Bible Reading: Mark 5:21-43
Dear Friends,
Names whether nicknames or some other descriptor are convenient because they work to summarize a lot of things
into one element. But they are also dangerous because they reduce us, strip us of our individuality and uniqueness, and
label us according to what someone else sees. It is difficult not to think of the way we name and label those who differ
from us whether in skin color or ethnicity or belief, the names we have hung on and hurled at others to reduce and
objectify them. Humans are, by nature, social, even tribal, creatures, and so we gather with those who seem like us and
characterize those who don’t as different, naming them by some attribute that creates convenient definitions and
borders for us by stripping others of their individuality and labeling and lumping them together.
And yet the pattern of Christ is exactly the opposite. Jesus is constantly crossing borders whether geographic or social to see people for who they are and to draw them into relationship. That’s why the woman who interrupts Jesus’
preaching and healing tour in this week’s Gospel reading in Mark 5: 21-43 is no longer just “woman” or “the one who has been bleeding for twelve years.” She is now “daughter,” one restored to family and community and health and life. This is, of course, Christ’s charge to us as well. To see people for who they really are, unique persons, each created in the image of God, and each worthy of our attention, care, love, and respect. Christ calls us to leave the comfortable and familiar behind in order to reach out to others as brothers and sisters, all children of God.
Yet let’s be honest: simply saying that isn’t enough. We know this. And we know that the discrimination on the basis of ethnicity or religion or economic status that happens on the streets of cities and towns across the country every single day is also terribly and tragically wrong. We know this, and being told once more will probably make little difference. What might make a difference, however, is being known and named ourselves. What might help is recognizing that we, too, often are labeled, reduced to one attribute or incident that hardly captures our identity and yet has named and shaped our behavior and our future in ways that are unhealthy and unhelpful. So perhaps our task is to invite people to call to mind those names they have been given perhaps only by themselves that seem to chase them through the day and haunt them at night. To name those illnesses or failures or missteps or regrets that somehow have come to name and define them. And then to say that Christ sees them differently. Christ names them differently. They are “daughter” and “son” and “person of great faith” and “faithful” and “wonderful” and “beloved of God” and more.
In Christ, you see, we are given a new name. In fact, in Baptism we are named as children of God and promised that no matter what happens, no matter where we may go in life, no matter what we may do or have done to us, yet God always sees a unique and beloved individual worthy of love, honor, and respect. And each week when we come to church we come to be reminded of this new name, to be reminded of our identity given and held in absolute and unconditional name. We come to be reminded because so much in the week has worked to make us forget and to undermine our confidence. So we come to church to be named anew.
And when we have remembered our new name and received again our new identity, perhaps then we can go out and resist the urge to use destructive names to define and label and reduce others. Perhaps then we can reach out in love to call those around us and especially those whom society has overlooked brothers and sisters, daughters and sons, mothers and fathers, all children of God.
Solomzi