The Naming (sermon, June 20, 2010)

Luke 3:21-22
Luke 8:26-39
Galatians 3:23-29

What names would you use to describe yourself? Mother? Father? Daughter? Son? Teacher? Student? Nurse? Retiree? Addict? Maybe you describe yourself by the things you like to do: bread maker, gardener, quilter, reader, singer. Then there are those names we use for ourselves that link us to other people, first and foremost, of course, our family names: Miller, Ross, Clevenger, Wilson, Starr Redwine; but also names like “lifelong Ohioan”, American, Republican, Democrat, Christian, Presbyterian. Each one of us has a multitude of words, a variety of names, that together describe the totality of who we are, both as individuals and as members of communities.

But when Jesus asked the demon-possessed man in the country of the Gerasenes his name, the man gave a one-word answer: “Legion.” This one word, which means “many,” was meant to stand for the many demons who had taken over his body and mind, pushing aside all the other things this man might have once used to describe and name himself. By casting out that legion of demons from the man, Jesus didn’t just give him back his right mind and in so doing, give him back his life, he gave him back his name, his identity. (1)

Once word of what happened spread through the town, all the people came out to see if it was true. Now these people had been forced to bind up this man -- who was surely one of their sons, brothers, co-workers, friends -- to bind him up in chains and shackles not just once but numerous times, because clearly, his primary identity was a man possessed, inhabited by brutal demons that no one could control. But when they saw him sitting there, calm, utterly sane, they did not run to embrace him. They did not rejoice that their son and brother and co-worker and friend had been returned to them. They were afraid.

They were afraid...and they wanted Jesus to leave. As the old saying goes, better the devil you know than the devil you don’t. They didn’t know just yet whether Jesus was really a devil, but the very fact that he could cast out the demons from a man they were convinced was beyond hope suggested that his powers were greater than anything they had ever seen. If he could do that to the town crazy man, what might he do to the rest of them? Thanks, but no thanks, they said. We’ll stick with what we know. And they asked him to leave.

The man whose identity had been restored wanted to go with him. No one could blame him for wanting to stick close to the only person who had been able to save him from that legion of demons. But Jesus had other plans for him. You need to stay right here at home, said Jesus. You need to be a walking, breathing reminder to the Gerasenes that God transforms lives. You need to stay so that the people can remember that with God we do not have to be defined by the demons that haunt us or even by the roles of which we are proudest. You need to stay home to show people that, through Jesus Christ, God reveals our true identity.

And when it comes to figuring out just what, exactly, is our true identity, there is no better place to turn than Galatians chapter 3. In this chapter Paul looks at the two primary identities that are in conflict in this new community of Jesus followers -- Jew and Gentile. The Jews, God’s chosen people, have been living under the law. In this passage Paul refers to the law as a disciplinarian, a kind of guardian. The Greek word he uses was actually a word that referred to a tutor that a wealthy family would hire to educate and discipline their children until they were fully grown and could go out into the world on their own, confident in their ability to make good choices.

Now, Paul declares, such a disciplinarian is no longer necessary, neither for Jews nor for Gentiles. For in Jesus Christ, it is now faith, not the law, through which we claim our true identity as God’s beloved children.

Two weeks ago I spoke about Father Gregory Boyle, the priest who has worked for almost three decades with gang members in LA and who founded Homeboy Industries to help gang members leave the gang life and find productive work. He tells a story of a man named Bill, who took time off from work to care for his dying father. At the end of each day after which Bill had done everything for his father, he would get him all ready for bed and then sit by the bed and read to him -- just as his father had done for Bill when he was a child.

Every night, Bill would read and his father would lie there, staring at his son and smiling. Bill, exhausted from his day, would plead with him, “Dad, here’s the idea. I read to you and you fall asleep.” His dad would sheepishly apologize and dutifully close his eyes. Bill would start reading again and when he glanced up, he’d find his father once again gazing at his son with a smile on his face. This routine happened night after night, and after his father died, Bill knew that the ritual was really about a father who simply couldn’t take his eyes off his beloved son.

How much more so God? Boyle asks. “What’s true is Jesus is true of us,” he continues, “and so this voice breaks through the clouds and comes straight at us: ‘You are my Beloved, in whom I am wonderfully pleased.’” (2)

Here in chapter 3, Paul reminds the Galatians what baptism is all about: a once and for all moment when God claims that we are God’s beloved. Paul is making a distinction here between the names that describe us and the Name that defines us. All those names we tend to use for ourselves: teacher, Presbyterian, father, daughter, legion -- these are not the things that define us; they are mere descriptors as we make our way through life. What defines us is the name Christ, who was declared God’s own beloved son in his baptism, and who claims us as his own beloved in our baptism.

Holding lightly to the things that describe us while clinging tightly to the One who defines us is an incredibly hard thing to do. In my experience, the best we can do is catch glimpses of our true identity from time to time and then do everything we can to cling to the memory of those glimpses in the time in between. And while it’s hard enough to remember and accept that we ourselves are God’s Beloved, it’s even harder to remember that of others. There are so many descriptions of ourselves and others that divide us and even though we know divisions aren’t good, they are often comfortable, because with them we gain some certainty of what we are and what we are not. That’s why the Gerasenes were afraid when the man with the demons were healed, because it shattered their ability to label him as the crazy one. It challenged not just that man’s identity, but everyone else’s as well.

In Galatians, Paul points out a few of the divisions common in his day: Jew/Greek, slave/free, male/female. It’s a list we could so easily add to today and it could go on and on: black/white, rich/poor, liberal/conservative, gay/straight, immigrant/native. But here Paul reminds us that these divisions, while they may still exist, are irrelevant when we remember the unity that we have in Jesus Christ -- who defines each of us as God’s beloved.

Father Boyle has seen firsthand these kinds of divisions be overcome, as gang members from rival gangs, people who would have easily killed each other on the streets, work side by side at the various businesses Homeboy Industries has started. Time and time again, Father Boyle has seen people rise above the names that have described them, and find strength in the God who defines them.

Boyle tells one such story about Willy, an overly confident young man peripherally involved in gang life. One night, just as Boyle was leaving work for the evening, Willy approached and asked him for twenty bucks so he could get something to eat. Tired and ready to go home, Boyle agreed, because it was just easier than arguing about it. But he had no cash, so he told Willy to get into the car and they would drive to the nearest ATM. When they arrived, Boyle told Willy to stay in the car while he got the money.

Willy asked Boyle to leave the keys so he could listen to the radio. Boyle shook his head. “How about you pray?” he told Willy.

Willy sighed and rolled his eyes and then assumed an exaggerated prayer position, hands folded, eyes raised heavenward. When Boyle returns to the car with the money, Willy is sitting quietly, eyes still closed, hands still folded. Something has changed. “You did pray, didn’t you?” Boyle asked.

“Yeah,” Willy said, “I did.”

“Well, what did God say to you?”

“First he said, ‘Shut up and listen.’”

“So what d’ya do?”

“C’mon, G,” said Willy, “What am I sposed to do? I shut up and listened.”

After a few moments of quiet, Boyle asked Willy another question. “Tell me something,” he said. “How do you see God?”

“God?” Willy asked. “That my dog right there.”

In gang language, a “dog” is the one you can rely on, the one who has always got your back.

“And God?” Doyle asked Willy. “How does God see you?”

Willy doesn’t answer for so long that Doyle finally turns to look at him, only to discover that he is staring up at the roof of the car, a tear trickling down his cheek.

“God...thinks...I’m...firme.”

To gang members, firme means, “could not be one bit better.” (3)

You are God’s beloved. In God’s eyes, you could not be one bit better, no matter what names you would use to describe yourself. If we can accept that truth about ourselves, then we might begin living out the truth Paul proclaimed in Galatians: that we are all one in Christ Jesus, equally loved, equally firme in God’s eyes. What a world this could be if we could all be defined by that. Amen.

Endnotes:
1. This idea about names came from David Lose in his Dear Working Preacher article “What’s in a Name?” The full article can be found online here.
2. Gregory Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion. The Free Press, 2009. Find out more about the book here.
3. Ibid.