January 1, 2006- The Holy Name of Jesus Christ - Father Andrew Green

FIRST READING: Numbers 6: 22-27
PSALM: 8
SECOND READING: Philippians 2: 5-11
GOSPEL: Luke 2: 15-21

OPENING HYMN: #435

(Audience participation will be noted in bold print and italics)

I am torn between a couple of different kinds of beginnings, because a part of me wants to do the, "What is in a name?"; and the other wants to sing the first hymn again, "At the Name of Jesus". In a sense, it does characterize a little bit about how we are caught when we think about this whole idea of the naming of Jesus.

On the one hand, we are folks who are living some 2,000+ years later, and we have all sorts of history. We have great hymns. Now, there were great hymns even back then. The reading that we had from Philippians is essentially an early, early, early Christian hymn. Before they even had a copy of the Gospel to read about Jesus, they had written hymns about Jesus. So we were able to hear one of those this morning.

We also have a lot of romance and sentimentality and things like that, which surround naming. Naming has content, but there are also emotional things with it. When you name a child after a grandparent who has died, or when you name someone with a name that is filled with hope and promise, there are all sorts of feelings about it.

Can you imagine what it is like to folks who decide to name their child "God Saves"? Well now, the truth is that the name, "Joshua", the Hebrew version of the name that we end up translating out as Jesus or Yeshua - you have three languages there, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, and then your English pronunciation - but, let's face it, at the time of Jesus, that name was as common as Jésus (the Spanish pronunciation) is today. It was a very common kind of name. There were other potential messiahs, who also had "Jesus" in their names. That name was filled with hope.

Now, naming, in the Scriptures, is very critical. I think, for modern people, naming is something of a parlor game, many times. They even have computerized games that you can play. If you are in a particular kind of activity, you sign up for this game, and you give it some data about yourself, and it generates a name for you, suitable for somebody who is interested in that particular pursuit. There are things like Star Trek names, and things like that, that you can get. But, your name, in ancient times, was one that connected you in a very direct way with whomever it was that was naming you, and so the idea that God would encounter Moses and give him his name meant something. Despite our thinking throughout most of our history that God wants to be distant and bigger-than and looking-down-on and crushing us and everything, that naming invited Moses, way back then, to an incredible intimacy with God. The reading from Numbers, that Linda read, talks about how the people of God are blessed. It gives Aaron, the priest, very specific directions of how to bless them, but they are blessed because God is putting God's name upon them - that intimate relationship.

We have other Scriptures about Jesus' Name that are significant, too. There is one that, for people who are traditionalists, this is a fun one, because it was mistranslated at one time. At the end of the daily office, we have the prayer of St. Chrysostom, "Whenever two or three are gathered together in My Name", and the old version says, "And I will grant their requests". When they finally realized they had mistranslated it, it was a problem, because we found out it just said, "I will be in the midst of them". Now frankly, I like that, but isn't it kind of consistent with that invitation to intimacy, that those who share in the knowledge and the invitation to use that personal Name, that it is an invitation to closeness and relationship? So, when two or three, or 150, are gathered in the name of Jesus, who is in the midst of them?

Jesus!

Jesus! Jesus is in the midst of us. So, names are incredibly important.

Now, let's move a little bit and think about who got that name. When we hear hymns like the first one - I mean that is a very powerful hymn - "At the Name of Jesus, every knee shall bow". It is quoting the Epistle that we read. But the music, itself, makes it sound like the emperor is going to come in right then. It is really a pretty high-potency kind of hymn. But, let's check back on the Holy Family in Bethlehem.

The Holy Family is staying in Bethlehem in a stable. Why?

No room in the Inn.

No room in the Inn. Why are they in Bethlehem in the first place?

The emperor commanded them.

The emperor said so - I gotta' count you! And where do you go to be counted?

Your home.

Your home town.

Like most ancient people, ancient Jews were pretty family-oriented, right? So, if Joseph is going to his home town, why in the heck isn't he staying with Uncle Bob? Right? Or Aunt Sue? Or any of the extended family that were probably there? It is because of a name, and I am going to steal something here from Sarah Dylan Breuer, who said this. It is because Joseph's name, and therefore Jesus' Name, was mud, because Joseph was hitched to somebody who was pregnant, not by him; and, however secret you think these things are, they are never really very secret. So, it would explain why, sometimes, they weren't welcome and why they might have found, "Oh, there is no room at the Inn - for you!".

Now, if you think this is really a stretch - and I admit it might be - listen to NPR over the last few months about the things that are happening in Iraq among very traditional tribal people. When one of the women in the family is abducted, and when she is returned to the family, what happens?

They kill her.

They kill her. The family kills her, because she is outcast - because they can't know for sure whether or not she has been disgraced, and, therefore, the family has been disgraced.

So, Jesus, when He grew up in Nazareth, there is a good possibility that, as He grew, He had a lot of that heaped on Him - that the idea that He was Joseph's son was not necessarily a positive thing to be known as in the village.

But God chose this family to give this name of Jesus.

I am going to steal something else here from Grant Gallop, who is living down in Managua, Nicaragua. He talks about the idea that . . . .

Now I forgot what I was going to use.


This is the problem when you get an email, right? And when you forget it in the middle of the sermon!

Well, I have lost that part, and I am going to move on - and I am going to let you out of this now!

Or let you out of it!(From Susan!!)

Or let me out of it! Right! Even if she isn't in the choir today, she still heckles!

But I think you have the idea that Jesus was not necessarily one of those whom you would have thought would have been selected out to be the "One Who Saves", because Jesus came from a situation that looked disgraceful.

But there is a connection here. When God made Adam . . . . Do you know what Adam means? Mud. Red earth. God made it wet and made Adam - mud. Jesus' Name was mud. There is a connection there. Adam is the first. Jesus is the One who is the new Adam for us.

Jesus takes that humiliation and turns it into salvation, for us and for all. Jesus reminds us that it is not who we were before or where we came from that matters, but it is what God does for us. It is receiving that blessing. It is being people upon whom God's name is placed, so that we are invited into that intimate relationship with God that offers us salvation. If you look at the folks around us, remember that the folks whom God seems to be most intimately concerned about are the people who are at the edges of our community. They can be at the edges in all sorts of different ways. As people who bear the name of Jesus - as people who have been invited into that intimate, saving relationship with God - we are also invited to share that Good News and realize that we have been invited not only into relationship with God, but into relationship with all the others who bear the Name of Jesus. Those are our brothers and our sisters, all of them, and, for the ones who are especially on the edge, we have to remember that that is the place that God seems to draw the heroes of our faith. Those are the people whom we should perhaps pay special attention to, so that we might find ourselves as ones who are ready to be in that intimate relationship with God that is offered - not ones looking for the glamour or the glitz, but ones who are ready to hear and recognize God's Name - whether it is spoken on the lips of someone, or when God places it on the brow of someone you know.


There is a line that we didn't get in Philippians, and it is a line that says, "And work out your salvation with fear and trembling". Now, if you think that hymn is scary in the beginning, with all of its power, that idea could be very scary; but it is nothing more than what I have just asked you to do. We are people who now bear the name of Christ in our hearts as a result of our baptism, and we are invited, with reverence and with anticipation, to continue to listen and to watch out for where our place is in this drama of salvation that continues to this day. It is not just about something that happened once, but it is about a relationship that is ongoing with God and the people whom God wants to have in relationship; and each one of us has a place. So, when we say the Name of Jesus, it might be very dramatic to drop to your knees or to bow very theatrically, but it would make much more sense if, when you hear the Name of Jesus, you would look around and think, "Who, right now, is that Name in place of? Who, right now, is the one whom God is looking to place in relationship with me and with the rest of the people whom God has saved?"

And, if we do that, I think we will be the ones who are, in fact, honoring the Name of Jesus the way that God fully intended it to be honored.

AMEN