Sermons for the Month
What's in a Name?
DATE: April 8, 2001
SERVICE: Palm Sunday
TEXT: Luke 19:28-40“To all of you Saints here this morning, grace and peace to you from God our Father, from His Son, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. AMEN
Martha Koystra.
She's all over television, bookstores and magazine stands. Everywhere you look, she's dispensing advice about designer decorations and exquisite entertaining. But who is this diva of domesticity? We know her as "Martha Stewart."
Few people understand the marketing value of a name better than those in the entertainment industry. That's why we'll see Demi Moore in the movies but not Demetria Guynes. It's why we may listen to Sting, but not Gordon Matthew Sumner. We'll read a novel by Toni Morrison, but not by Chloe Anthony Wofford. We'll watch Jennifer Aniston on Friends, but not Jennifer Anistonapoulos.
Some entertainers buck the trend. Like our own Melina Kanakaredes, the star of the critically acclaimed television drama Providence but that is usually the exception to the rule.
Names have power. If you were a marketing executive at Nike scouting for a fresh face to function as a spokesperson, and you had a choice between offering a multi-gazillion-dollar contract to an Eldrick or a Tiger, who would get the cash?
Duh.
Eldrick Woods, the winner of the last three major professional golf championships, will soon be stalking his fourth in a row, the Masters, a tournament he has already won once. But Eldrick somehow doesn't sound as good as Tiger. Tiger works. Tiger has power. The power of a name is nothing new to those who are students of Scripture. In Genesis, Jacob wrestles all night with a divine being near the river Jabbok. Jacob hangs on and refuses to let go - until the "man" blesses him. The man complies, changing his name from Jacob to Israel, a name that means "The one who strives with God" (Genesis 32:22-32). Later, Moses encounters the Lord God at the burning bush and asks for his name. God answers "I AM WHO I AM," meaning that his very selfhood is tied to his mighty acts, and he will be exactly what he will be throughout the course of history (Exodus 3:13-15). "I AM," says the Lord. Can't have a stronger name than that. But it isn't only the ancients who find deep significance in particular names. James Bruning, a psychologist at Ohio University, has studied naming for over 30 years, and knows that names can carry the weight of expectations. His advice to parents testing a name for their baby is to put some adult signifier in front of the name to see how it works. Like Mr. or Mrs. ... Doctor ... or President. Doing that, he says, knocks off a lot of possibilities. Would you go to a "Doctor Moon Kennedy"? Maybe, but you'd want to check his diploma first. How about casting a ballot for "President Buffy Sanders"? Would you want her finger on the nuclear button? It should come as no surprise, then, that the mob who welcomed Jesus to Jerusalem just a few days before his execution were mired deeply in a culture of names. Even the advance team sent ahead to Jerusalem used a mere name as authority for their preparations. Jesus said, "If anyone asks you, 'Why are you untying it?' just say this, 'The Lord needs it.'" Later, when Jesus is riding on the donkey toward the city, a tumultuous crowd engulfs him as he nears and enters the city. It is not a quiet scene. What the people are shouting is both fascinating and revealing: "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!" (vv. 35-38). Notice its not: "Blessed is the man who comes from the province of Galilee." They praise God for all Jesus' deeds of power, and cry out blessings on the one who comes in God's name. See the link? Power and the name. It's inescapable. Of course, the hysterical fans thought they were applauding Tiger Jesus, the triumphant, miracle-working hotshot from up north, a guy who had a reputation for driving long, chipping out of pharisaical sand traps when he had to, and sinking the ball of religious arrogance into the cup of humility from 30 feet away. They had expectations. What they got was Lamb Jesus who takes away the sins of the world. Fortunately, Jesus didn't attempt to meet them. He was less interested in insurrection than he was in resurrection. He had no intention of being a media-created darling, signing autographs and playing to his adoring fans. It wasn't long before Jesus managed to alienate the public. A couple days later he winds up in the temple, chasing out money-changers and snake-oil salesmen who had turned a house of prayer into a den of thieves. His relations with the media became stormy. He boasted that he would destroy the temple that had taken the Herodian Corps of Engineers 40 years to build and then rebuild it again in three days. His language became dark and dangerous. He spoke more frequently about his impending death. For a "king" who had come in the "name of the Lord," this was decidedly unkingly, untigerly behavior. There is still plenty of confusion that surrounds the figure and name of Jesus. As a part of today's Palm Sunday crowd, we have to wonder: What is the name of Jesus to us? What does it signify? For some, he is not much more than a self-help guru. For others, he is synonymous with a "health-and-wealth" theology of prosperity. For still others, he is a liberation leader or a cosmic king or a compassionate friend. His name means "he will save." If the Jesus we praise today is anything less than a Savior, then we have lost sight of who he was and what his mission was all about. Jesus came to save us. Which begs the question: From what does Jesus save postmodern, prosperous members of the New Economy? The biblical answer is: From the power of sin and death. That may evoke some of the old categories that often are linked to sins of the flesh, sins that are easy to dismiss by many of us as having no relevance. We don't drink or chew or go out with girls who do. But while our Wall Street portfolio may be a little shaky, our spiritual pockets could well be running on near empty. We may be without even one person we can say truly loves us. We may be utterly, hopelessly bored. We may sense there is no moral-positioning system at work in our lives that keeps us on the path of righteousness. We may be hanging on tooth and nail to our sanity while our world crashes upon us, and we try to keep busy rotating our Firestones, unaware of the doom down the road. Oh, there's a lot from which we need to be saved, and from which Jesus came to save. Bottom line: He came to save us from ourselves. And that salvation we will find not in the Tiger, but in the Lamb of God. AMEN