Feburary 4, 2024

Luke 2:25-35

This weekend marks a special day, the day of Imbolc. Did you get your shopping done?

Imbolc is a traditional Gaelic festival. It represents the beginning of spring. Arguably, this is a hopeful estimation, though the climate of Ireland was historically mild in comparison to here in New England.

The day goes by many other names, however, so it is understandable if you are not particularly observant of the practices of Imbolc. It was a traditional time for lambing, the birthing of lambs, and often involved cleaning. I have never been involved with lambing, or for that matter cleaning, so I am quite a lapsed Imbolc observer.

February 2 is also known as Ground Hog Day, the day upon which people look to burrowing animals to predict the weather. Supposedly, we are getting an early spring if we can trust the assessment of Punxsutawney Phil. But notice the overlap with the awaiting of spring as with the Gaelic tradition.

In the Christian tradition, there are alternate names for this celebration. Again, in Ireland, this is known as Saint Brigid’s Day, the traditional feast day for the patron female saint of the island. Brigid was also worshipped as the goddess of fire in pre-Christian tradition. In both systems, she was known for providing blessings and protection for the household. Strips of cloth would be left tied up outside and would then be brought into the house to keep folks safe for the year. You could even invite Brigid into the house by weaving crosses made of rushes or reeds. These are equilateral crosses and, though I thought of making one for today, I have neither the rushes nor the manual dexterity for the task.

The other event celebrated at this time of year is the Presentation of the Lord. Jesus was brought to the Temple to be blessed. This is like a christening, though by definition this moment predates that practice. There, the family of Jesus would meet Simon, who scooped up the boy. After blessing Jesus, Simon said, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed–and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

Not the most comforting of messages for mom and dad.

There are many different names for one day, many different ways of understanding the shifting of seasons or the changing nature of religious life. And, even more simply, this was the day upon which Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the carpenter’s son, Jesus son of Joseph, was presented at the Temple in Jerusalem. Lots of ways of understanding one simple day. And lots of different names.

This Sunday, I would like to talk about names. It is another installment in my sermon series about things we do not talk about. And, you may be wondering, what is so strange or unusual or uncomfortable about names? I will get to that.

My name is Mark, of course. That is not an overly popular name. It did not make the top ten list in any recent year. I looked it up on one 2023 list and “Mark” came in at 247.

Now you may not know this about me, but my name was not supposed to be Mark. I was born during a blizzard and my father was not able to get to the hospital. He did not make it there for a day or two. My delivery was particularly strenuous. And I had many health problems. So much so, that my mother was recovering over those snowy days. My father finally came and had to fill out all the paperwork. So, I had no name for a few days.

My parents had chosen to call me David. David is, by the way, number 31 on that list of names. Quite popular five decades later. My middle name was supposed to be Mark, so David Mark. But when my dad filled out the forms, he gave me a different name, Mark Jude. Jude is an unusual name, though I was surprised to see it on that list at 161, weirdly far more popular than Mark these days. I was a bit disappointed.

Anyway, my dad chose that middle name, I am guessing, because he was and is very religious. Saint Jude is a Catholic saint that you pray to when you are looking for a miracle, for Jude is known as the patron saint of the impossible. It seems that I was really and truly sick. And here I am today. You can make your own judgments as to whether Saint Jude had a hand in that.

In my life, I have never given my name much thought. Mark is a respectable monosyllabic name that does not lend itself much in the way of teasing or the granting of nicknames. You have to make it longer to do anything with it, so it is usually plain Mark.

Other than it being my name, I have nothing invested in it, emotionally or sentimentally. No one in my family has the same name. Again, it seems to have been chosen Biblically. And besides being used to it, I could take or leave it as my name.

Now some people are more conscious of their names. They might take pride in them or be embarrassed by them. They may direct people to use a certain name or to never, ever use a certain name.

My roommate in college, for example, went by Christopher and never Chris. We quickly learned that this was not a suggestion but his expectation. My brother has the same name, and goes by Chris, so it took a few mistakes on my part to get into the pattern, but I did. I referred to Christopher by the name he wanted to be known by. Simple as that.

But it is not always that simple for some people. Not for the people who are telling the world what their name should be, or for the people being asked to do so.

Names are interesting because there are so many aspects to them. They are cultural signifiers. My name is Mark and not Marco because my family was trying to show itself as good old-fashion Americans not standing out with their Italian heritage. I suppose I could have looked back with disappointment for losing out on that cultural facet to my life. I don’t, but again we were going out of our way to fit in.

Names also have been used to signify gender. There are boy names and there are girl names. You are either Mark or Marcia. Those are the rules we were given. Those are the rules we were told, or at least that I was told. And you do not mess with the rules.

There are various aspects to personal identity that have traditionally been assigned at birth. The doctor slaps you on the butt and declares that you are a girl or a boy. Your life can then become rigidly circumscribed by a set of expectations, again if we are following traditions in American culture. Those expectations have changed over time, but not entirely and in many cases not until very recently.

My mom was a nurse. The only other jobs open to her, in her cultural outlook, were schoolteacher, secretary, or mom. Well, that and being a nun. Quite a short list. [Note: I was told that I missed one – stewardess. Apologies].

That list is longer now. And yet nothing changed fundamentally about what women could do. It was simply the perception of the wider culture that changed. Women were always able to be physicians or scientists, lawyers or politicians, fighter pilots and police officers. Which leads me to the conclusion that our cultural expectations are not set in stone. Some people may think of those gender-based scripts as the true way of operating in the world, but that does mean we are supposed to act in those ways. It means that someone is more comfortable if everyone else acts in those ways.

When you were growing up, who was the primary care provider? For my son, for a few years, it was me. My wife and I were both in graduate school, but medical school is more demanding of one’s time than law school. So, I oversaw pick up and drop off at day care. I was in charge of coordinating babysitters and coverage when my son was sick or not going to school that day.

These were traditionally tasks associated with being a mom, but I never understood them in that way, perhaps because my mom went back to work as a nurse as soon as she could. Why? She did not like being a stay-at-home mom. And, to be honest, we were more than happy to kick her out and back to work because she was not very good at being a stay-at-home mom. We were all happier.

The expectations of gender are what is called a social construct. A social system that develops based upon expectations that people have. That does not make them the law, but the social pressure to conform can seem like ironclad rules. You go against them at your social peril. Like getting a divorce in the 1950s—gasp, the scandal. Oh, the shame. Weirdly, the 1950s and that cultural moment frame much of this social system.

Divorce has become a far more common aspect of our culture, even though many people still wring their hands over it. Here’s how to handle that concern. Get married older and do not have unreasonable expectations about who does what in a relationship. Older marriages last longer because you got all the starry-eyed illusions about life, sex, and romance out of your system. And you also have gotten over yourself, hopefully, and do not have unreasonable expectations of others.

If not, you should probably stay single.

Hopefully this all makes sense so far. Because now I want to turn to the part that seems to be more difficult to talk about. It is about the names that we have and, frequently, the pronouns that we offer to the people around us. Pronouns are still a new frontier in the social expectations we have for one another.

Names are often linked to gender. Some are gender neutral, like Robin or Alex, but we still look at people and run through our internal gender stereotyping checklist to figure out how to address someone. Long hair? That’s trending girl. Makeup? Okay, that’s another one. Clothes? Voice? Height? Body type? You can make a quick calculation and wind up with what you think is the proper pronoun.

Why do this? And I say that as someone who still catches himself doing this. I know many people who blur these gender lines or ignore them entirely. They are more masculine in some ways, more feminine in others or completely unconcerned with them. They do not strive to stay on one side of an imaginary line that we collectively have arranged for assessing boyness and girlness. It is entirely made-up stuff based upon time specific social expectations and traditional gender roles designed to slot people onto iron rails of life from an early age.

One funny story about that. At gender reveal events, people make a big showing of having pink or baby blue suddenly spill out from a cake or an envelope or some ill-fated explosion. Pink and baby blue—pink for girls of course and baby blue for boys, as it was always meant to be.

Which is funny because that designation of gender colors was for a time the exact opposite. Red was thought to be a color for boys and pink was a variation of red. And baby blue, soft blue, quiet blue was for girls. In the 1920s, you would see pink clothes for boys and baby blue clothes for girls in department stores and the Sears and Roebuck catalogue. In fact, by some accounts, the Baby Boomer generation is the very first generation to use this pink and blue color distinction for gender.

People are becoming more conscious of the meaning of their names. The meaning to them and how they think of themselves. How that name reflects who they are. Its meaning, its sound, its origins. Does it reflect their gender as they might define it, as they might identify? Or do they want nothing to do with the concept of gender at all? Basically, it is a time when people are choosing their names.

This is when others begin to get uncomfortable, when they get frustrated. Someone wants to rely upon the visual cues with which they are comfortable to make assessments of the world, and specifcally an assessment of the person in front of them. I look at you and I see someone who is male or female—why do we have to make everything so complicated? Why not leave things alone?

Why? Because there is a person in front of you who has made a decision about themself. By the way, I tried to type “themself” and had to fight with the computer to make it stop rewriting it as themselves. Even our computers make such default setting changes.

People suddenly become amateur linguists and grammarians when questions about pronouns pop up. By the way, the Chicago Style Manual specifically allows for the singular use of the pronoun “they” in this instance. But what about when Sister Mary So-and-so taught me about pronouns in the third grade—back then it was all very clear. And then Sister Mary So-and-so would hit me with a yardstick when I made a mistake. Please understand that I take issue with this form of education, both its content and its reinforcement.

It is strange that people can get so worked up about names in a religious tradition that involves names changing all the time. You do not hear about churches named after Saint Saul but Saint Paul. Paul changed his name because he became a Roman citizen. He wanted to fit in, I imagine, but I wonder what his mom and dad thought about that.

Abraham’s original name was Abram. Sarah’s original name was Sarai. Jacob was renamed Israel by God. Simon was renamed Peter by Jesus.

I imagine that few people would recommend ignoring those changes. Those name changes reflect something significant in the lives of the person in question. Those name changes have holy meaning. Why would you question that?

And when someone decides to change their name, we need to recognize that it is a big step in their lives. Sometimes that is because someone does not like their name. I went to high school with someone who was named Ronald McDonald. He changed his name to David and nobody second-guessed him.

When we are offered a name by someone, it is not an optional designation. I know you told me your name is George, but I see you more as a Georgie. Let’s go with that instead. It’s not your choice unless you are a particularly self-important person assigning nicknames to the world.

Imagine you have a family member who has a longer name like Elizabeth. They prefer to go by Liz or Beth, or even another name entirely. But you decide that that long and formal name is the name you are going by. That is a choice. And it may very well be a disrespectful choice. And no, I do not give free passes to people because they are older and set in their ways. If a random new person walks up and says their name is Jack, that set-in-their-ways person does not have the right to call the new person John.

And the same is true for pronouns. Someone states at the beginning of a conference or on a video call that they go by this or that set of pronouns. Those pronouns may not match up with what someone else would have guessed. But remember, you do not get to assign people the names that you prefer—John or Jack, Elizabeth or Liz. Someone gave you a name that they use and offer to the world. It is respectful to use that name, not one that you decide that you like better. The same is true for pronouns.

And this is important. Someone has likely gone through a lot of thought and self-evaluation before making a change to their name or pronouns. This is a meaningful decision for them, one might even think of it as sacred. Sacred because it reflects who they truly are as a person, as they see themselves. It is a big deal, one not to be casually brushed off because it requires other people to remember.

Yes, you can make a mistake. And when you do, you say you’re sorry and try not to do it again. That is the standard formula for seeking forgiveness in most religious traditions. Realize you did something wrong, say you are sorry, and try not to make the same mistake. Simple.

But what if I knew the person from before? What if I am a family member? What if I gave them that name? What if they are named after me? Don’t I get to keep on doing what I have always done?

I am going to be honest with you. That depends on the person in question, the person whose name is at issue. I know a few people who go by one name in the home and another out in the world. They go by one set of pronouns with family and another out in public. Which I think might get confusing for all concerned, but that is not my judgment call to make. It is for the person who is choosing. No one else.

I think of it this way. If the person with the new name or pronoun is comfortable with that flexibility that is one thing. It might be about comfort. It might be about trying to keep the peace. It might be that an older relative is making life difficult, and it is just easier to go with the flow.

Some people are also trying out new names, new pronouns, new identities. If they are fortunate, they have families and friends who can help them to try things on for size and, if they decide it all fits, to make a transition. To accept themselves for who they think they are and who they hope to be.

If you are the person meeting someone for the first time, embrace the names and pronouns someone gives to you. If someone in your family makes a similar change, meet them where they are. It might be a temporary thing, it might truly be a phase. But a phase is not the same as a fad. A phase is a state of transition from one form to another. And if by passing through that phase, someone changes, embrace them with all the love and care you had for them under a different name. That should not change.

We are all given one precious life to live. And that gift should not be shackled by the social constructs and cultural expectations of others. Let each of us live a wonderful life, one filled with love for one another and love for the lives we get to build freely with one another. Love is a gift, a gift to be freely given without tidy boxes of expectations and guard rails of tradition, keeping everyone sorted according to someone else’s plan.

Happy Imbolc to you. Or Saint Brigid’s Day. Whatever you might like to call it, may you be blessed on your journey.

Amen.