Unitarian Universalist Meeting of
“I Have Called You By Name”
Rev. Kathy Duhon
“When the man limped into the doctor’s office, he was bent double, arms hanging, face contorted in pain. The woman across the waiting room looked at him as he struggled from the doorway to a seat and then inquired of him sympathetically, “Oh, dear. Arthritis with scoliosis?” “No,” the man said back through gritted teeth. “Do-it-yourself with cinder blocks.”” Joan Chittister tells this story to illustrate the importance of naming things correctly – the patient will not be helped if the doctor treats him for something else.
How we name stuff in our world is powerful. I know of a recovering alcoholic who said that naming alcoholism as a disease was not useful to him. He needed to use the name ‘addiction’ because he felt it carried more judgment, and called him to greater responsibility with that power. I am not saying that his is the right or only way of naming, only that he realized that naming carries power.
They used to call homosexuality a disease, which was powerful and painful and wrong. Naming can be harsh, cruel, a power for evil. Martina Navratilova said, “I came to live in a country I love; some people label me a defector. I have loved men and women in my life; I’ve been labeled ‘the bisexual defector’ in print. Want to know another secret? I’m even ambidextrous. I don’t like labels. Just call me Martina.”
I and all women used to be named men, brothers, mankind – that was powerful and painful and wrong – it deprived women of a sense of place, of belonging, and it signaled our second-class status – we weren’t even important enough for our gender to be acknowledged in language. That has changed tremendously, and inclusion is important in our naming.
When Nazis wanted to de-humanize Jews and other prisoners, they gave them numbers, stripping them of their names and believing that thus their humanity was lessened. The way we are able to go to war, or commit other acts of violence, often relies upon our calling people enemies or other bad names – that is a way to take away their names, which is to take away their humanity.
A couple of weeks ago we heard from the founder of Community Access To the Arts, and she told us that one of the women who had disabilities was able to name herself in her writing: “I am a dancer,” she wrote, and what a joy to self-name, to declare a part of one’s identity. Our names often developed from self-identity. Native American names captured something of the unique spirit of the person, with animal spirits and adjectives. Professions were passed down in families, along with the name: Baker, Smith, Wheelwright – I even knew a Dr. Bookbinder.
And as we go through life, others name us. Our family has gone through numerous nicknames for everyone. I love nicknames – they give us an intimate view of someone. I knew girls who were named “Funny”, “Junior” and “Blue”. I knew boys who were named “Doodle”, “Beastie” and “Pooh”. Most of the time, we drop such names as we mature. We also change from Susan to Sue, David to Dave, Mandy to Amanda, Bobby to Bob. Adulthood is marked partly by our being able to claim the right to name or re-name ourselves, usually just a simple adjustment, from the childish to the mature.
I remember claiming that one nickname could only be used by Jon, and it wasn’t “Honeycakes” or anything too romantic. It was simply “Kat”. He called me “Kat” in college, and I liked it, but when another friend tried it out, I wouldn’t let him – it felt like Jon’s special name for me. Jon’s calling me Kat was a sign of his love for me, and my letting someone refer to me as a feline was a definite sign of me giving him power.
The ancient Middle Eastern view was that knowing someone’s name was a way of having power over the person, which comes up a few times in the Bible. Actually, that is still true to some extent, as Frederick Buechner explains, “When I tell you my name, I have given you a hold over me that you didn’t have before. If you call it out, I stop, look, and listen whether I want to or not.”
God
supposedly names the first person “Adam”, which is actually just the word that
means humankind. Adam names all the rest
of creation, which is to say that we humans have the power of naming our world,
a responsibility that goes along with our stewardship relationship. In the book of Genesis, Jacob wrestles with
an angel, and he tells this divine presence his name, only to be renamed by the
angel “
But about that re-naming – it is common in the Bible. Abraham and Sarah were originally Abram and Sarai, renamed Abraham – “ancestor of a multitude” – and Sarah – “princess”. Maybe these function like our nicknames – a personal, intimate glimpse at the founders of the religion. The miracle child of their old age and barrenness is named Isaac, which means “He laughs”, which was their basic response to the idea of Sarah becoming pregnant. Biblical names also sometimes just mean something, like “Pleasant” or “Bitter”. These may be clues that the writers know they are dealing in the truth of mythic stories, but not using historical censuses, and that they want the readers to know it too. If we were told the story of Fussbudget and Longface, and their lawyer from the firm “Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe”, we’d know that the names told a story that had powerful truth, but not necessarily the facts.
But
back to the Biblical names and the understanding that giving one’s name gave
the other person power over you. So when
Moses relates his experience with God as being one in which he understands that
he is given a name for God, that is huge. We heard this in Exodus
The power of naming in religion came up for me recently. A couple of weeks ago I read an amazing article from this month’s Harper’s Magazine, called “The Christian Paradox” by Bill McKibben, a conservationist and a Methodist. He expressed a deep concern that the name Christianity is being applied to a religion that is straying far from its roots. Instead of demanding from its followers service to those in need, and love of everyone, Christianity in America is often concerned with self-esteem, self-fulfillment, and apocalypticism, all far from Jesus’ central message. In fact, 75% of Americans believe that the Bible teaches, “God helps those who help themselves”, something Benjamin Franklin said, and McKibben finds this telling.
The name Christian is so powerful, that it makes people feel like they are good, righteous, holy – just for being Christian. Add the name American, and folks can get really puffed up. Unitarian Universalists are not immune – we are proud of our name, even though it’s a mouthful. It matters what you name yourself religiously – it affects what you believe about yourself and others – how good and worthy you believe you are. We can do a lot of awful stuff under the cloak of a good name, including the names American, Christian, Jewish, Moslem, and UU. The powerful name of a religion or a country or a God is not enough – we need to always join love to power.
You may be thinking I’m carrying this power of naming idea too far. After all, in the play, “Romeo and Juliet”, Shakespeare wrote, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Yes, and family names should not divide people into enemies, but that whole play is about the destructive, divisive power we give to names.
Thich Nhat Hanh has written a remarkable poem, “Please Call Me By My True Names” in which he identifies with all. All that is joyful and horrible, beautiful and ugly – he is at one with the universe, or at least that’s where he believes the truth resides. The poem finishes:
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.
What is our true name, our true names? If we are called by a true name, that is powerful for our lives. Is it also “I am what I am”, the divine beingness that embraces all? That would be where Buddhism and Judaism and Christianity seem to meet.
What is our true name? The reading from the prophet Isaiah that we heard today is a strong one. It gave people a sense of being named, loved and belonging. “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” Perhaps a true name for us is the name that says we belong, that embraces our oneness with the all in all, that is powerful, that lives and breathes compassion and loving kindness. I have called you by your true name and it is good – you are Beloved.