A Fitting Name
You are the beloved. Even when you don't feel like it.
Click the triangle on the right above to listen to the reflection. Make sure to check out the other info farther down in today’s newsletter.
Somewhere along the way my name changed. I dimly recall elementary school kids calling me Jacob. My birth certificate bears that name, and it’s on all my official documents. When my mom was expecting, she had put Jacob at the top of her boy-name list after thumbing through the Bible.
Around middle school somebody called me Jake. Then everybody started calling me Jake. I liked the name right away. But I felt a little awkward about it. As if I weren’t cool enough for the name. But eventually, I started introducing myself as Jake and even putting Jake Owensby at the top of exams and homework assignments. The name had come to fit, somehow.
I don’t subscribe to the idea that our names point to our enduring inner essence. It’s never occurred to me to say to someone, “You’re not really a Melvin” or “You’re not an authentic Barbara.”
Nevertheless, the change in my name coincided with a time of profound change in my circumstances and, more importantly, in my relationship with the risen Christ and my identity.
You see, my mother had fled her abusive husband, my father. We traded a rural South Georgia address for one in metropolitan Atlanta. Crucially, I enrolled in a nearby parochial school. At that school, in that parish, and under the kind guidance of one of the nuns, the risen Christ had begun to get very real for me.
Shame had haunted me in my previous, rural home. People saw me as an outsider. As a misfit with a profound speech impediment whose divorced mother had a foreign accent. I suppose I took them at their word. I came to believe that I wasn’t worthy of respect.
My new setting offered accepting friends, encouraging teachers, and, crucially, a source of meaningful, sustained faith formation. My shame gradually receded with a rising awareness of Christ’s love for me. In retrospect, I see that Christ’s love for me was just beginning to be the source of my identity. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that I accepted a new name for myself at the same time.
Christ’s love is an unwarranted gift. It infuses me with a dignity that doesn’t rely on anyone else’s opinion of me. Neither does it hinge on my economic circumstances, my looks, or my achievements. It cannot be diminished by my most glaring flaws or embarrassing failures. I am simply the Beloved. Period.
Along with his gift of love Jesus gives us a commandment. Love others like I love you. In other words, recognize the dignity that Christ’s love has already given others. Love them as Christ’s beloved, whether they recognize it or act like it or not.
As it turns out, loving in a non-transactional way in our everyday life is essential to experiencing the full-hearted life we want. And we repeatedly fall short of the mark in small and big ways.
In those early years in Atlanta I was beginning to learn two basic practices for opening myself to the love of Christ in my everyday life: saying I’m sorry and saying Help. To put that in long form: I keep trying and failing. Help me do what I cannot do on my own. Help me to love as Christ has loved me.
We say something similar in the Baptismal Rite of my own Episcopal Church. In the course of the liturgy, we’re asked if we will respect the dignity of every human being. We respond, “I will, with God’s help.”
In other words, we want to love like this. But it’s a struggle. In fact, it’s really beyond us. I mean, just look at what we humans do over and over:
• Call each other unflattering names.
• Allow others to live in squalor or to go without food or medical care.
• Ignore the lonely or shun strangers.
• Abandon the weak or mock the different.
• Wage war on one another.
In these and thousands of other ways we all too routinely disrespect the dignity of others.
When Jesus taught us to love our neighbor, his point was not that we were supposed to follow some rule to finally get God’s acceptance. He was challenging us.
He was telling us what it would be like to be our true self: to love our neighbor as ourselves because we know that we are already loved. And he was telling us that we’ll only get there by habitually opening ourselves to the love that God is always already pouring out to us.
The story of Jesus’s baptism illustrates the point. Before Jesus begins his public ministry, John the Baptist dunks him in the River Jordan. When Jesus emerges from the water he hears God’s voice:
“You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” (Luke 3:22)
Jesus’s identity and his very existence are a response to God’s loving initiative. As Meister Eckhart put it, “My existence depends on the nearness and the presence of God.” To his very marrow Jesus is the beloved. And so he loves without reserve. Without hesitation. It’s who he is.
By analogy, we can hear Christ’s voice. Can experience his loving presence. Be who we truly are. His beloved. Whatever people may call us. Whatever the names on our birth certificates, our diplomas, or our book jackets, our name is Christ’s Beloved.
Initially, we may feel awkward about it. As if it’s not our real name. But over time, it will begin to fit.
You’re Invited
Next Thursday (1/16) I’ll be giving a talk about my new book A Full-Hearted Life at 7:00 p.m. CT at the School of Theology at Sewanee. You can register to join the livestream by clicking this link or by clicking the image below.
Lent is Coming. Looking for a Book?
Lent will be here before you know it. My new book A Full-Hearted Life includes questions at the end of each chapter for group or personal study. Click the button below to check it out:
You can learn about my other books (all designed for group and personal study) by clicking the button below:
Upcoming Speaking Events
Bishop Reynolds Forum, St. Andrew’s, Sewanee, January 16, 202
Book Reading, Sewanee School of Theology, January 16, 2025 (click here for livestream at 7:00 p.m. CST)
Preach, All Saints’, Sewanee, February 9 and Easter, 2025 (available via livestream)
Speaker, Diocese of Iowa Clergy Conference, February 18-20, 2025
Preacher and Speaker, Diocese of Louisiana Convention, Fall of 2025
You can schedule a virtual event or an in-person event with me by clicking the button below. My colleague Holly Davis will get back to you quickly.
Thinking about some of the names I've been called and how they've described my life: Nancy Jane, Sis, Mom, Nana, Fancy Nancy, Wifey, Child of God, and best of all My Friend.
My name is Beth Ann and in 7th grade another Beth Anne moved to town. Suddenly at school I became Beth. It’s only my cousins and Mother who know my name. It’s like the scent of fresh baked cookies in my childhood home - this love of being called by my name. In those moments I am refreshed, knowing who and whose I am — and loving wide open!