Ancestry

Ancestry 

 John 15

 For the most part I think most of us dismiss or try to avoid media advertisements (commercials on television). We use these commercial breaks during our favorite sports show, or soap opera as an opportunity to run to the kitchen for a snack or take a restroom break. It may be only during the annual football championship game that television commercials take center stage. These mostly humorous vignettes of salesmanship vary from informational to annoying. They also are sometimes an unsettling look in the mirror as they reflect our social and moral values.

 

One particular set of ads is selling an opportunity to identify our ancestral roots.  If I can summarize, it usually starts with someone who is mistaken about their lineage. They thought they were Irish, for instance, but after sending their DNA to a laboratory for analysis, they found they were more German. The narrative continues as they confess to being misdirected in who they were and now are more content and happy in finding who they really are. The ad closes with them actually correcting their dress to be more in line with this new identity.

 

The need for identity is strong within us all. We want to belong; we want to identify with a group. Whether it be family, nationality, club or organization, we seem to long for roots. Once we have landed, we want the uniform.  Not only do we want to find our social niche but we want others to see it. We seek out the language and culture of this alter ego and buy the costume. 

 

While we celebrate our individuality in American culture, there is an irony here as this commercial advertisement is appealing to another side of us. We want to belong and we are willing to dress the part of uniformity. It seems in this one instance we are willing to give up our uniqueness and gladly step out as more conformed to a single identity; looking the same, being the same.

 

Being part of a faith family is more than a statement of faith. Living out our faith in worship is a unifying event that should serve to remind us of our common lineage. We are all branches of the same vine. Identifying with our roots (our lineage) means we should be willing to give up our own agenda and take on the identity we proclaim.  Too much of the time our pre-occupation with individuality impedes our corporate worship. 

 

Once we have acknowledged our spiritual DNA, we change our wardrobe and spiritually dress in a new way. We need to shed our individual uniqueness for a holy hour and worship as one body, robed in His righteousness alone, all looking exactly the same…..sinners saved by grace.

the friar