What's In A Name

 "When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us." So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb (Luke 2:15-21)."

When I was in college I dated a girl who constantly said “Jesus Christ” as a statement of shock, incredulity or exasperation. (It was my first encounter with an Episcopalian.) I had only uttered those two words in the context of worship or apologetics but never as exclamatory utterance. Whenever she said the words I was rattled by the irreverence. She was an intelligent young woman from a good family and had good friends. But her being unchurched made her insensitive to the faith of others who put that faith at the center of their lives. Since her own faith was nominal and she followed the religion of her own opinions she seemed unable to appreciate that the name of Jesus was unique and singular and should only be uttered with respect.

However, I have met people that utter the name of Jesus after every other word in the middle of every sentence. “ We were going down the street, praise Jesus, and all of a sudden, praise Jesus, this ball rolls across the street, praise Jesus, and this boy runs out after it, praise Jesus, and I hit the brakes, praise Jesus, and I saw that it was my sister’s boy, praise Jesus, so we knew that the birthday party, praise Jesus, was at my sister’s house, praise Jesus.” They treat the name of Jesus like a verbal talisman, an uttered charm, to baptize and make sacrosanct anything they say from a profound theological insight to the secret recipe of grand ma’s potato salad. Such carefree use of the Lord’s name leaves me cold and cynical.

The name Jesus is a special name. A name that revealed God’s movement in a person born in Palestine over 2000 years ago. Not that the name of Jesus was foreign to the Jews of the Middle East so long ago. The name “Jesus” was their “John”, “Juan”, or “Steve”. It was not uncommon to know someone or have someone in your family named “Jesus.” Actually, the name “Jesus” is the Greek form of the Hebrew name “Yeshua” (or “Joshua”). Yeshua means “Salvation.” It is a good name. It is a good Jewish name. Jesus’ Jewish name would have been “Yeshua Ben Yosef” (Jesus, Son of Joseph).

That very common name was given to a baby born over 2000 years ago who would be God’s salvation made manifest. The angel's message to Joseph was "You shall call His name 'God is salvation,' for He will save His people from their sins." That name tells us that it is through Him that God saves humanity. The person of Jesus is the way that God chose to save all of humanity from all that separates us from God.

The purpose of God’s Incarnation in Jesus was to reconcile humanity to God. In order to do this, God, in the person of Jesus Christ, choose to become fully human while always being fully divine. He  experienced all the pain, temptations, and sufferings that all human beings face. Finally, having preached, taught, healed, and performed many miracles, he experienced the last pain that all people must undergo: death. He allowed Himself to be crucified. As a human being, he died.  Yet,being God, he rose from the dead,  proving that all who believe and follow him will do likewise since in baptism we are forever connected to, immersed into God’s life.  This is why Jesus Christ is called "Savior," for He saves us from sin’s effect, death. Such a movement of God on our behalf in Jesus Christ our Lord must disallow any one of us from uttering Jesus’ name as an exclamatory utterance or as a mere verbal talisman but rather as a recognition of what God is willing to do for us.

Prayer is probably the best forum to utter the holy name of Jesus. The Church recognized this so very long ago. In order to enter more deeply into the life of prayer and to come to grips with St. Paul's challenge to pray unceasingly, the Church offers the Jesus Prayer, which is sometimes called the prayer of the heart. The Jesus Prayer is offered as a means of concentration, as a focal point for our inner life. The prayer is for teachers, social workers, business persons, nurses, professional baseball players (not necessarily used to win a game), protesters, university professors, high school students, soldiers, psychiatrists, or anyone else who has a pulse and has breath. All of us are invited to pray the Jesus Prayer as a way of being mindful of what God has done, what God is doing, and what God will do in our lives.  Anyone, everyone, can say the Jesus Prayer. The most frequently used form of the Jesus Prayer is: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." This prayer, in its simplicity and clarity, is rooted in the Scriptures and the new life granted by the Holy Spirit. It is first and foremost a prayer of the Spirit because of the fact that the prayer addresses Jesus as Lord, Christ and Son of God; and as St. Paul tells us, "no one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit"(1 Cor. 12:3).  Of course, there are so many ways to pray, so many ways to properly offer up unceasing prayer.

Many people utter the name of Jesus in prayer and praise when they are waiting for their teenage son to get home and it’s 2am in the morning, when a mother feels the flutter of butterflies within her as the child grows, when siblings watch their father take his last breath, when someone is told that their cancer is in remission, when a father sets his eyes on his newborn child for the first time, when a woman meets the man she is going to marry, when a single mother has lost her job and does not know how she is going to pay her mortgage or buy groceries, when the chronic pain from which one is suffering is unrelenting, when a relationship falters, when a spouse tells another that they are no longer in love, and when a baby who was thought not going to make it to term is baptized.  For them the name of Jesus is a exclamation.  It is an exclamation that God does indeed save and that we need God’s salvation-The Reverend Adrian A. Amaya.

Laboring in the Vineyard

When Jesus entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, "By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?" Jesus said to them, "I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?" And they argued with one another, "If we say, `From heaven,' he will say to us, `Why then did you not believe him?' But if we say, `Of human origin,' we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet." So they answered Jesus, "We do not know." And he said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.

"What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, `Son, go and work in the vineyard today.' He answered, `I will not'; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, `I go, sir'; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?" They said, "The first." Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him ( Matthew 21:23-32).”

The chief priests and the elders of the temple are threatened by the authority with which Jesus speaks and even the authority that is given to him by the populace that see him as a true and trustworthy prophet.  Yet, unlike a prophet, who speaks for God, Jesus never precedes or follows an utterance with the common “Thus says the Lord.” He simply speaks, acts, heals, and teaches.  Those who witness the Kingdom of God do so and those who do not simply do not.  What the chief priests and elders know for sure is that Jesus is undermining their own authority.

The leaders put a question to Jesus: Who gives you the right to preach, teach, and heal? Jesus responds that he will say so if they answer the same about John the Baptist.  The people also were drawn to John the Baptist because of his fervor, integrity, and unabashed truth-telling.  The chief priests and the elders know this and they know that Herod Antipas killed him for it so John the Baptist is considered a great martyr to the people.  They are unwilling to answer because they are looking for the most expedient answer rather than the most truthful one. They want to answer so as to satisfy the people upon whom all their power relies. Without the people’s support they have nothing and they are unwilling to surrender such support and, therefore, their authority.  If they state that John’s authority came from the people then they would surrender their authority to the masses who followed and respected John giving credence to their opinions and beliefs against the authority they claimed to possess.  John the Baptist and Jesus in turn could care less about the message and practice of their ministries and it is their focus upon doing the will of God that draws people to them.  The chief priests and the elders give no thought to the will of God but are focused upon the people and their satisfying the government of Rome and of Herod Antipas.  The will of God is subservient to keeping the people’s respect and staying in the governments’ good graces.

If they claim that John the Baptist’s authority was derived from God then they would be saying that the God of the Jews is over and against the political powers that ruled Judea, therefore, setting themselves against Rome and the God-Emperor Caeser.

They are unwilling to answer Jesus and so they claim ignorance and maybe they are right in claiming ignorance.  They are so concerned in answering Jesus in a way that does not threaten their station and status nor supports Jesus in any way that they have not even considered God.

Jesus is unwilling to answer them directly.  Rather, he tells them a story where one son refuses to work for his father then changes his mind and does the work requested of him while the other son says that he will work for his father but never does. Through John’s ministry and through his own Jesus sees the Kingdom of God being made real in the lives of people whom the religious leaders have said are beyond hope, beyond grace, beyond favor, beyond redemption, beyond love, mercy, and compassion. Men who have betrayed their own people in order to collect taxes for the Roman State and women who have sold their bodies to whomever has enough coin are those who are responding to God’s call and in turn revealing the Kingdom of God in their lives and in the lives of others.  The chief priests and elders, however, men who are living the epitome of the religious life and who model their life around the Torah for the sake of others, reveal nothing but their self-protecting concern for their rites, rituals, and the maintaining of the status quo. They do not see the undesirable, the sinful, the people on the margins or even outside of respectable society, as proof of God’s presence.  They are unable to see the miracle of transformation happening in their midst.  Jesus says that the tax collectors and prostitutes will be first in the Kingdom of Heaven before respected religious leaders who no longer seek the Father’s will nor can see the Kingdom of Heaven right before them will.  Jesus does not say that the religious leaders are to be thrown out of the Kingdom of God but he does say that those who are most undesirable will be given primacy.  This is enough to incite anger and shock among the priests and elders.  They do not want to share the Kingdom of God with the likes of them.

In the end it is the miracle of people’s transformations, of the kingdom of God being made manifest in their lives, that is the proof of Jesus’ authority.  The religious leaders are unable and unwilling to see the work that God has wrought in the lives of their fallen brothers and sisters.  They do not see liberation. They do not see redemption.  They do not see healing.  They do not see reconciliation. They do not see salvation. They do not see the Kingdom of God.  All they can see is the threat to their authority. They are blind to all else and ultimately they are blind to God.

Any one of us can have a vested interest in members of our community or even members of our own families being on the wrong side of the law, on the wrong side of common decency or of success or of a proper lifestyle.  There may be no question that their self-destructive proclivities have led them and others into lives that are hard, troubled, and unhealthy.  Disease, sin, and estrangement may be the defining marks of their lives. We could be sure that the choices we have made have made all the difference in our lives and in the lives of those whom we love and those that depend upon us.  We may have chosen what was good, decent, life-giving, and Godly while strangers, friends, and family may not have and are suffering the effect of their choices. We can rest knowing that we have done well and are doing well and may be fully assured that God’s grace and presence exists in our lives and in our families’ lives.  We know who they are and we know who we are. And we believe we know who God is. The reprobate assure us that all is fair in God’s world.

But God does not play fair.  Life is not a game with a set of rules that destines some people to “win” and fates others to “lose”.  Life is the opportunity to meet the lover of our souls, God. People who have been hurt by others and have hurt others, who have made poor choices, who live lives of crime, sin, and death are transformed by the Gospel, by the good news that Jesus is the proof that even they…even they…are called into God’s love and that that great, grand love is not thwarted by sin, sickness, disease, poor decision making, death, or hurt but that God uses such as the root of manifesting his love.  People who experience the Gospel and the presence of God become transformed people.  The mercy, compassion, love, and power of God changes them from the inside out.  They still may have the pinhole burns, they still may have the scars inside and out, they still may have the tattoos, they still may have the sickness ravaged body, but they will also have Jesus and they will praise his name as they move from lives of darkness to lives filled with the light of Christ and the fire of the Holy Spirit.

And we the righteous will hate them for it.

We who played by the rules, who did everything right, who set the status quo will witness the miracle of their transformation and not see God.  We will see their transformation through the lenses of our expectations, prejudices, and sense of decorum and decency and question its authenticity.  We become the ones who fail to see the Kingdom of God in our midst. When we find that we are judging the transformation of another we then may find that it is we who need transformation…we who need the salvation that only Jesus can offer-The Reverend Adrian A. Amaya. 

The Feast Day of David Pendleton Oakerhater Deacon and Missionary, 1931

O God of unsearchable wisdom and infinite mercy, you chose a captive warrior, David Oakerhater, to be your servant, and sent him to be a missionary to his own people, and to exercise the office of a deacon among them: Liberate us, who commemorate him today, from bondage to self, and empower us for service to you and to the neighbors you have given us; through Jesus Christ, the captain of our salvation; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.


The Lessons:
Psalm 96:1–7 
Isaiah 52:7–10
Romans 8:1–6
Luke 10:1–9



“God’s warrior” is an epithet by which David Pendleton Oakerhater is known among the Cheyenne Indians of Oklahoma. The title is an apt one, for this apostle of Christ to the Cheyenne was originally a soldier who fought against the United States government with warriors of other tribes in the disputes over Indian land rights. By the late 1860s Oakerhater had distinguished himself for bravery and leadership as an officer in an elite corps of Cheyenne fighters. In 1875, after a year of minor uprisings and threats of major violence, he and twenty-seven other warrior leaders were taken prisoner by the U.S. Army, charged with inciting rebellion, and sent to a disused military prison in Florida.  Under the influence of a concerned Army captain, who sought to educate the prisoners, Oakerhater and his companions learned English, gave art and archery lessons to the area’s many visitors, and had their first encounter with the Christian faith. The captain’s example, and that of other concerned Christians, from as far away as New York, had their effect on the young warrior. He was moved to answer the call to transform his leadership in war into a lifelong ministry of peace.


With sponsorship from the Diocese of Central New York and financial help from a Mrs. Pendleton of Cincinnati, he and three other prisoners went north to study for the ministry. At his baptism in Syracuse, New York in 1878 he took the name David Pendleton Oakerhater, in honor of his benefactress.


Soon after his ordination to the diaconate in 1881, David returned to Oklahoma. There, he was instrumental in founding and operating schools and missions, through great personal sacrifice and often in the face of apathy from the Church hierarchy and resistance from the government. He continued his ministry of service, education, and pastoral care among his people until his death on August 31, 1931.  Half a century before, the young deacon had told his people: “You all know me. You remember when I led you out to war I went first, and what I told you was true. Now I have been away to the East and I have learned about another captain, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he is my leader. He goes first, and all he tells me is true. I come back to my people to tell you to go with me now in this new road, a war that makes all for peace.”

The Feast Day of Charles Chapman Grafton

 Loving God, you called Charles Chapman Grafton to be a bishop in your Church and endowed him with a burning zeal for souls: Grant that, following his example, we may ever live for the extension of your kingdom, that your glory may be the chief end of our lives, your will the law of our conduct, your love the motive of our actions, and Christ’s life the model and mold of our own; through the same Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, throughout all ages. Amen.

Lessons for today:  

Psalm 134

Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 50:16–21

Revelation 5:7–10

John 10:11–16

Charles Grafton was born April 12, 1830 in Boston, and attended Harvard Law School. He was confirmed at Church of the Advent—then a leading parish implementing the principles of the Oxford Movement—where he began seriously to explore his vocation. After graduation he moved to Maryland to study with the Tractarian Bishop William Whittington who eventually ordained him deacon on December 23, 1855, and priest on May 30, 1858.

Grafton served a number of parishes in Maryland but experienced a growing attraction to the religious life. In 1865, he left for England specifically to meet Edward Bouverie Pusey. In the following year, after a series of meetings held at All Saints, Margaret Street, Grafton and two others took religious vows and the Society of St. John the Evangelist had its beginning. In 1872, Grafton returned and was elected fourth Rector of the Church of the Advent, Boston.

In 1888, Grafton was elected second bishop of Fond du Lac. His consent process was difficult as many thought him too ritualistic, but he soon became known not only as an Anglo-Catholic but also as an ecumenist, deeply committed to improve relations with the Orthodox and Old Catholics. He founded the Sisters of the Holy Nativity.

Perhaps the most famous event during Grafton’s long episcopate was the ordination of his successor in 1900. He invited the Russian Orthodox Bishop Tikhon and the Old Catholic Bishop Anthony Kozlowski to participate. The service stirred up furor across the country with the publication of a photograph (called derisively “The Fond du Lac Circus”) that showed all eight Episcopal bishops and the two visiting bishops in cope and miter. It caused a church-wide furor over ritual and vestments that lasted for over six months, with accusations and threats of ecclesiastical trial flying from all corners, and with scurrilous attacks and virulent justifications. When the dust finally settled, the legitimacy of traditional catholic ritual and vestments had thereafter gained a permanent place in the liturgy in the Episcopal Church.  Bishop Grafton died August 30, 1912.

John 1:1-3: In The Beginning-A Theological Commentary

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.

An ancient Christian hymn connects the philosophical and personalized term of “Logos” to the very act of God’s creating all things seen and unseen.  John repeats this hymn and affirms its underlying assumptions about God and creation.  The Greek word “logos” means “word”, “speech”, “reason”, “principle”, “standard”, and “logic” and was understood to be present in all of creation.  Every person has within them this Logos.  This is what allows humanity as a part of the created order to reflect upon all of creation including itself and reach out to that which is ultimate.  Such human reason is not the possession of humanity but is a human expression of that reason which permeates and orders the universe.  The logos’ ordering of the stuff of chaos allows life to be, to be realized, to come into being.  Such a life coming to pass is not simply the biological processes of a biosphere but the universe’s dynamism including the ever-present underlay of chaos that makes such life possible.  Such an understanding is expressed in all major religions.

Early Christian thought identifies this “logos” with the Son.  John is stating that Jesus is the “word”, “speech”, “reason”, “principle”, “standard”, and “logic” understood to be present at and in all of creation. The Father begets or generates the Son from his very self just as the sun begets or generates light and yet if it was not for the light itself we would not know that there was Sun.  Also, there is that nature of the Sun that is not of light but by its very nature generates light for if light was not generated then that which does indeed generate light could not be.  Without the sun there is no light. Without the light there is no sun.  The two are one and the same but distinct. That which is created, therefore, is not intrinsic to the nature of that which is the creator and can remain uncreated or become uncreated without affecting the nature of the creator. However, that which is generated or begotten is intrinsic to that which generates or begets.  To not be generated or begotten means that that which would generate or beget cannot exist. Therefore, God begets the Son rather than creating the Son. John understands this begotten Son as the one through which the universe is brought forth.
 

God's movement as the begotten Son at “the beginning” is to bring life out of the maelstrom of chaos.  Yet, the stuff of chaos finds it source in God.  Chaos in and of itself only holds within it the potential to bear life while only God is the source of such life. Chaos underlies reality not as a constant threat of de-evolving but as the malleable “stuff” of creation. Chaos threatens us for we have no hold over it but it is in no way a threat to God. It is important to notice that John begins this Gospel in such a way that the original readers of the Gospel would have automatically understood that such a beginning is meant to bring to mind the first book of the Hebrew Bible (the Christian Old Testament).  The Hebrews held an understanding of the Word of God being the dar Yahweh, that which brings forth all that is seen and unseen.  The ancient belief of the Hebrews as communicated in Genesis 1 and the philosophical thought of the Greeks are being syncretized in order to bring ancient Jewish thought into the widely dispersed philosophical systems of the Greek Gentile world.

Both the Genesis and the Gospel of John do not necessarily speak of God’s creating the universe ex nihilo, “out of nothing.”  The beginning of Genesis can also be read “When God began to create…” which hints at chaos’ presence at creation.  The formlessness of chaos and the emptiness of life exist because God wills it so but such a reality does not fully express God’s desire but is part and parcel of the expression that is to come. One can even say that creation is ongoing and that any apparent chaos is part and parcel of such an ongoing creation.  Such a reading does not threaten the view that all that exists which is not God has no reality outside of God. Creatio ex nihilo is not threatened.  It is simply not explicitly addressed even though it may be implicitly understood.

There is one thing to keep in mind.  Too often in the West we envision creatio ex nihilo in such a way that one imagines God residing in the midst of nothingness, in the midst of a void, and because of our anthropomorphizing of God we imagine God somehow affected by a divine “loneliness.”  Yet, creatio ex nihilo, properly understood does recognize nothingness as being no other thing.   The term creatio ex nihilo can properly be understood as “creation from no other thing.” 

Rather, than imagining God residing in the midst of nothingness, we should envision nothingness as openness.  There is only God and all that there is is God’s very Self.  There is no such thing as nothingness. There is only divine Presence.  Rather than envisioning nothingness, absence, one should imagine an encompassing, overwhelming presence willing to create something never before seen, witnessed or encountered as an expression of will and love.  Rather than imagine “Divine Loneliness” we can imagine “Divine Possibility.”  All possibilities are ever present before God, and God is ever open to them.  Since God creates as an act of will, utterly free and utterly loving, dependent upon no-thing, then creation itself is utterly open since to create any thing from any other thing would consign and inhibit creation with boundaries and parameters independent of and alien to God’s will.  This utter openness of God has been understood as God’s transcendence and God’s immanence and lays the foundation of our understanding of those events that reveal God and what we often call “miracles.”

All worlds realized and unrealized are due to God’s openness and will but are bounded.  The universe (or our encounter with what we call “the universe”) that allows our selves to move and have our being is also the same universe that also moves us from dust to dust and ashes to ashes.  The nature of our own fragility, the fragility of creation, and the nature of death and decay is also that which allows life to be, to come to fruition, to blossom, to expand, to encounter and to be encountered. Where humanity is concerned we can say that we are the universe’s self-contemplation, hence, we must be aware of the wonder and fragility of not just our own existence but that of creation itself.  Our encounter with the said universe is also our encounter with our said selves.  The material and immaterial aspects of our very selves are intrinsically finite just as the universe in which we find ourselves is intrinsically finite no matter the grand and overwhelming realities of such a universe.  God’s openness has declared through Christ that we are not wholly defined by a finite reality but by the infinite reality of God’s will and love. Creatio ex nihilo can only be properly understood in this way.

The first chapters of both Genesis and John are primarily about a universe in which “Life” (zoe) itself is present and permeates all that is.  Only such a presence is able to bring about life (bios) in all of its manifestations.  Life (bios) is Life (zoe) ever unfolding itself.  Since creation is ongoing then all such beginnings are of the initial creation of our universe even if such beginnings are separated by the meanest or grandest measure of time.  The act of creation spoken of in both Genesis and John is, therefore, present to us rather than simply residing in the past. This may be why both procreation and artistic inspiration (among others) can be understood as semi-divine acts or blessed acts, as mitzvahs, that cooperate and continue to unfold God’s initial act of creation.

Chaos can be viewed as a subjective term.  Chaos bears no threat against God so what humanity encounters as chaos may be to God openness. Chaos certainly threatens us because as created beings there are limits to our finite existence and there are other things created which do indeed threaten that finite existence.  This is what we call chaos and from which are such distinctions as change, death, sin, history, time, and decay find definition.

Chaos’ intrinsic presence as part and parcel of creation and God’s undergirding presence in creation brings forth all such beginnings.  God is present in all such beginnings simply because there is no place that God is not.  Chaos is indeed present in our lives and in the universe but such chaos exists only to be ordered by God to such an extent that Life begets life.  Existence comes forth.  The chaos that threatens us is not an evil to escape or exorcise but a reality to surrender to God.

The Rev. Adrian A. Amaya