Testament, Volume 13 #5

Christ's Name Is Part of Who We Are

He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. --John 10:3b

A folk tale from the African nation of Angola tells of a young man who had four brothers. He met a young woman and married her. And when they came to his village to live, the custom was that she should cook some food and offer it to her husband's brothers. This she did, but her brothers-in-law would not eat her food until she could call them by name.

So she went home and took more food the next day, when the scene was repeated. The legend tells that a bird flew down and began to sing the four brothers' names. She ignored the bird at first and, annoyed by its noise, chased it away. The next day the bird returned as she was pounding roots for food. At last she listened to the bird and learned the names of her brothers-in-law. When the flour was ready and the food was prepared, she took plates full of food to her brothers-in-law, pointed to each one and told him his name. They laughed and accepted her food. They accepted her also. The relationship began by knowing their names.

We each have a name, and our name is important. It is part of our identity, of knowing who we are. It is part of our belonging to a family. None of us wants to be a nameless nobody, a number or a category. We want to be somebody!

To be known means to count for something. We are not forgotten. We have a place and an identity. In Washington, D.C., near the Lincoln Memorial heading towards the Capitol, is one of the most visited memorials in the United States. When the design for a memorial to the Americans who lost their lives in Vietnam was accepted, it was quite controversial at first. It doesn't stick up above the ground. Rather the walkway descends to it. But on the polished black granite set into the earth are the nearly 60,000 names of Americans killed or missing in that terrible war.

Visitors tend to be rather quiet. It is a strange and sobering feeling to see all those names, for you know that each name stands for a real person, and a real life lost. People stand quietly, or hug one another. They weep, or place a few flowers or a picture on the ground. But most of all they look for names, or for a very special name. And finding that special name, they reach up and touch it, as though somehow that brings them in contact with the loved one it represents. A few take out a piece of paper and place it over the name and with a crayon or pencil do a "rubbing" of the name so as to take the image and impression of it away with them. The name tells them, "Here is one we know, and will not forget, and nothing will steal that person out of our love."

John's Gospel gives us the image of the shepherd who does not herd the sheep as western shepherds do but leads them by his presence and the sound of his voice. This is the paradigm, or master model, of the relationship in which we stand with Christ. There is a relationship of care and trust between shepherd and sheep. He knows them by name.

We all need a place where we are known and cherished, where we are part of one another, and where we belong. That is why home is so important to us, for we belong there, and we are known there. And sometimes we are loved even in spite of ourselves. The church is like that, or ought to be. It is a family full of variety open to everyone. It is here that most of us received the name by which we have become part of this family. And it is here that we also began to call ourselves by the name of Christ--Christ-ian--and came to understand that as part of our identity. It is part of who we are. And it is within the church that we try to listen with the ears of our spiritual selves to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd. It is in the church, and in our homes, that we have learned to respond to his call and follow him--haltingly at times perhaps, but to follow nonetheless. And here we learn to entrust our lives to the Good Shepherd.

Who are we? We are the people known and loved by Christ. We call ourselves by his name, and we follow him and trust him. He gives us the gift of eternal life, and despite anything that may happen to us in this life, nothing and no one shall snatch us out of his hand.

Isidore H. Gorski is professor of religious studies at Campion College in Regina.