Named

Isaiah 43:1-7; Luke 3:15 – 17, 21-22

Baptism of Christ:  January 13, 2013

There’s wonderful diversity in how we all have come to have the names we do – first and last names both.  Some stories are more complicated and/or more interesting.  Some people love their names, some struggle with their names their whole life, some people re-name themselves at some point in their life.  Names are one of many ways we can celebrate and honor our diversity. 

Lydia was given a name by Phat, her first mother:  Phat named her “Kim,” and following the conventions of Vietnam, this meant her full name was Bui Thi Kim.  Because Lydia was an infant when I adopted her, I felt like I could also give her a name that I chose for her – well two, actually:  Lydia and Klepfer.

Some of you may have noticed that Lydia has adopted – so to speak – an interesting relationship with her names.  She knows she is Lydia.  When anyone says her name, she knows it’s her they are talking about.  But ever since she first started saying her name, she has called herself “Kim.”  At first, I’m sure, it was because I have always affectionately called her “Lydia Kim,” and “Kim” was easier to say than Lydia.  But it continues – even now that she can say Lydia, most of the time she still calls herself Kim. 

When she writes her name, it is “L-Y-D-I-A.”  When you ask her what that spells, she says, “Kim.”  When she meets another person named “Lydia,” she calls them “Kim.”  It’s how she introduces herself, and it’s the name her stuffed animals use when telling her how much they missed her while she was at school.  At some level Lydia and Kim are the exact same thing to her. 

I love this – I delight in this and encourage it.  For me, it symbolizes Lydia’s wonderful, complicated identity, and I hope as she ages her names will be a way for her to delight in her story and identity as well. 

Names are important.  Maybe more important in some cultures than others, but they are important.  We’re careful with decisions around our children’s names.  We know it matters – for all sorts of reasons.  Names are about who other people think we are, and who we think we are.  This is, of course, so true in the bible.

Abram and Sarai become Abraham and Sarah.  Simon becomes Peter.  Saul becomes Paul.  Each of these new names indicates something about who they are, and signal a monumental shift in their story and identity.  When their names are changed it means they become something larger than just their individual selves. 

Abraham and Sarah are now not just husband and wife trying to have children…they are to be the parents of a multitude of nations.  Simon is not just a fisherman – he is the rock (Peter) on which the church will be built.  Saul is no longer the man who persecuted Christians, he is a part of the body of Christ. 

And then there is the renaming of Jacob…the renaming that our Isaiah passage picks up on.  After a long night of wrestling with the divine, Jacob’s name went from that of an individual to the name God would use for an entire people – the chosen people:  Israel.

The people to whom the prophet Isaiah is speaking, the people named Israel, felt they had lost their name when they were defeated by the Babylonians and forced into exile.  They thought of Israel not just as the name of their country, but as an identity – as the name God gave them.  In Babylon, they felt like a nameless people embedded in a country that had no interest whatsoever in their identity – in who they are as human beings.  With the loss of political identity came the loss of their spiritual name; their divine identity.

Into this time of exile and desperation – this loss of identity – God, through the prophet Isaiah, speaks, “O Jacob: O Israel.  Do not fear, I have called you by name, you are mine.”  To be called by their name – the name God used for them...they were not forgotten.  God assures them that they have been claimed by God.  “You are mine.”  Their identity – spiritual identity – was reaffirmed.

Then God goes on to say, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you…because you are precious in my sight, and I love you. ” I’m not sure I can even imagine how that felt to the Israelites.  To be named “Israel” again was to be reminded of God’s endless, unconditional love for them and presence in their lives, no matter where they lived or how others saw them.

Fast forward about 600 years to Jesus’ baptism and we hear again about God calling out a name.  Yet again the Jews are living in exile, even though this time they are technically living within the borders of old Israel.  They are nameless, mere numbers to the empire.  Just three weeks ago, on Christmas Eve, we heard that when Jesus was born the concern of the Emperor was to count the people – to call for a census, changing people into numbers and statistics for the sole purpose of taxing them.

Into this exile the author of Luke tells the people the story of Jesus’ baptism.  When most of us think of Jesus’ baptism, we picture John the Baptist right there with him.  It is in part a story about the relationship between John and Jesus.  But not so in Luke.  We don’t know who baptizes Jesus.  John has already been thrown in prison by Herod, so it can’t be him.  It doesn’t seem to matter to the author who baptizes Jesus.  In fact in Luke, the focus seems to be less on the dunking in the water.  The actual act of baptism passes by quickly.  “After Jesus had been baptized,” the text says.  That’s it.

I think that’s because this scene is all about God’s action, just as in Isaiah God speaks and names.  In doing so God claims people as loved – requiring no previous action on the part of the people.  In essence, no one baptizes Jesus.  Instead, in calling out his name, God transforms baptism from being the requirement for forgiveness – as John had preached – to being the occasion for calling us by name.  The baptism sets up the big reveal.  The heavens open, the Holy Spirit comes like a dove, and God says, “You are my child, the beloved.  I delight in you.”  No human action required.

People at that time had a tendency to believe that their exile was a punishment for their sins.  We see this expressed by the authors of the Hebrew Bible.  This is undoubtedly true of the Jews living in Jesus’ day.  They surely wondered what God thought of them that they should be so oppressed, and what they could do to earn God’s favor.  Responding to this question, God speaks and calls them by name:  Beloved.

Fast forward 2000 years, and I think we too are living in a sort of exile, and we see it in how we name people.  I don’t mean how we give names to children.  I mean how we name one another in our culture.

Think about those emails you get, those advertisements that sometimes pop up on your computer screen, those mailings you receive, that start out addressing you by name.  “Kirsten, have I got the credit card for you.”  They may be using my given, personal name, but in reality I am only one name to them:  Consumer. 

Computers today are programmed to delve deep into my unique being: learning my preferences, habits, desires.  When people do this, it is an act of love.  When we get to know someone and begin a friendship, we want to know what they like, what they want and hope for, what is meaningful to them so we can know them and delight in who they are.  But when credit card companies and advertisers and insurance companies do this, it is not an act of love – it is an act of exploitation.  It is meant not to learn about one’s desires and hopes, or what people find meaningful – it is meant to exploit and shape those things in order to sell us something. 

We also “name” people in other ways that take away their true identity:  “sinner,” “sick person,” “poor person,” “enemy,” “the rich,” “liberal,” “conservative.”  We use these names so we can categorize people, use them, manipulate them, discount them, and dehumanize them.  These names are veils that obscure their true identity, not reveal it.  What happened after Jesus was baptized, what God said to him, is the antidote to this – to this exile from our true names – God calls out our name so that all these veils disappear and we are simply “beloved.”

Today, we celebrate baptism – we will baptize Graeme.  It’s an occasion for all of us to remember our baptism.  And let’s be clear – this doesn’t mean to remember our baptism in the church by a pastor or priest – it means to remember our baptism that happened when Jesus was baptized – before Jesus was baptized…it was when God created us and called us our first name:  “Good,” as it says in Genesis.  The baptism of Jesus, was done by no agent other than God.  It wasn’t done by a church, but rather was done with the waters of the womb as soon as we were born – whether we have ever stood, kneeled, or been held in someone’s arms at the font or not.

I think the act of baptism – the one we do here in the church – is a significant ritual in the church.  It symbolizes many things, on many levels.  Washing, renewal, new life, membership in God’s family.  Baptism is significant because it reminds communities of the commitments we make to each other to walk this journey together, helping one another, teaching one another what it means that God has called us each by name. 

In the Presbyterian church we baptize babies to remind ourselves that nothing is required for God to claim us – to call us beloved.  No statement of faith, no membership, no cognitive or physical ability – nothing.  As soon as we are born – from that moment we are claimed, and named by God.

But we should also remember that the act itself doesn’t do anything that is not already done.  We baptize to remember that we share in the baptism of Jesus.  It is a ritual meant to evoke the whole scene described in the gospels.  It’s not the church, it’s certainly not me, that baptizes.     

When we baptize we are to imagine that the heavens are opened, the holy spirit descends like a dove, and God speaks our name:  “Graeme, my child, Beloved.”  The water washes away the dehumanizing labels and names we are given by others and ourselves, and reveals our God-given name.   

No matter what anyone else calls us, no matter what it means when someone else uses our name, no matter what we have done, no matter who we are, have been or are going to be, no matter what we believe, doubt, love or hate…the deepest possible truth about who we are is found in the name God gives us:  Beloved. 

This is the promise made to Graeme.  It is also our hope for how he experiences life.  When we baptize him this morning, remember that that is the setup for the great reveal:  When he leaves the font and as he grows up in this church, we speak to him God’s words:  You are God’s child;  You are beloved; We will remember your name – no matter what you do, who you become, where you go, or what you believe. 

That is our promise to Graeme.  Of course, Graeme also offers us something wonderful:  he is yet another occasion for us to remember our own baptism: to remember that every day, the heavens open, the dove descends, and God calls us by name:  Beloved.  Thank you Graeme.  And thanks be to God.  Amen.