The Grace of a New Name--January 23, 2025

The Grace of a New Name--January 23, 2025

"For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, 

     and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, 

 until her vindication shines out like the dawn, 

    and her salvation like a burning torch. 

The nations shall see your vindication, 

    and all the kings your glory; 

and you shall be called by a new name 

   that the mouth of the LORD shall give." (Isaiah 62:1-2)

Some of the bravest people I know are the ones who have reinvented themselves completely, even to the point of going by a new name and new identity.  They continually teach me what the prophet means when he speaks of God calling us by a new name that somehow also reveals our truest selves.

I say this as someone who typically only makes incremental changes in my own life--and even then, pretty slowly and often with great internal turmoil.  I tend to get the same haircut every time I go to the barber, buy new shoes or jeans that replace my worn-out ones as closely as possible to the previous pair, and stick to the same set of familiar scents for shampoo and soap.  I like my morning routine--same glass of grapefruit juice while unloading the dishwasher, and same travel cup of coffee to take to work--and I like the beats of consistency throughout my day and week. In other words, I am not typically one to launch into personal reinventions... at all.

But I know folks who have.  I know people who went away to college and came through it, not only with their horizons broadened but with a whole new sense of self.  I know folks who came to decision they didn't want to be known by an old name anymore but found a new one that fit them better.  I know people who answered the call to ministry after putting in full careers in some other field and completely rearranged their lives and their old identities to go where they were certain God was leading them.  And I can only imagine the courage it takes to make those kinds of changes and step into a new reality.  And all of it begins with the brave realization that we do not have to be defined by where we have come from, what we have done, or what someone else has said about us.  It begins with the leap of faith that is willing to let what God says about us be more definitive of our identity than anything that has come before.  Even if it is a whole new name, and with it, a whole new sense of self.

And to be honest, it happens in the Bible more often than we realize.  Not just the dramatic turn of events from being a "notorious sinner" to a "striving saint," and not even just the sea-change of vocation like fishermen and tax collectors who are called to become apostles for Jesus, but deep-down-to-the-bone changes of identity.  There's Abram and Sarai who are given new starts and new promises, signified by new names, Abraham and Sarah.  There's Jacob, who had been stuck with the old identity chained to his name, which means "usurper," who is given the new name Israel ("strives with God") and a new identity to go with it.  Simon gets the nickname Peter and the new calling to be the "rock" (the name "Peter" means "rock" in the Greek), and of course Saul of Tarsus starts going by Paul when he is turned around from persecuting the early church to spreading the news of Jesus to the Gentile world.  You can't go too far in the Bible before you bump into another story of someone being given a new identity and even a new name because God was daring them to become a new creation.  And maybe when God calls you by a new name, the new identity leaps into being like God calling to the light when there had only been darkness before in the beginning.  Maybe the whole history of the universe is the story of God calling each of us, each being, and each creation, by a succession of new names.

And that's the same kind of bold, beautiful moment happening here in the words of Isaiah 62, words that many of us heard this past Sunday in worship.  Speaking to people who are still defeated and despairing in the wake of exile, God gives a word of hope.  The old identity of the people (symbolized by their city, Zion, another name for Jerusalem) is given the promise of a new beginning, the prophet says, because God will give them a new identity.  "You shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the LORD shall give," the prophet says.  It is an utter gift of grace that when we find ourselves in a dead end, God speaks new possibilities we could not achieve ourselves.  But it does require great courage to step out in faith and believe what God says about us in the face of what our past, our inner monologue, or other people say about us.  It takes great trust in God to believe that we are who God says we are, and to answer when God calls each of us by a new name.

I don't know what the details of your story are. I don't know what past mess-ups you wish you could leave behind, but are afraid or unable to let go of.  I don't know what parts of yourself have been foisted on you by others, that you wish you could release.  I don't know what new directions you are feeling called to.  And I don't know if there is something inside you that has been feeling unsettled, like you were waiting for someone, even the living God, to finally call you into a new identity and call you by a new name.  But I know that's the sort of thing the Bible announces that God just might do.  And I know that when it happens, and at last you hear a voice calling you by a name that is different and yet somehow summons forth who you were really meant to be all along, something beautiful and holy is happening.

Maybe today our work is to listen for the voice of God, and to be ready when God calls us by that new name, to let God transform us into who God says we are meant to be.

Lord God, you who have called light out of darkness and called your people into new identities and new hopes, call to us now, and make us brave enough to believe your word when you say we are your new creations.