2nd Sunday of Advent                       

Luke 1:26-38

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.

And, he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favoured one! God is with you.’

But, she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.

The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most-High, and God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’

Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’

The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most-High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.’

Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of God; let it be with me according to your word.’

Then the angel departed from her.

The Power of a Name

If you really think about it, names are kind of weird. We assign them to people when they’re born, and for most people, that name stays with them for the rest of their lives; it becomes a stand-in for the actual person. But, in the same way that the word “desk” is not a desk, and the word “lamp” is not actually a lamp, neither are we our names. These words, as well as our names, make up our language, a set of symbols that represent objects, actions, ideas. In a very literal way, words are metaphors for the things they describe.

I’ve always felt pretty neutral about my name. I’m not sure how other people feel about theirs; I’m sure there are people who really like their names or feel very attached to their names, but I’ve never really felt that way. To be clear, I don’t hate my name; I’m just kind of indifferent to it. It doesn’t have any kind of family significance; it’s not unusual or unique. In fact, there are so many people named Charles in the world that people have come up with all kinds of nicknames, and I’m pretty sure I’ve been called every single one: Charlie, Chuck, Chaz, Chuckles. When I asked my parents where the name Charles came from, I was told that was the name of one of my dad’s co-workers. I don’t think they had a special relationship or anything, I think they just liked the name. I remember looking up the meaning of the name “Charles” one day, and found out that it means “man,” so not a lot going on there, either.

Because of my parents’ accents, they kind of have a hard time saying the name Charles, it’s that “r l” combination that they can’t quite get, so my dad usually just calls me Chuckie, which I find very endearing. And actually, I think it’s hilarious to tell people that my parents gave me a name that neither of them can say.

In today’s gospel reading, we have the angel Gabriel telling Mary that she is going to bear God’s son, and that she is going to name him Jesus. And, if you remember our gospel reading last week, Gabriel told Zechariah that Elizabeth would have a son, and that they were going to name him John. I wonder what these parents thought of being told what to name their children, instead of being allowed to come up with names of their own.

Names in the Bible are often symbolic. Some people are given prophetic names that describe the people’s current relationship with God, whether it’s good or bad. The prophet Hosea named his first son, Jezreel, after a valley where a lot of Hebrew blood was shed. He named his daughter Lo-ruhama, which means “unloved” or “pity.” He had another son who he named Lo-ammi, meaning “not my people,” because they would no longer be known as God’s people. I wonder what it would be like to have to live with a name like that.

We sometimes see biblical characters get new names when something significant happens, like when God appeared to Abram when he was 99 years-old, to tell him that he would have many, many descendants. God changed Abram’s name, which means “exalted father,” to Abraham, which means “father of a multitude.” His wife Sarai’s name was likewise changed to Sarah, to mark this new season in their lives.

As for John and Jesus, the Hebrew name for John, Yochanan, means “God is merciful.” We could look at his name as a symbol for how God was merciful to Zechariah and Elizabeth by giving them a son in their old age, and that could very well be a part of it. But remember, John was coming to prepare the way for Jesus, the birth of whom is God’s great act of mercy for all of humankind.

Jesus’ name, which in Hebrew is Yeshua, means “to deliver or rescue,” which makes sense, as he is the Messiah, the one whom the Hebrew people were expecting to rescue them all, even though, as we now know, it wasn’t in the way that they expected. Yeshua was a fairly common name during biblical times, so it didn’t just show up out of nowhere, but it was not a random choice. Jesus came to save us all, to deliver us, to rescue us.

During Advent, we often look to the Prophet Isaiah, who prophesizes about a coming king, giving him names that we often ascribe to Jesus: Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. During this second Sunday of Advent, Peace Sunday, it is Jesus as the Prince of Peace that we yearn for…especially now, because things are not peaceful. People are worried, people are anxious, some people are at war. We desperately need a Prince of Peace to rescue and deliver us.

Names have power. It’s a common trope in fantasy stories; if you can find out the true name of something, then you have power over it. But, it works the other way, too. Names affect the way we perceive things, the way we think about things, the way we behave.

I often think about the names that we use for God the Creator, the pervasive title of “Father” for God. Some people get really upset if you don’t refer to God as he/him, Father, Lord. I’m not immune to it. I understand intellectually that God has no gender, but I was raised in this culture to understand God as a man, so even to this day, my immediate gut-reaction to a reference of God as female is to be uncomfortable. I know that God is not male, I know that God exists beyond gender, but I was raised to name God as Father, Lord, he, him, and it has become so deeply ingrained in me, that changing my way of thinking might be impossible.

I have to keep reminding myself that the culture from which the Bible arose was a patriarchal one, and so the language used for God tends to be very masculine…but, not exclusively so. Despite the cultural forces surrounding the passing on, collection, and preservation of our sacred texts, some feminine aspects of God still managed to find their way into our holy scriptures. We see the feminine form of Sophia, or Wisdom, as an aspect of God. We see God compared to a mother bear or a mother hen, protecting her young. And, one of my favorites, the parable of the lost coin, a story that Jesus tells in which God is compared to a woman who has lost a coin in her house. And, she sweeps her whole house until she finds it. It is just as valid to call God “Mother” as it is to call God “Father.”

Imagine if from when the British first landed on these shores in 1585 that instead of referring to God as “Father,” we called God “Mother.” If that had happened, maybe we wouldn’t live in a country where women earn 84 cents for every dollar a man earns. Maybe we would live in a country that would accept a woman as our leader, as 84 countries around the world have at some point in their history. Maybe we would live in a country that isn’t so plagued by sexism. Names have power.

I said earlier that I thought my name was pretty boring; all it means is “man.” But, as I think back on my life, maybe that was the name that I needed. All of my life, I have been an ethnic minority, subconsciously asking myself if I was the equal of everyone else. Was I as deserving of the all things that life offered, all of the opportunities? Could I aspire to the same things that other boys did? And then, later on in life, as I came to understand myself more, realizing that I was gay, and having to confront what our culture said about that every day, what the church said, I had to keep reminding myself that I was just as much of a man as someone who was not, despite what so many people were saying. And, when I injured myself and lost some of the use of my arm, I had to remind myself that I was still as much of a man as someone who had the full use of his arms. And, when I was diagnosed with ADHD, I had to remind myself that I was still as much of a man as someone with a “normal” brain. So, maybe there was more to me ending up with this name than the simple fact that my dad’s co-worker had this name. Maybe there was an angel, telling my parents what to name me, so that I would have my name as a bulwark against all of the struggles I would have to face in my life.

We take so much in life for granted, and in particular, our names. Maybe it’s time for us to slow down and think about everything that happens around us. Why do things happen the way that they do? Why are things the way that they are? Is there a deeper meaning behind any of this?

It’s kind of like that saying, “God works in mysterious ways,” which I whole-heartedly believe. And, if we believe that God is everywhere and in everything, couldn’t we also believe in the subtle power of God to make big changes in the word through something as seemingly inconsequential as a name?

So, even though we might not feel as peaceful as we would like this Advent, remember that Jesus is named the Prince of Peace. Remember that Jesus’ name means “to deliver, to rescue,” and that his name has become known in every corner of the world. Remember that names have power, and maybe take a moment to do some research and find out what your name means, and think back through your life. You just might find a loving message from our Mother Creator there. Amen.

~ Rev. Charles Wei