When I was teenager, my mom decided that, for whatever
reason, she would start calling me “Ken” instead of “Kendra.”
I can’t even begin to tell you how much I loathed being
called, “Ken.”
I tried to tell her to cut it out, but she kept it up. I think she secretly enjoyed teasing me with
it.
So, I just stopped answering her when she called me
“Ken.” I flat out ignored her.
I’d be in one room.
She’d be in another.
“Ken?” she’d call out.
Silence.
Nothing.
Not even a breath from me.
Seconds would pass and then she would give in.
“Dra?” she’d add.
And before long we were back to Kendra.
I happen to love my name.
I’ve never wanted any other. It’s
a relatively simple name and though I’ve met other Kendras, it’s also fairly
unique.
But even its simplicity has not stopped people from
butchering it. I had one teacher call me
Kenya, and my
guidance counselor in high school called me Kendora, who I assume was a distant
relative of that famous witchy mother-in-law, Endora, from the TV show, Bewitched.
Even my teaching certificate, renewed and presumably
corrected multiple times over the fourteen years I taught, spelled out my name
as Kenora Lacy. Somehow Kendra Lacy was
still allowed to teach.
Names are important.
They are us. They
carry with them everything that we have ever been from the moment we were
born. They connect us to family, to
spouses.
My mom once said that the biggest regret she had was going
back to her maiden name after she and my dad divorced.
Why?
Because she no longer shared a name with me.
When someone says your name, they are making a connection
with you. Maybe they are saying it for
the first time. Maybe they are saying it
for the last time, but every time they say that name, there is a connection, an
acknowledgement as to who you are and who you are to that person.
When someone says your name, they are saying, “I know you.”
And you know who knows us better than anyone, who never
forgets a name?
Isaiah 4:1 reads, “But now thus says the Lord, he who
created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have
redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”
God knows us. He
knows our name even when we do not.
He tells Jacob in Genesis 32:28, “You shall no longer be
called Jacob, but Israel.”
In John 1:42, Jesus says to Simon, “You are to be called
Cephas.” Peter, in other words.
God calls us by name to get our attention.
In Exodus 3:4, the first words God speaks from the burning
bush are these, “Moses, Moses.” In other
words, stop, listen. I know you.
He knows us better than anyone, better than our parents, our
spouses, our teachers, our friends. He
knows us and because He knows us, not only should we stop and listen, we should
never turn away. How can we?
When Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, he doesn’t say,
“Hey you in that tomb over there, get up and come out!”
He calls Lazarus by name.
“Lazarus,” he says, “come out.”
Because who in all the universe could ignore the voice of God calling to
them? What could stop any of us from
answering the summons of God? Nothing. Not even death in this case.
God calls us by name and when He does, we know Him.
Today’s Gospel reading from Mark tells how Mary Magdalene
and the other women discover that Jesus’ tomb is empty. But I have to say that I prefer John’s
recounting over Mark’s. Mark’s Gospel
does not have Jesus appearing to the women.
But in John’s Gospel, Jesus is there and has a one on one moment with
Mary Magdalene that shows us just how important we are to God and how well He
knows us.
In John 20:16, Mary Magdalene is the first to see the risen
Jesus, but does not recognize him at first.
She mistakes him for the gardener.
Maybe the sun was in her eyes.
But she does not recognize him until he says one word … her name … Mary
and then her recognition is instantaneous.
God knows us.
This past week, at our Good Friday service here at Hope, we
were invited to hammer nails into a cross.
It’s not that I’ve never heard nails hammered into wood
before, but there was something different that night. The sound of each nail going into the
cross—it was painful. I closed my
eyes. It was hard not to be transported
back to that time, that day with Jesus at Golgotha. It was so painful to listen to that I thought
I would have to leave. I couldn’t bear
it.
And then something happened.
I told people later, the sound of hammering to me became the
sound of knocking.
And I was reminded of the verse in Revelation 3:20, where
Jesus says, “Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking.”
On Easter Sunday we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection, but the
story does not end there.
Easter is over.
But Jesus remains—standing at the door, knocking.
And, I believe, calling us by name.
Amen.
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