THE POWER OF THE LORD’S NAME

      

Sermon delivered on the 16th Sunday after Trinity, the 27^th  September 2009 by Fr Nicholas J. G. Sykes in the congregations of St. Alban’s Church of England, George Town, and St. Mary’s, Cayman Brac, Cayman Islands.

Scriptures: Numbers 11: 4-6, 10-16, 24-29                  James 5: 13-20                        S. Mark 9: 38-50

 Mark 9:41 Jesus said “Truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ, will by no means lose his reward.”

 THE POWER OF THE NAME

All of us I am sure have a concern for our own name, not probably the actual letters of our names so much, but for what our name stands for. When someone speaks your name in a private or public conversation, you will want an image of, say, probity and decency to arise in the mind of the listener, and not some image of rascality or dishonesty. The name of something often encapsulates what it stands for, what its business is, as in the commercial world of today. This arises in the political world too in relation, for example, to the Cayman Islands. We have to consider, what do people in the world think about when they hear that name? In what way has the name of the Cayman Islands suffered, and in what way can it be improved? With these ideas I think we have a link with the concept behind naming people and things in older times. In the more concrete thought-processes of those times, a person’s or a thing’s literal name was no empty symbol, as it often is today, but was intentionally chosen to portray what the person or thing was like, what its character was, and notice that we use the very word “character” in two very different senses, the sense of the inner meaning, and the sense of the symbol or letter itself, senses that are connected in the older way of thinking. So when some action is said to be performed in the name of ... whoever or whatever is named, we then know a great deal more about the action and its intent, the reason for it and the reach of it. And often not only might an activity be ennobled or besmirched by its association with a particular name, but also a name might be similarly affected by its association with the activity. The New Testament refers to the name of Jesus Christ as authenticating certain actions of the apostles, for example. In the public mind of our time, the activities of members of the Body of Christ and their leaders can act either to damage or to make more credible the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

NAME-BEARING ACTION

All this goes some way towards explaining the text for today from St. Mark’s Gospel about someone being rewarded for giving you a cup of water because of the name of Christ that you bear. This is not just thinking of the action of giving a thirsty person a drink of water as a humanitarian act. The context suggests that here the person being addressed is becoming thirsty because he is spending himself in Christ’s service, so that the one who provides refreshment to him is also doing it as a simple act of service to Christ and in His Name. So we learn that we can enter into bearing the name of Christ by giving assistance, even humble assistance, to someone who is known to be working in Christ’s name. The action itself is not all that gives value to the action. One must take into account the name in which the action is carried out. This is illustrated in the recent furore over a class of American children in infant school being taught to sing songs praising their President. They changed the lines of one of my favourite old children’s choruses, which declare: “Red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in His sight”, referring to children being precious in Jesus’ sight, who loves all the children in the world. The lines of the schoolchildren’s chorus in praise of President Barack Obama were changed to “Red and yellow, black and white, all are equal in his sight.”  Hmm.

 

ANONYMOUS ACTION

The significance of the name in which we act is therefore very much part of our humanity and the way we actually operate; yet a good deal of political thought turns its face away from this truth, especially before 9/11 started waking us up, though we are now in danger of turning over and going to sleep again. I am referring to the political kind of thinking that tends to be global and amorphous. In this the value of an act is considered to be entirely divorced from any name or authority in which the act is being performed. In global terms the world has found such anonymity to be costly, and this lesson appears not to have been learnt. Aggregates of individuals rather than true societies, which must always function by authority and therefore in the Name of someone or something, are greatly vulnerable to attack, as by now we should have seen. Christians should therefore stand behind the call to have the Name of God, who has revealed Himself, included at the heart of any constitution that we count ourselves to be governed by. We need to know the name in which we are being encouraged to sign agreements and promote values. Too often our  political thinking at this level does not appear to address our actual human need for accountability and authority, which are by no means neglected in Biblical and Christian thought.

 

CONFERRING AUTHORITY IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

The Old Testament lesson today recounts an ancient action of delegating part of Moses’ leadership burden to 70 elders of Israel. The function of the temporary ecstatic prophecy of the 70 was to serve as proof that they indeed now possessed a share of the same name and authority that Moses did, an authority that was conferred by the Lord. Two of these 70 were not present at the “inauguration” ceremony, yet the Spirit rested on them too and they prophesied inside the camp while the others prophesied at the ceremony. We might ask why the two who did not assemble with the other leaders-to-be should graduate, so to speak, when they missed the ceremony. Well, our university graduates also graduate and in designated fields take the name and authority of their university even if they miss the ceremony, and that can provide something of an analogy. Simply, they had still been given the necessary authority. They acted and were from then on to act as leaders in the Lord’s name, in the way Moses himself did, or, indeed, in the name of Moses.

 

SIN AGAINST THE NAME OF CHRIST

Jesus utters a solemn woe in our Gospel reading to anybody who causes a little one who “believes on Him” to sin. The reason He so severe here seems to relate to the episode in St. Mark’s Gospel recounted just before the passage today, in which Jesus takes a child in his arms and says, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.” He says it would be better for a person who caused any such child or vulnerable person to stumble in his reliance on His name to be permanently sunk in the sea tied to a millstone. The sin referred to means a sin against the person’s believing, a sin against the Name of Christ, a sin that has the effect of divorcing one of Christ’s “little ones”, as He puts it, from Him to whom that one is accountable. And that is no trifling matter. It’s a sin that treats the name and authority of the Lord as of no account. To put someone on Hell’s road is to walk it oneself. Naming things and persons and societies by Christ has great power and importance in our common life, and that name dropped even lightly from our lips is treated with seriousness from on High because of its greatness. Never let us forget, as whole societies have forgotten, the centrality of God’s holy Name, or the authority with which in His Name His action is displayed among us in this age, and the great opportunity we now have as those named by Him  in the days we have been given, to share  the power of His holy Name.

 

                                                BIBLE STUDY QUESTIONS

 

1.         (1) Give some examples in modern times of names that indicate the meaning of what is named. (2) Give some examples of actions performed by someone in the name of another.

 

 

2.         Does the “Name-bearing Action” paragraph suggest how someone can begin to perform Christian service? Explain how.

 

 

 

3.         Does sickness give cause for a person to consider the Lordship of Christ over his life? Why? What is the lesson here?