Psalm 31:1-5
John 14:1-7

What is the significance of your name? Does your name have meaning?  Certainly!  It has meaning to you.  In a real sense you have defined your name.  Whenever people hear a name, they think of the people they know by that name and those people define the name.  They have positive or negative responses to the name.  One of my best friend’s name is Dan.  Whenever I hear the name Dan, I immediately have good vibes because I associate my experiences with my friend with the name Dan.
Of course, long before we began defining our names, we were given our names because they were important to our parents or to whom ever it was who named us.  Today, Mother’s Day, we remember those who gave birth to us and who had a major influence in giving us our names. We were given our names to carry on a family custom or tradition.  We were given our names because of someone who was important in our parents’ lives.  Some are given names because of the expectations their parents have of them.  There are some biblical names that are horrible.  Consider the names of the three children of Hosea in Hebrew Scripture.  Jezreel was first born and the meaning of the name was it won't be long before God punishes the King of Israel for the murders that Jehu committed against Jezreel.  Hosea named his second child Unloved and his third child Not-My-People.  Can you imagine what it was like for these kids to hear the roll called everyday in school and hear their names, Jezreel, Unloved, and Not-My-People?  Imagine the harassing the other students gave these three with their snickers when the roll was called and at recess when they made cutting comments to them about their names. 

Early in the gospels of Matthew and Luke we are told about the naming of Jesus. Certainly, his name was important to Mary and Joseph. More significant, however, was the life Jesus lived.  Through his living he defined the name and gave the name, Jesus, its meaning and importance. 

One of the ways Jesus defined himself  was with “I” phrases. Our text from John’s Gospel is one of those well known “I am” passages in the Gospels.  Jesus referred to himself with phrases like “I am the door,” “I am the way,” “I am the truth,” “I am the light of the world,” and “I am the vine.”  These were phrases Jesus used to express who he was and to portray his identity. These were also word pictures providing glimpses of what God is like.  There are numerous metaphors used to identify Jesus because it is impossible to define his life briefly or simply.  The same really can be said about each of us.  We each have names and our names represent and symbolize our identities.  We are complex and complicated individuals and our names do not come close to describing who we are.

I heard of a young man who said, “I’m Fabio Morton Smith.”  And a person who heard him introduce himself said, “What an interesting name,” and added, “Do you use all those names in your everyday work?”

“I try to use all of them, in order to be true to my background.  The Fabio is from my mother who is proud of her Italian roots.   The Morton is the name of my dad’s best friend who was killed in Vietnam. I’m living the life he could not.  The Smith is dad’s family—solid, Midwestern folk.” “I’ve got quite a task,” mused the young man, “to live up to my name.”  How much is signified and denoted in those three names-Fabio Morton Smith!

Many years ago, when our children were young, we were visiting Peggy’s great Aunt Stella in Ft. Myers, FL.  We were at a restaurant, had finished our meal, and were visiting, talking, enjoying the conversation.  Without warning Aunt Stella blurted out, “Where did you get those dumb names for your kids?” 

Now, we had taken seriously the naming of our children.  We chose Melanie because it had a musical ring to it, not because it meant melancholy and Melanie has never been melancholy.  We added Kaye for a middle name because that was Peggy’s best friend’s name through elementary, junior high, and high school.  Danita was the name of a dark haired, bright eyed first grade student that Peggy had.  Peggy was convinced we would have a child with black hair so we settled on the name of Danita for our second child if she were a girl.  Girl she was.  Danita was her name.  Auburn, rather than black, was the color of her hair but she has defined the name Danita for everyone who knows her.  Brandon was a name we liked for a boy.  When we were expecting our third child, we settled quickly and easily on this name.  We added Thomas for a middle name because we appreciated the questioning of Thomas in the New Testament.  Peggy also had a great, great uncle who was a questioner and a brilliant mathematician and thus Thomas had a family connection.  It is interesting that Brandon has been a questioner and has excelled in math.  That is more than you wanted to know about our children’s names, but it reflects that names reveal more about those giving the names than it does those who receive the names.  However, those receiving the names eventually define the meaning of the names.  Oh, by the way, back to Aunt Stella’s question about where did we get those dumb names.  I thought that was an unusual question for a woman whose husband was named Barney and whose brother was named Bink.  Where did they get those dumb names? 
 
Often, it is nicknames that come closer to expressing characteristics of a person than the person’s actual given names.  Sometimes nicknames are given out of affection, appreciation, or good-hearted humor.  Other times nicknames are given out of cruelty and intended to hurt and demean. 
In my home town, there was a man named Bach Alley.  Nobody knew his real name--oh I guess his parents did and his siblings who had grown up with him.  But he was the last in his age group to marry and one day someone affectionately called him, “Bach,” short for bachelor and it stuck.  He was known as “Bach” for the rest of his life although he married, fathered six children, several of whom attended school with me.  With him as with others, the nickname overshadowed the given name.  The same thing happened to Babe Ruth.  Sometimes a nickname is given because of a characteristic such as “Lefty.”  Or Gabby may be given to someone who talks incessantly or to one who seems unusually shy.  Some nicknames can be hurtful such as “One-Eye,” or “Crip,” nicknames given my dad after he returned home from World War II severely disabled.

College classmates knew I was planning to be a minister. With a last name of Roberts, some of my classmates nicknamed me “Oral.”  I was never sure whether that was intended to be affectionate or demeaning.

So, what’s in a name?  Obviously, there is a lot in a name.  A name expresses identity.  The longer we live the more clearly we define our names so that whenever our names are spoken people know what our names mean by having known us. 

Knowing a person’s name provides a certain amount of control over that person and also provides the possibility of relationship, of knowing and being known.  You may be walking in a crowded mall and I call your name.  You will stop and look to see who is calling your name.  In that moment I have some control over you by knowing your name.  That is the principle disclosed in Genesis when Adam and Eve named the animals.  By naming the animals they were joining with God in the creative process.  They were having some control over the animals and bringing order out of the disorder.  We do the same in our lives when we name our feelings.  We begin to have some control of our feelings rather than our feelings controlling us.  We also begin to bring some order to the disorder of our lives. 
We also want our names to be known, at least to some people.  You want me to know your name, don’t you?  That says that you are important, important to me.  One of the reasons that the television series, “Cheers,” was so popular was because of what the theme song conveyed.  It was a really catchy tune and a powerful statement, “You want to go where everyone knows your name and They’re glad you came.”  If ever there were a theme for a congregation that ought to be it.  Perhaps the reason more people go to bars than to church is because in the bars people know their names and are glad they came.

Fred Craddock is a well-known preacher and teacher of preaching, recently retired from Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta.  He is a native of Tennessee and grew up in rural east Tennessee. 

Craddock tells about meeting a man in a restaurant one day. 
“You a preacher?” the man asked.
Somewhat embarrassed, Fred said, “Yes.”
The man pulled up a chair to Fred’s table.  “Preacher, I’ll tell you a story.  There was once a little boy who grew up sad.  Life was tough because my mama had me but she had never been married.  Do you know how a small Tennessee town treats people like that?  Do you know the words they use to name kids that don’t have no father?

“Well, we never went to church, nobody asked us.  But for some reason or other, we went to church one night when they was having a revival.  They had a big, tall preacher, visiting to do the revival and he was all dressed in black.  He had a thunderous voice that shook the little church. 
“We sat toward the back, Mama and me.  Well, that preacher got to preaching, about what I don’t know, stalking up and down the aisle of that little church preaching.  It was something!
“After the service, we were slipping out the back door when I felt that big preacher’s had on my shoulder.  I was scared.  He looked way down at me, looked me in the eye and says, ‘Boy, whose your Daddy?’

“I didn’t have no Daddy.  That’s what I told him in a trembling voice, ‘I ain't got no Daddy.’
“’O yes you do,’ boomed that big preacher, ‘you’re a child of the Kingdom, you have been bought with a price, you are a child of God!’

“I was never the same after that.  Preacher, for God’s sake, preach that.”
The man pulled his chair away from the table.  He extended his hand and introduced himself.  Craddock said the name rang a bell.  He was the legendary former governor of the state of Tennessee.
The world forever wants to name us.  The world has given us all kinds of names and few of them have been complimentary.  Many of them have been demeaning and derogatory.  But God wants to name us. Our lives are meant to count for something, to take our places on the stage in God’s great drama of love, grace, and redemption.

When a baby is born to someone in the congregation, when the family wants, I arrange a time to baptize the child.  Near the end of the baptismal ceremony, I raise the infant high over my head with the baby facing the congregation and say, “Behold a new child of God,” and give the child’s name.  It is a way of saying that child has a name, an identity, as a child of God and that name, that identity supersedes all the labels and the names that the world may try to call that child throughout the child’s life. 

What’s in a name?  You tell me.  What’s in your name?  Behold you are a child of God.  May your names reflect who you are and whose you are.