St. Thomas’s Episcopal Parish

Newark, DE

First Sunday after Christmas/Holy Name – January 1, 2012/Year B

Numbers 6:22-27; Psalm 8; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:15-21

The Reverend Paul W. Gennett, Jr.

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May my words reveal the greater glory of God.

AMEN

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“What’s your name, what’s your name …” This song, popular in the 1950’s and 1960’s, came to mind on this day we remember and celebrate The Holy Name of Jesus. As always, for those of you born after 1960, Google the song! I most remember this song being a favorite sung by my fraternity in college, usually to a “sweetheart of Nu Lambda Phi.” We would gather in a circle outside the window of that special girl, arm in arm, usually steeled with a few pops of our favorite libation of those days, singing quite harmoniously, or at least loudly with great gusto.

“What’s your name, what’s your name …” This may be the question for some this New Year’s Day morning after a night of partying in 2012. The question asked through a dry, parched mouth, looking through bleary eyes into the mirror and trying to recognize the face looking back at us. “What was the name of that drink, how many did I have” seems to be the question this morning, usually without answer.

“What’s your name, what’s your name …” When Christmas Day falls on a Sunday, the Feast Day of the Holy Name of Jesus coincides with the First Sunday after Christmas Day. When this happens, the special feast day of observance replaces the regular Sunday lectionary. In early days of the Christian church, the day was first known as the Feast of the Circumcision as the Gospel records this being the event that happens to Jesus along with the naming ceremony. As the thought of circumcision gives many of us a moment of pause, this is one of those times when I appreciate this political correctness change of the focus for this day.

However, this change does fit nicely with our 21^st century practice of easily and freely changing names and definitions of word, or creating new words and names ex nihilo. The Washington Post annually holds a contest where contestants can pick any word in the current dictionary, change it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and produce a new definition. Here are a few of my favorites over the years of the contest:

• Intaxication – The momentary euphoria of getting a tax refund, lasting only as long as it takes to realize that it was you money to begin with.

• Inoculatte – Taking coffee intravenously when you are running late for work.

• Kamageddon – It’s like, when everybody is sending off these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s like a serious bummer.

• Decafalon – A grueling event of attempting to get through a day consuming only things that are good for you.

• Dopeler Effect – The tendency for stupid ideas to seem a lot smarter when they come at you rapidly.

Names seem so easily and readily changeable these days, so easily and readily forgettable, and still too often dehumanizing and deadly for our soul and the soul of those “other people” we label. This is not as true when it comes to God and our call to faithful living in the Presence we receive in the birth of Jesus. On this Holy Name Day, we are called to look into God’s mirror that reflects our faith life, and answer, “What’s your name, for God’s sake?”

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William Shakespeare famously wrote, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” We tend to hold little respect or credence for names of others, or the positions they hold in service to us? After all, a rose would smell as sweet no matter what we call it, right? Things, and often people, are what we call them and make them, so why do names matter at all?

Our names matter to God, which means this is OUR MATTER as people of faith. There is much evidence, biblically speaking, that is involved about our names. From Genesis to Revelation, names hold significance before God, names mean something. The name of a person indicates who that person is, and what the person is called to be and/or do in their life. When Moses encounters God on the holy mountain, “The Lord descended in the cloud, and proclaimed the name, THE LORD.” The Psalmist sings, “O Lord our Governor, how exalted is YOUR NAME in all the world.” In the Gospel, Luke records the circumcision of Jesus on the eighth day in keeping with the Jewish tradition, and in that same tradition “… he was called Jesus, THE NAME GIVEN by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.”

In the eyes and love of God, our names are supremely important:

• Names are symbolic. Our name indicates who we are and what we are called to be and do in this life. Adam was named for it means human, and Eve means the mother of all living things. Abram’s name was changed to Abraham to image God’s promise that he would be the father of a great multitude. Jacob is later called Israel because he becomes a prince with God, although his name first meant heel catcher to describe his birth holding fast to the heel of his fraternal twin Esau, and also meant liar which well describes his conniving nature in stealing his brother Esau’s birthright from his feeble and blind father Isaac.

• Names reveal the character of God and of a person. Here are just a few names for God – El Shaddai, the Strong One … El Olam, the Everlasting … Jehovah Jirah, God who provides … Jehovah Rophe, God who heals … Jehovah Shalom, God of peace. The prophet Isaiah reveals the coming Messiah, who is Jesus our Lord, when he writes, “His name will be wonderful, counselor, the mighty God, eternal one, Prince of peace.” [9:6] Paul writes in his letter to the Philippians, 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 confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God …” [2:9-11] In John’s Gospel and later Revelation, he reveals the deeper character of the name of Jesus as living water … the way, the truth, the life … the resurrection to eternal life … the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world … the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.”  

• Names are significant. We hold those family names that identify who and whose we are in this life, most times in a good way. If I were to meet an acquaintance from my early life, I believe they would still call me Willie since my Dad was Paul for them. When we are baptized, we are named before God and all gathered, and then we are “sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism, and MARKED [NAMED] as Christ’s own forever.” We call ourselves Christian to reflect this naming and sealing of Christ in our lives through baptism, and then by seeking to live our life in the faith and ways God and Christ Jesus have shown us. As our Collect for this day prays, with my slight addition, “Plant in every heart, we pray, the [NAME and] love of him who is savior of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ; ... “

By claiming and calling ourselves Christian, we carry the love, the light, and the life of Christ into our world beginning this New Year’s Day 2012. We are invited to grow and go forward in our journey of faith, to be conformed in the love of God give to us in the Christmas Presence of Jesus Christ. By seeking to live in the Presence of Christ in all our days, by studying and living God’s Word we experience through the Bible, by giving our lives to the care of God and walking as yet by faith with Christ Jesus, we can become the living Bible that those whom you meet may read, perhaps for the first time of their life.

We hold the common name of faith as Christian. This communal name is melded into our hearts, our souls, and all our lives at our baptism. Seeking to live the Christian life will form and shape us to proclaim to our world through our living the Presence and power of God in Jesus Christ to our world, right here and right now. May LIVING this, our common name Christian, be our principal New Year resolution for 2012, and always. May this name Christian be your answer now, and always, to God’s singular question … What’s your name, for God’s sake?”

AMEN