True Names
Rev. JT Smiedendorf
March 16, 2025
Text: Genesis 32:24-31
24 Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26 Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” 27 So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then the man[a] said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel,[b] for you have striven with God and with humans[c] and have prevailed.” 29 Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. 30 So Jacob called the place Peniel,[d] saying, “For I have seen God face to face, yet my life is preserved.” 31 The sun rose upon him as he passed Peniel, limping because of his hip.
I want to call out a few names. I think you know these people.
Raise your hand if you do.
Cherilyn Sarkisian
Marion Morrison
Alphonso D’Abruzzo
No? How about these?
Allen Konigsberg
Sally Mahoney
Khrishna Banji
No? Hmmm… well how about…
Ramon Estevez
Carlos Ray
Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr.
Well, maybe you know them as Cher, John Wayne, Alan Alda, Woody Allen, Sally Field, Ben Kingsley, Martin Sheen, Chuck Norris, and John Denver.
These people changed their names for the purpose of persona, an entertainment persona for marketing. While names can be chosen in our culture by their sound and impression, names in ancient and tribal cultures often speak about qualities of the person and destinies of that person. Names could change and were even expected to change at key points of transition.
Our rich Scripture story today has a meaningful name change. Taken from Genesis, our tradition’s book of beginnings, this story about Jacob, Yah—koob in Hebrew, is part of the larger section of Genesis that deals with the lineage of Abraham and Sarah. Ya-koob, Jacob, is a grandson of Abraham and Sarah.
Yah-koob is a Hebrew word play that means heel grabber. As the tradition has it, Jacob came out right after his brother Esau, supposedly grabbing at his heel. And Jacob was destined to keep grabbing at Esau and what belonged to the elder brother Esau. Eventually, Jacob tricked Esau out of his firstborn birthright, his father’s blessing. Esau’s resulting rage and murderous intent precipitated Jacob’s quick escape from the family homestead and his living for years at some distance with his uncle. In those years, Jacob, who arrived with nothing but his clothes and a knapsack, grew a big family and a big family livestock business.
Now, in our story today, after many years, Jacob and his entourage are on a return to his home place where his brother Esau remained. Along the way, he sends messengers ahead to placate his brother, to offer words of peace and prosperity. Jacob’s messengers return and tell him that Esau is coming his direction with four hundred men. A familiar fear of his brother Esau returns to Jacob. He assumes that after what he did years ago that Esau is still angry and has come to destroy him. Jacob does the usual self-preservation strategies: Desperation prayer. Hiding some assets. Buying his way out. Finally, Jacob sends all of his family and belongings across the river and remains alone on the other side.
Here we arrive at our morning’s story: Jacob alone. Or is he? He encounters an unknown mystery figure. Their battle is epic. Imagine it: hour after hour, hands gripping and grasping, shoulders driving into shoulders, elbows grinding into jaws, legs clenching and struggling, lasting the night. And then, with the dawn breaking, Jacob asks for a blessing from this encounter, is given a new name, one with a new meaning. The heel grabber, Yah-koob, becomes the one who has striven with God and humans, Yis-rah-ail. Somehow the scheming opportunist becomes the progenitor of a nation. Somehow the confrontation with his fear, with death, with the unknown, with the Divine leads to transformation and the giving of a new name, which is meant to usher in a new way of living.
One of the great insights of postmodern thinking is raising awareness of power in relationships, and power in perspective making and taking. It asks, “From whose perspective is the story being told and who is doing the naming?” Understanding the power of naming as a power to shape our sense of possibility and our relationship to power structures reveals opportunities for change. It leads us, collectively and individually, to new pathways toward freedom and equality.
During the televising of the professional basketball finals some years ago, a public service spot was aired by the National Congress of American Indians. Beautiful images were shown of Native Americans present and past, old and young, men and women. Names were spoken with each image; father, son, mother, daughter, Indian, Navajo, Blackfoot, Inuit, Apache, Choctaw, Crow, Mills, Thorpe, Red Cloud, Crazy Horse, Tecumseh, Geronimo, resilient, forgotten, unyielding, underserved, proud, strong, patriot, survivor, rancher, teacher, doctor. The 2-minute spot ended with a picture of a football and the former helmet image of the Washington DC NFL football team accompanied by a simple statement: “Native Americans call themselves many things. The one thing they don’t…”
Some names are given by the powerful to the less powerful that are meant to reinforce power over them, to limit them. Calling a grown man a boy, like many whites did to African American men of all ages, was an attempt to take away their adult power, to turn them into children of less power as related to whites. The recent attempt to rename Denali back to Mt. McKinley is another attempt to reassert the colonial power of the white Europeans who came to this continent over the power of the First Nation peoples of Alaska (as well as over the legislature of the state of Alaska who asked for the official name change to Denali in 1975). When marginalized groups seek their liberation and equality, they learn to choose their own names, true names that give life and dignity.
Naming matters: the names that are given to us and even the names we give ourselves. What do we do with the names that others give us? What names do we whisper in our own ear?
Like Jacob, sometimes we have to wrestle with the forces outside of us and the forces inside of us to get beyond the false or limiting names. Then we might find we come to that deeper truth about ourselves and about the Divine Mystery: that we each a have humble and unique and sacred place in God’s Creation. That truth liberates us to hear our true name that leads us to a greater life, a greater love, a deeper purpose. For Jacob who became Israel, the immediate outcome was a reunion of love and reconciliation with his brother Esau. After a night of wrestling with the angel, what had been anxiety and fear and estrangement, became instead a loving embrace and a future of peace between siblings.
Also in the book of Genesis are stories of grandfather Abram who only later became Abraham and of grandmother Sarai who later became Sarah. What you might not know is that the addition of what we call in English the letter H, what is known in Hebrew as the letter ‘hay’, means the addition of a letter associated with the name of God. In other words, at the right and appointed time, these ancestors of faith were given names that included the sacred, the Divine. Their naming was an uplifting and a connecting with the Divine Name. Likewise, the name Jacob signified grabber, but the name Is-ra-el is a name with the Divine built into it. El means God. The new name signifies a new relationship with God and with life.
Former United Methodist Bishop, Dean of the Duke University Chapel, and author Will Willimon said, ”Jesus means to name you. He will not let you acquiesce to the names the world wants to lay upon you. You are daughters, sons of Abraham. Your life is meant to count for something, to take its place on stage in God’s great drama of redemption.”
It is God who names us truly, who names us in the way that we limited, mortal, earth creatures might carry on the Life of God, might let the Eternal Presence work through our humble and vulnerable human lives. It is God who names us Divine children, as made in the image of the Divine, as those meant to receive Grace and to offer Grace. When we hear our true name, hear it in our heart and soul, we realize that we are known, known in a way that keeps us on the journey of life and faith unafraid (or at least knowing that fear will not stop us from doing what love asks of us).
Who gave you your names?
How do you name yourself?
What story goes with your name?
How do you name others? What is your true name?
Being called by our true name does not make life easy! Yet, our true name can bring a healing hope and a meaning to our lives, a redemptive force that can transform our lives and our world. May we all hear our true and sacred names. AMEN
