Year A Holy Name 2017 "What's In A Name?"

Year A Feast of the Holy Name of our Lord

“What’s in a Name?”

St. David’s Episcopal, Aylett, VA

Good morning, and Happy New Year! Glad to see that some of you made it out bright and early on this Feast Day of the Holy Name of Jesus. It was a fast turn-around if you stayed up to midnight!

Shakespeare, in the famous balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, had the heroine say:

“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”

Romeo and Juliet, Act II Scene II (Balcony Scene) William Shakespeare

Very dismissive, it seems. Now I will agree with Juliet, that for the most part names are just sounds we attach to ideas. I have always loved the idea of Adam naming all the animals as they came parading by, and him just slapping names on them, according to Genesis 2 anyway. Names are a construct. Plain and simple. And like all constructs, things we make up and use in our minds to stand in for things, they usually are what we argue about most. Think about borders of countries, lines in the sand, or soil, or sea. Those lines are not real! But, and there is always a but, they mean as much as the meaning people give them.

[Hold up a dollar bill.] We as a country have agreed that this piece of linen cloth and paper has an inherent value. I can take this to a store and give it to someone for something I want. This dollar is a construct, that we have agreed has a particular meaning. Even though it is only a piece of paper, we have all agreed that this MEANS that I have the ability to get a dollar’s worth of product or service for what in reality is just a piece of paper. This becomes even more ridiculous when you think about a check.

One of my daughters asked what checks were last week, and we tried to explain the idea that it is a paper promise for money that the bank holds. Money is a construct, and a check is promise of a construct that nobody has actually seen, but we all agree is there. It is a little confusing, and goes back to Juliet’s point, “What’s in a name?”

And names are a construct. They are an agreed upon understanding of meaning. Different cultures have different rules for naming. In Jesus’ day, it was an expectation for the sons to take a family name as their own. See how Zechariah had to fight to name his son John, the one we call John the Baptist, in Matthew Chapter One (vv. 57-66) More and more as we have a culture that is making up the rules as we go along, we find that names are becoming more and more anything goes. Spelling, languages, entirely made up. The newer constructs often surprise and maybe upset people.

Some people looked at my wife and I funny when we named our kids. They thought we were making up names. Many of you have met them, Selah and Sojourner. When I was in seminary, I took a class called Prayer in the Bible, and we studied many of the Psalms, and in the lines there was a word that is left untranslated, Selah. The meaning is unclear and comes from the Hebrew root for Shalom, peace. It could mean for the musicians to take a break, or the instrumentalists, but either way, someone was to take a rest. In the African-American tradition, when they see Selah in the Psalms, they think, and often say, “Meditate on this.” We all are to pause and reflect. So whether a capella, musical interlude, or reflection, I always loved the idea and that day I came home to my wife and said if I ever had a daughter I would want to call her Selah. So we claimed a biblical name, a name with wonderful, though ambiguous, meaning or meanings. But many, thought that our construct had no meaning. Our second child is Sojourner, which means traveller or pilgrim, a long biblical tradition of following God. So much of my theology is wrapped around us being Sojourners on the path of Jesus back to God. Also, Sojourner Truth has always been a hero. And when you take a mom with Political Science and Women’s Studies degrees married to dad with History and Religion degrees, not many people are at the center of that Venn diagram, not in this country anyway. When our Sojourner was a few weeks old, we took her for a visit to the doctor, and the nurse tried saying her name, and when she got it asked us what language it was. We said English, and she actually said, “No, really.” Just a reminder that there is no fix for stupid.

But for both of our children, and for many of the unfamiliar, new, or different names there is often deep and profound meanings, maybe new constructs, or re-introductions of old, but they are filled with meaning and purpose. The same was true of the Holy Name given to Jesus.

Why is this the Feast Day of the Holy Name? From our Scripture today, we take the idea that this was when the naming of our blessed Lord took place.

Luke 2: 21 “After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.”

As we look to the 25th as the birthday of Jesus, we look to the 1st of January as the 8th day of Christmas, when the Holy Family, to fulfill all righteousness, took Jesus to the Temple to have his naming ceremony and to give a sacrifice for his birth. The sacrifice was the option given for the poor, just two turtledoves or two young pigeons. Also, it was required for the young baby to be  circumcised, in accordance to the tradition handed down since the covenant with Abraham.

This young Jewish baby boy was named with a common name, Yeshua, which comes from “Yahweh delivers,” or “Yahweh rescues,” or as we might say it, “God Saves.” We do not hear it as Yeshua very often, because the New Testament was written in Greek, and Yeshua, or Joshua as we often translate it, Yeshua in the Hebrew was changed to Jesus in the Greek. Whatever version you use, the name is the same, and so is the meaning. It is not lost on me that the very name of our Lord and Savior is a testament of how we see him. Our Savior’s Name is “God Saves.” Wow.

The angel Gabriel instructed Mary to name him this here in Luke, (Luke 1:30-31 30The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. 31And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.)

Joseph was given the same instruction in Matthew (Matthew 1:20-21 20...an angel of the Lord appeared to [Joseph] in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’)

The name given to the baby is, was, and we as his followers believe always will be revered.

You may notice that at several points in the liturgy, both today and every Sunday, I may give a slight bow. It comes after the Name of Jesus is said. It is an ascent to the verse from our New Testament reading today. This portion of Philippians is about as old as anything we have in the Jesus Movement, the following of this one we declare to be God’s Only Son. If we look at the history of the writing of the New Testament, most scholars agree that the missionary journeys of Paul, and therefore the Epistles of Paul, came before the collection and composition of the Gospels that we have in our Bible. So if the Epistles came first, then this portions predates even that. Our selection from the Letter to the Philippians is a quote from an ancient hymn that most believe was sung in the early Church. This quote of a song lyric points to how early the followers of Jesus esteemed him and his blessed Name.

“Therefore God also highly exalted him

and gave him the name

that is above every name,

so that at the name of Jesus

every knee should bend,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue should confess

that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.”

And so if you see me genuflect at the name of Jesus, you now know why. “For at the name of Jesus every knee should bend,” and that is why I do a slight pause, giving reverence to the One, the only begotten of God, at the mention of his Name.

Jesus’ name is a construct, as meaningless or as meaningful as this dollar bill. To some his Name is just a name, or worse a curse. To some it is the the NAME of their LORD and SAVIOR. Constructs are only as important as the meaning given to them.

You have heard me complain a few times about 2016. It was a hard year for many, and it was a hard year for my family. And that today is a new year and that last year is over is, you guessed it, a construct, too. The dividing line between 2016 and 2017 could have come at any point on our journey around the sun. Today is arbitrary, no argument. It takes 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds to orbit our sun one time. Because of those odd bits, the almost 6 hours, we have to keep adding in a Leap Day to a Leap Year, every fourth time round for our construct to hold up. Every so often they even add Leap Seconds to even things out. But that today marks a new year, is, you guessed it, a construct.

And that joint construct, that this is the Feast of the Holy Name, and that this is the beginning of a New Year, are both made up. We have chosen to give both of them meaning. And today, with all the other resolutions and promises that are being made, I would ask you to consider two things. Like all constructs, they only have the meaning you give them, and I would invite you to give them a lot.

First, what can we do, you and I, to exalt the Name of Jesus? That hymn portion from Philippians reminds us:

“...God also highly exalted him

and gave him the name

that is above every name,”

How will we exalt the name of Jesus in our daily lives and in God’s Church? The meaning and import is up to us, not just today, but every day.

Second, today is a new day. It is a new year. That newness is only as important as the meaning you give it. What do you want from this new day, from this new year? What is it you want most in this life? What is on your Bucket List? WHAT ARE YOUR INTENTIONS FOR THIS YEAR?

They say the road to Hell is paved with Good Intentions. But the road to Heaven is, too. This is the first day of the rest of your life. Cliche, obviously, but absolutely true. Ever dream of running a marathon? Then you have to get off the couch. Want to write a book, then you have to put down a sentence. Want to change the world? Start with the the human being in the mirror, and give glory to God. WHAT ARE YOUR INTENTIONS FOR THIS YEAR? FOR THIS LIFE? It is up to you to construct that vision, and your daily actions give it its meaning and import. God bless you on your journey.

Together we share the meaning and understanding that God Saves, and we declare in the Holy Name of our Lord and Savior, JESUS. Blessings on this day, and every day of this new year we have been given. Thanks be to God. Amen.