Church of the Incarnation

"What's in a name," Juliet pines of her beloved Romeo. "That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet." But of course Romeo can't escape his name, because it isn't just a word thrust on him - he is a Montague.

There's a great deal in a name.

This is even more true in the Hebrew scriptures than in Shakespeare. In Genesis, God creates the first man and then fashions all sorts of animals and birds. God brings them to Adam so that Adam can be the one to name them. For the Hebrews, to name a thing was to enter into a special relationship with it, to establish an intimacy and commitment to it. So when none of the animals or birds is found to be a suitable partner for Adam even after the intimacy of Adam's naming them, God creates a woman and brings her to Adam for naming. And Adam names her "Adamah," his name with a feminine ending attached, for she is "bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh."

There's a great deal in a name.

When I was a small child, we didn't have any pets until a stray cat started spending time in our yard. He never condescended to ask for attention or food, but he would sit proudly at the head of our driveway and give us a regal nod as we came home. My parents were quite clear that we weren't keeping the cat, and my sister and I begged and wheedled and made all sorts of promises to no avail. We had just about given up when my father announced that we should begin to call the cat Themistocles, after the Athenian whose tiny band defeated the mighty Persian army at Marathon in 490 BC. Daddy chose a name that reflected everything we had come to love about the cat: his dignity and patience and obvious heroism. But in the act of naming Themistocles, Daddy admitted to a special relationship with the cat: Themistocles wasn't an annoying stray, he was a beloved pet.

There's a great deal in a name.

The gospels don't often give us the names of those healed by Jesus. Most of them are simply referred to as "a man with a withered hand" or "a man with an unclean spirit" or "a woman caught in adultery." Given that there is a great deal in a name, it's significant that in today's gospel reading we're told the blind beggar's name is Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus. In Hebrew, the prefix "bar" means son, but it's not a title of respect and it certainly isn't something you would name a child. It's perhaps better translated "boy." It can describe young male children but it's also used of young male animals. So Bartimaeus is being called "that Timaeus boy" or "the Timaeus kid." This isn't a name. This is what you call someone who doesn't have a name.

In that culture it was believed that blindness was a punishment for sin, so it's probably not much of a stretch to guess that this child was born blind which so frightened and appalled his parents that they didn't even name him before banishing him. Imagine that. Your own parents don't connect with you enough to give you a name. And no one since has even spoken with you enough to come up with a name to call you. Not one person has ever felt as close to you as my father did to that old stray cat Themistocles. You're an outcast, completely alone in the emptiness of your spirit which is as blinding as the emptiness of your eyes. Your desperate lament is that of the Psalmist: "How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?"

It's how we feel when everyone in school is spreading rumors about us. We walk into the lunchroom and flush under their judging glares only to eat our lunch alone at a table in the corner, praying for the bell to ring. It's how we feel walking into the office on the first day of the new job. Everywhere we go conversations stop as people stare us by. It's how we feel sitting across the table from an estranged spouse. It's so much lonelier around people who don't care to name us than it is alone.

There's so much in a name.

The outcast, nameless Timaeus boy could so easily curl in on himself and wait to die. But he has become "a beggar sitting by the roadside." In Greek, to beg is to ask strangers for scraps of food, but it's also to request things of God in prayer, to plead, to implore. Even in his desperate loneliness, the man continues to talk to God. Wow. Too often I let feeling nameless drive me away from God into self-pity or anger. But this man, who's known only namelessness his whole life, continues to talk to God about it.

Then one day Jesus is leaving Jericho with a great crowd. His disciples are huddled around him, talking and laughing, and others are spread out across the road, trying to get near Jesus, to hear his words. When the nameless man hears it's Jesus, he speaks aloud the yearning, desperate prayer he's uttered inwardly so many times: "Jesus, son of David, look on me with pity and help me." Those around him try to silence him, but he pleads all the more vociferously, "Jesus, relieve me." And Jesus stops and calls him forward. Jesus hears him. Him. The man with no name, no home. The man whom no one can see. When the man reaches him, Jesus looks into his cloudy, blank eyes and loves him. Jesus sees the heart of his emptiness, his loneliness, his lostness - and Jesus heals him. The man is no longer blind, no longer outcast and despised. He follows Jesus "in the way."

I wish we knew the rest of the story. I imagine the man huddled around a fire with the disciples, sharing bread and fish and telling them about his life. And I picture Jesus walking up to the scene and addressing the man by a name. I'd love to know that name. Perhaps something that means "Person of Great Vision" or "One with Steadfast Faith." Or maybe Jesus calls him by a more intimate name, "My Precious Child" or "Dear One," things the man was never called by his own family.

Jesus the good shepherd knows each of his sheep by name - Bartimaeus and Abraham and Isaac and each of us as well. He knows us as intimately as Adam knew the woman whom he named, as intimately as my father knew that kingly cat. He sees beyond our milky, blind eyes to what's deep inside us and claims that as our name.

For there is so much in a name.

Amen.