You can listen to this week’s Devotional here
Author: Phil Braudaway-Bauman
But now thus says the Lord,
he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. (Isaiah 43)
Just before Highway 1, the Ring Road, reaches Iceland’s southeastern tip, it passes through the tiny village of Stöðvarfjörður – a scattering of modest homes for its 200 residents, a dock anchoring a few fishing boats against the rugged coastline, and a wayside attraction housing what is considered the world’s largest private collection of semi-precious minerals and stones. Petra María Sveinsdóttir began collecting stones as a very young child. With little connection to the outside world, Petra spent her days exploring the craggy hills and fjords outside her front door. Upon marrying in 1945, Petra was able to fill her new home with her unique finds, and in 1974, when her husband died, Petra opened her door to the public. Thirty-eight years later, upon her own death, her children turned the property – the tiny house and encompassing lush gardens – into an interactive natural history museum, where a visitor wandering through its passageways and flower beds can find almost any type of rare or beautiful geode or stone.
It was surely serendipitous that the inquisitive child whose mineral collection would someday earn her recognition as a national treasure was named at birth Petra (Greek for stone, or rock). But her last name was no puzzle – Petra Sveinsdóttir was, her name announced, the daughter of Sveinn, in much the same way that Leif Erikson’s name tied him to his father Erik the Red. Icelandic surnames tell a story, and online directories are full of names ending in “dóttir” or “son.” Your name places you in a family, it gives you identity.
Names play an important role in the narratives of our faith, guiding the listener to the truth of a story, teasing out the thread each protagonist weaves into the historic fabric. Sometimes the story holds such significance that it is elevated in the telling by the assigning of new names. The covenant that first establishes a special relationship God to humanity is accompanied by renaming – Abram becomes the father of many, Abraham, Sarai is renamed Sarah. Their grandson Jacob, the schemer, becomes Israel, one who has strived with God’s messenger (or, maybe even, with God), placing him among the great ancestors of the faith. The pattern is handed down centuries later when Jesus gives the name Peter, Rock, to his friend Simon.
Even knowing a name was seen as granting power: Moses asks God: “What shall I say when the people ask your name?” But this name is beyond all knowing, and the Divine reply is simply “I am.” If knowledge of a name conveys truth, so, too, can a name set a life on its path. A broken-hearted woman’s deepest desire is granted, and she names that miraculous gift Samuel (“God has heard”), and under the mantle of that name, her little boy grows up to be the last of the judges and first of the prophets, guide and intercessor who embodies God’s covenant with humanity, the one who would go on to anoint David, remembered as Israel and Judah’s greatest king. There is something else about this marker point, maybe not initially evident, hidden, yet reflected in our own identity.
In a different age, with the kingdom now shattered and its traumatized people facing an uncertain future, the prophet Isaiah speaks a remarkable word from God: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” Years later, in a time equally threatened by uncertainty, Jesus confers to a ragtag group of peasants the name Friend, saying by way of explanation: “I chose you.”
Most folks are granted the privilege of awarding a name no more than a few times in life, occasions infused with wonder and awe. My father did so dozens of times. While leading worship in the dusty hardscrabble villages of western India, Dad would offer the sacrament of baptism, and upon being handed an infant would turn to the parents: “By what name is this child called?” A common, yet always surprising, answer: “You name her, sahib.” When existence itself is tenuous and fraught with danger, an infant might be known only as baba (a boy) or the feminine baby until a year or so into its life, when the parents finally allow themselves a glimmer of hope the child might survive poverty’s extreme challenges. Humbled and honored by the request, Dad would pluck a name from the biblical stream, giving the child an identity within the faith, conferring, in merely a word, both a claim and an eternal home.
By what name are you called? You have a name by which you are known, but our tradition bestows on us collectively a wealth of new names, descriptive and aspirational: Remnant of Faith; Chosen; Light of the World; Salt of the Earth; Witness to the Gospel. Yet of all the names woven throughout the history of our faith, there is one that stands above all others, the name emanating from God’s own heart, whispered in a Voice both divine and human. The meaning of the name of the great king David, it is the word declared and claimed for the child in baptism, the name forever scribed in the eternal stream of life for each of us: Beloved. There is no other name so sweet.
