What's in a name?

Trinity 10: Sunday 31st July 2005

Genesis 32.22-31  |  Romans 9.1-5  |  Matthew 14.13-21

Jacob wrestles with God; Christ came from the Jews; Jesus feeds 5,000

The OT reading today is all about names... in Old Testament times names were significant for at least two reasons:

Pain in the neck

1. names very often had meanings and expressed something about the child - it was also often about their destiny... if your name was “pain” (as a poor chap called Jabez got named), that was a different kind of future mapped out than Abigail - which means “Father’s joy”, or Isaac (“laughter”), or Samuel (“heard of God”).

You often had a bad lot if your dad was a prophet... because the prophets were wont to act out their prophecies, and giving unusual names to their children was not uncommon... so Isaiah named one son Shear-Jashub - which means “a remnant will return”; and his brother Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz - which means “quick to the plunder, swift to the spoil”... While Isaiah itself means “Yahweh saves”.. Joshua - from which the New Testament name Jesus came - means “Jehovah is salvation”

Who's in charge?

2. because to know somebody’s name was to have a degree of power or control over them... so when God appeared to Moses (Coptic for “saved from the water”!) and he asked what name he should tell people about, God replied “I am (who I am)” - in other words, there is nobody or nothing to whom you can compare me - you don’t control me...

Jacob: not someone you'd want your daughter to date

And in today’s reading, one of the sorriest, most devious and colourful characters of the OT, gets a name change. Jacob was not always a terribly happy chap... what do we know about him?... he was the second twin, born clutching Esau’s heel.. he cheated Esau out of his birth right... he cheated the blessing for the firstborn out of his dad, he had to flee his brother’s wrath, he ended up being cheated by his father in law over the two women he ended up marrying... and in today’s story he wrestles with God...not a man at peace with himself or the world... yet God chooses to use a deceitful, flawed human being, and more than that - he rescues and calls a deceitful flawed human being and changes his future... so if God could call and use Jacob, there is hope for us all!

So Jacob gets a name change. Jacob - which means “the supplanter” (remember how, although he was the youngest, he tricked Esau out of is birth rite, and then squeezed a blessing out of Isaac?) is changed to Israel (“he struggles with God”)

Names today

In Bible - as today - names have meanings. e.g. Andrew = manly... Often parents name their children according to a quality they want for them - spate of Diana, or Kylie etc... want fame, or wealth or achievement etc...

• Hannah and Carol = nobody really seems to know...

• David = beloved

• Jude = (Hebrew) praise the Lord!!

• Dan = he who orders oil for the boiler (judged of God)

• Clive = one who counts the pennies (dweller on a slope)

• Norman = a tinkler on the ivories (Old English “northman”)

• Alison = foxy lady... (actually = noble!)

What do Joseph, Georgina and Rachel mean?

• Joseph = God shall multiple, God shall add...

• Georgina = from Greek meaning “farmer” (so you’ll never be hungry...!)

• Rachel = ewe! But the Rachel who married Jacob was very beautiful!

I was at school with Emma Wright. My mum’s godfather was Anthony Taylor Pott... my grandma had two friends Aggie Onions and Nellie Bucket... I sued to work with Jeremy Stone

So the names chosen for us - nicknames, pet names, don’t have to map out our futures or even control our present.

Name changes

Other people in the bible whose names were changed...

• Saul (“asked for” first king of Israel... were the NT Saul’s parents desperate to have a child?) / Paul (“small” - the least of Christ’s apostles? [1 Corinthians 15.9]);

• Simon (Gk: “snub nosed”!) / Peter (“rock”) etc.

Joining, not naming...

Baptism isn’t about naming - the people we’re baptising already have names - it’s about joining.

The future's bright...

Baptism is about recognising God’s smile on our lives, it’s about starting the Christian journey... it’s about changing our destiny by declaring for God... it’s about placing our selves, our lives, our futures, our hope and expectations in God’s hands - about not being held back by a past somebody else tried to map out for us, not being restricted by what our parents, or teachers, or school friends, or peers etc said about us or expected of us... it’s about realising that we are made in the image of God, infinitely precious, unbelievably loved, and with fantastic potential ahead of us as we allow God to mould us into the people he wants us to be.

...The future's graces!

So those who have come for baptism today - and those who are parents and godparents - are placing themselves into God’s future, taking a step further along the road in God’s company.

Baptism is a sacrament of GRACE - that means undeserved favour. It means not getting what you deserve. It means that God’s move towards us is of love, not of telling off, or of anger, but of love. Grace is about God’s favour, and - as we sung this morning in our first hymn - it’s Amazing!

Fr Andrew J Perry
Rector, St John the Evangelist, Pevensey Rd, St Leonards on Sea