2024-04-08
Brooke Strong
Sermon Text...
March 31, 2024, Easter Hamilton Coe Throckmorton
John 20:1-18 The Federated Church, UCC
Hi Tom. How ya doin, Ann? Dan, what’s up? Marilyn, nice to see you! So glad you’re here!
Some of you will remember the long-ago sit-com, “Cheers,” and its accompanying song, about a bar “where everybody knows your name.” There’s something about our names that is us. If someone calls your name on the street or in the mall, you’re going to turn to look—you can’t help it! In a real way, to be called by name is to be seen.
And not to be called by name is, in a sense, to be erased. In a scene some of you know from my young adulthood, I vividly remember attending the parting worship service at the church where my mother served as a minister for almost fifteen years. My brother was a respected TV sportscaster in the town in which my mother served, and I was trying to figure out who I was. When he and I arrived at church on that momentous day of my mother’s departure, the church greeter said to my brother with great enthusiasm, “Hi, Tim.” And then she looked at me and said, “And you must be the other son.” No name. And because it was such a raw time in my life, I felt like a nonentity.
When I was in college, I remember my roommate saying to me one day, “I’ve never really called people by their name. I’ve just said, basically, ‘What’s up?’ And what I’ve noticed lately is that if I do call them by their name—‘Hey, Andy, what’s up?’—they react differently to me. They perk up. They walk a little taller.” Pretty perceptive, I’d say.
There is much about the Easter story as the gospel of John tells it that is perplexing, intriguing, captivating. Two disciples in a footrace to the tomb. The stone rolled away from the entrance. A body vanished. Two angels appearing as Mary arrives and looks in. And then the gardener showing up. Or at least what Mary assumes is the gardener.
Then amidst Mary’s bafflement, the supposed gardener asks her why she’s crying and whom she’s looking for. Mary hasn’t the foggiest idea that this is the One she’s been following so intently. She looks at him and nothing registers. He speaks and she doesn’t have a clue who he is. Totally blank.
Until—he speaks her name: Mary. And once he speaks her name, she knows immediately who it is. She’s been seen. She’s been acknowledged. Now it’s a whole different ballgame. She knows without a doubt that this is the Messiah, the One who has given her life meaning and purpose. She’s not just a cypher to this figure. Now she knows that Jesus is, in some sense, still alive, that he knows her, and that she matters. And she knows it because she’s been called by name.
The sparkling and stunning magnificence of that resurrection moment is that, in being raised to new life, the Jesus those early disciples have known is still present to them, even after death. And present not just to them, but to us, as well. At the heart of this resurrection story is the conviction that not even death can thwart the deepest of all truths, that the risen Christ adores us, that the Holy One sees and notices us, that the Blessed One calls us by name. Even now. Even still. Yes, you, Jane. And you, Judy. And you, Cher. It’s not just I who is calling your name, either. It’s Holy God. It’s the grace-oozing Redeemer. It’s the Spirit of love. The God who gave us life treasures us.
The Living Christ, the very One who has been put to a shattering death, is the One who is risen and who lives again. Nothing could possibly undo and negate that person and force of grace and hope and love. And the stunning truth is that the Risen Christ gazes at us and calls by name. All of us. You. Me. Alive. Dead. Everyone.
The heart of our life together is being seen by the risen Christ. And what makes our life full and complete is when we extend that grace ourselves and see each other, in all our pain and joy, our misery and elation. It doesn’t take a genius to know that there are some in this sanctuary this morning who have been beaten, some who have been despised, some who have been ignored, some who have been taunted, some who have been shunned. It bears remembering that this is precisely what the human Jesus endured in the last week of his life. He himself was vilified and erased.
And during all of that, God held him, and saw him, and knew him. There was not a moment of that gruesome week in which God was not addressing Jesus, embracing him, calling him by name. And the marvel of the resurrection is that this is precisely what the risen Christ is now doing with us. You’re fighting an illness? The risen, healing Christ calls you by name. You’re teased at school for who knows what? The risen, adoring Christ calls you by name. You’ve been ghosted by a friend or family member? The risen, embracing Christ calls you by name.
The heart of a life of faith is that we are seen and known
by the Holy One. The corollary of that is that we’ve been gifted with the opportunity to create together a community in which we see and know each other. Not just as casual acquaintances, but as the deep and committed friends we’re privileged to be. And in all our tenderness and vulnerability.
We, too, come alive as we join together in community and figuratively call each other by name. We know the risen Christ in our midst as we really see each other. As we ask about each other’s health challenges, as we check in with how the lacrosse season or the dance class is going, as we remember the birthday or the nerve-wracking presentation that’s coming up—as we take in the fullness of another person’s life and metaphorically call them by name, it’s in those moments, those conversations, those encounters that the risen Christ is richly manifest. “I see you, I notice you, I care about you,” we say to each other.
Not only that, but in a community that takes seriously the wisdom and wonder of calling each other by name, this calling-by-name is extended beyond the walls of the community itself. It recognizes that the whole world is our community, and that there’s a deep brokenness as long as there’s anyone who doesn’t know the beauty of being seen and known and called gently and affectionately by name.
While Christ calls you and me by name, Christ also calls by name the one we’ve failed to even see. Maybe it’s the member of the lawn crew. Maybe it’s the one bussing our table. Maybe it’s the last sub on the team bench. Maybe it’s the toddler next door. Maybe it’s the elder now confined to the full-care facility. All around us are those Christ calls by name whom we so often fail to even see. An Easter faith asks us to see more expansively, to care more widely, to love more fully—to embrace others as the risen Christ embraces us.
Mary and I had a contractor doing some work at our house this past week. David told us a young man lives with their family. One day as David was driving his daughter Emily to school, Emily saw this boy walking by the side of the road. She recognized him from school, and knew that he lived one town over. It was a long walk to school for him. It was pouring raining that day, and the boy’s shoes were full of holes. So at Emily’s behest, David picked him up and drove him to school. And he said to the boy, “What’s your name?” “Caleb,” said the boy. “Caleb,” said David, “I want you to call me whenever you need a ride to school.” David learned that Caleb’s parents struggled with drug addiction and couldn’t care adequately for their son. “Now Caleb,” said David later, “if you need a place to stay, you are welcome to stay with us.” And Caleb moved in. And David says he’s been a huge addition to their home. When David asks someone to take out the trash, it’s Caleb who jumps up and does it. Caleb has been seen and known. He’s been called by name. Just as the risen Christ calls each of us by name, so we are beckoned to be messengers of Christ and to call each other by name.
Over sixty years ago, the Black writer James Baldwin published a collection of essays called Nobody Knows My Name. Theologian Cameron Murchison, in commenting on that book title, says it “suggests the profound truth that the [Black] experience in the context of the dominant white culture of America is . . . that of not having one’s name known and called. When nobody knows or calls [a person’s] name, [they stand] outside the embrace of the surrounding community. When [their] name is known and called, [though, they’re] enfolded in community” (Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 2, p. 380).
When people who are different from us are reviled and belittled for their views, their names are not being called. When transgender people are relegated to the sidelines, and called by their dead names, and mocked and taunted for their true identities, their proper names are not being called. When migrating people are dismissed by politicians and citizens as non-people, their names are not being called.
The risen Christ calls all of us by name. All of us. And Christ beckons us to do the same—to see each other, to honor each other, to call each other by a name that blesses and adores and cherishes every single one.
A Federated member shared with me a story told by Tony Campolo. New York Times columnist David French retells it: “When I was a young law student . . ., an evangelist and professor named Tony Campolo came to speak to [our school]. The story he told helped reframe my life.
“[One night,] Campolo was eating out very late in an all-night diner when a group of women who were obviously [sex workers] came inside. One of the women, named Agnes, said her birthday was the next day and observed that she’d never had a birthday party in her life. Campolo overheard the conversation, and asked a man behind the counter if the women came in every night. He said yes.
“The next night, Campolo brought some simple decorations, hung them up, and threw Agnes a surprise birthday party in that diner. She cried tears of joy and ended up taking the cake home, untouched. It was the first birthday cake she had ever received. After she left, Campolo prayed with the people who remained in the diner, and one of the employees asked him what kind of church he belonged to.
“Campolo’s answer was perfect: He said he belonged to the kind of church that gives a party for a [sex worker] at 3:30 a.m. [Simply] because he cared for Agnes. He threw that party for her before he knew how she’d respond, before he knew whether she’d leave the streets and before he’d had a chance to say anything at all to her about Jesus. The party itself spoke to her more loudly than any words could have” (“‘He gets us.’ Do we get him?” Feb. 15, 2024).
Christ is risen. You’re Martine, you’re Linnea, you’re Jeff, you’re Melinda. Christ is risen, and calls you by name. And beyond these walls, and in the great cloud of witnesses, are Caleb and Agnes and Domenica and Laurent and Wayne and Sasha and Midori. You and they and I are precious and holy. Christ is risen, and calls every single one of us by name and treasures us and holds us close. Which is why we sing, “Hallelujah!”