By Rev Nicholas Sykes

All of us I am sure have a concern for our own name, not probably the actual letters of our names so much, but for what our name stands for.

When someone speaks your name in a private or public conversation, you will want an image of, say, probity and decency to arise in the mind of the listener, and not some image of rascality or dishonesty. The name of something often encapsulates what it stands for, what its business is, as in the commercial world of today.

This arises in the political world too in relation, for example, to the Cayman Islands. We have to consider, what do people in the world think about when they hear that name?

In what way has the name of the Cayman Islands suffered, and in what way can it be improved?

With these ideas I think we have a link with the concept behind naming people and things in older times. In the more concrete thought-processes of those times, a person’s or a thing’s literal name was no empty symbol, as it often is today, but was intentionally chosen to portray what the person or thing was like, what its character was, and notice that we use the very word “character” in two very different senses, the sense of the inner meaning, and the sense of the symbol or letter itself, senses that are connected in the older way of thinking.

So when some action is said to be performed in the name of ... whoever or whatever is named, we then know a great deal more about the action and its intent, the reason for it and the reach of it.

The New Testament refers to the name of Jesus Christ as authenticating certain actions of the apostles, for example. In the public mind of our time, the activities of members of the Body of Christ and their leaders can act either to damage or to make more credible the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

All this goes some way towards explaining the words of Mark 9: 41 about someone being rewarded for giving you a cup of water because of the name of Christ that you bear.

This is not just thinking of the action of giving a thirsty person a drink of water as a humanitarian act. The context suggests that here the person being addressed is becoming thirsty because he is spending himself in Christ’s service, so that the one who provides refreshment to him is also doing it as a simple act of service to Christ and in His Name.

So we learn that we can enter into bearing the name of Christ by giving assistance, even humble assistance, to someone who is known to be working in Christ’s name. The action itself is not all that gives value to the action. One must take into account the name in which the action is carried out.

The significance of the name in which we act is therefore very much part of our humanity and the way we actually operate; yet a good deal of political thought turns its face away from this truth.

I am referring to the political kind of thinking that tends to be global and amorphous. In this the value of an act is considered to be entirely divorced from any name or authority in which the act is being performed.

In global terms the world has found such anonymity to be costly. Aggregates of individuals rather than true societies, which must always function by authority and therefore in the Name of someone or something, are greatly vulnerable to attack, as by now we should have seen.

Christians should therefore stand behind the call to have the Name of God, who has revealed Himself, included at the heart of any constitution that we count ourselves to be governed by. We need to know the name in which we are being encouraged to sign agreements and promote values.

Too often our political thinking at this level does not appear to address our actual human need for accountability and authority, which are by no means neglected in Biblical and Christian thought.

Jesus utters a solemn woe in Mark 9: 42 to anybody who causes a little one who “believes in Him” to sin. He says it would be better for a person who caused any such child or vulnerable person to stumble in his reliance on His name to be permanently sunk in the sea tied to a millstone.

The sin referred to means a sin against the person’s believing, a sin against the Name of Christ, a sin that has the effect of divorcing one of Christ’s “little ones”, as He puts it, from Him to whom that one is accountable. It’s a sin that treats the name and authority of the Lord as of no account.

To put someone on Hell’s road is to walk it oneself. Naming things by Christ has great power and importance in our common life, and that name dropped even lightly from our lips is treated with seriousness from on High because of its incomparable greatness.

For commentary, information and devotional material see www.churchofenglandcayman.com and www.anglicansatprayer.org