January 11, 2004 - First Sunday after Epiphany
Isaiah 43:1-7
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Luke 3: 15-17, 21-22
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"What’s in a name?"

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”

“I have called you by name.”  The Lord’s words to Israel brought to mind Juliet's question to Romeo, "What's in a name?  That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet…"  Juliet’s question was good, but the truth is that she couldn't get Romeo under any other name.  It would seem that in our internet age that question – what’s in a name? -- becomes ever more important.  Have you seen the commercials with the very obviously different voices coming out of the actor on the screen?  There’s the gentleman in sweat clothes talking about the wonderful clothes he’s purchased – with a ‘Valley Girl’ voice.  My favorite is the little old lady standing by her pool talking with the voice of a truck thief.  What are they advertising?  Those commercials are selling the promise of identity theft protection for those who use that brand of credit card.

It appears that Juliet’s question, “What’s in a name?” can be answered by many with “money.”  People are stealing other people’s names so that they can profit at that person’s expense.  Identity theft is no small thing, especially if it elicits a national advertising campaign.  If you were watching the news the other evening you saw the police chief from Muskego warning people to watch for strangers going through their garbage in search of material they can use to snatch their name from them.  And then there was the report on the national news about the lady in Georgia who discovered that her recently deceased brother had co-signed for a loan on a truck for a person she’d never even heard of.  Evidently there was a woman who was using the obituaries and the internet to establish credit for the deceased and then sell their names to those with bad credit.  Over fifty people were implicated in the scam.  I guess that shredder we got for Christmas was a more practical gift than I realized!

A name means something.  We’re not sure when humans began applying names to themselves, but it’s fairly early on.  I think there’s something important about a name, beyond the obvious convenience it provides for identifying who we’re speaking about.  I know that I’d far and away rather be called ‘Steve’ than ‘the-short-fat-balding-guy-who’s-a-minister-and-lives-on-Jackson-Park-Boulevard.’  Steve just sounds so much better.  It makes me feel even better to realize that it derives from the Greek word stephano, which means ‘crown.’  What’s in a name?  Plenty.

In the Bible a name is not simply a means of classification.  Rather, a name expresses the essential nature and speaks to the character of its bearer.  That’s why it’s such a big deal when God reveals the Divine Name to Moses.  To know the name is to know, perhaps even to have power over, the one named – we’re certainly seeing that as the case in this day and age aren’t we?  Names tell us something about the person.  In the name that God reveals we’re told that God’s essential nature is being: “I am who I am.”  When Jesus is named, it is to remind us that “he will save his people.”  And, by the way, Christ isn’t Jesus’ last name; it’s a title that means “anointed one” or “messiah” in Greek and Latin.  There are lots of names in the Bible and elsewhere that are descriptive of the person, or of the situation into which they were born, or reflective of who their parents were.  Regardless, they tell us something about that person and that we know them by that name authenticates that they really are who they say they are.

It’s no different when we think about products.  If I want a tissue I’m going to ask for a ‘Kleenex,’ which is a trademarked brand name for a tissue.  The list could go on and on for brand names that now denote a product or a process, like would you please Xerox this for me on the Gestetner copier.  The names have come to mean something and there are times, even when generic might be cheaper, that we want the brand name.  However, there are those philosophers, like the recently deceased Willard Van Ormen Quine, who would tell us that the world, all reality, is only what we name it.  To the nominalist, as this school of thought is called, there are only generics and name brands are what we make of them.  However, given what we know, who we are, what we name someone, something makes a difference.  Remember the song about a boy named "Sue"?

I guess I'm musing on this because of Isaiah's word from the Lord for us: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine."  To think that God has named us, claimed us, and known us by name, by our essential nature, is no small thing.  What is more, by naming us God has called us into a community.  God names as individuals and as a community and says that we are his.  We may be able to get tissues, pills, soft drinks, or appliances equally as serviceable and of comparable quality as the "name brand," but it's hard to do the same with people.

Canadian minister and author Milton Schwarzentruber has reflected on Isaiah's word in this way:

Community is a bit like water.  You don't miss it until you no longer have it, until you are suddenly alone, without the familiar and secure, without those things that offer care and support.  The church was meant to be a place that provides all those good things and more.  Of course, belonging to a community carries a price tag.  That price tag entails, in part sublimating your own agenda and buying into the agenda of the community.  It involves contributing all your gifts so that they can be a resource to the whole.  Baptism is a sign that I am making the choice to permit God to transform me into the kind of person who will be useful in the life and work of the community.  It is not an initiation into an elite club; it is a sign of a response to a great call to be a certain kind of person.

His point is well taken; after all, name brands tend to cost a bit more.  I know I won't think twice about paying more if I think it's worth it.  What's it worth to us to hear what Jesus did, "This is my beloved child"?  Yet, that's exactly what we should hear on this day and that's what we should experience within community.  So what is it worth to us to be a part of a family that extends back two millennia and forward to the end of time?

Let me take a slightly different tack for a moment, which hearkens back to our first discussion of what it means to have a name.  Very good paper, especially that used for printing money has a special mark woven into it called the watermark.  It comes from the manufacturing process and leaves an imprint in the very fabric of the paper that can only be seen when you hold it up to the light.  Watermarks identify and authenticate the quality of the paper.  The watermark tells you that this is not generic paper, but something of very high quality.  In the case of currency, the watermark lets you know that the bill you have is not counterfeit – it really is money.

Consider that most world religions, including our own, use water in one way or another.  Early on, ritual washing and the encounter with the sacred were closely identified.  We know, we feel deep inside ourselves, that we cannot return from contact with the Holy, God, without being different, marked if you will.  For Christians baptism is our watermark. In the sacrament we are named and that name is anointed to us, hence the old term 'christening.'  At that moment we are called by name, claimed by the Lord as God’s own, marked by the Holy Spirit's power and authenticated as a child of God.

The light that reveals the watermark for us is our life.  Does it show the presence of God by our actions, our attitudes, our thoughts and our words?  We are given the gift of God's Spirit so that we may be transformed and ourselves become instruments of transformation in our world.  Held up to the light of the world's scrutiny, what do people see?

My friend and colleague Jim Eaton, minister of our church in Norwich, Connecticut, talks about the Spirit's gift as something which may or may not be realized in the life of the believer.  His daughter was blessed with incredible ability as a dancer and her teacher thought she had the potential to pursue a professional career in the ballet.  She had all the physical gifts to be a prima ballerina, but she didn't have the desire.  The gift was the possibility, but it needed her discipline, her desire for it to be realized; otherwise she couldn't see herself as a ballerina.  I so like how he applied this to our baptism.

Isn't this like what happens at baptism?  God gives a great gift – the possibility that the heavens will open and the Spirit will be present in our lives.  But it's only a gift and sometimes gifts remain unopened, unused.  It takes some vision to take yourself seriously as a baptized person who can go out into the world, cast out demons, feed homeless folks, teach Sunday school, visit your aunt in a nursing home, or whatever it is that God puts in your way as a means of ministry.

The watermark of the Spirit may be on us, but if it's not held up to the light of service, of action, if the gift isn't used, it can't be seen.

Here is where we can talk about having a ‘good name,’ a reputation, an identity that is uniquely ours and tied to our relationship with God.  We are to be more than generic "knock offs."  God has called us each by name to be his own and to reflect his love and presence to the world around us.  The gift of the Holy Spirit is given to fully restore the image and likeness of God in each one of us and draw us into a community of faith.  We are marked to reflect God's love and presence in his world.  Our being 'name brand,' bearing the watermark of the faith, is a gift so that we might say to others, "You're God's beloved child, too."