Epiphany 2, Year A
The Rev. Nigel Taber-Hamilton, Rector
Isaiah 49:1-7; Psalm 40; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9; John 1:29-42
When, in the mid-80's, I was interim rector of St. John's Episcopal Church, in Bedford Indiana - AKA "Stone City" since it provided the limestone for most of Washington D.C. and New York - I reintroduced an old tradition: on Shrove Tuesday, we would have a pancake supper.
This was the first year in a long time that the parish had had a pancake supper and so they needed to buy a few things.
One of the members - a good friend named Stewart Rariden - volunteered to purchase some of them. Now by his own admission Stewart had not lacked for much in his life, and so it did not occur to him, when he went out to purchase some pancake equipment, that budgeting might be a good idea.
On the established evening of Shrove Tuesday Stewart showed up with his new pancake dispenser. This handy device looked like a simple metal kitchen funnel and he told us proudly that he had purchased it because it put exactly the right amount of pancake batter on the hotplate.
"How much?" I asked.
"$250.00" he replied. For a moment there was stunned silence from everyone in the kitchen.
And so it was that, on that evening, for his profligate spending, Stewart was given a new first name. From that moment on he became known affectionately as "Pancake Rariden", thus enshrining for the parish a notable moment in its history, and reminding them all that Stewart should never, ever, be delegated to purchase any further equipment for the parish kitchen!
Today we hear a wonderful story about some other new names. One of them is given to Simon brother of Andrew: "Cephas" - in Greek that would be "Petros" which is where we get "Peter" from.
Anyone know what "Cephas" meant? It was the word for "rock". It was what's called a sobriquet, a nickname: "Rocky". From all we know about Peter's subsequent adventures with Jesus it was well-earned!
That it was used at this particular moment tells us that Andrew and Simon-named-Cephas most likely knew Jesus - and he them - much better than John's gospel suggests. They lived and worked in the same area Jesus lived and worked in, around the Lake of Galilee, after all - and the area around the Lake of Galilee in the first Century was a very small world - that's the only way that Jesus would have had knowledge enough to name call Simon so aptly "Cephas" - "Rocky".
And there's another two namings in this passage, isn't there. The first is from Andrew, who calls Jesus "Messiah" (which means "The Anointed One"). Anyone like to tell us all where the other naming is?
It comes from John the Baptist, and he applies it to Jesus: "Lamb of God". And not just any "Lamb of God", either, but the Lamb of God "who takes away the sin of the world!"
This is the first place in Christian theology that the title "Lamb of God" is used in connection with Jesus. It is, of course, deeply rooted in the Old Testament - it means the lamb sacrificed at the Passover as the Israelites escaped from Egypt.
Here, for the first time, Jesus is being equated with that lamb. Jesus is the lamb sacrificed to "take...away the sin of the world". Not "sins", notice, "sin" - not individual lapses, failures, moments, but all that separates us from God. Jesus' life and death represent the removal of anything that has prevent us from reaching out to God - the walls of separation have come down.
It's up to us to take that gift of new possibilities and do something with it.
We won't be able to do that if we continue to live in the old ways. And so, John reminds us, we require that something change - and here, in this passage, we're told what: new names means new identities.
Finding those new identities is based on the invitation at the end of this passage: to "come and see" (verse 39). Ultimately, these words represent an invitation to leadership.
The calling for the participants in the story is to claim identity to its fullest, and to use it to follow Jesus (verse 43), to do God's work, they are not particularly prepared, or comfortable or, with Peter, skilled. Yet eventually Peter - Rocky - grew into his identity, became the rock for the early Church that Jesus saw in him.
The Gospel of John is issuing that invitation to us - to grow into our identity as faithful believers. We're being called to claim this new name and new identity to its fullest, even if we don't feel particularly prepared or comfortable.
There will be times when we are called to be a "lamb of God" for others. That, surely, is some of the truth in the story of people like Martin Luther King Jr., but its our truth also. There will be times when, by our actions, or words, or simple presence we help others demolish the walls that separate them from the fullness of life that God has promised us - the walls that, ultimately, separate us from God.
And there are times when we are called to accept that others will be a "lamb of God" for us, will help break down our walls of separation, help us overcome those walls that separate us from others and from God.
New names mean new identities. This Epiphany season we're being invited to explore those new identities, that we might more fully enter into the identity that God has always held for us: one of his children.
And that is Good News! Amen.
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