SERMON: The Rectification of Names

When I was about twelve, I had a very humiliating experience. Actually, twelve was a particularly humiliating year, but one experience stands out as being especially humbling. My family was entertaining one weekend, and one of my father’s colleagues, an FBI agent, was standing with my father and I around the barbeque grill. Now, my father spent his entire careers as a federal agent, so our house was a veritable parade of FBI, Customs agents, and Postal Inspectors. My father enjoyed entertaining his colleagues, and I always got a thrill being around non-church people. They always seemed so…dangerous. Forget the fact that they were FBI agents, it was the fact that they didn’t go to our church that made them suspect and exiting. 

 

So on this particular day, my dad’s FBI friend asked me about school. And, grateful to be included in the conversation, and eager to make a good impression, I answered him. 

 

I don’t remember what I said. It wasn’t anything special that I recall. But what I do remember is this: my father stiffened, his jaw tightened, and he turned red as a beet. When I was finished speaking, he turned to his friend, and apologized for me. “Don’t mind him,” he said, “he’s just showing off. His vocabulary is a bit too big for his britches.”

 

I was horrified. I felt ashamed. I was just being myself, and my Dad was ashamed of me. I don’t remember what I did after that, but I remember wanting to run up to my room, or maybe crawl under a rock.

 

I should have known something like that would happen. My parents were very big on the cliché, “Act your age.” Although usually they used it to mean I wasn’t acting as mature as I should be, perhaps I should have been prepared to be reprimanded for acting too old for my age. 

 

Acting in a way that is appropriate to one’s station is very important in traditional societies, and even though my mother loved Elvis Presley, my childhood was very Traditional in many respects. Other cultures, of course, are much more strict. Many of them have very clearly defined roles that are sanctioned by the religious establishment, and stepping outside of those roles can have dire consequences. 

 

One great proponent of strictly defined roles was the ancient Chinese philosopher, Confucius. He saw the chaos in his society, and attributed it to the fact that people were not properly respecting their roles. Fathers were not acting like fathers, mothers were not acting like mothers, sons were not acting like sons, rulers were not acting like rulers, slaves were not acting like slaves, and therefore, society was in grave peril. His answer was something called the Rectification of Names, which sounds very fancy, but actually just means, “act your age,” or, in a more extended way, “act according to your role and station.”

 

If you’re a father, act like a father, take command, demand obedience and respect. If you are a daughter, act like a daughter, do whatever your parents say without question and marry to person they pick out for you and don’t say boo about it. Because the salvation of society depends upon it, this Rectification of Names must be enforced, which would have been a lot easier if Confucius had ever gotten a ruler who decided to put his philosophy into practice. Fortunately for obstinate daughters throughout China, that didn’t happen. 

 

Not that it’s my intention to bag on Confucius, although if the Taoists are to be believed, he really had it coming. But I’m suspicious of anyone who comes along and says, “this is how certain people ought to behave, OR ELSE.”

 

What would have happened if everyone had simply kept in their “proper” place? Almost nothing important in history. What if the Continental Congress had stayed in line and never had a revolution? What if Gandhi had stayed in his place? What if Martin Luther had never questioned the wisdom of Rome? What if Jesus had acted like a normal, acceptable prophet? 

 

Well, he probably wouldn’t have been killed. Nor would Martin Luther King, Jr., had he stayed in his “proper” place. There is a bumper sticker I love that says, “Well-behaved women rarely make history.” And that’s true of men, too. 

 

Jesus’ wisdom in our Gospel reading today runs directly counter to the Traditional wisdom that Confucius and almost every other society espouses. It is almost impossible for us to decide, when we are in the thick of things, what is good and what is evil. 

 

That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t practice discernment, or that we shouldn’t punish violent offenders, but it does mean that we should avoid condemning people in the name of God just because they color outside of the lines. If we did, we would eliminate every artist, every poet, every sage, every prophet, every inventor, every person that propels society forward scientifically, artistically, socially, and morally. 

 

It’s simply not our call. Only God gets to judge someone’s worth on this earth, and as long as you’re not actively hurting another person, I say, let your freak flag fly. God knows there are people who would like to see the doors of this church close, because there’s hardly a line in Christianity that we haven’t completely ignored with our crayons.

 

But I thank God that we are a Congregational church, and that no bishop, no synod has the power to close our doors because we refuse to follow the rules. 

 

And the same goes for you. I’ve heard lots of people say, “I’m not a Christian because I don’t believe what the church teaches.” But I say to you, if you want to call yourself a Christian, do it! If you want to call yourself a Hindu or a Zoroastrian, knock yourself out–you’ll still be welcome to dine at this table. 

 

Let the darnel grow up with the wheat, because as Lissa has informed us, not all wheat is good, and, quite frankly, some of my favorite people are darnel. Let’s let people be who they are, and let God decide the value of a person’s life. More than that, I hope you will be who YOU are, and trust God that where you have been led is a valuable place. 

 

Because, in truth, no one is completely wheat, or completely darnel. We are all of us fields sown with mixed seed. And at the end of time when the darnel is gathered up and burned, when all that is unreal is revealed to be the illusion that it is, the good crop that God has sown in us will come to fruition. The question isn’t what kind of grain are we, but how much goodness can we yield? And the truth is, we don’t always yield the best crop by following the rules, staying in our place, or coloring inside the lines. Let us pray…

 

Jesus, you are the coyote

that tricked the world.

You flattened mountains,

and raised up the valleys,

humbled the proud, 

and the ennobled the humble. 

Work your counter-cultural grace in us,

that we may value the unique people you have made us to be,

no matter who it ticks off. 

Help us to reserve judgment,

of others, and of ourselves,

that we may, with Mechtild of Magdeburg,

live welcoming to all. Amen.