From Exodus ….

The Lord said to Moses, “Come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

(From the Daily Office Readings – Exodus 3:10-11 – March 24, 2012)

So here we are, the fugitive murderer is getting his commission to return to Egypt and speak truth to power, and he responds with a question probably every human being ever born has asked at least once, “Who am I that I should do this?” ~ A sense of inadequacy seems to inform Moses’ the question, “Who am I?” He’s been hiding out in Midian for forty years; he’s taken on a whole new identity as shepherd and husband and father. Now he is challenged by God’s commission to engage the deepening complexity of understanding himself. ~ It makes perfect sense for Moses to seek a deeper sense of himself in this situation. Whenever we are called to a new role in life it seems eminently prudent to become more aware of one’s thoughts, feelings, hopes, and fears, to take an inventory of one’s abilities, talents, skills, and knowledge. But just as the Moses who stands before the Burning Bush is not the same Moses who came to Midian as a fugitive from Egyptian justice, so the Moses who will confront Pharaoh and lead the Hebrews across the desert will not be the same Moses who is just now being commissioned by God. Human identity is an on-going process. The self constantly changes; it is perpetually being reframed, reorganized, rethought. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer once confronted this question in a poetic essay:

Who am I? They often tell me
I stepped from my cell’s confinement
Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
Like a squire from his country-house.
Who am I? They often tell me
I used to speak to my warders
Freely and friendly and clearly,
As though it were mine to command.
Who am I? They also tell me
I bore the days of misfortune
Equably, smilingly, proudly,
Like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really all that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I myself know of myself?
Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
Struggling for breath, as though hands were
compressing my throat,
Yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
Thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,
Tossing in expectation of great events,
Powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
Faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?

Who am I? This or the other?
Am I one person today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
And before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am Thine!
(From Christianity and Crisis, March 4, 1946)

And therein lies the answer to Moses’ question and to ours. The important question is not who we are, for that changes from day to day, from task to task. The important question is whose we are, for we are God’s and that never changes.