What’s in a name?
A name…Everyone has one. But what does it do? What is its purpose? Have you ever heard the song, A Boy Named Sue, by Johnny Cash? In this song the late Mr. Cash entertains us with the story of a boy with the unfortunate name of Sue. This poor boy is treated as weak and inferior because of his name. His own distaste for his name gives his life purpose. He sets out to destroy his father as a way of avenging the hardships he has suffered on account of his name. For the boy named Sue, his name labeled him for others, and it gave him his life’s path—what he did with his life. But of course this is just a song. But in the song Mr. Cash has stumbled onto some truth.
Our names do in fact have some influence on us; they identify us and describe who we are. My name, for example, Richard, means powerful ruler. (Yeah, right.) And this name was used by several kings of England the most famous of which was Richard the lionhearted during the crusades. The idea of a powerful ruler is an attempt to describe and define the person.
Names do not only identify character traits, they can also describe what we do or who we are. The name Taylor originated as identifying a person as actually being a tailor. Do you know anyone who has the last name of Baker? A distant relative of theirs was a baker. What about names like Johnson, or Anderson? These actually describe someone as being John’s son or Ander’s Son
Our titles and names describe us and identify us. This has always been the case. There is even an old superstition that to know someone’s name is to have power over them. This is the understanding behind the story of Rumplestiltzkin. By guessing his name the princess had power over him and did not have to give him her child. Our names are important they identify who we are and describe what we do.
From the very beginning names have identified and described people. For Adam and Eve titles and names were very important. Adam simply means man. And Eve means life. Adam and Eve mark the origin of human life and their names bear that fact. But their title goes beyond just identifying them as living humans. Our lesson today also reveals what it means to be called man or woman.
Genesis 2:22 states that woman was created from man—from his rib in fact. This means that men and women are made the same. We were created from the same materials. Men and women are equals among the rest of creation. Adam recognizes this fact immediately. Verse 23 shows Adam saying, “This is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. He even gives her a name similar to his own. They are woman and man. God created them as a pair, this further identifies them.
The next verse describes man and woman as being joined as one flesh. This illustrates that men and women complete each other. This is the basis for marriage but it is so much more. It is the fundamental unity between humans. Men need women and women need men.
The ways men and women complement and compete each other is clear from our physiological and psychological differences. Wait…hold on a second, I thought you just said men and women were equals. We are equals, we are equals in our status, in our very nature and place in the world but God has also designed us to have different characteristics to better suit each other. These differences have nothing to do with status and everything to do with completing the relationship between men and women. The point is, when God created woman, he created man’s equal, man’s partner, he did not create a slave for man or a beast of burden. No he created an equal and made their union a further completion of two wholes.
This union of completion is illustrated no more clearly than in marriage. We often use verse 24 in marriage ceremonies. The connection that marriage brings is illustrated further in Matthew 19:6: what God has joined let no man separate. God’s perfect design for marriage is the joining of a man and woman in a bond only separable by God, at death. When I think about depth of the marriage bond I am reminded of the words of C.S. Lewis in his book, A Grief Observed. In this book he writes about the emotions he felt after losing his Wife. He compared the loss of a spouse to the loss of a leg. His wife was a part of him, and now he would never be the same. We see the same loss in anyone who has lost a spouse no matter how they lose them. Marriage is a clear reminder and illustration of the way men and women are created as equal complements to each other.
This is all fine and good but if you remember we said that a name also describes a person’s occupation, or what they do, so what does being man and woman have to do with how we conduct ourselves. Along with showing the way men and women complete each other our lesson today also sheds some light onto the occupational significance of being called man or woman. Genesis 2:15 says, “God put the man in the Garden to work it and take care of it.” There you have, right there. Man’s occupation is to care for God’s garden, God’s creation. Man is man to work, to serve the world. And so is woman, when God said he was going to make a helper he is describing the occupation. God is not just suggesting that woman is to help man. Rather, he is saying that woman is a helper just as man is a helper. God says, “I will make a helper like man.” This is describing man and woman as helpers for creation-for the world.
God had a specific purpose for humanity. Being called man and woman means we are created: to tend to the world—the things God has created. Our very identification as humans means we are designed to work. Man and woman were made for each other and they were made to care for God’s creation. But this is before the fall. So it was not work for them. It was not toil. It was loving service.
So if men and women are equals, created to serve the world, where has this idea of male dominance or in some cases even female dominance come from? And where has the drudgery and labor that is associated with work and service come from? The answer of course is sin. Sin has broken our world. And the result of this brokenness affects even our view of the world and our relationships with each other.
Sin has distorted how we interpret this section of Genesis. It has corrupted the way we understand our names—man and woman. This brokenness is evident in men who see women as inferior or less capable. It is seen where there’s violence in the relationship. It is evident in the way women are objectified in our culture. It is seen in our derogatory language used to describe sexuality and even the marriage relationship...and much more!
The brokenness of sin is seen in the way we are burdened with our jobs rather than seeing them as a way of serving others…which would be living up to our names as helpers of the world. Our sinfulness makes all work and service seem like undesirable labor. Sin is seen where parents, created to provide loving service for their children, pass on the brokenness through neglect and abuse, or when they’re just the opposite. Not disciplining children, not instilling morals in them, is not serving them. Not respecting you wife or husband is not serving them. Not helping your neighbor in every need (including whatever service you job provides) is not serving your neighbor. Every failure to live up to our original names of man and woman is sin. We could always be fulfilling the purpose of our titles better.
And though we continually fail to fulfill our names, there is someone who did not fail. There is someone who lived a perfect life of service to the World. This person is Jesus Christ.
Jesus, whose name means God Saves, provides us with the ideal fulfillment of humanity. Jesus lived a perfect obedient life to the will of God our Father. He lived a life of service to the world. Mark 10:45 says, “The Son of man came not to be served but to serve.” This is what God intended for man—to serve.
Our other lessons today show Christ’s service also. The lesson from Mark 10 shows us Jesus serving children. This is in a time and culture where children were seen as little better than slaves. Yet Jesus takes the time to serve them, as a man (human) is supposed to.
The lesson in Hebrews shows Christ serving all of humanity when it says that he suffered death so we don’t have to. That sounds like serving your neighbor doesn’t it? I don’t think you can serve someone more completely than by giving up your life for them. In fact, John 15:13 says, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” It sounds like Jesus has provided us with the perfect example of loving service for the world. Jesus provides the perfect look at what it means to be man or woman.
But he does still more. Jesus not only grants us eternal life through the forgiveness of our sins, and fulfills the title of Man perfectly; he also enables us to recapture our names. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” This tells us that when we have Christ we are recreated. We are given a new title– Child of God. And when we are baptized we are given a new name – Christian!
And do you know what our name Christian means? It literally means: to be Christ-like. So when our new name is combined with the real forgiveness and eternal life that comes with being a Christian we see some amazing changes.
As Christians, new, Christ-like creations, you are able to fulfill what it means to be Man and Woman. Christ has freed you from sin so that you have a new attitude toward serving. You are now free to see your jobs differently and to perform them well because you know you love your neighbors by doing so. You serve your neighbors with the love of Christ when you file tax forms effectively. You serve your neighbors with the love of Christ when you fix your harvester, or feed your cattle, or sheer your sheep. You serve your neighbor with the love of Christ when you change your infant’s diapers. You serve your neighbors with the love of Christ when you forgive your spouse instead of continuing the argument. You serve you neighbors with the love of Christ when you take out your trash and mown your lawn. Everything you do can be a way of caring for God’s creation and when you do anything with the love and forgiveness you have in Christ you are fulfilling your name as man, as woman, as Christian.
If we look back at the Johnny Cash song, we remember that Sue’s name shaped his whole life. He did the things he did because of his name. We are the same. We have been given the name Christian and because of what that signifies, what that identifies and describes about us—Christ—we do exactly what we were named to do—to love and serve the world.
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