“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” (Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2). Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet meet and fall in love in Shakespeare’s lyrical tale of “star-cross’d” lovers. They are doomed from the start as members of two warring families. Here Juliet tells Romeo that a name is an artificial and meaningless convention, and that she loves the person who is called “Montague”, not the Montague name and not the Montague family. Romeo, out of his passion for Juliet, rejects his family name and vows, as Juliet asks, to “deny (his) father” and instead be “new baptized” as Juliet’s lover. This one short line encapsulates the central struggle and tragedy of the play (http://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes/what-s-name-that-which-we-call-rose July 30, 2011).
The man or angel who wrestled with Jacob the whole night long also asks: “What is your name?” It seems odd to me that the two had wrestled the whole night long with neither one knowing the name of the other, for Jacob also asks the angel: “Please tell me your name.” Names identify us. Perhaps your name is a family name or has some other special significance to your family.
Late last year Amanda learned that she was pregnant – and not with one child but with three. Celebration at the new life that was coming to be. The doctor, however, had a cautionary word for Amanda and her husband. He warned them that birthing triplets is a great risk. Often, he counseled them, not all survive. He suggested that they not name their unborn children as a way of protecting them, just a bit, from the possibility that one or more might not make it. He suggested they name them 1,2 and 3 or A, B and C if they really need some specific identifier before birth. Amanda and her husband decided to follow the doctor’s advice and called their unborn babies A, B, and C. Time passed and Amanda was delivered. And all three lived and are thriving, praise God. The first is named Andrew. The second is named Benjamin. And the third is named Charles. A, B, and C.
We see in several Bible stories that people’s names change when they encounter God. Abram becomes Abraham. Sarai becomes Sarah. Jacob becomes Israel – the name of the people chosen by God to give witness to God’s presence in the world. In our service of baptism, we ask that the parents or god-parents to name this child” when it is an infant being baptized. When the person being baptized is older, the godparents name the person to the celebrant. It is a way of proclaiming to the world and to those gathered to celebrate the baptism of the person into the body of Christ. Names are an identifier. They carry with them context – just think of all those books about baby names and the thought that goes into naming of a child. In the early church, people took a new name when they were baptized. This still happens in some cultures- the name change at a time of movement from childhood into adulthood signifies the change in a person’s life, status and place in community.
So, Jacob asking the name of the angel with whom he had wrestled the night long is not then an unusual thing. It was for him a way to mark and to remember the struggle. And the angel asking Jacob for his name becomes the entry point by and through which a whole group of individuals ultimately come to be a people. Jacob becomes Israel.
We often think of Abraham as the father of Israel. And Abraham is a bedrock of our faith story. Abraham is the one God called to leave his home and travel to a new land. Abraham is the one whose descendants number as many as the grains of sand or the stars in the sky. But Jacob is also special. Jacob has not lived a blameless life. He dressed up to deceive his father to receive his father’s deathbed blessing. He took his brother Esau’s birthright- demanding that Esau give up his birthright for a meal. He fled his home because he had been deceitful. And now Jacob prepares to re-enter his homeland. He sends his wives, his children and goods ahead of him. Jacob is now alone – alone to wrestle with his fears and perhaps his regrets. Alone to wrestle with the shape his life will take once he re-enters his homeland and comes face-to-face with the brother he previously wronged. And he wrestles all night long with a man – and, as we learn at the end of this text, also with God.
These two wrestle all the night long and it is as day breaks that the questions come: Who are you? What is your name? What is the meaning of this struggle? Jacob is changed forever by the night. He is no longer Jacob- the past is behind him now. He has met God face-to-face and lived to tell about it. Jacob has been blessed by God. But blessings also cost. Forever after Jacob will limp because he was struck in his thigh. Jacob can never forget the night of his wrestling with God – will he, won’t he- his limp is a perpetual memory that he struggled with God. God did not leave Jacob to his own devices. God entered into Jacob’s life at a time of aloneness- a time of struggle.
Terence Fretheim says that Jacob’s struggle with God “provides a gracious rehearsal for the actual life circumstance. To refuse to engage with God in that struggling moment denies oneself a God-given resource. To go through it with God before we go through it with others provides resources of strength and blessing for whatever lies in the wings of life” (The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume I, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 994),569). Jacob was blessed by God – a new name. A name that was to become the name of a whole people – Israel. Fretheim reminds us that when it comes to struggles in daily life, we can count on God’s mixing it up with us, challenging us, convicting us, evaluating us, judging us. We may have to place our life at risk, knowing that the one who loses life will find it. He believes that God honors the relationship both by engaging in the struggle in the first place and by persisting in that struggle through thick and thin. The most meticulous of preparations cannot guarantee a certain shaped for the future. God may break into life and force a new direction for thought and action (Id, 570). God enters our lives when we are open to God’s presence. God waits for us to call – to realize that God is divine but still desires to be intertwined in all that we do and all that we are.
Our relationship with God impacts our relationships with others. If we love God with all our heart, with all our mind and with all our soul, and if we believe that God created everything that is, and that all God created is good, it impacts how we treat others. God is not afraid of our doubts and our fears. God welcomes the chance to wrestle life’s questions with us. God asks Jacob: what is your name? God asks us: what is your name? Who are you? Do you belong to me? God is waiting for us to respond like Mary, the mother of Jesus did: “yes, Lord, here am I. Do with me as you will.” God is waiting for us at the break of day to say: “Here I am, Lord. Send me.”
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