“Questions God Asks of Us: What is Your Name?”

July 27, 2014
“Questions God Asks of Us: What is Your Name?”
Sermon by Rev. Patricia Farris
Genesis 32:24-28
Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on
the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day is breaking.’ But Jacob said, ‘I
will not let you go, unless you bless me.’ So he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’ Then the man said, ‘You shall no longer
be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.’
John 1:35-42
The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of
God!’ The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are
you looking for?’ They said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which translated means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They
came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard
John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the
Messiah’ (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You are to be
called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter).
One of my favorite actresses, someone whose work I follow, whose movies I seek out, is Ilyena Lydia Vasilievna Mironoff. Born
in London, her mother was British, her father Russian, hence her beautiful Russian name, lovingly bestowed upon her at her
birth. Ilyena Lydia Vasilievna Mironoff. To be perfectly frank, we’re much more likely to know her by her stage name or her
name since she was in acting school forty some years ago—Helen Mirren.
You may have seen her as Deputy Chief Inspector Jane Tennison in the BBC’s Prime Suspect. She has also played Queen
Elizabeth, 1 and 2!, winning an Oscar for her performance in Stephen Frear’s “The Queen” in 2006. I confess that I considered
her so very British—until I learned of her Russian roots. Now I see hints of “russian” in her face, as crazy as that is. It makes no
logical sense, except to say that there’s a lot in a name. A lot about who we really are.
“What is your name?” God asks, as our Summer Sermon Series continues. What is your name?
To find this question, we’ve gone back to the beginning of our story, back to the book of Genesis. In the 32 nd chapter we pick
back up with Jacob who, after twenty years of estrangement and alienation, has gone home to meet his brother, Esau. Do you
remember what had happened that had driven the brothers apart? Not a pretty story, albeit one that in some form or other has
echoes in many of our own family stories. And here it is. Right in the Bible. In the beginning. Must be something pretty basic
here about who we are.
Since this story might not have been shared in Sunday School—it really should come with a parental warning—let me remind
you. Sons of Isaac and Rebekah, they were twins, these boys, but Isaac preferred Esau and Rebekah favored Jacob. Their
rivalry began at their birth, Esau born first and Jacob followed, holding on to his older twin’s heel. The older brother was entitled
to the privileges of the firstborn, but one night Jacob got his older brother drunk so he could cheat him out of his inheritance.
Then he pawned himself off as Esau to their old, nearly blind, dying father, so that he himself could get the father’s blessing that
rightfully belonged to the elder son. As a result, Esau planned to kill him. Sounds rather Shakespearean, doesn’t it? To avoid
certain death, Jacob ran away, far away, and stayed away for twenty years.
A lot transpires in those twenty years involving wives and children and armies and herds and so forth. Bottom line is that God
urges Jacob to go back and to try and make amends. He returns, sending some men on ahead with gifts for Esau. They report
that Esau is indeed waiting for him--with 400 armed men! Uncertain just how to proceed, Jacob sends the women and children
to safety and spends a night wrestling with a stranger, God as it turns out, in desperate search of his fate. It is in the midst of
this mighty battle for Jacob’s soul that he cries out: “I will not let go unless you bless me. And God asks: “What is your name?”
We need to know here that in those times, names were much more than what a person was called. This was not the era of
internet lists of the 100 most popular names for girls and boys. Then, names described the character of the person. Names
carried the parents’ hopes and dreams for the baby.
Once, many years ago, I baptized a little girl whose parents are Nigerian. Names in that culture are as important and symbolic
as they were in Old Testament times. I’ll tell you, I practiced for weeks before the baptism of Adedoyin Esther Temilade Arayeni
Adebola Oluwapelumi Oyekan. Her parents were of Nigerian royal descent and her name included the names of her father’s
mother and father, and her mother’s mother and father. Her names meant: crown sweet as honey, I own the crown, I accept
everyone, the crown and wealth meet together, God is with me. She was the precious baby girl whose name carried the hopes
and dreams of her parents and grandparents for her and for her life. Now in her 20’s, I’ve wondered who she has become?
So, you see, when God asks Jacob his name, there’s much more going on here than a simple ID check. God knows that Jacob
needs to face up to his name and what it says about who he is. Unfortunately for Jacob, he had a lot to own up to. Jacob, in
Hebrew, means something like “heel-grabber.” Remember what I said about him being born second, holding on to his brother’s
heel? As if he couldn’t have been born on his own? Implying or foreshadowing a personality that would also be grasping after,
taking advantage of, usurping the birthright to which he was not rightly entitled. Deceiving his brother, his father, and later, his
father-in-law as well. To put it more starkly, his name “Jacob” revealed him to be a cheater, a deceiver, a thief.
If you read the intervening chapters in Genesis and flesh out this whole story, you’ll see that Jacob has found ways, over and
over again, to avoid using his real name. He pretends to be Esau. He answers in vague generalities. He bends over
backwards to avoid the truth. He won’t say his name.
“What is your name?” God probes. Who are you? What kind of person are you? Jacob.
God knew that in order for Jacob to wrestle through to become a new person, in order for him to leave his past behind and start
over, in order for him to have a future, a future with hope, he had to first clearly and honestly acknowledge who he was. Jacob.
I know that some here this morning will know exactly what this inner work is about through the experience of 12-step recovery
groups. Do you know that each week eleven 12-step groups meet here in our facilities? Nearly every day of the week. In case
you thought we were only open for salvation on Sundays. Somewhere around 175 folks are here each week. And as you
probably know, each AA meeting begins the same way—going around the circle, each person saying: “Hello. My name is
____and I am an alcoholic.” Day in and day out, that’s where healing begins. With that painful, liberating acknowledgement of
“this is who I am.”
Jacob’s story from Genesis, our story, puts us all in that same place. God presses Jacob to bedrock honesty. At the same
time, there’s another healing dynamic here as well. God recognizes something in Jacob, his stubborn tenacity, his insistence on
seeking a blessing. Jacob wants more, just like everyone sitting in a chair in a 12-step circle. Like every one of us here in
worship this morning. We want more. We want healing and wholeness. We long for God’s blessing. And God hears our cries
and responds.
Sometimes, like Jacob, we have to wrestle with God and with ourselves a long time in order to break through to the healing
place. And when we persevere with God and when we are strong enough to risk telling the whole truth about who we are and
what we need, God is ready to give us a new name. “From now on, I will call you Israel,” the divine wrestler, God, says to
Jacob, which means “the one who struggles with God.”
And in that moment, we are ready to understand the full power of God’s name and who God really is as well.
Just before the sermon we sang one of my favorite hymns: “Come, O Thou Traveler Unknown.” It was written by Charles
Wesley, John’s hymn-writing younger brother. In fact, I invite you to take out the hymnal. We sang #386. Now flip the page to
#387 and you’ll see all 14 verses as Charles wrote them.
He called it, “Come, O Thou Traveler Unknown” or “Wrestling Jacob.” It speaks in the voice of Jacob speaking to the wrestling
partner, whom he calls the unknown Traveler. In Wesley’s exposition, Jacob becomes a Christian and asks whether the
Traveler is Jesus.
My first memory of singing this hymn was at a funeral many years ago. It was a sad one. A young mother had died after
struggling with illness, leaving behind her grieving husband, children, and family. But this was a family of deep faith, who could,
even in the midst of their sorrowful grief, affirm their faith in God. The power of the words of this hymn have stayed with me ever
since. The sense of wrestling, wrestling, with illness, with God, with loss and grief--yet through it all being held in the arms of
God’s love.
For do we not all find ourselves wrestling in the night as we go through this life? Wrestling with our fears, our failures, our
shortcomings? Do we not wrestle with impossible choices and difficult decisions? Do we not wrestle with our conscience? Do
we not wrestle with God over our circumstances or over the state of this world? Do we not wrestle with our anguished questions
sometimes: Why? Why this? Why me? Why the one I love?
And amidst all this wrestling do we not long for the assurance that God knows us by name, and loves us, and holds us, and will
not let us go until we are finally able to stand? Do we not long for God’s blessing?
What is your name, asks the One whose name is Love. Out of love, God will bless us and God will give us a new name, a new
future. The love that creates us, the love that names us, is the love that claims us and will never let us go.
Like Jacob, we will be made whole by love. And we will be set free.
What is your name?
Notes:
Trevor Hudson. Questions God Asks Us. Nashville: Upper Room Books, 2008.
© Rev. Patricia Farris, 2014. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution. All other rights reserved.
First United Methodist Church • 1008 Eleventh Street • Santa Monica, CA 90403 • www.santamonicaumc.org • 310-393-8258