 I was trying to figure out why I was so nervous as I was preparing this film, and I realized it's because it's been, I expect, at least seven or eight years since I've preached this film. It's partly to do with the fact that, in the last seven years, my husband and I have worked with a program called Pickers. In November of 2013, I traveled with my husband, John Philip Staltzfus, to the eastern shore of Maryland to bury my mother-in-law. We named the only case Staltzfus to arrest, next to her husband, John Philip Staltzfus. My in-laws had moved to Maryland in the 1950s after being excommunicated from the Honors Church in the Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. They had been part of a group of young adults who'd asked the bishops if they could sing a lot of new music and start a Sunday school. The bishops said no, so the other adults were forced to go their own way. The group found farmland and built a community in Kent County, Maryland. Eventually, the congregation they formed came affiliated with Fiji Amish Leninites, and eventually, my father-in-law, Johnny, as he was known, became one of the ministers who was chosen by a lot and was a minister of Harmony Christian Fellowship. My brother-in-law, Dennis, told me that becoming a minister was the worst thing that happened to his father. As a member of a team of ministers at Harmony, my father-in-law presided over excommunications that included his own infusion and his family, but that's not good news. Let me go back to Naomi. At the visitation the night before the funeral, I stood with my husband, John, at the tail end of a line of family. Sam, Lydia, with her husband Leroy, Anne, with her husband Doug, Jonas, his wife Ruth, and, instead, Ruth and my mother-in-law and her mother-in-law Amy didn't get along very well. Mary Ellen and her husband Mark called on Jeanette, Tim and Diane were not there, but that's another story. Then came John Philip, known as J.P. in his arts, and we, I should add, that what he was known as J.P. in his arts, his mother, I never referred to him that way. She always called him John Philip and wanted others to use him. No, no, it was me. We've read it everyone who would come to pay their respects. It was a great mental exercise, putting faces to names from stories about youth in Atlantic State. And there were surprises too. I got to meet John Henry Miller, his wife and his parents. John Henry and his brother Eddie had been in youth group with J.P. John Henry, along with a couple of other young men including his brother, were ex-communicated for wearing field caps and listening to the wrong kind of music. It was my father-in-law who presided over that ex-communication. My brother, not Jonas, and his wife, had been youth leaders, and Jonas and his brother, Tim, tried to persuade the congregation not to vote for ex-communication at night. My mother-in-law kept her young son, who was J.P., at home. She didn't want him to get any more other than the politics of the church. After the meeting, Jonas and Tim came home telling J.P. that had he been there, they might have had enough votes to keep the young people in congregation. In the moment, when I met John Henry and his family, because when it's all the same, I was spelled with an A, not an E. I realized in a profound way that there's no clear line that determines who is midnight and who is not. Who is an abaptist? If someone kicks you out of the church, are you no longer midnight? Who do people say that I am? Who do you say that I am? Who do people say that my abaptists are? Who do you say that my abaptists are? When I introduced my parents and John to each other, we had a long conversation about the nights. During that conversation, my dad and John did most of the talking. Actually, my dad's talking. They compared notes on my cover on this and he starts at the midnight and skied a counter after joining the midnight church. My dad, he was a very ingenious first, which is another story. He met the nineties through vacation by the school in Sarasota, Florida. He was the target of an outreach program to black children living in minor camps, not far from Pinecraft and on an abaptist conflict in Sarasota. Once inducted into the fold, he connected with men in Eastern Monarch College in Harrisonburg, Virginia. And in the summers, he had exposure to the nights in Eastern Ohio when he worked on the muck farms in Parkville, even joining the Parkville Singers. There are more anecdotes I could share from that conversation. In fact, my father were playing code when he was in college and when my parents first met at father and my dad, no one was wearing a covering. There is one thing I noticed, though, that I want to share. My mother, Elizabeth Ann, posted a very awesome note as Beth, who'd grown up in the Mennonite congregation in a family that had been Mennonite for generations at no awareness of these other stripes of Mennonites and on abaptists who were right and perfect, you are, figuratively speaking, because my mother was born and raised in Eastern Ohio, an ethnic Mennonite, and as far as she and her family were concerned, they were part of the community that defined who the Mennonites were. All of these other stripes of Mennonites simply didn't register on their radar and they weren't actively ignoring them. They just didn't know they were there. Who do people say that I'm about to start? Who do you say that I'm about to start? Who do people say that I am? Who do you say that I am? The passage from Matthew that has been read for us defines the passages from Mark chapter 8 and chapter 9. Referred to as the Messianic secret, these passages are obviously concerned with Jesus' identity. He's interested in the word on the screen about who he is and what he's up to. But he's also interested in what the 12 think about this identity question too. Willard shortly explained to me that in Mark's version of this conversation, the important takeaway is that no one knows who Jesus is. Hell knows who Jesus is. But humans do not. That viewpoint holds with Matthew's rendering. Jesus declares, Blessed are you Simon and Son of general, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father in heaven. And then what happens? Jesus gives Simon a big name. I tell you, you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church in the gates of Hades and will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. A good name is to be chosen out of the great riches and favor is better than silver or gold. Identity is a monthly layer in the complex thing. Certainly Jesus' identity as God and a person with ethnicity and tribal affiliation must make results in the occasional moments of existential crisis. Our names, that is how we are known, are significant parts of who we are. Luke tells us that when Gabriel appeared in the area he instructed her to name a baby Yeshua. God saves what power. The practice of changing one's name of baptism and naming children after saints and martyrs was important to some early Christians. And the virtue of biblical names has been persuasive for many at the beginning in my baby's name is Jeremiah. But a name alone doesn't define our identity. I am more than a woman who is the bearer of even if I can talk to the length about each of those names. Who do you say that I am? Who do I say that I am? More and more I hear people qualify in their opinions and perspectives with a brief litany of their social location. Grace, nationality, sex, sexual orientation and class typically talk the list with little hairs. And in this setting you frequently hear the preface I'm not from the background. This practice has causes and biases. Being transparent about our place in society is a good thing because it means we are aware that there are differences with real consequences. Using the same demographic handles over and over though I think can undermine the depth of our identity and experience. For example, I guess that for many of you who have children being parents it's actually shaped you at your social location just as much or even more as any other locators. Yet how often do you hear people say as a straight white father of two children? My point is that social location is one place where who others say we are impacts our perception. Our identity isn't something we pour from a can or wear around our neck. Who we are grows from the interplay of who others say we are and from who we understand ourselves to be. Sometimes that interplay is playful, free and affirming. Tree hugging granola eating earth mama. Sometimes that interplay is contorted in a distorting dimension. Tree hugging granola eating earth mama. I get why Jesus might have wanted to keep his identity his true identity is secret. A good name is to be chosen rather than break riches and finger it's better than silver and gold. Who do people say that anti-baptists are? Who do you say that anti-baptists are? Who do I say I am as an anti-baptist? I must confess that I find the discussion about Mennonite and anti-baptist identity a little bit frightening because we always seem to be so intense on fixing something or solving a problem without quite knowing what's broken or why we can't find the right solution. Like many of you, I want to be able to say an anti-baptist Christian is and then finish the sentence with something smart and healthy but true. But I can't and neither can you and that's not just good news. I think it's great news. I graduated from a college whose motto is culture for service. This means what I think anti-baptist Christian is about. Seeing the world as God sees it and using that vision to move compassionately toward others so that God's great shalom might be known throughout the earth. Theology and culture are woven together with the hope that the ways that we express ourselves open doors and build bridges. But here's the thing. I think this takes in mythology as well as Christology. To say that we follow Jesus isn't enough. Being Christian involves waiting on the Spirit. God's ministry and the incarnations in particular Jesus gathered together a band of disciples that was about to not be proved, we know this. But it's also a culturally homogenous model for it. The multi-racial, multi-ethnic international transcendental celebration that is God's great shalom isn't necessarily modeled in Jesus' immediate community until the apostles are sent prior to Jesus' ascension into the whole world. To catch the portrait of something more global and expansive we think of Pentecost. While a crowd that had gathered to celebrate the Feast of Weeks or Shabbos was Jewish it was made up of people from the nations who didn't speak the same language. But the Holy Spirit made it possible for them to communicate with each other. It was a surprising polarity. I'm a Christian because I have accepted Jesus' request that I be on hand for that which is at me but not yet in hand. I got that from Ideology Professor Chris from the House. May I find it quick? Being a man makes me an abaptist mean that when I show up I do so grounded by a worldview that means I participate in God's, the inbreak shalom non-violently. To do so I must receive the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is working in me and I know this is true because I can see how far I've traveled and how far I've yet to go but again, that's a different story The unifying and healing power of Jesus' name is an important principle of Christian spirituality but when it comes to opening up spaces in our hearts and complications and instituting offices that takes the work of the Holy Spirit because it is the Spirit's work that allows us to relax and let go of control. The gift of Holy the gift of Holy Indifference from the Holy Spirit is what allows us to see ourselves as we truly are and allows us to show others who we truly are. Holy Indifference is how Ignatius of Loyola described our posture of openings to God's will and meaning. A good name is to be children that rather than great niches and a favor that are insurmountable. When John and I married we loved our names as they are as they were but some among my sisters in law seem that I am now Mrs. John Full of Staltzfus. I think that some of John's sisters would be mild and horrified if they realized that this is actually not the case. The fact is that the bullet of Staltzfus is a much more maniacal name than I want to have. But whatever my name is what matters most to me is if they know I love them and I'm Lydia and I'm married are all part of each community so they wear coverings and dresses and new earrings and a little braids and actually as a sign of respect I wear skirts when I go to Lydia's house because that's really important to her and I'm Mary Ellen who cares so much. We are unlike these sisters and yet we are sisters. We are learning that we are theology and culture poorer and Baptist Christians have strengths.