So what do you do on New Year’s Day, after
you’ve watched the parade, when you’re in a hotel 400 miles from home, and no
one in your family cares one bit about watching football on TV?
You go see a movie.
We drove a few miles to the matinee showing
of Les Miserables. I was not too familiar with the story, and in
case you aren’t, either, it begins with prisoner 24601. Prisoner 24601 is about to be released, but
he will forever be on probation, and will forever be marked as an
ex-convict.
Nevertheless, he insists that he is not
prisoner 24601, but Jean Valjean. The name is important. The name is power.
In some of the fantasy books my boys like to
read, characters have names that are well-known, but they also have secret
names, magical names, names in the ancient language, which few know. In some of these stories, the characters themselves don’t know their true name,
and must discover it. Discovering their
true name always matches the character’s journey of discovering who they really
are as a person.
I don’t know if readers of these stories know
it or not, but in many real-life cultures and societies, people have names that
everyone uses, and they have secret names that are never spoken to outsiders
and which are used only in sacred rituals.
The name is important. The name is power.
We see this in scripture. Several figures who appear on the pages of
scripture undergo name changes at significant moments in their lives. Abram becomes Abraham. Sarai becomes Sarah. Simon becomes Peter.
The name is important. The name is power.
Even God’s name, it was believed, carried
great power.
The name of God in Hebrew scripture is
Yahweh. However, the ancient scribes
believed that this was a name too sacred to pronounce, so they included notes
in the scripture indicating that one should instead say Adonai, meaning “Lord,” or Elohim,
meaning “God.” In modern English Bibles,
in part to honor this ancient tradition of not pronouncing the holy name, the
Hebrew word Yahweh is usually replaced by the word “Lord,” written in all capital letters to signify that it is
used in place of the ancient name for God.
Names are important. Names are power.
God knows that names are important, and that
names have power. In Isaiah, God says to
Israel, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name. You are mine.”
More correctly translated, what the scripture
says is “I have called you by your
name.”
I think I am getting better at remembering
people’s names. I sure hope so. This has always been a struggle for me.
Names are important. Names are power.
When he was eight days old, Jesus was
presented in the temple, and given a name.
Years later his baptism served as a different sort of naming
ceremony. There, as he emerged from the
water, he was called “Beloved, Son of God.”
It was a descriptive name that defined who he was,… and whose he was. Because of this, the name of Jesus is
important. The name of Jesus has power.
This week I came across an essay by former
South African Methodist Bishop Peter Storey.
He wrote about Maya Lin, who designed the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial in
Washington, D.C. He says she was once
asked why the monument has such a strong grip on the emotions of the American
people. She replied: “It’s the names. The names are
the memorial. No edifice or structure
can bring people to mind as powerfully as their names."
In another article, I read that Maya Lin won
a competition for the memorial, beating out over 1400 other submissions, while
she was still an undergraduate student. Lin
believes that if the competition had not been "blind", with designs
submitted by number instead of name, she "never would have won" due
to her Chinese heritage.
For better or for worse, names have power.
In Isaiah 43, the Lord (written in all capital letters) tells Israel, “I have
called you by your name.” Several verses
later, the Lord promises blessings
on “everyone who is called by my name–“
that is, the name of Yahweh, as opposed to the name of another god like
Marduk or Baal.
In Isaiah 43, being called by one’s own name
– and being called by God’s name – is important. It is powerful.
Later in Isaiah, in chapter 62, it is
written: “You shall be called by a new
name that the mouth of the Lord
will give… You shall no more be termed Azubah
[a Hebrew word that means “forsake”], and your land shall no more be termed
Shemamah [which means “desolate”]; but you shall be
called Hephzibah [“My Delight Is in
Her”], and your land will be called Beulah
[“married”]… For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your builder
marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God
rejoice over you.”
Just
like at Jesus’s baptism, names often tell not only who we are, but to whom we
belong. Many surnames originated this
way. A look through our own church
directory reveals Henrickson, Johnson, Williamson, and several other
“sons.” The scriptural equivalent of
this would be the word “bar.” At one
point the man Jesus called Peter is referred to as Simon, son of Jonah, which
in Hebrew is Simon Bar-Jonah.
And then there’s Bar-abbas, the criminal who
is set free in place of Jesus. “Abba,”
you know, means “father,” – Abba, Father
– so Bar-abbas means “son of the fathers.”
When Jesus is sentenced to crucifixion, the crowd is given a choice as
to who should be set free: Bar-abbas, the
son of the fathers, or Jesus, the son of the Father.
Names are important. The way names are used are important. It has
power.
At his baptism, Jesus is called “Beloved, Son
of God.” By virtue of our own baptism,
all of us have been named children of God.
Our regional minister, Susan Gonzales Dewey,
often spends time with our youth at Loch Leven.
Several times I’ve seen her there, and every time she invites the youth
to repeat after her these words: “I am a
beloved child of God, and I am beautiful to behold.” It’s a powerful moment, especially for kids
who are used to being called by other names, names given to them by those who
pick on them and bully them, names of insult and slander.
In fact, in a society that looks upon each
human individual as a number, or a consumer, it is a powerful thing to know
that your true, secret name is a name of wonderful blessing.
“I am a beloved child of God, and I am
beautiful to behold.”
After having the kids repeat those words
several times, Susan then reads the beginning verses of Isaiah 43:
The God who made you, Jacob; the One who got
you started, Israel; says to you: “Don’t
be afraid, I’ve redeemed you, I’ve called your name. You’re mine.
When you’re in over your head, I’ll be there with you. When you’re in rough waters, you will not go
down. When you’re between a rock and
hard place, it won’t be a dead end, because I am God, your God, the Holy One of
Israel, your Savior. I paid a huge price
for you: all of Egypt, with rich Cush
and Seba thrown in! That’s how much you
mean to me. That’s how much I love you. I’d sell off the whole world to get you back;
trade the creation just for you.”
One of the more well-known stories of Fred
Craddock refers to this type of naming and belonging. In the story, Fred Craddock is dining at a
restaurant when an old man comes over to his table, and – upon finding out that
Craddock is a preacher – begins to tell him a story. And according to Craddock, the story the old
man told went like this:
“I grew up in these mountains. My mother was not married, and the whole
community knew it. I was what was called
an illegitimate child. In those days
that was a shame, and I was ashamed. The
reproach that fell on her, of course, fell also on me. When I went into town with her, I could see
people staring at me, making guesses as to who was my father. At school the children said ugly things to
me, and so I stayed to myself during recess, and I ate my lunch alone.
“In my early teens I began to attend a little
church back in the mountains called Laurel Springs Christian Church. It had a minister who was both attractive and
frightening. He had a chiseled face and
a heavy beard and a deep voice. I went
to hear him preach. I don’t know exactly
why, but it did something for me.
However, I was so afraid that I was not welcome since I was, as they put
it, a bastard. So I would go just in
time for the sermon, and when it was over I would move out because I was afraid
that someone would say, ‘what’s a boy like you doing in a church?’
“One Sunday some people queued up in the
aisle before I could get out, and I was stopped. Before I could make my way through the group,
I felt a hand on my shoulder, a heavy hand.
It was that minister. I cut my
eyes around and caught a glimpse of his beard and chin, and I knew who it
was. I trembled in fear. He turned his face around so he could see
mine and seemed to be staring for a little while. I knew what he was doing. He was going to make a guess as to who my
father was. A moment later he said,
‘Well, boy, you’re a child of…’ and he paused there. And I knew it was coming. I knew I would have my feelings hurt. I knew I would not go back again. He said, ‘Boy, you’re a child of God. I see a striking resemblance, boy.’ Then he swatted me on the bottom and said,
‘Now, you go claim your inheritance.’ I left the building a different person. In fact, that was really the beginning of my
life.”
I was so moved by the story I had to ask him,
“What’s your name?”
He said, “Ben Hooper.”
I recalled, though vaguely, my own father
talking when I was just a child about how the people of Tennessee had twice
elected as governor a bastard, Ben Hooper.
We are given many names and labels by the
world around us. Many of them are names
that hurt us and destroy our soul. It
wasn’t any different for Jesus. But at
his baptism, he was given a name, a title, by God that reflects who he truly
was: a beloved child of God.
It’s the same name and title that each of us
receives on the day of our baptism.
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