Feast of the Holy Name 2023
Where I grew up, names were important. Your name told people a lot about who you are, and whether or not they wanted to associate with you. When Bill and I were announcing our engagement, a friend of mine, also from Brooklyn asked the familiar question, “who are his people?” For her it was about where he was from, and now he fit into his family, and also about analyzing if I would fit into the family. It was a funny conversation because we were having it as two people living in southern California who were still very much women from Brooklyn. As Anthony Bourdain once said, “Brooklyn is not a borough, it’s a blood type.”
When I moved to Clemson, South Carolina, I learned that names there were important. Your name attached you to a family, to ancestors that people knew. I cannot tell you how many women were named Callie, which is a nickname for Calhoun. And if your first name wasn’t Callie, by God your middle name was Calhoun if you were related to Anna Calhoun, who was the wife of Thomas Green Clemson. Holy Trinity Church in Clemson has the distinction of being the owners of the churchyard and church of St. Paul’s, Pendleton, where Anna and Thomas are buried. Lots of Calhouns and Clemsons buried there.
Today is the Feast of the Holy Name, which occurs eight days after Christmas. On the 8th day after the birth of Jesus, his family does what families in that time and place did; they named him… Seems a rather simple thing doesn’t it? But the naming of a child is a holy thing. I can remember when my former bishop baptized my son and asked us to “Name this child”… it was a holy moment of giving him an identity… and of formally placing him within our family and the greater community.
So it was even for Jesus. His family performs the holy rituals of naming and circumcision, giving him the name that God has chosen for him, a name that says he will save his people from their sins; and in naming him, he is placed officially within his family and the surrounding community…
It seems simple, but it is part of the continuing story of God being made man, of God becoming incarnate, of God taking on human flesh for the sake of all of us for all time. God, creator of heaven and earth, comes down from heaven and is born into the world as a baby to a family of humble means… giving up the majesty of being God, and becoming human… all because of love. It’s the kind of love that we get to experience all around us if we open our hearts and our eyes. Because God chose to be born and named Jesus, not only is God part of humanity, but… you and I are now part of God. Incarnation, the taking on of human flesh by God means that humanity is now all wrapped up in God… we are adopted as God’s own, we are part of God’s family… We are made holy, taken up into God’s very life… even as God shares our life… and the thing is, that life as you and I know, is messy… sometimes horribly so, and sometimes endearingly so. Maybe that’s why God chose such a humble human birth, to emphasize just how messy life is, and how much God loves it… yes beloved, God loves our life, and God loves it enough that God becomes part of all of it, the good, the awful and the stuff that’s in between and just plain messy…
But that’s what it’s like being adopted by God… the magic, if you will, is in the ordinary, day to day stuff of life. Jesus is named today, and the gift is that WE are the ones who are adopted and brought into the family, and like all families, there are amazing parts and the parts we don’t like to talk about; there are good days and bad days…. There are joys and triumphs and there are times of darkness… but we are all brought into the family of God… and we are all loved… and God has chosen us… all of us are part of the family now, and the family is not just the people we like either, but perhaps especially the people we don’t like… that’s what it means when God chooses to become human… It means ALL of humanity is adopted by God and all of humanity is made holy… hard to imagine when we go about our day isn’t it? All means all… we don’t get to choose who is in and who out; because as we follow Jesus we know that those whom others have left out, are actually in… no borders, no walls, no proper manners, no societal status, or whatever else we might use to exclude someone… all are adopted into God’s life because God so loved the world that much…
For us, our adoption means loving those whom God also loves. It means putting our prejudice aside and allowing God’s Holy Spirit to guide us in how we interact with God’s people… what would happen if, when we interacted with someone who raised our internal hackles, we stopped and thought…. “They are God’s beloved too… just as I am…” We all know, if we look deep inside us, that we aren’t really worthy of that much love… but it doesn’t matter because God loves foolishly and lavishly… maybe we can too… just because we are loved that much….
While society puts Christmas in a box and gets ready for the next big thing, trying to help us find happiness in a store display… you and I will linger in Bethlehem at the manger a little bit longer… The gift of Christmas is never really over for us… In a Sunday school curriculum that I used to teach to young children, it suggested that a Nativity set be in the room at all times for the children to handle and play with, because it was important for them to remember that God loved them so much that God became one of them… it helped the children realize that Jesus was close to them and loved them and experienced what they did… perhaps we might linger extra long today to remember that lesson as well…. He is named Jesus, the one who will save his people from their sins. And we are called Christians, because we are his and he is ours. I think those are the most powerful and awe inspiring names of all. Merry Christmas beloved.