On August 18, 1978, the English rock band, The Who, released their 8^th studio album titled Who Are You which was also the title track on the album.  Those three words form an existential question that many of us have pondered regarding others and maybe even self. 

Think about the labels that we use to describe who we are:  father, mother, sister, brother, husband, wife, son, daughter, grandfather, or grandmother just to name a few.  These attempt to define familial alignment while others attempt to describe roles that we play.  Think of terms like provider, nurturer, partner, or entrepreneur.  This is just a small sampling of the ways in which we try to answer the question, “who are you?” and assign meaning to our lives.

In our faith life we also use a variety of labels to describe who we are in relationship to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Sinner, saint, redeemed, beloved, forgiven, disciple, follower, seeker, among others.  Two words that describe who we are but are rarely used are the words influencer and revealer – these are contemporary correlations to the words salt and light.  Jesus said that his disciples are to be salt and one of the roles of salt is that it influences; it influences taste, preservation, and healing among other things. Jesus said that his disciples should be light and we know that light is not self-serving; it serves the purpose of revealing what is around us. So in contemporary vernacular, Jesus says that we should be influencers and revealers.  We are to influence people in the pursuit of goodness as defined by the words of Jesus’ in the Sermon on the Mount.  And we are to reveal to the world what it looks like to live in God’s kingdom of love and forgiveness.  The challenge is doing what we are meant to do.

The writer of the second letter to the Corinthians says that “if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” (NKJV)  Notice that the writer does not say that you are becoming a new creation.  Rather, the writer uses the empathic “you are.”  Baptized followers of Jesus Christ are a new creation – you are salt and light, you are an influencer and revealer of the kingdom of God.  The journey for many of us is discovering that this is our meaning and learning to live into this new reality.

I invite you to take time and read each of the scriptures above as you move to reflect on the questions below.  Take a moment and reflect on what you assume to be the meaning for your life.  I hope that you might hear the invitation to be the influencer and revealer that God has redeemed you to be.  Lastly, I pray that God bless the reading of God’s Word and the meditations of your heart.