What’s in a Name?

 

I summon you by name and bestow on you a title of honor, though you do not acknowledge me. (Isaiah 45:4)

 

        These words were spoken for the benefit of Cyrus, king of Persia, who conquered Babylon in the 6th century B.C. and then permitted Israelite families who had been captive there for fifty years to return to their homeland. Cyrus was not a believer in the God of Israel and had only political and economic reasons for his acts. Nonetheless, the prophet and people saw him as a hero, an unwitting servant of God, and gave him a title of honor: Cyrus the Liberator.

        Titles used to mean something, but today informality rules. Hardly anyone uses even simple titles like “Mr.” or “Mrs.” anymore. New acquaintances are immediately addressed on a first-name basis. So a telemarketer was taken aback the other day when I stopped her from calling me by my first name.  “We don’t know each other that well yet,” I said.

Titles still have significance to me. In the old Swedish immigrant community that was my heritage, titles were added to names just to distinguish one Olson from another. There seemed to be a shortage of surnames, and one didn’t want to confuse Model T Anderson (who drove Fords) with Packard Anderson (who wouldn’t be caught dead in one—though his wife rode to choir practice with Mrs. Model T). My grandfather was known as Texas Johnson because of where he had lived as a boy, and it distinguished him from Seventeen-Years-in-Alaska Johnson who obviously boasted too much about his missionary experience. Curtain-stretcher Swanson took out a loan with Big Money Swanson (both did well on the deal), and of course Gravestone Peterson sold you his wares after Gravedigger Peterson had finished his work.

        I doubt that we’ll be returning to a more civil approach to names anytime soon, but how about at least adding some of that color as these old-timers did? I’m thinking of you, Tiger Johnson (red hair), Slapshot Schultz (hockey player), and Earlybird Livingstone (never late). How could a woman with the name of Sojourner Truth have anything but a meaningful life? How could a man called Possibility Brown find anything but hope, even in unfortunate circumstances and unlikely people.

        Cyrus the Liberator was a modest figure at best in world history. Yet twenty-five hundred years later he is remembered while a thousand other rulers more powerful than he have been forgotten. Whether or not our names live on after us, the effects of the encouragement we offer and the love we give surely will.

What title identifies you? Hopeful Jones…Faithful Smith…Craig the Peacemaker…Sharon the Befriender? There is something in a name.

 

 

 

Copies of Mike's book You Are Rich: Discovering Faith in Everyday Moments, a collection of sixty faith-related  meditations, can be ordered from Amazon or Barnes & Noble.