What's in a name?

 Christ Episcopal Church, St. Joseph, La., Feast of the Holy Name

In case you don’t remember, or have never noticed, the Hebrew Scripture—which is our Old Testament and is also part of Islam’s Koran—contains two creation stories. The first one that occupies the first chapter of Genesis is by far the better known. That’s the one that goes, “On the first day, God” did thus and such and on the second day God did other stuff, and so on.

 

I’m not sure why this story is more popular or better known. Maybe just because it comes first in the Bible, maybe because it is more detailed and satisfies our sense of order by enumerating God’s creation schedule.

 

In any case, the second creation story that occupies most of Genesis Chapter 2 gets relatively little attention. About the only thing most people recall from the second story of creation is that’s the one where God puts Adam to sleep and takes out a rib to make Eve. Sadly, not much good comes out of people remembering that because they tend to turn it into a rationale for a lot of nonsense about gender relationships! But.. we will not go down that rabbit hole this morning.

 

Something else happens only in that second creation story that I want to bring to our attention today. I’m reading now, Genesis 2:18-20a: 

 

Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’ So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field. 

 

Today is the Feast of the Holy Name. Our Gospel lesson from Luke tells the story. On the 8^th day after his birth—to us, the 8^th Day of Christmas—Joseph and Mary take Jesus to the temple to be circumcised and named. And they name him “Jesus,” the name given Mary by the angel Gabriel. Jesus means “salvation.”

 

I connect these two stories—the naming of the animals and the naming of Jesus—to make the point that naming is a profound act. We call things into being by naming them.

 

Have you ever noticed that? That once you have a name for something or someone, it or they exist for you in a new way? That you see things you never noticed before once you have a name for them?

 

Here’s a small example. I went hiking yesterday in the Russell Sage WMA with several friends, two of whom are very knowledgeable about mushrooms. We were standing beside a fallen tree trunk covered with various fungi and I had photographed the ones I recognize.

 

That’s actually something I noticed about my nature photography. If I know the name of something, I am way more likely to make photographs of it. I love learning the names of all kinds of plants, animals and mushrooms, but I have to discipline myself to take pictures of them so I can then look through field guides and learn their names!

 

So… we’re standing beside this log and one of my knowledgeable friends said, “Look, this one is called ‘violet-toothed polypore.’” And I looked and sure enough, there they were. Little fan-shaped mushrooms with a purple rim on the side of the log. I had not noticed them.

 

What do you want to bet that next time I go to Russell Sage—or any other bottomland hardwood forest—I’ll see them everywhere! Because now I have a name for them. Violet-toothed polypore!

 

Naming matters. God invited the man to name the animals, and thereby called humankind into the role of co-creators. Throughout Hebrew Scripture, people and places are given meaningful names, that is, names full of meaning.

 

For example, “Moses” means “drawn out” because he was drawn out of the water by Pharoah’s daughter, and he goes on to “draw out” the Israelites from Egypt. Jacob names the place where he wrestles with God in a dream “Beth-el,” meaning “house of God.”

 

These names are not merely identifiers we need to keep characters and places straight. That’s kind of how we do names today. Rather, Old Testament names speak of calling and destiny.

 

“Jesus” literally means “salvation.” And that is who he is to us. That is his calling and his destiny. Of course, he has other names that point to other aspects of him: Prince of Peace, Counselor, to name just two. But his first and given name, from God the Father through the angel Gabriel, is Salvation. Jesus is our salvation.

 

And what a comfort it is to say the name Jesus and to know him as Savior, the one who brings salvation to us—not once, but over and over again, as often and as long as we need it, which is to say always and forever!

 

One of the several online sources I typically consult in preparing a homily suggests that we might want to “write the name of God above the new year,” mentally and emotionally, just as we might physically chalk the first initials of the 3 wisemen above our doorways on Epiphany: C + M + B (Caspar, Melchior, Balthasar).

 

Writing the name of God above the new year in our hearts and in our mind—and I did it in my journal last night—will then help us enter the practice of breathing the Holy Name so that it might eventually become one with the beating of our heart. This is a way to experience and understand what it means to “pray without ceasing.”

 

 

But if we leave it there, if saying the Holy Name becomes merely a comforting moment that wipes away our sin, if praying the Holy Name is merely an act of piety, then we have taken the name of Jesus in vain.

 

That’s the “boom” of this homily. The name of Jesus is not just the calling of a babe born in Bethlehem 2000 years ago. Claiming that name is a calling for us. To claim the name of Jesus is to do the work he has given us to do. Otherwise, we take his name in vain.

 

You probably don’t need me to enumerate once again what that work is. But I’m going to anyway. It is to love our neighbors—ALL of our neighbors—as ourselves. It is to heal the sick and feed the hungry, to give one of our coats to someone who has none. It is to see God in every other human face and all of Creation. It is to seek justice and the common good.

 

Let us pray, as we claim the name of Jesus today, that we will in the coming year walk the walk of service that claiming that name calls us to.

 

  In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN.