Our Name Day

The Reverend Rebecca Justice Schunior, Assistant Rector

I’ve always had mixed feelings about my name. Introducing myself always necessitates some explaining. Justi, not Jesse, short for Justice…Justice, like liberty and Justice for all. And my last name is Schunior. No really, it’s not as hard as it looks. It rhymes with Junior. Like many children, I decided to pick out a name that I preferred – Victoria Elainia Fitzgerald – because it was so much more grand and feminine and easier to spell than my own name.

But over the years I’ve gotten more content with my name. Interning at the ACLU one summer in college, I had to spend days cold calling potential supporters. I was shy about calling strangers who mostly had no interest in talking to me, but I got courage from saying, “This is Justice calling from the ACLU. We need your support.” My name had a meaning and I could use it for a purpose.

When we have the power to name, we do it with some amount of care. Parents tend to spend an awful lot of time thinking about what they will name their children, and they should, because this new person will be stuck with the name for their entire life. Some parents choose to use a family name – their child will be the bearer of family history, a reminder of the past. Others want to come up with something unique, to give a child a fresh start with no family baggage to carry forward. Parents often keep their chosen name secret, not wanting others to disparage or criticize. Naming is powerful and personal. A name, once given, will call to mind the whole identity of a person. Naming is how we say, with a handful of syllables, all that we know about someone.

That is why, perhaps, why calling someone names can be so hurtful. When I was a child, I found out quickly how many words rhyme with “Justi”. Think it through and you’ll come up with some good ones. These simple words had the power to turn my name into something ridiculous, something laughable. And there are other names that are even more painful. Epithets used for blacks or homosexuals hurt because the name brings to mind, the instant the name is used, the entire history of violent actions perpetrated against these groups. Such names still retain the ability to cause pain because they remind us who has the power and who doesn’t.

Naming is a complicated business. On this day, we celebrate a name. This is a special day on the Christian calendar – the day that Jesus received his name. It is the celebrated on the first day of the year, on the eighth day after Christmas. This is because the Law of Moses decreed that male children should be circumcised eight days after their birth. This was a festive occasion when friends and family would join the new parents for the naming of a baby.

In the Gospel of Matthew an angel explains to Joseph that the child would receive the name Jesus, because he would save the people from their sins (Matthew 1:21). Iesous, the Greek word, we translate as Jesus, means Savior or Deliverer. In other places, though, this name is translated as Joshua. This seems appropriate; Joshua in biblical history was a savior. It was Joshua who led the Hebrews into the Promised Land.

But Joshua is also such a familiar name, it’s a family name. When we think of Joshua and Miriam, instead of Jesus and Mary, we remember that Jesus was a bearer of his particular family’s hopes – the specific Hebrew hope of liberation from a very real world threat. His name carries the responsibility of an ages long expectation. And it is the name of hundreds of thousands of other little boys; the name any parent might give her child. And every child is the receptacle of hope. So Jesus as a name is somehow both not so special and also incredibly special – babies are born every day, but this particular baby, any particular baby, has never happened exactly this way before.

As I said before, naming is a complicated business. Jesus is familiar name. And to many, Jesus is a familiar person He is the human being who lived on earth. He is our teacher, our challenger, our friend. He is the one who tells stories we know by heart. And he is also not human, unknowable, always ahead of us and always mysterious. Some of us might have a difficult and complex relationship with this name. But we who call on this name call on all that is wrapped up in the history and hope of a name. It is why we are told to call upon this name with caution.

Names have power. And just as some names have the power to hurt and some have the power to heal, Jesus’ name has the power to do both. There are those who hear it and think of a curse or a threat or a system of domination and control. And there are those who hear it and think of compassion, generosity, radical love, and liberation. What makes the difference? It is what we do in the name of Jesus that matters. 

Doing something in the name of Jesus has power, not because it is a magic trick or because of a superstitious trust in the mere invocation, but because of the actions that we take in this name. Are we trying to heal or hurt? Dole out mercy or judgment? Jesus is a name that still provides intimacy and access because we gather here to learn how to do what Jesus did and learn how to walk as Jesus walked. We are the bearers of this name. And so, on this New Year’s Day, think of this day as our name day. What will we do with our name? In the name of Jesus, what will we do?