(Sea shells.) You think? Yeah, exactly right. They got sea shells of every size and every shape. Some are dyed. Some have paintings on them.

Transcription

1 Calvary United Methodist Church August 20, 2017 HELLO, MY NAME IS... Rev. Dr. S. Ronald Parks Children s Sermon: Exodus 3:4-14 With joy and thanksgiving we gather to worship the One who has made us. We are thankful for the presence of the children of God. We welcome the youngest among us to the front of this worship space. Good to see everybody. Have you had a chance to travel a little bit this summer? I got to go to one of my all-time favorite places. It s a place called the Sea Shell Shop. What do you think they sell at the Sea Shell Shop? Say that three times real fast. (Sea shells.) You think? Yeah, exactly right. They got sea shells of every size and every shape. Some are dyed. Some have paintings on them.

2 It s really cool; there are all sorts of things at the Sea Shell Shop, however, beyond sea shells. I happened to walk down one particular aisle and I noticed a theme. See if you can figure out what the theme. There were these refrigerator magnets that had people s names on them. Then the next little display was a series of lanyards that are key chains and they also had people s names on them. And right next to them was a series of flip flop key chains, and they had people s names on them. You could even get your name in lights, if your name happened to be found on the display. They had pocket knives that were engraved with people s names. They had little jars that had shells and sand and they also had people s names.

3 There were street signs named after individuals. There were picture frames that had people s names on them. And right next to them, there were license plates that you could attach to your bike, or to put on your car, for example, if you can wait long enough to have a car. And if you didn t like that style, they had a second style of license plates. Now, what s the theme? What do all these have in common? They all have people s names on them. Here s the thing: I couldn t find anything with my name on it. Why not? Well, because I was born before the beginning of time, 1956, and here s the thing. In 1956, my name might have been a little bit more popular than my name is right now.

4 For example, in 1956, the top five girl s names were: Mary, Debra, Linda, Deborah, and Susan. In 1956, the top five boy s names were Michael, James, Robert, David and John. But in 1956, you ll notice my name wasn t in the top five. In 1957, Ronald was number 15. That s my middle name. My first name is Stanley. Now do you think Stanley was more popular or less popular than Ronald? Yeah, in 1956, Stanley was number 70. Now, let s go ahead about 61 years to right now. The most popular names in America right now are these: Girls: Emma, Olivia, Ava, Isabella and Sophia. You probably know kids in your school that have those names. The top five boy s names: Liam, Noah, Lucas, Mason and Oliver.

5 Now, do you think my name is higher than 15 in 2017? No. My name is 426. And my first name, Stanley, it s number 682. I have even less of a chance of finding something with my name on it as the Sea Shell Shop now than I would have 61 years ago. So, what happened? Well, things change. It s called fashion. And as you can see, all of us are slaves to fashion. Here s the thing about names: names become fashionable. They pass in and out of popularity over time. So the names that were popular 61 years ago are different than the names that were popular 100 years ago and the names that are popular right now. But there s, interesting enough, one name where popularity doesn t matter. It s the one name that doesn t change over time. Do you have any idea whose name that might be?

6 Before you say anything, though, let s read a story about a guy named Moses who asked God, Hey, what is your name, anyway. And this is how the story goes: God called Moses name from a burning bush. Moses! He said. That s the Ten Commandments: Moses, right? And Moses said, Hey, it s me. That s my name. God said, I see the misery of my people. I know the pain of their slavery. I m going to rescue them and I m going to give them a good home. And you re going to help. And Moses said, What? Who, me? I m nobody special. You d better get somebody else. Now, what happens when you say no to God? God says, Uh-ah. No. You re it. God said, You re the one. Believe in yourself. I do. Just be you. You see, that s a really important message. It s what is on the cover of the bulletin: Believe in yourself not because you can do everything on your own, but because God is with you or God wouldn t have made you. God believes, so just be the person God created you to be. And Moses then said, Well, what if the people ask who sent me? What do I tell them? What is your name? Now, interestingly enough, God s name wasn t on anybody s list anywhere. This is God s name: I AM. I AM is a kind of an odd name, but don t think of it as just a name. Think of it as a way to think about God. I AM means that I am always the same, I don t change over time. So God wants us to know with sharing the name I AM that God says: I AM There beside you all the time. That s how Moses could do great things for God. Not because Moses was great, but because God is great.

7 God also says: I AM Caring for you. Whatever the situation is, I have gifts that will help you. When God says I AM, God means: I AM Bearing your burdens with you. I ll get you through anything. It may not be easy and it may not be quick, but I will bear your burdens with you. When God says: My name is I AM, what God means is: I m sharing through you. I m sharing all the goodness and the grace and the peace and the forgiveness that I have in my heart. I m going to share it right through you. And finally when God says: I AM, what that means is

8 I AM living in you. And that s why we as Christians, we believe that Christ is living in us. It s God s grace making us new people. That s the one name that doesn t change over time. I AM. And that s why Jesus at one point in his ministry turns to his followers and says, Who do you say that I AM? See, each of us knows Jesus in our own special way, and we have to decide who Jesus will be for us today. That s why Jesus has so many names.

9 We think of Jesus as having typically one name: Jesus, and then a second part, Christ, is not so much a name as it is a title and it literally means anointed or chosen. But look at all these different ways in which the New Testament speaks about Jesus, the different names that he is given. And these aren t all of them, these are just a few. So, I thought as you kind of get ready how many have school starting this week? Hmmm ok. And then next week? Yeah. I thought it might be kind of cool to help you remember that I AM always with you by sharing this little piece of stone which has on it one of the names by which Jesus is known. So what you can do is put this in your locker or in your desk or in your backpack and whenever things get a little bit difficult, you might want to pull this out and be reminded that God is always there, God is always caring, God is always bearing with you and sharing through you and God is living in you. Thanks for sharing in our time this morning. Message: John 15:12-17 (VIDEO) Sort of an odd idea, isn t it? That a name has power. We think of names as rather arbitrary things, something that we are given, something laid out upon us. And by the time this gentleman came on to the scene in England, the scientific revolutions, the enlightenment, had so diminished the significance of the concept of a name that we pretty much bear the legacy of our modern understanding of what a name is based on this guy, William Shakespeare. Shakespeare s writings have been considered to be the greatest literary achievement in the English language and there s a reason for that. It s not just because he wrote a lot of different types of things, which he did. Shakespeare had the ability to look inside the human heart and to write narratives, to write plays, to write literature that actually helps us understand ourselves. And one of his most famous is the tragedy entitled Romeo and Juliet. Juliet at one point in this particular play turns to her beloved Romeo, who is of a different family and whose family name has separated the two of them in such a way as to put both of them in jeopardy.

10 Juliet says to him this famous line: What is in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. In other words, think about the flowers on the altar here. You could call a rose a walrus and it would still smell like it does. It would still be as beautiful as it is. The function of name is virtually irrelevant. So to ask the question what s in a name, Shakespeare is in effect saying: why do we allow names, family names, given names, why do we allow them to separate us? And to answer that question, you really have to go a step further back: What is a name? What s the purpose of the names that we have? How do they in some way unite us or divide us? In our modern world a name is simply a word, and literally it can be any word, a word by which a person or a being, an animal, a creature, a place or thing is known. It is the think that identifies you and when you go to address somebody, you typically call them by their name and if you are going to talk about them behind their back, for example, you reference them by their name, don t you? That s the whole point of a name. The name typically that we have is something that was applied to us, it was given to us. My parents gave me the name Stanley Ronald Parks. I have yet to forgive them for that. My father was a big fan of a gentleman by the name of Stan Musial, who played baseball. My father was a semi-professional baseball player in college, so he wanted me to have the name of somebody he admired. And then never, ever, called me Stanley.

11 From the time that I m old enough to remember, and I actually asked my mother about this because I was still irritated about the fact that I was named Stanley, they never used that name. I was always Ron. Why did they give me that name? Was it just to humiliate me on the first day of school every year when the teacher, not knowing my history and the trauma that I had endured by being named Stanley would go through the roll and say, Stanley Parks. And everybody around me would snicker. That may explain some of what you see in this troubled person before you. Think about, though, where we are right now. We are in Harrisburg. This is Harrisburg, the general vicinity in which we are in. It was named by a man named John Harris, not John Harris, Sr., John Harris, Jr. In the spring of 1785, he laid out a design for a community and he gave it his father s name: Harrisburg. You see, Harrisburg was a name that he gave to this area. He applied it to this area. This, for example, is Calvary UMC. How did it get its name? Well, about a lot of years ago, actually not that many, 64 years ago, a group of people came together here in this place. The formed a congregation and they picked a name. They picked a name that was meaningful to them, the name of the place where the cross of Christ stood: Calvary. Right? That s how it got its name. Those people applied that name to this place. Think of this creature. This is Fender. Fender s name was selected from five choices: Gibson, Martin, Taylor, Rickenbacker and Fender. Why Fender? Why did we apply that name? How did he get that name? Rickenbacker is too long. Taylor reminds me of Taylor Swift. And I refused to have a dog with a nickname of either Gibby or Marty. So it s Fender.

12 He didn t pick it, but from June 20, 2014, that s been the name that s been applied to him. It s his given name. I could have called him anything and I often do. But here s the point: in the Biblical era, way back when all those what seem to us to be at times really odd names came about, they came about for a totally different reason than our names come about Our names, the names that I share with you for 2017 and from 1956, they are just fashionable. Somebody likes them, so they give that name to a child and then a neighbor, they like it too and it kind of just goes in waves. For example, how many Ethels do you see in first grade at this time? Not many. That was a name that came and went some time ago. But Biblical names, they hang in there because they are more than just a fad. Biblical names originate from one or more aspects not applied to that person, place or thing. These things come up out of that person, place or thing. Instead of being a name given to a brother, to a location, to a particular object, the name expresses a truth that is already there. And that s why those names are so significant. They express, for example, identity. The word Malachi, the name Malachi, one of the prophets, literally means in Hebrew God s messenger. That s how you get a name that is so unusual. It s from another language and it s actually a designation. It s his identity.

13 So, sometimes a name in the scriptures comes from history. For example, Jacob meets God at a place that he later name Penu el. That word in Hebrew means the Face of God. So, Jacob calls the place where he had that experience Penu el and the name sticks: The Face of God. Sometimes Biblical names emerge out of an understanding of who has authority in life. The name Dani-el means literally God is my judge. Daniel s name is a reminder that God has authority over him and God has authority over all things. Sometimes the names come from a quality. I mentioned in the Blast that the name Adam comes from the Hebrew word for red, not because Adam was a red head, but because Adam was shaped out of the dirt and the soil in the region of the Garden, at least as we understand it, had a reddish hue. So he was called Red. Interesting, right? The name Peter, Jesus gives to Peter this name, replacing the name Simon. Peter has demonstrated or will demonstrate that he is the rock on which the church shall be founded. And the word in Greek literally means rock. Sometimes Biblical names come from an activity, either something that someone is doing or something that God is doing,

14 Josiah, for example, is taken from the idea that God supports us in every moment and in every activity of life. And then there are some names in the scriptures which talk about some possibility, something that God is doing now or that is happening now that will hopefully extend into the future. The Ezeki el, God will strengthen, God has strengthen and God will continue to strengthen. And this is the one that we all know best: Immanu el. Just look at the words: if you take the first m and change it to an n, in man is God. Immanuel, God with us. Instead of the names that we are familiar with simply being applied to us, the names in the scriptures express a truth that arises from within the person or place or thing that bears the name. Now, here s a little experiment. Inside your bulletin there is one of these nametags. You probably have seen it. It s stuck to your bulletin by a little glue dot. Go ahead and take it off and if you would just kind of peel off the back and stick it to your lapel or wherever it is you put nametags. Because I want to take this idea of the Biblical naming one step further. I want to make it something that we can appreciate; something that is different than the way that we understand names. Instead of thinking, for example, about taking this nametag and writing Stanley Ronald Parks on it, what if this nametag was a mirror into who we are in the moment that we meet somebody else. Hello. My name is Preaching. Hello. My name is Anxious. Hello. My name is Hungry. Hello. My name is Bored. What if the nametag that we wore was expressive of the truth within our hearts at the moment that we come in contact with or come face to face with somebody else?

15 Now, you and I have a name, but you and I have taken somebody else s name. We ve claimed the name of Jesus. So, think about what it means to bear that name and to have the truth reflected in a way that other people can read. In other words, what does it mean for us to claim his name? What is the truth inside of us that is express as we confront reality around us, as we live life, as we go day by day, minute by minute through our existence? Interestingly enough, this is not something that we re not supposed to do. This is exactly what people who take the name of Jesus; this is what we are all about. It s expressing the truth that lives within us. John 15 shares these words: This is the lesson to learn, Jesus said. It s very simple. Read it with me: Love one another as I have loved you.the best expression of this love.is to give your life in service to your neighbor. Be a servant as I have served you. If you serve, you re colleagues, colleagues, in other words, like coworkers at work, working on a project together and because of that collaboration we have a relationship of friendship. It s affection. It s loyalty. It s commitment. You re not under me, Jesus said. Now think about this. That little passage that we saw the video about at the beginning of the service that Jesus does not hold it over us that he is Son of God. We are not under him in terms of our ability and authority. Nope. He is beside us and the idea is that we are collaborating, we are co-creating together. Jesus says you re in on this plan. You re sharing the load and labor of the Kingdom. I know you didn t pick me; I chose you. I ve taught you all you need to know. Ask the Father for whatever you need to get the Word out. Use my name; take my identity. Become me. This is the lesson to learn: Once again, brothers and sisters: Love one another as I have loved you. Christian is not a name applied to us; it is a name that we claim and that expresses the truth that lives within us. And therefore we need to appreciate just how big that idea is, the truth that lives within us, that is reflected clearly through everything that we say and do as we walk through life and meet other people. To claim His name we must share His

16 Identity. We must share his sense of who he belongs to and who he is. We must see ourselves as Child of God. Jesus is called Son of God, Son of Man, Gift of the Father s unfailing grace. But you and I, we are children of God too. We are brothers and sisters with that individual who we look at as the first of the Kingdom. So you are son of God, you are daughter of God, we are family of God. And here s the interesting thing about that: Bishop Park wrote a letter to all of the clergy in the conference two days ago and it reminded us, and how sad is it that we might actually need to be reminded, it reminded us that things like racism and ideas of superiority fly right in the face of this concept: Child of God. Child of God, but better than those other Children of God. Child of God, but somehow elevated in our importance and worth. Child of God. Now, did I need to be reminded of that? God help me if I did, because if I did need to be reminded of that, then the word on this tag would be Racist. If that s the truth that lives in my heart, then I should at least own it, shouldn t I? It should be Racist, not Child of God. And if I m going to claim His name, we must confess our History. Yeah. There have been times when I felt that way about other people, and not necessarily based on things like skin color or ethnic origin or anything else, just because I thought they were worse human beings than I was. I mean, isn t that how we sometimes, like the guy in the temple who says, Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner, after the priest says, Oh, I thank God I m not like that guy. See, sometimes in our history, the word here is Sinner. It s generic. We all have our own sins and we are all sinning in our own special way. So the name should be reflective of what exactly it is that I m doing, but this is the big catch-all word: Sinner.

17 I have to confess that I m a sinner and to claim His name as Jesus follower, as Christian, we must yield to His Authority. You see, when Christ teaches us about what it means to love one another, we have to take his word for it. There is no demonstrable way to outline that Christ s teachings are somehow better than others. There have been others who have taught exactly the opposite thing than the ideas that we hold as part of God s kingdom, but we confess Christ is Lord, that his authority is the Word we accept, and therefore, we are redeemed as disciples, we are made new. The value that we have worked so hard to throw away has now been given back to us by Christ and that truth should be expressed in everything that we say and do To claim His name, our life assumes a divine Quality. There is something different about Christians, and it is not where they spend an hour on a Sunday morning. The quality of our life should look demonstrably different than the lives of those around us. Look, the worst thing you could say about me as a Christian is Well, he s a nice guy. It s not that I don t want to be nice; I don t want to be nice because of me. I want to be gracious in my gratitude because of Christ. This is not about me; this is not about how nice, how friendly, how warm, how interesting, how engaging I can be. This is about the quality of life that transcends anything I can say and do. It s about grace and it s about thanksgiving. I am grateful that God has not judged me on my merits, but that God loves me anyway. And I am grateful that you are willing to sit here with me on a Sunday morning on perhaps the nicest day we ve had in six month, when you could be out on the golf course or sitting on your back porch with coffee reading the newspaper and

18 you are here. You see, I didn t chose you, Christ did. What a gracious and grateful thing. And if I claim that name then I m going to share In the activity that he calls me to do: Love one another as I have loved you. If you serve, you are my colleague, you are my coworker, you re my friend. And so what I should be showing to everyone I meet is the idea that I m a servant of all. Not a servant of those whom I know, not a servant of those who are like me, not a servant of those who are in some way similar in my understanding of who they are as individuals. This means servant of the poor, the different, the lost, the estranged, the outcast, the sick, the weak. Put in any adjective that you want. The servant of all is the one who shares in the activity of Christ. If you want to be first in line, get to the back of the line because the one who is the servant of all is the one who is closest to the heart of Christ. And to claim His name we work for the Kingdom s Possibilities. What is it that God can do? How can God work God s purposes out in and through us? What is possible? Not what is probable. I gotta tell you if you watch the news or you read the newspaper it doesn t seem like there is much possible, let alone probable. What s probable is that stuff is going to go on day after day after day the same level of conflict, the same level of disrespect, of prejudice, of indifference, of in a sense pride. Is that the only possibility there is? Well it is if the people who claim the name of Christ aren t going to do anything.

19 Therefore what I want people to know about me is that I m a peacemaker and that doesn t mean I m looking to stop conflict. Peace is bigger than no war. Peace means to allow those around me, to empower them, to encourage them, to reach the full potential that God has granted them. That s Shalom. It s a state of wellbeing. It s a state of having everything that God intends us to have and to celebrate what we have in one another. That s what I want to show to everybody. That s the name I want to be known by. When Jesus says, Use my name and take my identity, I take that seriously. If I don t, then the truth within me reflects nothing of Christ and everything about Stanley Ronald Parks. Oh, that name still irritates me. Use my name, take my identity. How do we do that? There s only one thing you gotta know, only one lesson to learn. And the people of God said: Love one another as I have loved you. And if that happens, then the only thing that will be reflected as the truth within us is: Hello. My name is Christ to you. Amen.

20 Benediction: We go forth as individually named disciples, but we go forth with a common name. Jesus says, Use my name. Take upon yourself my identity. For we have all learned the lesson that matters most in the Kingdom: Love one another as I have loved you. In that way, we may be Christ to all. Amen.