Who are You?

We finished 2021, pre-Christmas, studying the Beatitudes. I intend to return to the Beatitudes for a thorough deep dive. But for now, I want to start this new year reminding you of “What is most Important.”

Here again is a short story about a rabbi and his encounter with a Roman soldier.¹

It seems our rabbi takes the wrong fork in a road on his way home one night, and soon thereafter he is startled by a shout: “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

The rabbi realizes he has stumbled upon a Roman outpost and for a moment he freezes in his steps. Again, the Roman soldier roars, “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

The rabbi pauses for a moment, and then he calls out, “How much do you get paid a day?” Perplexed by the rabbi’s response, the solder replies, “I get paid two denarii a day, Jew. Why?”

The rabbi responds, “Because I will double your wage if you come to my house every morning and ask me those same two questions.”

Oh my.

So I ask you, you, “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

These two questions are tightly linked together, because the way you answer the second, answers the first. Put another way, what I am about each day, my to-do list, my order of priorities, becomes who I am.

Can I get you to picture yourself leaving the house in the morning, already distracted and a possibly a tad frayed. And standing in front of you is someone who stops you and asks,