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Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.  Amen.

     As I walk the sidewalks of different towns, I appear to have different names.  I’m sure many of us do.  On my home sidewalk, my name is husband or Padre.  On the sidewalks around the sport fields in my home town, my name is RevDog.  On the East Stroudsburg University sidewalks, my name is Macho.  And on the Catasauqua sidewalks, my name is Pastor Brian.  So, am I like one with multiple personality disorder?  No.       

     At this moment, I want you to think about Simon Peter.  Think about his story, his name:  Simon- brother of Andrew, Cephas- disciple of Jesus, Rock- one in the body of Christ.  Now, think about his personalities: fisherman, disciple, denier.  Okay, do you have a couple of images or ideas in your heads?  Hold onto those for a moment.

     On Tuesday during my morning devotions when I viewed The Center of Action and Contemplation, I came across a few words from religious historian Diana Butler Bass.  Her words:

“Right now, we think it is hard to look at the world.  It is difficult to watch the news, open social media, read a newspaper.  All that division and anger and confusion and suffering and fear and pain.  Authoritarianism, injustice, mass murder, starvation, war, (I add senseless killings), genocide…every single day I fear what I may see.  But, if being a follower of Christ invites us to be Christ’s hands and feet, are we not also Christ’s eyes?

What does God see when God looks at the world?” (taken January 7, 2026 from the CAC’s daily meditations section of Website: cac.org.  Good News For A Fractured World- Revelation Calls us to Act. Feast of the Epiphany. January 6, 2026)

     In our reading today we hear about the world eyes verses Christ’s eyes.  Simon, whose Hebrew name’s root means- bend like a reed to hear, is identified as the one who is easily persuaded by the speech of others.  He listens and bends like a reed.  Andrew says- Come Simon we’ve found the Messiah. So, in Peter fashion he says- oh, ok, fantastic!

     Enter Jesus into Simon’s life.  Jesus says to Simon: Simon, Son of John, I see you and I call you Peter.  In other words, Yeshua, the deliverer, says to Shim-aye-on, the listener, I give to you a new identity- Cephas, which is how you say Peter in Greek.  I call you Cephas meaning- The Rock.  You are stable, unmoveable, unbending.  So, there is Simon Peter, a 20 or 30ish year old man who has been given two distinct identities.  Is he both of these identities or did someone get it wrong?

     Let me suggest that, with Simon Peter, with me, and with all of you, no one got it wrong.  We are all of those identities.  The question is: in what do we want to find our identity?

     Forty years after I had Mrs. Bradley as my ninth grade teacher for the class Typing & Personal Notetaking, she showed up at Holy Trinity to talk with the Morning Glories about Cops and Kids, a non-profit agency.  When she saw me that day, she asked me what happened to the quiet, shy Brian from so many years prior.  I assured her I was still here.  I just listen to a different voice today and I see with different eyes.  I’m just choosing to live as the person Christ has claimed me to be.  I’m trying to live as I believe God sees me.

     As Diana Butler Bass reminds us,

“Certainly, God sees sin, sorrow, the shame, the pity, the terror, and the sheer horror of it all.  The pathos of the world…God sees beyond…God beholds the world as it really is, a beloved community, a feast of abundance, a sparkling in the light and glory of love.” (ibid)

Today, Christ is meeting us at the water’s edge once again.  We are being offered food and drink so to remember that God sees us and identifies us as one in body with Christ.  We lack nothing.  We are perfect.  Our identities tied to this false view of this world will leave us hoping for something new; will leave us bending like a reed toward any false promise, will have us listening to idle chat.  But, our identity given to us in Christ will bring about a solid story to share where peace, joy, hope, and love are the message.

     Today, we are invited to come and see- we have an identity in Christ.  Come and taste- Christ is giving us nourishment so to share our story.

     Let us pray.  Lord Christ, our rescuer our deliverer our Savior, in you we have been gifted a remembrance of our identity.  Help us to be able to not only see that identity in ourselves but to share our story so others see that identity in themselves.  We are many things to many people, but in you, we become a beacon of light, a strong steady rock anchored in a solid ground which can point the way to life, point the way to love.  Please give us the courage and the words so to proudly yet humbly tell the story of being a child of God.  To you, the author and giver of life, we give the glory for the story.  Amen.