Sermon

What is Your Name?

By

Eldridge E. Fleming, Ph.D.

New Hope Presbyterian Church

Rienzi, Mississippi

Second Sunday in Lent

March 19, 2000

The Children's Sermon:

What a group! I see two, four, five boys and two ladies. Good morning!

You know, I see things happening around us and I want to talk with you about that. Do you ever notice the flowers? Do you see the flowers on the altar this morning? They are all different colors. Down that the other church, we had tulips -- big tulips. Those are signs of springtime. Springtime is when things that have been laying still come to life.

Do you like to eat pecans? How about peanuts? There is another word for peanut. Do you know what that is? Goobers. Goobers, yes. Goober is another word for peanuts. But they are also called ground nuts or earth nuts. But we call them peanuts. What you have to do with a peanut is to put it in the ground and leave it for a while and then it sprouts and grows up out of the ground as a plant. And eventually, it makes more of the same things on its roots in the ground.

A similar thing happens to other nuts. If there is a pecan on the ground and you leave it in the hull and let it sprout, and let the roots of that sprout go down into the ground, it will eventually grow into a pecan tree and produce pecans on its branches and limbs.

That is the way things are in the springtime. We see that which has been laying still, doing nothing, and then it breaks open and comes to life. Have any of you planted anything in the garden or in the yard? When you plant things in the garden, you have to let it go in the ground so that it will grow.

Did you ever eat any dirt? Yeah? Most guys have eaten some dirt. Little girls may not eat dirt, but boys eat dirt. Good, healthy dirt -- good clean dirt -- is good for you. That's what somebody said. You get it in your mouth and everywhere. Can dirt be clean? Can dirt be dirty? Why do we use the word dirty? What does that mean? It's messed up. That's right. It's messed up and smeared up and not good for you.

But think about it. Something has to be good in the earth. There has to be nourishment in the soil for things to grow. When you plant something in the ground, it grows a plant. Now some things produce in the ground. Things like peanuts are produced in the ground. But trees -- like apple trees and pecan trees -- produce it's fruit above the ground in the air, on the branches. Think about what is being produced. Every plant produces according to its own kind. Peanuts don't produce apples, do they? Pecans don't produce peaches. Everything does it according to their own kind. That is what the Bible says.

There is something else about springtime. In springtime that which appears to be dead is no longer dead. There is life that comes back into the trees that have lost all their leaves. Normally when a tree loses its leaves, except in the right season, that means, it is dead. It is gone. You see all these trees with no leaves in the summer and they usually are dead. But now in the springtime, what is happening to trees with no leaves? They are blooming. Tat is right. They are breaking out in beautiful leaves and blossoms which tell you that these trees are still alive.

Jesus talked about when he was going to die and be planted, and then he then would rise again. We are coming toward Easter. Easter is the time we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus appeared to be dead. Jesus was dead and put in the grave and then on the third day, he came out of the grave again. His body was changed. It was no longer the same. So we then worship on Easter Jesus who was dead but who is alive. That is different from the tree looking dead and coming to life. This is one who was literally dead. So he changed. He changed, that is right. He changed and came back in a new life form. That is what our hope and our expectation are eventually for us.

So springtime and new life, when things that look dead come alive. We can do that, too. That is the promise. Let's bow our heads together.

Father. We give you thanks for these boys and girls. How much we are grateful to You can never be expressed for their lives and what they mean. Not only to their parents and grandparents, but to us. As Your people, we thank You for them and we ask Your blessings upon them. In Jesus' name. Amen.

The Scripture Reading:

Our Old Testament reading comes from Genesis 17:1-7; 15-16. This is one of those sections in the report on Abraham about how he got his name. It is also about the covenant that God made with him.

The New Testament reading comes from the Book of Romans 4:13-25. This is Paul's writing to the church at Rome, giving them his understanding of the relationship between the law and grace or faith. He is trying to put into perspective what is happening with the relationship of Abraham, Abraham's faith, and their (the Romans) faith in Jesus Christ.

The gospel reading is from Mark 8:31-38. If you would, stand with me as we hear the gospel.

The Word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

The Sermon:

The little girl looked up, full in the face, with her bright eyes, her rumpled hair, and her question was, "What's your name?" It wasn't the first time that I'd heard that question coming from a child. As I've watched children interact with one another through the years, I noticed that soon after they meet, they want to know what the other one's name is.

To know someone's name means that you are in the mood for establishing a relationship. You can -- if you know someone's name -- address them, honor them, even curse them. At least you have the right name and the right handle for the person you want to address.

"What is your name?" is a question that comes down to us not only as children, but it comes all through our lives. As adults, we have found a way to finesse around asking bluntly, "What is your name?" Most of us will offer a hand or at least say, "I am so and so," and that gives, then, the opportunity for the other, who is gracious and courteous and well-bred, to say, "I am so and so," in response. Therefore, you don't have to ask, "What's your name?" They tell you their name. But children don't have all those cultural things socialized within them, so they ask bluntly, "What's your name?"

If someone has asked that fellow Semite who was traversing across unknown land what his name was, he would have said, "I am Abram, son of Haran," and it would have been okay. That would have given some identity to him and things would have been all right, and so he was for ninety-nine years. His name was Abram. The real meaning of that is not always known and the change doesn't make that much difference in his name either, according to some scholars. Abram was Abram.

According to Dr. Ralph H. Elliott, my professor of Old Testament, Abram was one of those persons who made some decisions early on in life that affected the rest of his life and the rest of humanity. Early on in his life, God had said to him over in the Chaldean country, "I want you to take your family and go to a Promised Land." How does God speak to someone in a destitute place? How does God speak to someone in an urban setting where Abram was? However it was, it was clear to him that he had to make some decisions. (The Message of Genesis, Ralph H. Elliott, Broadman Press.)

Abram was called, but not from a country where there was a monotheistic view of God as we have, that there is one God who is above all gods, where are no other gods but that One. That was not the philosophy of the day. And if you read and write and listen today, you will find that is not the philosophy of this day, either. For there are many gods that are worshiped today. Numerous gods in our world. We see them worshiped here and there in different forms and formats, and from that world of multiple gods, even organized chaos -- if you would -- there came the call to Abram to leave it all and go to a Promised Land.

The Promised Land was not described in any detail. It was an unknown land. But this one named Abram set out and followed the voice. He took his wife, his servants, took whoever was going to follow him -- even his brother's son -- and set off on a journey across the sands. They followed the valley of the Euphrates as far as he could and then turned south down the ridges and mountains so that he could get somewhere that he was being guided by an inner sense of what was right. He decided, though, over in Ur of Chaldees, that he would follow the voice that spoke to him. And this One, he said, was the God of all --He was the Almighty God -- and this is the way that the voice spoke to him. This image came to him. This is what he understood. It was that the One he was listening to was the great God of the universe.

All kinds of names were given to Him through the years, and so on this occasion, he had had quite a bit of experience of listening to the voice of God. When he left Ur of the Chaldeans and moved his way around -- he lost his father along the way and buried him and kept on going and came down into this land of the Canaanites and after some time there was a famine so he went down to Egypt. He took his wife, Sarai. Sarai was beautiful, so when he got into the Egyptian land, he came up with the idea that she was too beautiful for him and that if he wasn't careful, the Egyptians would kill him and take her for their wife. In order to avoid that possibility of his own killing, he said that she was his sister. God didn't cotton to that too much, didn't like a man lying about his wife relationship, demeaning it, so it was.

Pharaoh found out what had happened, that Abram had actually lied about this woman who was with him, that she wasn't his sister. Pharaoh kicked him out of the country along with Sarai and all his household, and that entourage that went down by necessity, came back again to this land of promise. On this occasion that we read about in the seventeenth chapter of Genesis, Abram had had quite a bit of experience going around and following God Almighty as He moved him from place to place.

On this occasion, God appeared to Abram and said to him, "I am God Almighty." And then He gave him a two-pronged commitment or challenge or command. First of all, He said, "Walk before Me." Now it is believed that one of the reasons God had this interaction with Abram is because he was already obedient. So God Almighty said, "Walk before Me." Stay in full view. Walk where I guide you. Walk before Me.

The second of that command was, "And be blameless." What does that mean? Was He expecting Abram to be perfect? Not so, it is believed, but he was perfect in some aspects. He was perfect in that he was committed to following God Almighty. You may ask what a fellow who was a nomad moving around from place to place have to worry about being challenged by who to worship. But there were lots of gods. Everywhere Abram went, there were different gods to be worshiped. It was about as easy for Abram to be faithful to worshiping the One God as it is for someone today on Fifth Avenue in New York City to be faithful to Jesus Christ.

You see, in that day and age there was a god for every location. There was a god for the hills, there was a god for the valley. There was a god for thunder, there was a god for storms. There was a god for all of these things, and whoever was giving you trouble, that is who you worshiped. You could go from one to the other. If you lived in area, you worshiped this kind of god. If you lived in another region, you worshiped another kind of god. Is that not what we are seeing today? If you go from here to there, whatever you do there, that is what you do. Do you strip off your clothes of Christianity and leave them at the door as you leave home?

You see, there is a challenge of being who you are and knowing who you are wherever you go. And God said to Abram, "I am God Almighty. Let me introduce myself. I have some social graces and I'll tell you who I am. And now, walk before Me and stay straight and perfect and blameless in your relationship with me. Do not disturb this relationship. Stay with me, and I will make My covenant between Me and you." God is doing this. Abram didn't ask for it. Oh, he had grumbled about the fact that he didn't have a child. God had said, in chapter fifteen, that Abram would be the father of many nations. But time had passed and now God is with him again. "I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous." God is making the covenant.

Covenants can be made, we are reminded, from several points of view. Usually we think of a covenant as between two parties, two people, two industries, whatever. That relationship is sort of a mutually hammered out thing. But there are such things as covenants or agreements that are hammered out where one party is not willing, but out of necessity they have to do it. For example, if you get in financial straits, you can go and borrow money from a lending institution and that institution tells you what you will do in order to get this that they are offering you. You didn't want to make a loan. That wasn't your wish. Circumstances are such that you have to, so therefore, you submit to this agreement. But that is not your wish.

God said to Abraham, "I will make a covenant with you." God is making it. God is the One who is giving. Not Abraham. "And I will make it so that you will be exceedingly numerous." At one place, it is said that he would be more numerous than the stars that he could count. Whenever God introduced Himself and told Abram what He was there about, Abram fell on his face. Then there is a repeat of what He is there about. "As for Me," God says, "This is My covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham. For I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful and I will make nations of you and kings shall come from you." Just think about it. Ninety-nine years old. A wife who is ninety. And he's hearing God Almighty say to him, "I am going to have you make multiple nations; not just one, but you are going to have many nations come from you."

Is it too much? Is it too much? God said then to Abram, after he had changed his name from Abram to Abraham, "As for Sarai, your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name." And then he adds this line, "I will bless her and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her and she shall give rise to nations. Kings of people shall come from her." Ah, Sarah's name was changed, too, you see. Here was a new covenant, a covenant that included two people. Not just Abram, but his wife, as well. So now, what is your name? What is your name and my name?

In the baptismal service in days gone by, whenever a child was presented for baptism, the minister would ask the parents, "What Christian name shall be given this child?" So that child was given a Christian name. As far as the church was concerned, the child was unnamed until that point. And then that name was spoken and it became that child's identity. What is your name? When I say my name, does it mean anything to anyone? No. It may not. But all that we are and how we live and so on goes into being our name.

Abram became Abraham. Sarai became Sarah. On that day, God told Abram what would happen, that there would be a sign of the covenant, and all the males would be circumcised. And on that day, as a seal for the covenant that God had offered to Abram, the changing of his name was one, but the circumcision of the flesh was another. There are numerous reasons why circumcision is used. One is that, of course, it is the sign of the shedding of blood for the making of a covenant. Everyone who was circumcised in that Jewish household or in Abraham's descendants would become members of the covenant. And God said that those who were not circumcised would not be members of the covenant. This would be done on the eighth day of life. A sign of the covenant. So those men who grew up in that tradition have that sign of the covenant in their flesh, a shedding of blood at the making of a covenant. But also, it was an offering, an offering from the body, an offering of obedience. After all, why was Abram's name changed? It was because he was obedient to the call of God.

What's your name? Can you say, "I'm a Christian and I make my offering to Christ? I offer myself to God through Jesus Christ, His only son, and I am a Christian." And as God Almighty looks at you and He says, "Walk before Me, and be blameless." Never allow yourself in any form to begin to doubt the grace and the mercy of God. This is what Paul picks up on. No doubt will enter your mind, for your name is changed and you are a new person in Christ as a servant of God.

What's your name? What will be your name in days to come? Amen.