I Have Called You by Name

Have you ever noticed that it is harder to receive words of love and affirmation than it is to offer them to others?  That is true even when the words come from God …

I Have Called You by Name

Isaiah 43:1-7; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 

There’s a wonderful scene in Barbara Robinson’s The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Imogene Herdman, who had never heard the Christmas story before, is asking questions about how Jesus got his name. Alice Wendleken, the prissy girl who usually got to play Mary in the pageant, steps in to explain.

“I know what the angel said,” Alice piped up. “She said, ‘His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.’” …

“My God!” Imogene said. “He’d never get out of the first grade if he had to write all that!” [pp 64-65]

Well, Alice didn’t get it quite right. All those names for Jesus don’t come from the Christmas story at all – they come from the book of Isaiah [9:6]. And Imogene’s point is well taken – all those majestic titles do not sound at all like the name of a real human child, one who would go to school and learn to print just like everyone else.

But the name Jesus does come from the Christmas story, or rather from the story of the Annunciation – the visit of the angel Gabriel to Mary. It was on that visit that she was instructed to “call his name Jesus.”

All the more interesting, then, to hear the name used by the voice from heaven on the occasion of Jesus being baptized by John in the Jordan: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” [Luke 3:22]

That voice takes us back to Isaiah again, or rather to Isaiah speaking on behalf of God to the people of Israel: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” [Isaiah 43:1]

My question for you this morning is just thing: are you willing to be God’s beloved? Are you willing to be called by name by God? Let me give you a hint: these questions are not as easy as they first sound.

Because, you see, if you let yourself be called God’s beloved, you have no reason to keep on trying to earn God’s affection and respect. You can no longer organize your ethics or orient your moral compass towards appeasing, or even pleasing, God. If you are already beloved by God, then you have to give up the idea that there is something you must do or believe or think to merit that divine love. Accepting God’s love means giving up the power of shaping your relationship with God; accepting God’s love means acknowledging that God is always the initiator with us, and that we are always the responder.

Moreover, if we accept the truth that we are beloved by God, then we must also accept the truth that everyone else is also beloved. There is no room here to feel smug. While God loves the unique and idiosyncratic persons that each of us are, God also loves all the other unique and idiosyncratic persons out there. We are surrounded, all the time, by people who are God’s beloved children.

Of course, that does not mean that we are all somehow perfect reflections of the Divine. On the contrary, we can see all kinds of flaws and shortcomings in ourselves and our neighbors pretty much all the time. The challenge here is disciplining ourselves to treat everyone else as though they are God’s beloved children, too. That’s easy enough when they are people we love, people we agree with, and people with whom we share values, culture, and experience. On the other hand, it is dauntingly difficult when they are people we don’t love, don’t agree with, and whose values, culture, and experiences are very different from our own. This is the basis on which we are committed to working for healing, peacemaking, and reconciliation; we long for those things for ourselves, and we acknowledge that our longing is shared by our neighbors.

One way to express that is to say that accepting our place as God’s beloved children invites – or maybe requires – us to live in community with one another. Sometimes the word “community” is used as a synonym for “neighborhood” or “town,” but I am talking here about community in its deeper and more spiritual sense. To live together in community is to work for the welfare of our neighbors as seriously as we work for our own.

There is no single or simple way of sustaining a community over time. It takes continued attention to our mutual relationships and continuing nurture of our shared values and goals to make it work. Living in community requires us to develop the spiritual gifts of speaking honestly, listening attentively, compromising without being compromised, prevailing without pride, and acceding without shame.

It is probably a good thing that community living develops all of these spiritual skills, because we need them for another reason when we acknowledge that we are God’s beloved children. We need these same skills – speaking, listening, compromise, and humility – to do God’s work in the world. Once we settle into the security of God’s love, we are emboldened and empowered to serve others – meeting unmet needs, building more humane systems of care and accountability, resisting the unbridled powers of money and influence, and insisting on justice that is reliable enough to be the basis of peace.

Once we really understand that God’s love has already been lavished on us, we have no reason to be afraid to launch any of these ambitious and idealistic enterprises. I am not suggesting that reasonable and helpful fears about physical dangers and social consequences of behavior are misplaced; they are helpful and protective for us. But girded by God’s love, we are no longer ruled by our fears; we are free to be courageous, to use our particular gifts in our particular place and time. When our spirits are deeply grounded in God’s Holy Spirit, we find that particular sense of valor that comes from knowing that we are aligned and in tune with God’s yearning for wholeness, peace, and justice.

I almost want to say that God’s promise of love ought to come with a warning label, something like: Caution, receiving this gift may be hazardous to your comfort, convenience, or complacency.

Critics of Christianity often worry that the assurance of God’s love, given freely and without initiative on our part, will remove any motivation to perform good works or to improve the world. That sounds logical enough, and I suppose sometimes it is true. It is not that difficult to fall into a kind of smugness of faith, a sense of privilege as a person whose religion is the “right one.” But more often, in my experience, the genuine experience of receiving God’s love in all of its extravagance has the opposite effect.

Think about it. When we receive extravagant love from another person, we not only reciprocate that love, we want to share it with the world. People in love – especially those just falling in love, are notorious for their lavish affection for everyone and everything around them. That contagion is, in fact, a pretty good indicator of love that is genuine.

When we receive God’s love in full measure, most of us act the same way: we are eager to share our joy with everyone around us; we are energized and optimistic; we are ready to take on any task, face any challenge. As the camp song of my era put it, “You want to sing, you want to pass it on.”

When God calls us by name, the words are probably not “Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” The names we are called are the same names we learned to write in the first grade, with this addition: “You are my child, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Amen.

Prayer for January 10, 2010

Almighty and everlasting God, creator of all things seen and unseen, hear now our silent prayers, as we open our hearts to you in the sacred quietness.

God of faith and hope, we bring before you our prayers for those we have named this morning – we especially remember … Bring to each of them the gifts of mercy and grace that are most needed, according to your wisdom and love.

This morning, we particularly pray for your presence in the everyday struggles and sufferings of our lives.

O Great Physician, be with those who must accommodate their daily activities to the limitations imposed by chronic illnesses and conditions. Uphold them with the resources of patience and consistency, so that they may maintain the routines that conserve their energies and maximize their participation in family life, work, and the community. Renew them in times of discouragement, and help their companions to understand and accept their ups and downs.

We also pray for your presence with the caregivers of those with special needs. Bring them a clear understanding of the value of what they do, and strengthen them in times of exhaustion and overwork. Help them to share with us the unique joys and insights that come from intimate service to another person, and enlist the rest of us to provide support and respite for them in this loving and vital ministry.

We offer prayers today for all of the families who are in conflict or crisis. Our hope for them is that good communication, patience, forgiveness, and forbearance will bring about reconciliation and peace in their homes, and we are grateful for both the kind friends and the skilled professionals who help to bring that resolution. But we pray also for those whose distress is great that it is past mending, and we ask your presence in the difficult decisions to alter or end previously precious relationships.

And we pray today for the people with whom we spend our working time. Help us to establish and maintain environments of respect, thoughtfulness, and productivity, and to attend to our duties with integrity, energy, and responsibility. Guide us in approaching our tasks and relating to one another in ways that proclaim, without words, the Good News of the Gospel.

Finally, O God of every day, be present with us in our daily habits and routines. Let our eating and sleeping, our comings and goings, our chores and our playing, all be filled with your light and your love. Teach us to be more faithful disciples through the disciplines that we choose, and bring us closer to you through the surprises and interruptions that every day brings.

All these things we pray in the name of the one who lived among us as our human brother, and who lives among us still as our Risen Savior, even Jesus the Christ, and we pray together now in the words that he taught us …