What Have You To Do With Us?”

4^th Sunday after Epiphany, 29 January 2012                    

Based on Mark 1:21-24

John D. Lane 

They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God."

“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” A question from the man with an unclean spirit, but one that could just as easily be asked today–by people like us. This morning, I’d like to examine this question from several angles, then suggest one approach to following Jesus more closely.

“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” It’s a question of identity, and the man with an unclean spirit asks Jesus what do you and I have in common, how are you and I alike? You are the Holy One of God, and I am your complete opposite. I am a demon!

Christmas was a month ago. It’s the feast of the Incarnation, the belief that Jesus was fully human, just like us in many respects. He was born in shabby circumstances, grew up as the son of a carpenter–akin to a contractor today–was a traveling healer and teacher, and was executed by the Roman government at the urging of the Jewish leaders of Jerusalem.

“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” Of course, the man with an unclean spirit is right to ask this question because we also believe that Jesus was fully divine. The unclean spirit certainly isn’t divine. He is a demon, a creature of the devil.

Jesus has a double identity, if that’s not a heretical way of putting it–fully human, fully divine. Because he is fully human, he understands us. He empathizes with us. According to The Random House Dictionary of the English Language: The Unabridged Edition, as opposed to some random online dictionary of dubious authority, the primary definition of empathy is “the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.” Jesus is a big time empathizer–especially with those who are down and out for one reason or another.

As he is also divine, he has great authority, more than enough to command the wind and the seas and the demons. And he has no fear. Unlike the scribes and Pharisees, he isn’t afraid of getting close to lepers, cripples, prostitutes, the deaf, the blind, the dirty, the smelly, the demon-possessed, and sinners. He doesn’t buy the prevailing belief of the time that sin is the cause of diseases and other significant problems.

Love your neighbor as yourself, Jesus tells us. Empathy is key. If we can’t put ourselves psychologically and spiritually in the shoes of others, it’s hard to follow Jesus.

A bad example is called the Unmerciful Slave, the man who owes his master 10,000 talents, and cannot pay. He begs forgiveness and, out of pity, his master forgives him. On the way out, he sees another slave who owes him a small amount. He threatens him, but the other man says he needs more time to pay. The first slave has the second thrown into debtor’s prison. No empathy at all. No following his master’s example. Very bad behavior indeed.

A good example is even more familiar: the Good Samaritan. You know the story. A man is mugged on the side of the road. First one, then another of the area’s religious leaders see him, and pass by on the other side. Then a hated Samaritan, thought by many Jews to be the scum of the earth, sees the man, gives him first aid, calls the rescue squad, and promises to pay the hospital bill, whatever it turns out to be. Much empathy. Very good behavior indeed.

Back in 1989, I conducted a survey of the members of Trinity Church and your volunteer activities. I was astounded by the results, how many people were giving their time and donating their money to make the Staunton area better. My first goal had been to get more people involved in the community. Calculating the results of the survey, I decided that the members of the parish were already very involved in the community, so that goal had already been reached. Let me illustrate:

My favorite children’s books are in a series called Frog and Toad. In one chapter, called “A List,” Frog encourages Toad to improve his efficiency by making a list every day, and then checking off each item on the list as he completes the task. Toad follows his friend’s suggestion, but makes one change. He doesn’t  put any task on the list until he has completed it, then he checks it off immediately. My 1989 project quickly became something like that: (1) Get Trinity people involved in community service. Like Toad, I checked it off. Then, I moved on to Goal # 2: Get people to see their community volunteer activities as Christian ministry as followers of Jesus, not just do-gooder work.

I had a discussion recently with a woman who is a dedicated feminist, and we talked about ministry. I suggested that she continue to work on women’s issues, but that she also find a ministry of which she herself is not a beneficiary. And this is my suggestion to you this morning. Find something–you may already have–that only helps others, not any group of which you are a member. Along this line, Jesus frequently emphasizes the importance of caring for the poor, so it is shocking to our ears when he says, “For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me.” (Mark 14:7) I wonder if he is telling his disciples that serving the poor will be the best way to carry on his legacy, once he is gone. I suspect he is. And I think working for the poor is an important, but not the only, example. Your ministry can be to help any who lack the resources, financial or otherwise, to help themselves.

Back in the mid-1980's, a colleague and good friend of mine was diagnosed with AIDS. At the time, most of us didn’t know much about AIDS, except that it was a certain death sentence. He was in the hospital, and we all know what Jesus says about visiting the sick. I was more than a little bit apprehensive, but I went to see him anyway. What do you say to a 30 year-old who has just been told that he is dying? I don’t know either. And I wondered, am I in any danger of being infected? I know the answer now, but I didn’t then. I decided to treat the visit like any other hospital visit. I shook hands with him when I arrived, watched nurses come and go always wearing gloves while we were talking, listened to him carefully, and held his hands and prayed with him before I left. Despite my fear, I decided that I could not represent Jesus of Nazareth from a safe and antiseptic distance. What would Jesus do? I had no doubt.

“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” Jesus identifies with us and he empowers us against the world, the flesh, and the devil. As John’s gospel puts it: “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12-13)

“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?”

Everything. That’s all. Amen.

Repent, Believe, Follow

By the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow

This sermon is based on Mark 1:14-20.
An audio version of this sermon is available here.

Our Gospel passage today tells the story of the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. As Mark tells it, these words in today’s reading are the first words we hear Jesus speak — everything so far has been words about Jesus, but this the first time we hear words from Jesus. And because these are Jesus’ first words, they set the tone for everything that comes after them throughout Mark’s Gospel.

Jesus says, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

The long wait is over, Jesus says; the time of preparation, the time of anticipation, the time of wondering when God will act — that time is over, Jesus says. The kingdom of God, the reigning of God, the hands-on, down-to-earth, flesh-and-blood working-out of God’s will for justice and peace, God’s will for right relationships of mutual well-being — that has come near, Jesus says; that reign is beginning now, Jesus says; that reign starts with me, and the people I gather around me, Jesus says, and from us it will spread throughout the whole earth. “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near” — and what we must do to be part of that kingdom, Jesus says, is to repent, and, because we repent, to believe in the good news.

Now usually, when we nowadays hear the word “repent,” what we think of right away is something negative. We think of repentance as being sorry for our sins, or beating our breasts for our failings, or promising God that we’ll never ever do bad things again if God will just get us out of this mess that we’ve gotten ourselves into. We usually think of repentance in the purely negative sense of turning away from that in ourselves which is sinful or evil or bad.

But the word that Mark uses in the original Greek of this passage means more than just “turning away.” The original word is metanoia; and what that word means, translated literally, is “a change of mind” — or, more dynamically, it means to change your way of thinking, to be transformed in the habits of the heart by which you recognize and respond to yourself, and your neighbor, and your world, and your God. Metanoia means not just “turning away” from what is bad, but “transforming toward” what is good, it means being opened to new ways of thinking and feeling and behaving that participates in the very goodness of God.

And repentance in this sense leads precisely to believing in the good news. Our English word “believe” is related to the word “belove.” To believe is not just to accept something as true even though you can’t prove it; to believe is to give your heart, to place your trust, and to pledge yourself to being true and trustworthy in your turn. To repent and believe is to be transformed in the way we are mindful of God, so that we give our heart and put our trust in the way God is with us, we give our heart and put our trust in the way God’s grace acts in and around and through us, we give our heart and put our trust in the way God’s love lifts us up when we are beaten down and rejoices in heaven when we are made whole. So Jesus says, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

And I think a perfect example of that kind of repentance and belief comes in the call of the first disciples. When Jesus meets Simon and Andrew and James and John, his first words are not, “Be sorry for your sins and you can follow me”; his first words are not, “Promise never to do bad things again and I’ll let you be my disciples”; his first words are “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.”

"I will make you fish for people.” Jesus recognizes Simon and Andrew and James and John for who they are: fishermen: rough, gruff, uneducated fishermen: working guys who are honest and loyal and faithful, but who are not exactly religious experts, and not necessarily morally pure. Jesus recognizes them exactly for who they are — and he calls them exactly for who they are, he calls them to be who they are, but to be who they are in a new and a bigger way. “I will make you fish for people,” Jesus says: I will take the skills and abilities and know-how and experiences and personalities you already have, and I will put them to a new purpose, I will fill them with a new meaning, I will take them up to work the work that God is working in the world. That’s the sort of metanoia to which Jesus calls Simon and Andrew and James and John: not that they should turn away from everything their lives have been, not that they should reject the thoughts and feelings and actions and experiences that have brought them this far in life, but that they can be transformed in their mindfulness, they can wake up to the love of God with them and in them and all around them, and their own actions can thus become instruments of that greater love. “Repent and believe,” Jesus says. “Follow me,” Jesus says, “and I will make you able to be who you are in a new and godly way.” And so they gave their hearts to him and trusted him and left their nets and followed him — and their lives became fulfilled with more love, and more spirit, and more risk, and more strangeness, and more challenge, and more joy, than they had ever imagined before.

“Repent and believe,” Jesus says. “Follow me,” Jesus says — and today Jesus says that to us, here at Trinity, too. This gospel prompts us to ask, How can we repent and believe and follow? How can we transform our way of thinking, so that we give our hearts to the Way of Jesus, and learn how to be ourselves in a new and bigger and more godly way? How might Jesus take up our skills and talents and abilities and personalities and resources and money and time and attention and thoughts and feelings and actions, and transform them, connect them in new ways, to be signs and instruments of God’s reign of justice and peace and love in our world here and now?

What would that look like for us? I want you to think of one thing that you are good at — right now, think of one thing that you think you do pretty well. No false modesty now — no one else is going to know or judge what you think you’re good at. Think of one talent you have: Maybe you’re good at math. Maybe you like putting on parties. Maybe you like to read books out loud. Maybe you’re really good at fixing things. Maybe you’ve got a mean arm with a hammer. Maybe you have a knack for remembering important days in people’s lives, and celebrating with them. Maybe you like to sing. Maybe you’re a good listener. Maybe you have a strong imagination. Maybe you have a talent or ability nobody even knows about. Right now, think about one thing you are good at. Then think about how Jesus might take up that one thing and direct it to the purpose of acting out God’s love. Imagine how Jesus could use your talent to increase the amount of compassion and joy and goodness and sharing and relationship and love in the world. And then think: if Jesus could do that with just that one little bit of you, imagine what Jesus can do with all of you. That is the metanoia Jesus offers you.

In our Gospel this morning we hear the first and foremost teaching of Jesus’ mission: The time is fulfilled, the reign of God has come near, transform your thinking, give your heart, follow me, and I will empower you to be who you are in a new and godly way. May God grant us the grace to hear and know and live this Gospel call all our days. Amen.

Speak, Lord, Your Servant is Listening

By the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow

This sermon is based on 1 Samuel 3:1-10(11-20)
An audio version of this sermon is available here.

“Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

Those words from our First Testament lesson this morning sum up the attitude with which Samuel responds to the call to become God’s prophet — and they sum up an attitude we can have in recognizing and responding to God’s call to us, too.

The situation in the story is this: Samuel has been dedicated to serve in the Temple at Shiloh from the time that he was very young. He’s been learning priestcraft from Eli, the old priest, but he’s still pretty new at it, and he doesn’t know much yet about the ways of God. Moreover, the story makes the point that the word of God was rare in those days; there weren’t many visions; the people felt as though God had somehow grown distant from them, that God was really not very much involved in their regular, daily, down-to-earth lives. So God acts to minister to the people, to re-enter, to re-connect, with the lives of the people. God calls Samuel to be a prophet, to be someone who can listen for God’s word, and speak God’s word to everyone who’s willing to listen in turn.

But Samuel doesn’t know God’s word, either, yet; and it takes God a while to get through to get Samuel’s attention. Samuel is sleeping on his little pad in a corner of the temple building, when God calls, “Samuel, Samuel!” And that call seems so ordinary, that voice sounds so normal, so much a part of Samuel’s regular experience, that he immediately gets up and runs to Eli’s bedroom, and wakes the old man up, and says, “Here I am, for you called me.” And Eli says, “Do you know what time of night it is? I didn’t call you. Go back to bed!” This happens three times, God calling Samuel, and Samuel thinking it’s Eli, and Eli thinking Samuel is having some kind of sleep disorder — until finally Eli gets it: this is God calling, and the ordinary-sounding voice is opening up to Samuel an extraordinary word of God. So Eli tells Samuel, “The next time the voice calls you, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’” The next time God calls, listen carefully, open yourself to recognize what God is doing with you here and now, open yourself to respond to God’s call with all that you can do. And that’s what Samuel does: the voice calls, and Samuel says, “Speak, for your servant is listening,” and God calls Samuel to be a prophet, to hear and to speak God’s word, for the rest of Samuel’s life.

And that is the part of the story that speaks to us, that invites us, like Samuel, to learn how to recognize and respond to God speaking into our lives. The story asks us, how willing are we to stop and say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening”?

Because we do have to be willing to listen to God speaking to us. I believe that God is speaking to us all the time. I believe the whole entire Creation is part of God’s self-communication. As John’s Gospel says, it is through God’s Word that all things come into being; therefore all created things are like echoes of God’s Word, we can hear God’s speaking in everything that is. And I believe God speaks within us, not just in Creation but in our innermost selves, where the Holy Spirit prays within our spirits in ways too deep for words. I believe every moment of our experience, every nanosecond of our being, begins with an impulse from God, a call from God to become what God knows we can be. I believe God is speaking to us all the time.

But what often prevents us from listening to what God is speaking to us, is the same thing that tripped up Samuel when God called to him. In the story, God’s call seems so ordinary, so normal, so much a part of the usual background noise of life, that Samuel has to stop and listen specifically before he can recognize that it is God. And for us too, more often than not, God speaks to us in ways that are very ordinary, very normal, very much a part of the typical flow of experiences in life. To Samuel, God’s call sounded like the voice of his mentor and teacher. To us, God’s call might sound like the voice of a parent, or a child, or a spouse; to us, God’s call might sound like the phone ringing at an unexpected moment, or a fortuitous coincidence, or someone mentioning the name of a friend just as we were thinking about them too; to us, God’s call might sound like a sudden insight into a question we’ve been puzzling over for weeks, or an impulse of compassion to reach out to someone we’d normally avoid, or a calm conviction that we will after all have the courage to face a situation we know we have to face even though we certainly don’t want to. For us, as for Samuel, more often than not God speaks to us in ways that are so much a part of the ordinary texture of our lives that they’d be easy to miss if we’re not openly and intentionally listening for them.

One way to listen for God speaking to us in ordinary voices is through a simple practice of theological reflection. Now I know that, for a lot of us, the word “theological” conjures up images of discourses that are intellectual, abstract, abstruse, and generally beyond the ken (and beyond the interest) of most faithful people. But the practice of theological reflection, at its heart, is simply the art of looking a thing, an object, a person, a memory, an action, an experience — looking at something and asking “Where is God in this?” God is always already here — but asking ourselves “How is God here?” opens up our thoughts and our musings and our reflections to be guided by God, so that God’s own Word can be formed within our mental words, so that we can listen to God’s speaking in our own thoughts. The phone rings at an unexpected moment, and instead of doing what you’d planned on doing, you find yourself called to do something far different; and you pause and ask “Where is God in this?”; and in your reflection you recognize God’s call to respond to the unexpected with compassion and calmness and grace. You hear the name of a friend, and you feel a sense of familiarity and affection and joy; and you pause and ask “Where is God in this?”; and you recognize God’s gift of friendship and return a gift of gratitude. You look up at the mountains one day, and instead of just sliding over them your gaze stops and is held by their beauty; and you pause and ask “Where is God in this?”; and you recognize God’s call to be a steward and a protector and a celebrant of this environment and this land. A simple practice of theological reflection, pausing to ask “Where is God in this?” for any given moment or experience, can help us recognize God’s call, can be for us a way to say, like Samuel, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

May God grant us grace to pause and reflect and listen for what God is speaking to us, this day and always. Amen.

Becoming Who We Already Are

Mark 1:4-11

January 8, 2012

The Rev. Shelby Ochs Owen


An audio version of this sermon is available here.

No mention of the baby Jesus.   No mention of wise men from the East bearing gifts.  No mention of the Word made flesh.   We have just barely put our Christmas decorations away and the pine needles are still wedged in the carpet.  The crèche may even still be on display, and yet in today’s gospel reading from Mark, we jump right into Jesus’ life as adult.  In the opening verses that appear right before the passage for today Mark gets right to the point, at least Mark’s point, as he says, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

Today we are in the season of Epiphany as we celebrate the Baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Epiphany means manifestation or theophany, an appearance.  The one for whom we have been waiting has appeared.  In today’s reading John the Baptist is with us again (and yes, you did hear some of this same passage read just a few weeks ago during Advent), pointing the way to Jesus, clearly giving credit and honor where credit and honor are due as he says,  “the one who is more powerful than I is coming after me.”  John has been baptizing a baptism of repentance, preparing folks for the baptism of Jesus, a baptism of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus is baptized by John in the Jordan River.  As he is coming up out of the water, Jesus sees the heavens torn apart[I may take this out; the Greek word translated here as “torn apart,” schizo, is the same word that will be used later after Jesus’ death when the temple curtain is torn in half from top to bottom,] and the Spirit descends like a dove on him.  And a voice from heaven says, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

For Mark, Jesus’ baptism establishes his identity as the Son of God which will be one of Mark’s key messages throughout his Gospel.  In a paradigm where the heavens are high in the sky on a separate level than earthly, human life, this is a major statement.  God has broken into our world -the heavens are torn apart -hence, dissolving the separation of heaven and earth.

As we celebrate Jesus’ baptism, this day we reflect on our own baptism, even those who cannot remember the actual event. (If you have not yet been baptized and would like to consider it, please feel free to speak to one of the clergy.)  We will renew our baptismal vows after the sermon, and I invite you to listen to those words with new ears and an open heart and hear what God may be saying to you.  Before we look at those vows, let’s think about Mark’s words where God says to Jesus, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”  He does not say, “You are my beloved when you get your life together or when you are successful, when you stop gossiping or drinking or when you take out the trash.” He does not say, “You are my Beloved  because you go to church, because you pray, because you seek justice or even because you care for the sick.”  He says, just, “You are my Beloved; with you I am well pleased. 

The apostle Paul reminds us in his letters that our own identity as believers comes through our own baptism.  In our baptism we identify with Christ, and these precious words that God says to Jesus in his baptism, God aims for us to hear as well.  You are my beloved daughter, my beloved son and with you I am well pleased.  This statement of God’s love is a foundational truth in our relationship with God and with one another.  Through our baptism we make a statement of who we are- a beloved child of God, and we are given the gift of the Holy Spirit to become – to become our true selves, to become fully human, to become Christ-like in what we do and in who we are- the really real us!  From the moment of baptism we are unfolding into the person we were created to be, the person we already are in God’s eyes.  This unfolding does not happen overnight for most of us.   Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ wrote:

Above all, trust in the slow work of God,

We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediary stages.

We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.

And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability---and

That it may take a long time.---

Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be.

Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you,

And accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.

The reality is that even though sometimes we do our best to repress it, the Holy Spirit resides in us and in the person next to us, and as we open our heart and mind to God, we find a transformation occurring.  As we open our hearts and minds to God we find ourselves more able to faithfully move into the baptismal promises.  Consider one of those promises: Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ? If you allow the Holy Spirit to lead you, you may surprise yourself as you share your faith with your son or daughter- maybe even with words-maybe even out loud! Consider another of the promises: Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?  If you allow the Holy Spirit to lead you, you may find yourself actually finding something to love in the difficult  people in your life, maybe including your own difficult self!  And the final promise: Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?  Let the Holy Spirit lead you, and you may find yourself standing up for the innocent, caring for the poor, reaching out to the downtrodden, allowing love to shine in an otherwise inhospitable place, casting light in a dark corner.  The Holy Spirit is already in us and has the power to change us if we are willing recipients, and when the Holy Spirit changes us we indeed have the power to do nothing less than change the world.

In Bible study this week, I asked an opening question of what was your favorite present you either gave or received at Christmas?  One member told us that her best gift was that over the holiday she actually enjoyed going to see a family member, a certain relative whom she usually did not particularly even like. For years she dreaded the visits but something was profoundly different this year; she was able to give room in her heart for this relative, able to see her as a human being who had weaknesses much like herself.  The anxiety, the tension, the feelings of dislike were simply gone.  She said that even the memory of that experience continues to wash over her as an amazing gift. The slow work of God…

In Jesus’ baptism Jesus is who God says he is; by our baptism we are reminded that we are who God says we are: Beloved children of God.  Just as Mark reveals Jesus true identity as the Son of God, in our baptism our true identity is revealed as well.  In our baptism God meets us where we are, before we have our act together-- way, way before, but our lives don’t stop there. When we respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, we find we are drawn to prayer, we are drawn to worship, we are drawn to share our faith, drawn to care for the disenfranchised, drawn to seek out justice for everyone, drawn to see the face of Christ in every single human being.  14^th c. nun Catherine of Siena said, “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.”  We find this becoming fully human, this becoming our true selves, this becoming Christ-like that the Holy Spirit empowers is full of excitement, full of elements of the unknown, and, even at times full of anxiety.  We must remember that even after this spiritual high that Jesus must have experienced at his own baptism, immediately afterward the Spirit drove him into the desert for 40 days!  There is definitely risk associated with baptism!  Baptism does not guarantee a cushy life in the clouds.  It does guarantee and affirm though that we are beloved by God in all circumstances and that God will be cheering us on as we become all that God intends us to be, indeed as we become who we already are in God’s eyes. Trust in the slow work of God…

The Feast of the Holy Name

by the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow

This sermon is based on Luke 2:15-21.
An audio version of this sermon is available here.

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. Today is our our day to give special thanks and praise to God for revealing to us that Jesus is the Name above all names, the Name of wondrous love, the Name at which every knee must bow and every tongue confess, the Name that sounds so sweet in a believer’s ear, the Name of God-with-us and us-with-God, the Name that names for us the saving grace that opens up human life to share in divine reality. Today we celebrate the Holy Name of Jesus.

And part of that celebration is for us to recognize that, for all the wonderful meanings we have come to see in that name, the name itself is really a very common thing. When Mary and Joseph took their baby boy to be circumcised and gave him the name Jesus, they were doing something that countless other Jewish parents had done for their baby boys before. Jesus — Iēsous as it was pronounced in the Greek that was the international language of travel and business in that time — Yeshua as it was pronounced in the Aramaic that was the language Palestinian Jews spoke among themselves — Jesus, Iēsous, Yeshua was really a very common name among Jews of the first century in Palestine, and lots of Jewish men bore that name. Yeshua was a sort of Aramaic modernization of the Hebrew name Yehōshua — Joshua, as we would say it nowadays — and Yehōshua was an important name from the Bible, and parents then as now would honor their spiritual roots by giving their children names that came from their spiritual tradition. Yeshua was a common name.

In fact, one of the things that makes it so difficult to find archaeological evidence for the life of Jesus is that Yeshua was such a common name. Archaeologists and historians have found a fair number of references from the Ancient Near East that include the name Yeshua, but there’s nothing specific to link that name to the stories of Jesus in the New Testament. Several years ago there was a huge stir in the world of biblical archeology when a collector claimed to have found an ossuary, a burial-box, that was inscribed “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” The stir was because each of those three names was pretty common in the first century, but nothing had ever before been found that brought the three names together in the relationships they have in the New Testament. A lot of people were thinking “At last! At last we have something tangible, something material, something carved in stone that gives us historical evidence of a Yeshua who looks a lot like Jesus of the New Testament.” The ossuary turned out to be a forgery, and so a huge embarrassment and disappointment to a lot of historians — but it illustrates how hard it can be to make a connection between any Yeshua of history and the Jesus of the New Testament, because Yeshua was a common name.

And Yeshua had a common usage. The name itself means “Yahweh is salvation.” But people who used Yeshua as a name didn’t typically stop to think about what it meant. All names mean something, but we seldom stop to think about those meanings when we call the names. Paul means “small”; Lee means “meadow”; Margaret means “pearl”; Thomas means “twin”; Victoria means, well, “victory”; Philip means “someone who loves horses”; the list goes on. All names mean something, but when we call someone by their name we don’t usually stop to think “This means ‘small’ or ‘meadow’ or ‘pearl’” — we just call the name. It was like that with Yeshua: the name means “Yahweh is salvation,” but nobody stopped to think about that when they used the name. Yeshua was just a common name with a common usage.

In fact, the only thing remarkable about the name Yeshua, Iēsous, Jesus is how very unremarkable a name it is. There is nothing special about it. And yet it is the Name above all names, the Name of wondrous love, the Name that sounds so sweet in a believer’s ear, the Name that names for us the saving grace that opens up human life to share in divine reality. The mystery of the Holy Name of Jesus, the mystery of the Incarnation itself, is precisely how the not-special, commonplace, ordinary things of human life can be opened up to become signs and symbols and sacraments of the very special, uncommon, extraordinary presence and power of God’s love.

And that is the meaning of the Feast of the Holy Name for us: It is an invitation to look at our names, our meanings, our connections, our families, all the not-special, commonplace, ordinary things that make up our lives — and to see in them the potential to open up into signs and symbols and sacraments of the very special, uncommon, extraordinary presence and power of God’s love in our lives. The Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus is in a sense an invitation to let our names become holy, too, as we follow Jesus in letting God’s love animate our lives in the Name of Christ.

My name, for instance, is Paul Steven Nancarrow. For a long time I thought my parents had just come up with a nice combination of New Testament names for me. But a few years ago, when he was downsizing his library, my dad gave me a book by his favorite seminary theology professor, “Doc” Kramer. My dad used to tell me stories about how “Doc” Kramer would lecture to the class with a gravelly voice, how he'd raise some new idea or some progressive theological interpretation, something that would push the envelope of the commonplace just a little bit, something that would raise the seminarians’ eyebrows and goad them into thinking in a new way, and then say to the class “Gentlemen, if this be heresy, make the most of it!” I still don't quite know what that means, but I like the attitude behind it — “make the most of it.” So my dad gave me this book by “Doc” Kramer — and when I opened it up and looked at the title page, I saw that “Doc’s” real name was “Paul Stevens Kramer.” Paul Stevens...

Now my mom and dad tell me they had no conscious intention of naming me after a theology professor, but it’s hard not to hear the echo. And you know, I kind of like that echo. I like thinking there are resonances of meaning in my name that go beyond the obvious. Being a theologian myself, I like thinking there’s a theologian in my name. I like it that my name is a kind of reminder to me that sometimes it's my job to push the envelope of the commonplace, to introduce a new idea or novel interpretation, to raise you eyebrows a little bit — and then to say, “Together, let’s make the most of it.” I like it that God gives me a gift of playful creativity to see in my name the hint of a meaning and a ministry and a mission that is larger than myself. My name, Paul Steven, is an ordinary thing; but by the grace of God it can open up with connections and remembrances and meanings to become an extraordinary sign of the joyous love, even the playful love, of God.

And that can be true for all our names, all our stories, all our connections, all our remembrances, all our intentions — all the not-special, coincidental, commonplace, ordinary things that make up our lives. Like the ordinary name Yeshua, Iēsous, Jesus, our ordinary selves can be opened up to be revelations of the extraordinary power and presence of God’s love.

That is what we celebrate on this Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. And I invite you to celebrate that, celebrate that about your name, celebrate that about yourself — and then share that extraordinary love of God revealed in you with someone close to you. Let your name be holy, as you follow the holy Way of the one named Jesus.

And this I say to you in the Name of God: the Holy One, the Holy Word, the Holy Spirit. Amen.