What’s in a name?

[Note: Today’s guest blogger is Bridget Casselman. She is a long time parishioner starting back at Corpus Christi Church. Bridget is a social worker – a career that she loves. She volunteers at Spiritus in lots of projects but her favorite volunteer job is Greeting and Hugging people as they come in to 9:30 mass! Thank you, Bridget! ]

I remember when I was adopting my daughter, I felt such pressure from myself to find the perfect name for her. One that would fit a child and an adult. One where she would not be teased for her name (or the initials) in school. One that embraced her past and future. And one that I hoped she would love.

In today’s first reading from Genesis 17, God chooses a new name for Abram. God wants it to represent Abram’s new life and calling as the father of nations. God also wants to acknowledge Abram’s past and what led him to be chosen by God for this role. And so God chooses the name Abraham which means “father of nations”. God wanted to let all those who come after know that he started his people with Abraham. 

When I chose the name Marena for my daughter I wanted everyone to know that I was naming her after Maureen Nielsen. Maureen was a member of Corpus Christi and Spiritus Christi. She went to Haiti many times and she worked in orphanages in Haiti loving the Haitian people and children. She was also my friend. Her last communication to me was an email as we were planning my trip to visit her in Haiti. Her comment was “I’m going to have to check your bags when you go home because you are going to want to take one of my little girls home with you.”  Maureen died before Marena was born but I wanted her represented so I chose this special name for my daughter.

God has always understood the significance of a name. In addition to naming Abraham, God gave Moses a name to call God. For this name God chose (what is translated as) I AM. For centuries after, that is how God and only God was known. 

In the gospel reading from John 8, Jesus makes a bold statement about his name and who he is.

Picture this – a person has grown up hearing their birth story and stories of what they were like growing up. They have been baptized and felt God whisper to them “You are my Beloved Child”. They have deeply reflected, taking time in the desert to discern who they are called to be. They have come to peace with this decision, and making that decision changes them.

First they tell some close friends. After receiving love and acceptance, they decide to take the big step and announce it to the world. I AM … transgender.  I AM… gay or lesbian. I AM… an alcoholic. I AM… in recovery. I AM… an undocumented immigrant. I AM … an asylee. I AM… disabled. I AM… in special education.

Jesus knows how scary it is to say those words out loud because he did it. In the reading today Jesus stands before the religious authorities and declares I AM. To understand what he is declaring we need to travel back to Moses. When God gave Moses the name God wanted everyone to use, God declared I AM. God didn’t need to put anything after it because God is all encompassing and wanted everyone to understand that. And so when Jesus declared he was I AM, he was declaring He was God.  This infuriated the religious authorities.

As so often happens, when a person declares who they are they can face rejection. In the case of Jesus, the religious leaders did not accept what he was saying. It bothered them so much that they wanted to kill him for declaring who he was.  They wanted to erase him and the challenge he represented to their neat orderly world.

Does that action sound familiar?

Today so many are feeling their names erased and/or rejected. Names erased with the removal of the “T” on the Stonewall Inn national monument website (the first US. Landmark dedicated to LGBTQ rights and history). Erasing Tuskegee Airmen from training videos. Names and genders removed from passports. Erasing legal status for those immigrants here under Temporary Protected Status because it is too violent for them to return home. Erasing the names of men that were sent to El Salvador. Erasing the Department of Education. Erasing the names of all those who received aide from USAID. Erasing all those names in Palestine. 

Erasing the perceived threat. Erasing those who are not deemed valuable. Erasing the stories and personhood of people by refusing to say their names. This is often what the world tries to do to people.

But Jesus dis not want anyone to be erased. He knew his own name, and wanted people to be called by theirs. In his life, Jesus wanted to show his followers that God’s love is all encompassing – that I AM exists in all creation and is part of everything and everyone. And because of this, he wants us to say our own names (no matter how we name ourselves) with confidence and courage as we say, “I AM A CHILD OF GOD.”