Naming of Jesus, Baptism

1989 (Year A), 31 January /
Christmas 1

St Peter de Beauvoir Town

Names are incredibly important things. They show that we are not the same as other people that we are unique. We are offended and hurt if ours is misused or forgotten.

I suspect very few of us have been fortunate enough to choose our own name – many of us would not be called the things we are now if we had. But some churches do give people such an opportunity at their confirmation to add to the names given them at birth and the Roman Catholic Church is one.

I have it on good authority that the Roman Catholic Bishop for East London confirmed a group of young people about two weeks ago in a church not far from here. Each was allowed to choose a confirmation name and he had confirmed two or three when he got to a teenage girl, ‘What is your new name?’ he asked, ‘Martha’, came the reply. ‘God bless you’, said the good bishop, ‘You got that from the Bible’. ‘No!’ said the young girl, ‘Home and Away’.

Now we know exactly who watches television in the afternoons!

The Church recognises that choosing things is important – it signifies our independence from other people – our ability to make up our own minds and make decisions for ourselves. It shows that we can be our own person. It is a thing, so we are taught, to be encouraged – it shows our adulthood and maturity. Most of us choose who we marry; or rather maybe we choose who we don’t. Some of us choose where we live, very few of us choose our Christian names and even fewer of us choose our surname. I’m sure that Katharine, who we will baptise in a few minutes, has done neither.

She shares a good deal in common with Jesus, who, we are told, in the Bible didn’t have much choice in the matter either. Nor even did his poor old parents. His name, was chosen by of all things, an angel.

Now to give and to receive in the way we do with names demonstrates precisely the opposite of independence. It reveals our total dependence on others for it is to a family that most of us are first joined. It’s they who choose our names and it’s on them we depend for our care.

And if our parents so desire, it is to a community that we come for baptism. It is on that community we depend for our development as Christians. That community in its turn, if it is to flourish, depends entirely on God for its life and well being.

In essence it is entirely the opposite of what so many would have us believe is essential in our society. We are not independent and free. Underpinning everything is this shared dependency.

Dependency, symbolised in the giving and the receiving of a name is profoundly important. What is given is given in love – it is simply received by the dependent.

The imagery, of the giver and the receiver is at the very heart of Christmas, for it is in love that the creator of Heaven and Earth gives himself, for us all, as a little child and in love that he becomes dependent on an earthly family.

To give in love is a supremely Godly action, for in that moment, Heaven is joined to Earth and in the dependency of the receiver God is allowed to act in his creation.

I hope in her dependency, Katharine will grow in holiness and knowledge of God – gifts of the Spirit which come first to a community of believers. Ignorance and sin, I hope, will play little part in her life, because they are characteristics of isolated people. In unity and dependency on others, we overcome helpless spiritual isolation for we discover the strength of our communion with our sisters and brothers and with our saviour.

None of this denies our own uniqueness, symbolised by our own name. We are all gloriously different, willed so by God. Yet the community which Katharine comes here to join today offers knowledge of our creator. Maybe for now it’s only partial, but it’s much more than she could ever muster if she remained on her own.

We respond to a shared calling by coming to a shared meal and in that union discover ourselves in a truly Godly way. AMEN