Thomas Kleinert
Somewhere in the United States lives a girl named Britney Shakira Beyoncé. You know what happened there; the parents clearly were huge fans of all three, and they couldn’t decide which one to name their little girl after. Perhaps they were secretly hoping for triplets.
Apparently there are 328 people in the United States named Abcde, the majority being girls.[1] And somebody shared on reddit, “My cousin named her kid Harley Davidson. She’s a moron.”[2]
A name is a powerful thing, and sometimes the awesome honor of naming a newborn human being results only in a very good reason to have one’s name changed later in life.
Abram was 75 years old when he and his household left Haran;[3] his wife Sarai was 65 then. They packed their portable belongings and left, following the call and promise of God to go to the land that I will show you – which is all God told them about their destination. And there was the promise that God would make of them a great nation. Twenty-five years later they had journeyed far and wide, but Sarai still was childless. Abram had a son, Ishmael, with Hagar, a slave from Egypt who served Sarai. The boy was a teenager when God appeared to the old man and said, “No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly numerous. You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her and also give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.”
Not many people, I would be willing to bet, have their names changed at age 99 or 89. But, hey, these two are talking about having a baby, when the rest of their cohort are trying hard to remember the name of each of their great-grandchildren. Abraham and Sarah’s new names reflect the new identity they have been given as bearers of God’s covenant promises. Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and Sarah soon joined him. It’s a perfectly reasonable response, don’t you think? And, of course, “Laughter” would be the name of their boy, Yitzchak in Hebrew, Isaac in English transliteration.[4]
A name is a powerful thing; it binds us to our people and our culture, it becomes part of the stories our families share, and it reflects the unique ways our lives intersect with theirs and the whole story of life.
About half-way through the Gospel of Mark, Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Over eight chapters, he has proclaimed the good news of God, driving out demons, healing the sick, touching lepers and declaring them clean, forgiving sins, baffling the authorities, telling stories, rebuking the violent wind, restoring a girl to life, and feeding thousands. Over eight chapters, the disciples, and we with them, have watched and wondered, listened and pondered, and now he asks the twelve and the rest of us who have been trying to keep up with him, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answers, without a hint of hesitation, “You are the Messiah.”
And Jesus, Mark writes, sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him. He didn’t say, “No, that’s not who I am,” but apparently he didn’t want his disciples to go and tell folks who thought he was John the Baptizer, or Elijah, or one of the prophets, that he was the Messiah. And then, Mark tells us, Jesus began to teach the disciples that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again. The unique shape of his life would determine who he was, Jesus began to teach us, not some title, charged with all kinds of expectations. His name, Jesus, and his whole life and mission would infuse the term Messiah with meaning, and not the other way around.
And Peter, Mark tells us, took him aside and began to rebuke him, because Peter, like the rest of us, at one point or another, wanted him to be his dream-come-true Messiah. And the way to Jerusalem Jesus began to map out didn’t fit in that picture. Peter, Mark tells us, “took Jesus aside,” and that gentle phrase could also be translated, “he took hold of him,” with a hint of, “he grabbed him by the lapels,” and in word and action, Peter strongly suggested otherwise.
A few weeks back, I said that Satan had a part in the Gospel according to Mark, but that he didn’t have a speaking part. Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness to follow a different path than the one defined by his relationship with God who named him Beloved, that temptation is not spelled out in dialogue, but only stated. The closest thing to a speaking part for Satan is Peter’s rebuke to Jesus, his forceful suggestion of a different path. The conflict is not spelled out in direct speech, but the scene is clear enough for us to see that it’s not some mythical horned figure getting in the way of Jesus, but we ourselves when we think there has to be a better way, for Jesus and for us, to proclaim the nearness of God’s reign.
About half-way through the Gospel of Mark, we begin to learn that to call Jesus Messiah means to let go of all our detailed job descriptions for him, and begin, again, to follow him. Jesus is not the fulfillment of our kingdom dreams, but he does embody the reign of God in who he is, and following him, our dreams are renewed. Jesus is not the fulfillment of our visions of salvation, but he is God’s salvation who transforms our vision. Jesus is not the fulfillment of our desire for this and that and the other, but the one who goes ahead of us that we might follow him on the way.
About half-way through the Gospel of Mark, we come to a fork in the road and hear the hard teaching. We are free to say yes or no.
If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who will lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.
Taking up the cross was not metaphorical to many of Mark’s original readers. In their world, the cross was not a manner of speaking of random forms of suffering. The cross was still known as the punishment Rome imposed on rebels and troublemakers who challenged the status quo. “The cross,” wrote John Howard Yoder, “was not a difficult family situation, not a frustration of visions of personal fulfillment, a crushing debt, or a nagging in-law; it was the political logically-to-be-expected result of a moral clash with the power ruling [their] society.”[5] It will cost you to confess Jesus as Lord; it may even cost you your life. But don’t let your fear keep you from following Jesus; don’t forget that something greater than mere survival is at stake here.
To our ears, this talk of giving one’s life may sound radical and exceptional—I don’t think it is. We all give our life to something or someone, regardless of how many years we live. The real question is, are you giving your life to something worthy of the gift of your days, the gift of your creativity and strength and attention? Are we giving our life to following Jesus on the way, trusting in God’s yes to us, trusting in the promise of God’s coming reign?
Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?” is inseparable from the one we ask ourselves all the time, “Who am I? Who am I becoming? Who do I want to be? Who does God want me to be?” Jesus calls us to live into the answers in his company and in the company of all he calls his sisters and brothers. His call to follow him sets us free from anxious self-absorption and draws us into finding fullness of life in God’s covenant of love. His call reminds us that Beloved is not only his first name, but ours as well. A name is a powerful thing.
I heard an old gospel song. I heard it sung by Marian Anderson and Nina Simone, by Roberta Flack and Liz McComb. I told Jesus it would be alright if he change my name. I don’t know who wrote it, and perhaps nobody knows—perhaps it was never written, only sung and sung again. Sung by people whose ancestors had been brought by force from Africa, who had been robbed of their freedom, their homes, their families, and, yes, their names. No longer free, they were given new names by their masters who took their lives as though they were theirs to take and own and use and abuse, masters who didn’t know they too were losing their lives to the soul-crushing idolatry of treating human beings made in the image of God as property.
Yet under the whip and boot of their masters, those men and women, far away from home, far away from anything resembling home, far away from hope and promise, refused to surrender to the religion of their oppressors, and they recognized in Jesus on the cross their brother.
I told Jesus it would be all right
If he change my name
Jesus told me I would have to live humble
If he change my name
But I told Jesus it would be all right
If he change my name
Jesus told me that the world would hate me
If he change my name
I told Jesus it would be all right
If he change my name
It’s a revolutionary moment when people begin to remember their true first name, God-given, the name we share with Jesus, the name he gave his life to make known to all. Beloved.
[1] https://www.momjunction.com/articles/worst-baby-names-in-the-world_00400377/
[2]https://www.reddit.com/r/CasualUK/comments/10bnk5d/comment/j4be4r8/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
[3] Genesis 12:4
[4] Genesis 21:1-7
[5] Cited in Placher, Mark, 117.