Created You to Be“
By: The Very Rev. Pamela Dolan
Primary scripture source: Matthew16:13-20
This summer, movie fans around the globe have been asking the same question: The Odyssey or Spider-Man? While not quite as big a cultural phenomenon as the summer of Barbenheimer, the success of both these films does seem to say something intriguing about the moment we’re living in.
Some have opined that the endless stream of thought pieces about The Odyssey and the enormous popularity of Spider-Man suggest that we’re quietly longing for the days when we all watched the same tv shows and saw the same movies as all of our friends and neighbors, because we didn’t have a bottomless pit of streaming options that we could watch by ourselves on our devices. Maybe we’re exhausted by the number of choices available to us in the entertainment world, tired of distracting ourselves to death, and want some shared cultural touchpoints so that we can actually talk to each other again.
If so, I think that’s a hopeful sign. Having shared stories, even when we disagree on what they mean and how they should best be told, is an important way for people to bond. What I’ve been thinking about is something that these two films have in common, besides the pretty faces and acting chops of Tom Holland and Zendaya. They are both stories about memory and identity; in The Odyssey the protagonist has his memory erased, leading to questions about who he is without emotional access to the people he loves, and in Spider-Man everyone else’s memories of the protagonist have been erased, provoking essentially the same questions. Additionally, both main characters are in disguise at key points in the story, because to have their identity revealed would be dangerous or even deadly.
I think these explorations of memory and identity are appealing at this moment because so many of us are trying to understand who we are in a world that is changing and moving so fast. When we are constantly bombarded by information and lured into distraction, memories get very slippery and elusive. I find myself asking, far too often: Did that scandal happen last week or was it last month? Where did I hear that story, and did it really happen to a friend of mine or was it something I ran across on Instagram? Can I even remember events from my own life if I haven’t documented them via selfie and social media post? Who am I, apart from the persona I present to the world, both digitally and in real life?
These are very 21st century questions, but they are also eternal, universal questions. Jesus asks, “Who do you say that I am?” and for once (for once!) Peter gets it right. But Jesus doesn’t stop when he gets the right answer from his friend. It turns out that knowing who Jesus really is is also the key to knowing who Peter really is. As in so many biblical stories, an encounter with God leads to a new, transformed identity. Peter is no longer just Simon, no longer just a fisherman or even just a disciple. Peter is something new, and yet something God has uniquely created him to be: the rock on which Christ will build his Church.
Let me say as plainly as I can that it is vitally important that we are able to answer for ourselves who Jesus is to us, arguably just as important now as it was in the days of the disciples, in part because of how Jesus is viewed in our culture today. Jesus is being used as a political tool by forces of violence and oppression, things that Jesus never condoned. White Christian nationalism has corroded the popular understanding of Jesus, confusing people into thinking that he has some special plan for our country, our lifestyle, our way of thinking, something that condemns those who aren’t like “us” to lives of less importance, fewer resources, and more misery.
That is not who Jesus is, not in the Gospels and not in my own experience of faith, and probably not in your experience either. Jesus does not stand on the side of the oppressor. In fact, Peter’s profession of Jesus as Messiah probably needs a little nuancing, because then as now people had very different understandings of what a messiah should be. Jesus is the anointed one, come to heal us and set us free. And, Jesus not only sets us free from personal sin—Jesus liberates us from the reliance on “the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God,” as our Baptism service puts it. We can’t be shy about stating that those evil powers include any system that divides and demeans people, that creates insiders and outsiders, that deems some worthy of love and wellbeing, while others are expendable. In the realm of God, in the Beloved Community, nobody is expendable.
There’s a Thomas Merton quote that speaks to this deeper way of being known and loved by God. You’ve probably heard me say this half a dozen times, but I’m going to say it again. In Merton’s words, “A tree gives glory to God by being a tree.” The full quote from New Seeds of Contemplation is worth adding:
“A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be, it is obeying [God]. It ‘consents,’ so to speak, to [God’s] creative love. It is expressing an idea which is in God and which is not distinct from the essence of God, and therefore a tree imitates God by being a tree.”
What if we heard this quote and put our own name in place of “a tree”? Pamela gives glory to God by being Pamela. Bob gives glory to God by being Bob. Jim gives glory to God by being Jim. And so on. No two human beings, not even identical twins, are exactly the same! God created each one of us with unique gifts, talents, and desires. But let’s be clear that God’s understanding and love of us is not primarily about what we can do or achieve. That is how the world judges us, but it has nothing to do with God’s unconditional and fathomless love.
When we consent to God’s creative love, we embody more freely and fully our own true identity. The great leap of faith so many of us still need to take is to remember that we give glory to God by being exactly who God made us to be. This, I believe, is a lifetime’s work of being and becoming, of learning and unlearning, and of being liberated from shame and fear and ideas of inadequacy. That is where Jesus comes in. The more we know and follow Jesus, the more we will see and know what a fully human, fully alive human being looks like. And so, paradoxically, the more we strive to be like Jesus, to put on the garment of Christ, the more we become fully ourselves.
Spider-Man can achieve great things, but it is only when the mask comes off that Peter Parker can know love and connection. Odysseus is unrecognizable to his family and friends when disguised as a beggar; and he can only be fully returned to their embrace when he first remembers and then reveals who he really is. These are good, hopeful stories for our culture to be discussing today. In the Church, we have other shared stories, stories of a baby set afloat in a basket, an Israelite child who survives only because of deception and disguise, who will one day grow up to lead his people to freedom. Stories of disciples who sometimes seem to get everything wrong, yet who go on to be led by the Holy Spirit and to bring about more good news than they could have asked or imagined.
The masks and disguises we put on to get by in the world, to be successful by the world’s standards, or maybe even just to survive in a hostile environment, serve a purpose. But they eventually get in the way of true connection, with God and others, including those we love, and even with our own deepest selves. It is never too late to embark on our own journey of discovery, in which by seeking to know God better we will also learn to know and love our selves better, and to become the dazzling, unique, beloved creatures God created us to be. Amen.
OTHER RECENT SERMONS
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