SERMON: [insert name]

10:30 am, 2^nd Sun of Xmas, Jan 1, 2023 - J G White / FBCA

(Ps 8; Gal 4:4-7; Lk 2:15-21; Num 6:22-27)

What’s in a name? Quite a lot, I think. Don’t you like it when people know your name, and get it right?  

Back in the 1990s, there were two ministers in succession at a church in Parrsboro named Smith. While I was at the Baptist Church, Peter Smith was at the United. So when I was in town, I would sometimes get called Jeff Smith. One week I got two pieces of mail delivered to me: one was addressed to Rev. Peter White. The other to Rev. Jeff Smith. They were both for me.

Call me whatever you want; just don’t call me late for dinner! But, seriously, what do we call God? What names? There are many to choose from, and You likely have you favourites, or, at least, a common one or two you’d use in your prayers.

Today, this Sunday, we can choose to celebrate more than one thing in the life of Jesus. It is the eighth day of the twelve days of Christmas. It is the Sunday before Epiphany – celebrating the Magi. It is Holy Name of Jesus Sunday: this is what I chose.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus:

there’s just something about that name.

Before this Son of God arrived, God’s name was talked of a great deal, by the Hebrew people. We recited Psalm 8 today, repeating first and last verses:

O LORD, our Sovereign,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

We people of the pews get used to all this Bible talk of the ‘name of God,’ how it is so wonderful, powerful, glorious, majestic. This is simply a way of speaking of The Being with the name. A bit like the sense of a person’s name being their reputation: ‘making a name for himself.’

A common part of our praying with words is to address the One to whom we speak. We pay special attention to calling God right and good names when we start a prayer. Our Father, who art in heaven; Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; Spirit, Spirit of Gentleness.  And hence the commandment from the Ten Commandments of Judaism and Christianity that says, You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God.

One name for God, God the Son, is Jesus. On this ‘Holy Name of Jesus’ day, we read that bit of the Christmas story in which, at eight days old, …he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. ‘Jesus’ was not a unique name, of course, invented just for Him, 2000 years ago. At least one other is mentioned, in the Letter called Colossians: And Jesus who is called Justus greets you. The name is rooted in Yeshua in Hebrew, and the name Joshua. These relate to a verb meaning to deliver, to rescue, to save.

Interestingly, like his cousin, John, Jesus of Nazareth has his name chosen by an angelic messenger, in effect, by God. His destiny is to be a rescuer: it’s right there in His name.

The names we use for people say something about our relationship. I don’t call George White George White very often; I call him Dad. Two children named Amelia and Dryden don’t call me Jeff, they call me Papa. And even some of you don’t just call me Jeff, you say Pastor Jeff or Reverend Jeff.

So it is with our naming of God. Our personal connection influences our names. The Christian letter called Galatians has this amazing teaching: God has sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” I think of another place, that wonderful chapter, Romans 8, where it says, When we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God…

Ending one year and beginning the next is a natural time to evaluate and plan little things in our lives. Such as how we address God. Perhaps you can look back and see moments when you were inspired by God to connect with God. The Holy One inside you prompted you to think Abba, or Jesus, or Spirit! It is like an adoption that we gain in this life, reconciled to the Creator of life and goodness. Hallelujah! we get to celebrate this in Brandon’s life next Sunday with his baptism here; he is a child of God.

He is a Christian. Which is a title most of us here likely claim. It has the word Christ in it. We are little Christs. Does it take real audacity to put the name Christ upon ourselves? I mean, I’m no messiah. I’m not perfect either, by any stretch of the imagination!

It is the act of God to bring us back, adopt us, save us, renew our souls. Jesus calls us brothers, sisters, siblings, not servants or slaves. For many centuries, the people of God have known the blessing, the gift, of belonging to God and being named by God. They even had this sense that God’s name was on them.

At the end of the service, today, I will speak a blessing that comes from a scene in the book of Numbers, chapter 6. Take a look there now, if you have a Bible handy. In the days of Moses and Aaron and Miriam, this was one of the instructions:

And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus shall you bless the Israelites: You shall say to them,

The LORD bless you and keep you;

The LORD make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you;

The LORD lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.

So they shall put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.

Notice that here, as in many places, the word LORD is spelled with four capital letters. This is a clue, in English Bibles, that here, the Hebrew word is not Lord, it is YaHWeH (which occasionally gets translated Jehovah). YHWH is the name of God Moses was given when he asked. It is a name of God so holy the Jews never speak it out loud. Hence the use of LORD to replace it in most English translations of the scriptures. And it is this Name put onto the people of God by these words of blessing. So they shall put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.

Go out into this year, remembering that those many people you know, and don’t know, are blessed by God. They could be blessed more. Many bear the name Christ, Christian. The Spirit is in them. Then may we do as George Fox advised (founder of the Society of Friends, the Quakers): Be patterns, be examples that your [behaviour] and your life may preach among all sorts of people, and to them. Then you will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in everyone.  (Claiborne, Shane, et al, Common Prayer: a Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, 2010, p. 90)