I've never been great with names,
which is a real liability for a preacher.
I can remember the telephone number of my best friend in Junior High
School, and the year the second temple in
I like my name pretty well. It is kind of old fashioned. Everyone today seems to be named Brittany or Hillary or Lindsay. Names go in and out of fashion, but I doubt that some will ever see a comeback. I had a great great aunt named Buehla Belle Sneed … I like my name a lot more than that; in fact, I wouldn’t wish that on anybody! I also like being called "Pastor" - athough sometimes I'm embarrassed to be associated with some who bear that name. My favorite name to be called is Mom.
I'm glad to be attached to the name "United Church of Christ," and I’m proud of the name "American," so it makes me angry when American policies bring shame to the name in the wider world. I want that name to always represent peace and justice, compassion for the dispossessed, freedom and good will to all.
Each of us call ourselves by many names, and our names tell us who we are. Our names bring us both pride and shame, not only because of what others bring to them but because of what we bring to them along the way. Sometimes, being known by so many names can create conflicts of interest, competing values, even confusion of identity. Lots of people who claim many names, still have no clear idea who they are. We have to prioritize or we wind up a little schizophrenic … and maybe a lot hypocritical. We have to decide on our primary name, our true name, bring our best to it, and live by it, if we're going to be integrated, have integrity, be whole.
Names are significant in the Bible,
of course. You remember how God gave people new names at the moment of their
calling. "Abram" became "Abraham" and "Sarai" became "Sarah." "Saul" the
persecutor became "Paul" the missionary to the Gentiles. "Simon
son of Jonah" became "Peter" the rock on whose confession the
church was built. Jacob was renamed "
Do you hear what God is saying here? God knows our name! God calls us personally with an invitation to life. And, God gives us a new name, our true name, which sets us in a new and glorious direction.
Our church connects baptism with
infancy, and in parallel with the Jewish rite of circumcision, naming is an
important part of the ritual. John Westerhoff tells
the story of an infant baptism he witnessed in
We know that our parents and family and church cannot decide our identity for us. For good or ill they send us spinning in some direction in life. But we have to make the adult decision about who we are and what we will become. Somewhere and at some time we make the choice to accept or refuse the grace of God and the identity for which God created us. Says Timothy O'Connell:
In the end, the deepest question each of us adults faces is the question of where we will point our lives …the question of direction. In some sense everything else leads up to this and is important in how it relates to this. Sin is a direction possibility and the blessed alternative to sin is a direction pointed toward God: These alternatives are, in the end, what life is all about.
We believe we are "named" at our baptism. At our baptism, we become a child of God, and we take the name of Christ upon ourselves. Christian - this is our true family name, "the name that is above every name" as Paul writes. Christian! This is who we are, who God made us to be, what God calls us to become.
I know that the name Christian has been sullied by some of the people who have worn it. The Crusades, the Inquisition, the present day scandals by those ordained to preach God’s word and the hate mongers who call for the exclusion of others from the grace and love of God - they have brought shame to the name of Christ and they have taken the Lord's name in vain. And if we are honest, we have to admit that we have not always lived up to the name as we should have, and there is nothing worse than for us to attach the sacred special name of Christ to our ways and means and bad behaviors. Many people have left the church, dropped-out because they couldn’t abide the hypocrisy. John Shelby Spong calls them "the church alumni/ae association," and many others who would never darken our door in the first place. Christian who have not lived in congruence with their name, seldom have the humility of admitting that we all fall short of the name to begin with. But please let me make clear that saying "we are all sinners" is no excuse for not trying to live up to the wonderful name we've been given.
The reason for our confusion may simply be that we forget to remember that no other name should ever be above the name Christian. That the name Christian should be first and best in our lives and define what we bring to all the other names we wear.
In the UCC, we remember who we are through two rituals … rich outward symbols of an inner spiritual reality … both of which point to the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ and our identity in him. These rituals are baptism and the Lord's Supper.
Every new year, as the season of Epiphany begins, we remember all the ways the presence of God was revealed through Jesus - "Epiphany" means "revelation."
We begin with the story of Jesus' own
baptism, when he laid down his life to accept his Divine destiny. On that
day when John buried Jesus beneath the waters of the
Therefore, like Jesus, I think we hear the same words of approval from God …beginning at our baptism and from start to finish in our lives … I think we all receive the same love and delight and encouragement that God gave to Jesus. Because of that we can live for God from day to day to fulfill the unique destiny God gives to each of us. We too are God's beloved child, and God is pleased with us." Words of grace to accept…words of calling to live up to…words that remind us whose name we bear and by whose name we live. God calls us by name: Christian! This is our first and true name, the name above every other name we may claim or which claims us.
Therefore I invite you today to remember your true name, to renew your baptism and to join the family at God's communion table. And I urge you to renew your covenant with God to be Christian, to be the beloved community, the church, and to live out your calling to mediate the love of God to the world. Let us bring to our Name grace and peace, joy and gratitude, faith, hope, and love…but never shame.
Beloved, let us remember, and so let us live, in the name of Christ. Amen.
May we pray?
O God who names us and gives us the glorious destiny to be your loving, joyful people in the world, remind us today who we are - whose we are - so we might remember we are your children. Call us by name that we might hear the sound of your voice and follow you, and live as we pray in the name of Christ. Amen.
Mary Anne Biggs, Pastor
Nekoosa United
Nekoosa