[Propertalk] Holy name sermon

[robertpmorrison at charter.net]

Here's the first draft for this weekend's sermon. We have a service at 5 
pm on the Eve of the Holy Name - readings, psalm recitation and prayers 
- no sermon!

Happy meditating

Bob

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY       	           	       THE 
HOLY NAME OF JESUS
NUMBERS 6:22-37	 	           		          	               	 
1st JANUARY, 2012
GALATIANS 4:4-7					           	                 		  PSALM 8
LUKE 2:15-21


	“O little town of Bethlehem …” I doubt if I need go on, not just 
because it was our first hymn this morning, but simply because the words 
and tune have become a part of our Christmas season ritual.

There are some things without which certain celebrations simply wouldn’t 
appear real or complete, and these words seem to be part of this 
tradition. So much so, perhaps, that we may take them for granted, 
possibly glossing over them without paying a whole lot of attention to 
their significance, or the potential impact they can have on us and our 
behavior.

Barbara Crafton talked about this hymn and its author in a sermon twenty 
years ago.

	“Phillips Brooks was the most famous preacher of his generation in 
America  … His name was synonymous with the fearless and passionate 
proclamation of the word of God to the people of his time, which was the 
latter half of the 19th century. …

	 “He believed that a preacher's entire self needed to be in the 
preaching event, yet that to preach in order to impress others or in 
order to buttress a slender ego was a terrible abuse of the pulpit. …

	“One of his friends was Helen Keller. Blind and deaf from the age of 
two, she had lived a life of isolation, unable to speak words she could 
not hear, unable to know what a word was. …

	“Helen and Phillips Brooks wrote letters back and forth. The young girl 
with such a heavy burden and the elderly cleric with so many natural 
gifts, they were so unlike each other. Yet Brooks recognized that Helen 
and he did the same thing. Reaching out of the total darkness of her 
isolated life, Helen was already touching people's hearts with her 
courage and noble spirit, already challenging people to look at what 
could be. She lived in silence. She lived in darkness. But out of her 
silence the Spirit burst forth with grace and power. And out of her 
darkness, light shone. This was what Phillips Brooks had dedicated his 
life to bringing about: Let the people hear of what can be. Let them 
know what astonishing good can come from God, even in the face of 
terrible sorrow.

	“In one of her letters, Helen told Bishop Brooks that she had always 
known about God, even before she had any words. Even before she could 
call God anything, she knew God was there. She didn't know what it was. 
God had no name for her -- nothing had a name for her. She had no 
concept of a name. But in her darkness and isolation, she knew she was 
not alone. Someone was with her. She felt God's love. And when she 
received the gift of language and heard about God, she said she already 
knew.
	“Phillips Brooks was thrilled by this. This was the God he knew, the 
God who would come to a lonely child, a frustrated and lonely little 
girl, and find a way to speak love to her without a word. He wrote a 
hymn we have loved ever since; I wonder if he had Helen in mind when he 
wrote:

		“How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given!
		So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven.
		No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin,
		where meek souls will receive Him, still the dear Christ enters in.

	“Love without words. Love that knows of love even before it knows 
anything else. God who comes to the meek, to those who are hidden, to 
those whom the world discounts. The old preacher, famous for his 
eloquence, was like old Simeon at the temple when he heard this from 
Helen Keller. It was a confirmation of his ministry of proclamation. It 
was all true. God was really among
us. What Helen knew proved it.” 1

	Think of these two people, and how their lives were defined. They were 
people who didn’t let darkness within and without then prescribe who 
they were. No matter what was happening to them, their minds were 
constantly seeking the beyond in order to find meaning and purpose. They 
wanted to find sense in the midst of an apparent lack of structure, and 
so they each kept questing in their own ways. They looked within 
themselves to see how they related to the rest of creation. And they 
found their answers out of darkness and silence.

	In order to look and, and especially to try to begin to understand 
creation, however, in order to try to identify who and what we are, who 
and what are around us – and in who and what we put our complete trust – 
we too may have to begin our journey our of darkness and silence. THAT 
may be why in rituals of this time of year, light figures as the great 
transforming force. Out of darkness, out of silence, we begin to get 
glimmers of who we are and who has created us. We start to discover 
names.

	Naming ourselves, naming the creatures around us, naming even the 
inanimate; above all, naming God, speaking God’s Holy Name out loud, 
defines our relationships with everything that exists outside of 
ourselves and allows us to share in holiness.

THAT’S why all religions, in their rituals of commitment, have a naming 
ceremony. Even God’s Son experienced this. As an eight-day-old boy, he 
was presented to the religious authorities for formal admission to the 
Judaism of His parents and ancestors.
	
	THAT’S why, whenever someone becomes part of our Christian family, she 
or he is presented and part of the ritual is asking the parents or 
guardians for the name of that person.

	There is something incredibly humbling about knowing that Jesus went 
through this ritual. He whom we confess was the creative Word when all 
things began, He was given a Name which humans could hear and to which 
they could respond. And what a name!!

	Christian have understood as referring to Jesus the prophecy of Isaiah 
in which the young girl’s child will be called Immanuel, literally, “God 
with us”.2

	What an incredibly imaginative Name! What a wonderfully encouraging 
Name!! No matter whether we interpret this as a foretelling of Jesus’ 
eventual birth, the promise still stands. God is saying that by the Name 
of this baby you will know that I am standing right there, I am 
physically present with you – knowing what it’s like to be waiting to be 
fed; knowing what it’s like to be without proper shelter; knowing what 
it’s like to be displaced and in a part of the world where I’m hassled 
constantly and am not able to make every decision for myself. Whatever 
YOU experience, I will experience. I am with you. And, of course, this 
is picked up right at the very last verse of Matthew’s Gospel where 
Jesus is reported saying to His closest friends, “I am with you, always; 
yes, to the end of time.”

	The name given the prophet to tell whoever is discouraged in life is 
the one that promises an extended hand, a comforting hug, an ear that 
will never tire of hearing what we have to say.

	THAT’S what Isaiah promised the people on God’s behalf.

	But then we come to that day when Mary and Gabriel meet to discuss 
God’s plans; the day when Mary gives birth to a male child; the day when 
that child was initiated into Judaism. Not only was God present, but the 
name that child was given was, probably, Yeshua, or some close form of 
that name – which means? … it means God saves!

	What we celebrate is not simply that God is willing to walk with us 
through whatever hardships, whatever disappointments, whatever hassles 
and problems. What we celebrate is that God will actually save us from 
whatever is going on in our lives; and in our communities; indeed, in 
the whole of creation. God is present in that Baby, who will grow into 
an adult male in a small occupied state at what some consider the 
crossroads of the western world, and that through that seemingly 
helpless individual we will find salvation which is will be incredibly 
more powerful than anything that can happen to us here.

	And the wonderful news is that we too – you and I and everyone in 
creation – we too are called out of the darkness and out of the silence, 
out of every infirmity which can afflict us, we’re ALL called to receive 
a name from God. As the reading from the fourth Book of the Law puts it, 
God says, after pronouncing a blessing on the people – what we call the 
Aaronic blessing – God says, “they shall out my name on the Israelites.”

	I don’t know if it’s only in Presbyterian Church in Scotland, or if any 
other congregations do this, but whenever someone is baptized, brought 
to be Jesus’ sister or brother, that same Aaronic blessing is sung: “The 
Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you, 
and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and 
give you peace.” That was sung over me on the 9th of April – Easter Day 
– when I was six weeks old, when I was given a name as a blessing from 
God and as a sign to me and my family and friends that I was counted as 
brother to Jesus.

	The wonderful thing is that we’re ALL named, we’re all invited to join 
the family. And the most shocking thing we can ever do is to reduce 
someone to a number, tattooed on our forearm, or in our mind, or in our 
heart. God does not deal through Numbers – pun intended!

	Whether we feel as if we’re living in darkness and silence, even there 
we’re not separated from the Love of God. Even there, God reaches to 
each one of us and whispers – or shouts out loud – our name, so that 
someone like Helen Keller could affirm, “Even before she could call God 
anything, she knew God was there. She didn't know what it was. God had 
no name for her -- nothing had a name for her. She had no concept of a 
name. But in her darkness and isolation, she knew she was not alone. 
Someone was with her.” Without realising it, perhaps, because she had 
never heard that we all have names, without realising it, she was being 
brought to understand that God has a name for us all.

	There’s something incredibly uplifting about this knowledge that we go 
through the same process as Jesus – each of us has been lifted up to the 
status of His sisters and brothers.

	Thus we can bring from recalling Jesus’ naming two things – at least.

	One – if we all have names, we have to make sure that everyone knows 
how precious her or his name is. It’s a sign to the community of 
membership in the family God has called on earth. It’s a sign that we’re 
all called to live in the light.

	But, second, if we all have names, then we can never, we MUST never, 
EVER, abuse anyone, belittle anyone – call anyone names in any way other 
than the wonderful way in which God talks to us. Which made me all the 
more sad on Wednesday last to read that “Riot police were forced to 
restore order inside the basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem”. Why? 
Because of fighting – God help us in an area held sacred to Christians 
everywhere. And who was fighting? God help us, indeed! “About 100 
clergymen from the Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic churches, armed 
with brooms, came to blows during the cleaning of the church in 
preparation for Orthodox Christmas celebrations.”  3

	God, save us! Wait a minute – that’s Jesus’ Name!

	Lord, have mercy!


	Take a minute then – maybe two. In silence, bring to your mind and 
heart the name or names of those who’re special to you. Thank God for 
them. And pray that you’ll do your best to honour them, always. Then ask 
God to reveal everyone else’s name to you, that we may honour them too. 
This may take a little longer. But let’s work on it!



NOTES:

1 	“Phillips Brooks and Helen Keller” By The Rev. Barbara C. Crafton, 
BCCRAFTON at AOL.Com © 1992, 2002 by The Rev. Barbara C. Crafton. This 
essay was preached as a sermon to Integrity/New York on January 23rd, 
1992 and appeared in Outlook March 1992, 3-5. It is re-published here 
with the permission of Barbara Crafton the author, and Nick Dowen, the 
editor of Outlook at that time.

2	Isaiah 7:14. cf. Matthew 1:23

3	 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8980618/Clergymen-fight-with-brooms-at-Church-of-the-Nativity-in-Bethlehem.html 
7:30PM GMT 28 Dec 2011


Robert P Morrison
Interim Vicar
The Episcopal Church of St Alban
PO Box 1556
Albany OR  97321   541-921-1076 (cell)