In 2004, the Christian band Casting Crowns released the song “Who Am I,” which went on to be a huge success, winning Song of the Year at the 36th Annual Dove Awards. The song goes like this:

Who am I, that the Lord of all the earth

Would care to know my name,

Would care to feel my hurt?

Who am I, that the Bright and Morning Star

Would choose to light the way

For my ever wandering heart?

Not because of who I am,

But because of what You’ve done.

Not because of what I’ve done,

But because of who You are.

To this day, if you listen long enough to a Christian radio station, you will very likely hear that song played. And the overarching theme of the song is that our identity is found in Christ. Who I am is defined by God’s activity in my life.

On the other end of the spectrum is the song “Born This Way” by Lady Gaga. She sings these words:

I’m beautiful in my way

‘Cause God makes no mistakes

I’m on the right track, baby

I was born this way

Don’t hide yourself in regret

Just love yourself, and you’re set

I’m on the right track, baby

I was born this way

The essence of this song is that we are perfect just the way we are. The idea is that we simply need to rejoice in who we are and not live in regret but embrace our flaws and uniquenesses. Who I am is simply the person I was born as. Our identity is not connected to anyone or anything outside of ourselves.

So, why am I talking about this today? What does it have to do with Jeremiah or with our chapter for this week from “Love Is the Way” by Bishop Curry? Well, let me answer that second question first and work backward. Bishop Curry asks the question in this chapter, “Won’t loving everybody make me a doormat?” And the basic answer that he gives is that the way we avoid becoming a doormat is by being ourselves. When we live into our truest identity, we will live with love but will not get walked all over. Bishop Curry writes, “I’ve come to see that the call of God, the love that bids us welcome, is always a call to become the true you. Not a doormat. The true you. Not an imitation of someone else. The true you: someone made in the image of God, deserving of and receiving love.” So, not being a doormat, for Bishop Curry is deeply connected to being our true selves. This does not mean that we focus on ourselves in a selfish way, but that we understand ourselves in such a way that we can live unselfishly. Curry writes, “Unselfish, sacrificial living isn’t about ignoring or denying or destroying yourself. It’s about discovering your true self–the self that looks like God–and living life from that grounding.”

And that is where I connect to the passage from Jeremiah. Jeremiah is writing to a people living in exile after the Babylonians conquered Israel. They are a people feeling very disconnected from one another, from God, and even from themselves. They are feeling very deeply all of the losses they’ve experienced. Perhaps we can relate to the Israelites that Jeremiah is writing to in a new way now, after spending the last year exiled from one another due to COVID. We’ve struggled to remain anchored during this time. That is what the Israelites in exile were feeling when Jeremiah wrote to them the words we read this morning. And what Jeremiah writes to them is important for us as well. Jeremiah tells them that God is going to make a new covenant with them. And this new covenant will not require stone tablets or scrolls or the temple because God’s law will be written on the hearts of the people.

And that is where I think we come back to this question of identity and not becoming a doormat when we love others. When we become isolated and separated from our communities, it becomes easy for us to turn our focus toward ourselves. It becomes all about what I need or about what’s good for ME. We begin to forget about the needs of others. A 2017 study published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin found that “[a]n increase in an individual’s loneliness one year…predicted an increase in how often they put themselves first the next year — an effect that was independent of depression and negative moods. The results, the authors explained, support the idea that loneliness is more than a negative state that pushes us to seek relationships; it also promotes a mind-set of self-preservation.” Now, I say this not as a condemnation for any of us who’ve found ourselves going in that direction, but as a signpost to direct us back to ourselves and to our identity as followers of Christ.

So, how do we reconnect to one another, to God, to ourselves, and to our world after the isolation and struggle of COVID comes to an end? And how do we do so without either becoming a doormat or making others into doormats? The answer to this rests in what Jesus calls the greatest commandment. And it seems to me that Bishop Curry lays out this chapter along the same lines. There are three parts to the greatest commandment that I want to highlight and we’ll talk about how they connect to Jeremiah and to Bishop Curry.

First, Jesus says the greatest commandment is, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” Bishop Curry talks about it as connecting with “a love supreme.” He likens this experience to finding his calling in life. For him, I think that calling represents him finding his truest self. Through Jeremiah, God puts it this way, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Our identity in God doesn’t come from our attempts to live a perfect life or from our acts of worship and service. Our identity in God has already been written on our hearts. God created us, God saved us, and God empowers us to live out of the love that God has poured into us through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. We are God’s people, embodiments of a love supreme.

But there is a second part to the greatest commandment. Jesus says, “And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” I want to break this down into two pieces. The first part I want to address is actually the last two words: as yourself. Bishop Curry writes, “What I’ve learned is that you can’t open someone else’s heart without being true to your own.” How can we love others if we don’t have love for ourselves? It can be pretty difficult. Now, that doesn’t mean loving ourselves over and against loving others, but we love ourselves so that we know what love looks like. Poet and author Vironika Tugaleva says this: “Who will you love if not yourself? Other people? How can you love someone for anything but their raw, naked humanity? How can you say you love someone if it is not for their flaws and quirks, snorts and hurts, triggers and tears? Anything else is not love. It is idealization. And, as long as you do it to yourself, you will do it to everyone. You will not love anyone or anything until those eyes in the mirror soften up and embrace the beauty that is already within.” In order to love our neighbor as ourselves, we must first love ourselves. And part of loving ourselves is embracing the forgiveness that comes from God, which Jeremiah talks about in the final verse of our reading.

And when we love ourselves, that love will flow out of us to others. Bishop Curry, in the final section of chapter 5, writes this, “You’re here to give and to receive, and life is incomplete without doing both. When you know, nurture, and ultimately share your true self, you breathe God’s love into every space you inhabit.” I think that people who feel loved are better able to give love. And we cannot feel love if we cannot love ourselves and recognize that we are lovable, even in our most flawed and damaged moments. When we are able to recognize that in ourselves, we can also recognize it in others. And our hearts become connected to one another. When God says though Jeremiah that he will write his law on our hearts, I believe that that law is love and when we open ourselves to it, our hearts recognize that law within them and within the other.

Loving others is not about denying all of our own needs in order to meet the needs of others. If I give away all of my food to feed a hungry person, they may survive, but I will perish instead. True love is living into our true selves and working with others to share in the burdens of the world. Bishop Curry references a quote from Frederick Buechner about discovering the place where “your deep gladness and the world’s great hunger meet.” Curry says that “the more we listen to love–let it guide us through life–the faster we find that sweet spot, that intersection where our deep gladness and the world’s hunger meet and walk the path of love together.” May we all find that sweet spot! And may God’s love fill us to the point that it overflows to the world around us! And may we discover who we are in God and live fully into our true selves. Amen!