So, you'd better watch out...when God changes your name.
You see, in each reading we have an example of someone whose names has been changed. Take poor Abram. Here he is, out on his own, away from the tents and heards and all the chattering folks of his tribe. Sitting out alone, looking up in the stars, and wouldn't you know it, God pops up (though I think of God's appearance as maybe more of the slowness of the tide coming in – you don't notice it until you do). In any case, God tells Abram that he's about to make him a covenant. This has certainly got to make the poor man sit up and in the back of his mind think “Uh-oh.” After all, this is about to be the third time God has done this. The first one was when God told him to get up, leave his easy-peasy life behind, and strike off into the unknown. The second one was when God told him that He and Abram were going to be a team from now own, God was going to look out for him and make him famous beyond all get-out, and to symbolize this, God's spirit dances between the carcasses of animals. And now this one. God is going to make Abram the father of the nations along with his wife who can't bear children. And to symbolize this, God changes Abram's (and his wife, Sari's) names to Abraham and Sarah... and makes all the guys get circumcised.
. . . and Abraham's life will never be easy-peasy again.
And then there's our favorite apostle, Paul. He of the letter to the Romans. He of the long-winded run-on sentences. He of the tent making and mysterious aches and pains. The church planter, the letter writer. Humble, meek and mild (and if you ask him, he'll tell you). But not always. Because there was a time, back when his name was Saul, that he had a fine career running about persecuting those followers of Jesus. Stirring up trouble, smiting people (or really having others do the smiting for him). Being a big wheel in the faith with hangers-on, and power, and influence. A Pharisee's Pharisee. And then Jesus, back from the dead, knocks him off his horse and for good measure blinds him. And then that voice of God wells up with, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me.” And the next thing you know, God has changed Saul's name to Paul and has given him near-impossible work of whipping the entirety of Mediterranean gentiles into shape, ending up in his own execution in Rome. He should've seen it coming, the moment Jesus changed his name.
And finally, in our Gospel reading today, we get Peter, who before he got mixed up with this Jesus was named Simon. Again, once the Lord gives you a new, fancy name (You are now Peter, the Rock), you should really see it coming a mile away. But not Peter. He pegs Jesus as the Messiah, the long-awaited hero, the soon-to-be smiter of Romans, but when the Messiah leads off not only with his suffering but the suffering of his followers, Peter rebukes his Lord. “No, Jesus, you've got to hush with this doom and gloom, with all this suffering. It's making people nervous. They're beginning to drift away. We can't seize power, if we don't have an army...and even a peasant army needs peasants.” But Jesus gets his back up and changes Peter's name one more time: “Get behind me, Satan.”
Now that had to hurt.
It never seems good in the Bible when God goes about changing your name. It certainly means things are about to get interesting for you, at least. Folks with changed names seem to take the hard road, nearly sacrificing a son here, languishing in prison there. And always seemingly living on the outskirts of life. It's hard, you never know who you'll meet. And it's dangerous, because living on the outside means you might eventually get noticed by those living on the inside. And they can get pretty protective of the stuff they have inside with them. Living on the outside can be dangerous.
And by now, many of you are probably sitting there, thinking, “Where in the world is he going with all this?” Well, I'll tell you. Friends, the simple fact is that everyone of us here today have gone through a name change. Some of us a long time ago, some of us maybe more recently. But we have all taken on a new name.
Christian.
We have changed our names. And just like Abram, or Saul, or Simon, that change indicates a change in life, a change in purpose, a change in being. Being a Christian isn't the cross you wear around your neck – it's the cross you carry when you see suffering out in the world.
It's the cross you hang on when you stand up to those on the inside and say “Enough! Enough with judging winners and losers. Enough pitting us against each other. Enough with using us to play your game of thrones.”
It's the cross you lay down when you stop to pick up the cross of others. Others who have names, too. Others who suffer loss, who grieve that loss. Others who struggle from the weight of their own crosses, financial crosses, addictive crosses, fearful crosses.
This name we have given ourselves, and it calls out to us to live up to it. And to live up to it, we have to be willing to follow down that hard road where Jesus call us to travel. And like I always say, “If you think being a Christian is easy, you're doing it wrong.”
That road has been especially hard of late. Disaster piles up on disaster. Road blocks on our journey to the Kingdom. These past several months have seemed insurmountable. The pain almost unbearable as we journey down this road with 500,000 dead in a pandemic, economic woes, political turmoil and violence. Not to mention just the day-to-day struggles of those in the shadows of society, hurting...hiding...alienated from us, from themselves, from God.
Pretty gloomy, right?
But friends, I am standing before you to say that there is still hope. Because our God loves all the world's children, and will bring them to a better place and leave none behind. The Spirit of our God roamed creation before creation began and gave hope to Abraham, standing there, bemused under the stars. Gave hope to Paul even in the darkest prison. Gave hope to Peter, even when he could see where the road he had chosen was headed.
And we've chosen that road, too. We've taken on our new name, and we're headed down that road, too. Jesus is there at the end. We just have to take up our cross and follow. It won't always be easy – crosses are rarely light. But there is hope. There is always hope. Each time we choose to lay down a weapon, there is hope. Every time we choose to reach out an open hand and not a fist, there is hope. Whenever we opt not for hate and greed and power but for simply loving God and loving our neighbor, there is hope.
There is hope. There is hope. There is hope. The cross is heavy yes, but look around you. Look at each other. All on this journey together. If your cross gets too heavy, your brother there will shoulder it for a while. If your cross gets to sorrowful, your sister next to you will help you carry it. We are in this together. All of us, together.
Because together, we are Christians.
Amen