03/24/2024 ~ Liturgy of the Palms ~ Sixth Sunday in Lent ~ Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; Mark 11:1-11 or John 12:12-16 ~ Liturgy of the Passion ~ Sixth Sunday in Lent ~ Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31:9-16; Philippians 2:5-11; Mark 14:1-15:47 or Mark 15:1-39, (40-47) ~ NOTE: DUE TO AN ICE STORM AND POWER LOSS THE SERVICE HAD TO BE CANCELED. THERE IS NO VIDEO FOR THIS SERVICE.

The Name

“Therefore, God highly exalted Christ / and gave to Jesus the name / above every other name, / so that at the name of Jesus / every knee should bend, / in heaven, on earth and under the earth, / and every tongue should proclaim / to the glory of God / that Jesus is the Christ and reigns supreme.” — Philippians 2:9-11.

Here’s something out of my theater background. In Act II, Scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet, Juliet famously asks: “…wherefore art thou Romeo?” Needless to say, one reason Juliet even asks the question is she knows her love of Romeo is forbidden.

Why? This love is forbidden simply because Romeo has the wrong name. Romeo is of the House of Montague. Juliet is a member of the House of Capulet.

Therefore Juliet, in a speech shortly after her famous question concerning the whereabouts of Romeo, argues the names of things do not matter. What matters is only what things are— their reality as opposed to their name.

And so Juliet says, “What’s in a name? / That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet;…” Or as Gertrude Stein would put it in a much later century: “A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.”

Indeed, what is in a name? I think it’s a fascinating question, especially since we live in a time when, generally at least, names don’t usually have other meanings. For instance these days, most of the time, we tend to name newborns for someone in the family rather than attaching an alternative meaning, some significance beyond familial sensibilities.

Well, what is a name? How do they come about? While I am occasionally accused of relating everything to baseball— and I am often guilty as charged— let me try to relate this name stuff to baseball. You may have heard me say the only Baseball team I ever really rooted for was the Brooklyn Dodgers.

The predecessors of the team eventually known as the Dodgers were in existence and playing baseball in Brooklyn when the National League was organized in 1876. The franchise joined the National League at that point of origin, 1876.

In the early years the franchise was known by several different names— the Grays, the Grooms, the Bridegrooms the Robins— before settling on the name Dodgers. And from where did name Dodgers come?’ Is there a meaning of which we’ve lost track?

Well, yes. New Yorkers— meaning Manhattanites— routinely called anyone from the other side of the East River a “trolley dodger” Why? A vast network of street car lines crisscrossed Brooklyn. People had to dodge trolleys just to cross the streets. So Brooklynites were nicknamed dodgers by the Manhattanites.

Eventually the nickname Dodgers was bestowed on the team and it stuck. The actual, legal name of the team was the Brooklyn Base Ball Club. The name was not legally changed to the Dodgers until 1932. So all this asks the question ‘what’s in a name?’ ‘Do names sometimes have other meanings?’ (Slight pause.)

These words are from the work known as Philippians: “Therefore, God highly exalted Christ / and gave to Jesus the name / above every other name, / so that at the name of Jesus / every knee should bend, / in heaven, on earth and under the earth, / and every tongue should proclaim / to the glory of God / that Jesus is the Christ and reigns supreme.” (Slight pause.)

You have heard me discuss this before. Often names in Scripture do have meanings of which we moderns are blissfully unaware. Some examples: the name Adam, modern mis-reading to the contrary, has no gender connection. It’s neither masculine nor feminine. Why?

The word Adam is not meant to be a name. It is meant to be a play on words. The Hebrew word for ground is adama. Adam— pronounced Adam in Hebrew— means the one made from the ground. The name thereby means earth being or earth creature.

Equally the name Eve— Ish in the Hebrew— is not gender specific, neither masculine nor feminine and is also a play on words. Ish means giver of life.

Israel— pronounced Ishrael in Hebrew— means one who wrestles with God. Abraham— pronounced Abraham in Hebrew— means “progenitor of many nations.”

And, as you may have heard me say at other times, there is another way to understand the name Jesus. That name, pronounced Yeshuah in Hebrew, means God saves or God offers salvation.

In fact, the Gospels actually give Jesus, this Yeshuah, a second name. The other name is Emmanuel. And the meaning of that name is even spelled out for us in the text. Emmanuel means “God is with us.”

To be clear, salvation offered by God and God being with us is a concept found throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. So to state the obvious, that the name Jesus means God saves, God offers salvation or God is with us would have been evident to those who first read or heard this text. I think these meanings are much less evident for us today.

Indeed (and I have also said this here before), today when we hear “Jesus Christ” many in our culture think of that as being a first name and a last name. However, in the Greek word Christ is not a name. It is a title. The word Christ is a translation from Hebrew to Greek and means Messiah or the anointed one.

The point is when we read or listen to passages like this one, we need to read it or listen to it with First Century ears. We need to strive to understand what the words might have meant to those who first read it or first heard it.

Indeed, that brings me back to the reading from Philippians. I am going to read those verses which I quoted again. But this time I am going to recite these words in the way a listener from the First Century might have understood meanings which are not obvious to us today. So I am going to read it in a way which delineates what the words mean. (Slight pause.)

“Therefore, God highly exalted the One Who is the Messiah, the One Who is sent by God to be the Messiah, the One Who is sent to be the Anointed One / and gave to this One Whose Name is Jehoshua— this One Whose Name means God offers salvation— gave this One a name / above every other name, / so that at the name of Jehoshua, at the Name God saves, at the Name God offers salvation / every knee should bend, / in heaven, on earth and under the earth, / and every tongue should proclaim / to the glory of God / that Jehoshua— this One Who offers salvation— is the Messiah, is the Anointed One and reigns supreme.”

I need to note what I’ve just recited is in no way outrageous. In fact, it affirms what we Christians have understood and proclaimed about Jesus.

It is my hope that hearing these words in this way allows us to better understand the meanings behind the words. I say that because we live in a time when we tend to ask what does Scripture say as if we are playing back a recording of some kind. The thing we need to ask and the thing with which we need to grapple is not what Scripture says. We need to ask and to grapple with what the Scripture means. (Slight pause.)

Last, let me offer a true story. One day when I was in Seminary I once had a discussion with a classmate who said you need to go to Scripture for all the answers. I said, no, no, no. You need to go to Scripture to find out what questions to ask.

The very next day— and that is the amazing part— it was the very next day— in a New Testament class the late Rev. Dr. Burt Throckmorton, who I deeply loved and respected, was (frankly) droning on and on from behind a lectern. Suddenly Burt danced out from behind the lectern— if you knew Burt you knew wherever he moved he never just moved, he danced— suddenly Burt danced out from behind that lectern.

He then said something totally unrelated to what he had been lecturing about, and this is a quote: “You know some people say they go to Scripture for answers. Some people say they go to Scripture for questions. They are both wrong. When you go Scripture you need to be in dialogue with the text.”

I think it is very hard to be in dialogue with the text unless you know what the words in the text might have meant to those who first heard or read them. So we do need to remember Scripture was written when names often did have meaning beyond mere naming.

And in that era naming sought to reenforce the meanings of the story being told and, therefore, sought to uncover something about the textured reality found therein. So we do need to ask what Scripture means rather than ask what Scripture says. Amen.

Elijah Kellogg Church, Harpswell, Maine
03/24/2024

ENDPIECE: It is the practice of the Pastor to speak after the Closing Hymn, but before the Choral Response and Benediction. This is a précis of what was said: “Some pastors advertise and do what’s called a sermon series. I generally don’t. But I confess. If you’ve been following what I’ve said since Transfiguration Sunday, February 11, the week before the start of Lent, I have been doing a sermon series. The key messages in the series have been twofold: God loves us and wants to be in covenant with us. And in order to understand the love of God we are called to wrestle with, grapple with, come to an understanding of what Scripture tells us, what Scripture means. In an effort to do that we need to read with First Century eyes and listen with First Century ears. Is that hard work? Yes, but it is necessary work.”

BENEDICTION: God has written the law of love within us. We are this empowered as we experience God’s presence together. Where Christ leads, let us follow. Where God calls us to service, let us go. And may the peace of God which surpasses all understanding keep our hearts and minds in the knowledge of God, the love of Jesus, the Christ and the companionship of the Holy Spirit, this day and forevermore. Amen.