When I was a kid, my mom was having one of those parties in our home where people see samples or catalogues of items and then place their orders. In one of the catalogues, I saw a t-shirt that reflected exactly what I believed about myself. On this t-shirt were the words “General Know It All.”

I wanted this shirt as a badge of honour to tell the world that whatever my opinion was, it was the right opinion and plan.

Identity is an obsession with western people and has been for much of the past century. Everything – from the existential philosophers, Bourne’s many passports and Lady Gaga’s multiple costumes to the perennial “identity crisis” of forty-somethings – speak of this underlying confusion: Who am I really?

There is a solid foundation for our identity.

Joshua looks up and sees a man with a drawn sword. It is not designated as a vision and Joshua does not treat it as a vision. He walks toward the man and speaks to him, asking him “Whose side are you on?” The one-word answer is pivotal to the story and to all of life. “Neither.” The question, as others have said, should be “Whose side am I on?” for we face Christ on holy ground, the Lord of history and the Lord of our lives.

The instructions were to march around the city once a day for six days, in silence, behind the Ark of the Covenant. On the seventh day, they were to march around the city seven times with the priests blowing trumpets and at the end of the seventh march they were to shout. The time of silence is a time of humiliation, to walk and not taunt. They were not to sneer, nor take the opportunity to network with a neighbor. The Ark of the Covenant was a sign of the presence of God, of his promises, deliverance and forgiveness.

Western people have been taught, since childhood, to think of all of life as secular, neutral in regard to religion, the spiritual, and God. Government is secular, as is education, and even the natural world. Most importantly I have been taught that my life, including my decisions and my possessions, is secular, that it also exists in a neutral place, not for God, not against God.

For some of you, the beginning of this passage marks familiar territory from your childhood. “And the walls came a-tumbling down.” It was a remarkably simple strategy to defeat the city and enter it. Some marching and a little noise from the shouting and the blasting of the horn. The story however, does not end there.

If you darkened the door of a Sunday School classroom during your childhood, you probably know this story. This well-known passage, the “calming the storm” story of Jesus crossing the Sea of Galilee, is one of those stories that are not terribly flattering to the disciples. Jesus’ closest followers come across as a tiny bit panicky. On this side of the storm, we’re a little embarrassed for them by the fuss they are making.

If you had to diagram history, what would you draw? Endless circles – history repeating itself? Or a line snaking downward as the human gift for technology intertwines with the human appetite for destruction?

The map drawn in Psalm 75 follows a different trajectory than any we might sketch based on current events.