Ascension

A Name Above Every Name
by Frank Fisher, Obl OSB

The Reverend Lowell Striker
tells a story of two lawyers
who ran into a bad beginning
while they argued a case in court.
>From the first words
of their opening arguments
the two lawyers
 began calling each other names. 
The defense lawyer began the verbal duel
as he roared out,
 "You're a hare-brained shyster." 
The prosecutor
returned the favor
as she shouted,
"And you're
 an ambulance-chasing cockroach." 

Rapping for order,
 the judge calmly looked at the two opponents
and  said,
 "Now that you two
 have properly named each other,
 you may proceed with the case." 

While they certainly behaved
 in a less than professional manner
the two lawyers in this story
deeply understood the importance
of names.
Names can deeply hurt,
and names can remarkably heal.
And from the earliest days
of human history,
people have somehow understood
a very import fact;
names
 have power.
A power we can perhaps come to understand,
as we look at how humans react
when they're confronted
with the Name
above every name.

The scroll unrolls slowly
in your trembling hands.
And as it unrolls,
you instinctively  and gently
 cradle its ancient and brittle parchment.
Your eyes slowly roam down the scroll's,
flowing lines of beautiful script
as you carefully reconsider your decision
to destroy this list.
A list of names
that was once so very precious to you.

For your name is Dimitri,
a citizen of the city of Ephesus.
The keeper
of that which is most sacred
to many of your fellow Ephesians.
After all
only you possess
and use
the scroll  of names.

As you stare at the names
you remember
how wonderful the scroll once seemed
when your former master
first showed it to you.
It became even more wonderful
when he taught you how to use it.
For he taught you,
the magical powers
intertwined
with each and every
 name
 on the scroll.

Then,
unfortunately for your master
he taught you
a little too much.
You destroyed him
before he could realize
his soon to be fatal error.

Since that day
you've been on top of the world.
For with the power
of the names in your hand,
nothing in Ephesus
was denied to you.
But the day came
when something
shook you to the core
And on that day
you learned every name
on your precious scroll of names
was nothing
when compared to a Name
you'd never before
 heard named.

The memory of that day
still shines clearly in your mind.
You remember
you were making your way 
through the forum
when you saw an excited crowd gathering.
Curiously,
you pushed your way through them
until you could see
there was a trial going on.
You listened 
to the trial's proceedings,
and the comments 
of the people around you,
until you understood 
the man on trial
had just been found guilty
of naming a name.
He'd declared
his allegiance belonged
not to the empire
or to any of the named god's
of Ephesus.
Instead
he named himself a Christian;
one who named the Name
of Jesus the Christ.

You remembered
the look on the man's face
 as you watched
the judge arise from his seat
to pronounces the sentence.
For naming this name
the man would suffer
death by the sword.
You looked at the prisoner
expecting to see 
a face filled with terror.
Instead,
you saw a smile on his face
as he opened his mouth wide
and shouted,
"thanks be to God."

Even more clearly
you remembered
as the man 
was led away to his doom,
the crowd followed him.
And as they reached the edge of the forum
you heard them call out 
almost joyfully,
"let us go
to die with him."

You stood there
staring 
until the crowd disappeared.
You'd never heard of this name
called Jesus
but something inside you
told you 
you must find out
 about this name. 
You had to know
how to use a name
powerful enough
to lead a human
to rejoice 
on the way to death.

Cautiously
you began asking questions
of those you knew.
The search so consumed you
you even forget
about this scroll 
you hold so dear.

Finally 
one your own slaves
admitted to being a Christian.
She told you the wonderful
story of Jesus of Nazareth
the risen Christ.
Vouched for by your slave
you began to attend services,
anxious for the time
when you too 
could claim the power
behind this new 
and wonderful name.
But until you'd finished 
your three years of study
you were excluded 
from most of the service.

But at last
it was Easter Sunday.
The day for your Baptism.
Wearing a robe of dazzling white,
and with your hair still dripping
from the water of new life,
you were welcomed
into whole service.
You prayed
 with all of God's people,
ate the holy meal
and received the kiss of peace.

You found there
 in the midst of Christ's people
there was indeed power
in the name of Jesus.
And like the power
that consumed your former master,
it was a power
that could consume you.
For it destroyed the person
you used to be.

It was a power
leading you to weakness
instead of strength.
A power making humble
what was once 
proud in you.
A power
leading you 
to give up all that you had
to follow the Name of Jesus
wherever it might lead you.

You smile at all these memories
as you hold the scroll
 in your hands now.
Your former slave,
now your sister
 in Jesus Christ,
squeezes your hand
as if to lend you strength.

You smile back at her
in appreciation 
of her gesture of love.
But you know 
you've all the strength you need.
 Then your hands 
rip the scroll of names
to shreds.
Shreds falling from your hands
 into the fire on your hearth.
And as the shreds burn
your voice once more names
the Name 
above every name.

Jesus.

The paper unfolds slowly
in your trembling hands.
And as it unfold,
you instinctively
and gently cradle its importance.
Your eyes slowly roam down the paper?s,
flowing lines
 of Germanic script,
as you carefully 
reconsider your decision
to destroy this paper;
a paper  once
very precious to you;
a paper proclaiming
you to be
a one-hundred percent Aryan,
and a member
 in good standing
of the Nazi party.

For your name is Hans
and you're a citizen of Germany,
a country that's lately
taken on the additional title
of the Third Reich.
The changes overtaking your country
seemed marvelous to you.
For as the name of Adolph Hitler
was named by more and more
of your county's people,
your land 
seemed to rise to greatness.
And as you saw goose stepping Nazis
marching through the streets
you felt a thrill of pride
run right through you.
There was something about them,
and about the name 
they named,
making you hunger
after the power
proclaimed in that name.

So you too 
joined the Nazi party.
You too
 marched through the streets
 of Berlin
and heard the thunder
of the cheering crowds.

Your only regret
was that the party
chose to send you
 so far from Berlin.
But you knew even here
near your county's eastern border
your service to Hitler's name
was important
 to your nation 
and your party.

But your illusions
about the name
you'd chosen to name
were shattered one day
as you walked  in the forest
 near your home.

For as you walked
you heard a noise ahead of you
 in the wood.
It sounded like the voices of men
and the grinding of heavy machinery.
Cautiously you moved closer
until you saw
the men were Nazis
just like you.
They seemed to have just finished
 digging a long ditch.
You watched with increasing agitation
as the Nazis led a group
 of naked women and children
up to the ditch.

The men backed away.
You heared
the sound of gunfire
as the people at the ditch
crumbled and fell.

You stifled your tears,
and your nausea,
as you stumbled toward home.
You ran through
your doorway
and you stopped only for a moment
to slam and lock it

Here,
behind that door
you thought 
you would be safe.
Here behind that door
 you'll stay
as you consider
 these new implications
of the name you'd named.
You sat up thinking 
late into the night.
Then just as you were about to try
to get some sleep,
there was  a sound 
at the door.
You heard a weak knock
and what might have been 
a child sobbing.
Hesitantly
you opened the door a crack,
and saw on the step
a very young girl.
She was naked,
drenched with blood
and obviously terrified.

Somehow she'd
survived the massacre
and hid under the bodies
until the darkness.

You wanted to scream
out in fear.
All you'd wanted
was your country's greatness.
But the  illusion
 of greatness had left you.
And you knew
 if you brought this girl
 into your house
your fellow Nazis would find out.
And when they found out
you knew 
it would be you
and your family
who'd stand by the ditch.

You were 
 about to slam the door
when something 
poped into your mind.
You remembered some words
your mother had read to you 
again add again
They were words
from your family's Bible.
Words that didn't mean anything
 until now.

The words told you
that there was a Name
above all rule
all authority
and all dominion.
They told you
there was a name
above
 every name.

Your hands take up the paper
nameing you an Aryan 
and a Nazi
and they  rip it into tiny shreds.
Then you tenderly
 pick up the child
and carry her inside.

And as you carry her
your lips breath
the Name
above every name.

Jesus.

The paper unfolds slowly
in your trembling hands.
And as it comes out 
of its protective envelope,
you instinctively
and gently cradle 
the expensive stationary
upon which it's printed.
Your eyes slowly 
roam down the paper's
precise lines 
of computer generated figures
as you careful
ly reconsider your decision
to destroy this list.
A list of names
once so very precious to you.

For your name is Susan.
You're a citizen
 of the United States of America
in the year 2004.
And the list before you
is a report from 
your stock broker.
 It contains
the names of corporations.
Corporations
whose name you name
as you worship
at the temple on Wall Street
called 
the New York Stock Exchange.

You didn't always name
the names 
you do now.
Once
 you were like 
any other person
whom you?d meet on the street.
And once 
you wouldn?t have known 
the difference
between a corporation's annual report
 and your children's
 report card.

But all that changed one day
when a friend told you 
about the money 
she was making
in the stock market.
She told you
how her once prosaic bank account
had tripled
 over the course of months
as she had invested in the stock
of corporations
with the fastest growing profits.

Excitedly you called your bank.
Your face beamed
as you made arrangements to transfer
 all your free cash
to your friend?s broker.
Then you simply sat back
and you watched
 your profits roll in.

Soon it seemed like
you?d made your way
onto the fabled "easy street".
The corporations 
in which you'd invested
doubled and tripled their profits.
You happily spent
 a small portion of your dividends
on your huge new house
and on the new Lexus
parked in its driveway.

Yes
 everything was wonderful.
But some things often nagged
 at the back of your mind.
Things like 
reports
 of how these corporations
gained profitability 
by closing down
their facilities 
in the United States.
Things like
 the sight of the corporation's former workers
standing by the side of the road
with signs saying
"will work for food".
And things like
television documentaries
showing how these corporations
use and abuse
the poor of other countries
as a cheap and disposable
labor pool.

Those things continued to bother you.
But you turned your back 
on them
and embraced your new income 
and lifestyle.

That is,
you did,
until you ran into another friend.
You'd found her
when you'd driven past a homeless shelter.
You passed the same shelter
 several times a week.
Usually you went on by
while you looked down your nose
at the "do gooders"
who wasted all their time
with these human dregs.

But this time,
something made you stop
and really look
at the people
 who stood in line
while waiting 
for the shelter to open.
Your friend was among them.

Hurriedly you parked your car
and ran to meet her.
You embraced her
and almost cried
when you saw 
the beaten look in her eyes.
Then you did cry
when she told you her story.

One of the corporations
in which you?d invested
had decided that after thirty years
she was no longer
 a means
 to profitability.
She'd found she was too old
to find another job.
Soon she'd lost everything
and had found herself
 on the street.

Sobbing
you went inside with her
when the doors of the shelter opened.
You watched the people
 who slept there
and you talked with those
who ran the shelter.
And you asked these people
why they came to help
those whom society
 had discarded.

They told you
they did what they did
because of a Name.
A Name above every name.
A Name leaning them
to love 
all
 of their brothers and sisters.
A Name teaching them
the only real way to happiness
was to embrace
 what society 
named
 unimportant.

You came back to the shelter 
every day for weeks.
You worked 
with the people there
and you came to love
 as they loved.
You came to care 
as they cared.
You began to Name 
the name
they named.

You're back at the shelter 
again today.
And you smile now
as you have not smiled in years.
Your smile widens
as you pick up the report
from your stock broker.
Then you rip it 
into tiny pieces.

And as you watch the pieces 
blow away in the breeze
you open your check book
and write out a check to the shelter.
A check taking everything 
you've gained
in the stock market,
and giving it 
to the care of the One
whose Name 
you now name.

And as your write,
you again 
whisper the Name,

Jesus.

The paper unfolds slowly
in your trembling hands.
You instinctively
and gently cradle 
it next to you.
For your name is your own.
And you look 
in your mind's eye
at a list of names you name;
list containing
 the names
dominating your life;
names  determining
 your coming and going;
names holding
 the upmost force over you.

As you look
 at this list of names,
you carefully consider the power
these names
 hold over you.
And as you consider
you ask yourself 
what price you 
and others pay
for your naming 
of these names.

Then you wonder
 if you dare 
name another Name;
a Name 
far above all rule
and authority and dominion;
a Name 
above every name.

You wonder 
if you'll hold to
 the names 
you now name.
Or if you?ll take the risk 
of following
the one Name 
that can transform you
and all you are.

Will you hold 
to your names?
Or will you rip them up,

and whisper the Name
above every name?

Jesus.

To God alone be glory.

Amen.

(Comments to Frank at PresbyCat@CS.COM.)
Interim Pastor, Central Presbyterian of New Lenox, IL