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| Faith Names Hebrews 11:1-3 Wolfgang Christian Newcomer. A name to tangle with. Throw in a “Reverend,” maybe a “Doctor,” and you’d be all tangled up. But a name, nonetheless, and a faith name too, I think. Something Biblical is going on in such a name as Wolfgang Christian Newcomer. And reading and re-reading the Bible words from Hebrews for today my “spirit of understanding” my “S.O.U.”, I was struck to see once again the signature Biblical maneuver. (A maneuver as predictable as a bending David Beckham soccer pass!) First part of the maneuver is a little theology: The words: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” A sentence like that, and my intelligence, my I.Q., is ready for a good philosophical inquiry, maybe debate. But then the predictable Biblical maneuver curves by: Line 2. “Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval.” Ancestors? The Bible just cannot stick with a good abstract idea, A.D.D. Ever predictably, some tribal ancestor, some historical person, pops up as if to prove or to illustrate the Bible thought. That’s why I said “my spirit of understanding” was once again struck with an awareness. Because my intelligence, my little I.Q., got left behind after the first idea. Like an undefended soccer kick, the Bible word went sailing over my head and into its goal: which is to have a spirit of understanding. Now, since in Christian Education here we are talking about how people have a variety of intelligences, I’m offering one called “spirit of understanding.” “S.O.U.” The Bible, indeed God, is much more interested in our “S.O.U.’s” our “spirits of understanding” than it is in our “I.Q.” (That’s just one of the many counter-cultural things about the Bible.) And if you look in “the coach’s guide to “spirit of understanding – Bible-reading” you’ll find a chapter called: “Theology as Autobiography” and that’s why ancestor-stories pop up right after good Greek philosophy ideas in the Bible. Just when we think we can go into the Black Forest with Martin Heidegger and read a little “Being and Nothingness,” we land in a Biblical beer hall where people are telling and singing soap opera stories about their ancestors. Ancestors with funny names like Abel, like Enoch, like Noah, like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Or then, pass another Pilsner, “Did I ever tell you about my great, great, (great?) grandfather, Wolfgang Christian Newcomer, the almost-famous circuit-riding evangelist-minister who used to ride his horse around Baltimore, Western Maryland, and south central Pennsylvania, where all the Newcomer tribe gathered?” “Oh, good!” “Well, then ... let me tell you, Wolfgang Christian Newcomer, was not one to shy away from big funny names. He hooked up with Bishop Oberding, yes, “Oberding” and started the Brethren Church, the Church of the Brethren here in the new country. And like a Biblical Abraham, “he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land,” living intents? Maybe, at least going by horse from town to town, seemingly also like Abraham, he “set out not knowing where he was going.” (Hebrews 4) So it seems like the Newcomer apple doesn’t fall far from the Newcomer tree. Surely when my father, that would be Andrew Earl Newcomer, Jr., “Reverend Doctor,” gave me, years ago, his little leather ancient edition of the autobiography of Wolfgang, he couldn’t know I’d be coming to this ancestral area. Wolfgang’s autobiography, itself, is a stunningly boring accounting of “traveled to Winchester. Preached the gospel. Saved eleven (11) souls.” Went onto... preached, and then another number. But if I know my tribal blood line, behind those mechanics-burg numbers beat the heart and sailed the soul of another mystical romantic German poet just like all the rest of us Reverend Doctor Newcomers! But my job here this morning is not just to talk theology, that the meaning of faith is “the assurance of things hoped for...” nor is it just to define and ground such Biblical theology in ancestor-biography and autobiography. My job is to make you members of the Newcomer tribe! Yes, while Wolfgang wanted to win souls for Christ, with a middle name like “Christian” I’m sure he felt that winning a soul for Christ was a little bit like winning a soul for Christian Newcomer. After all he kept his scorecard as his posterity and my inheritance. So I know Newcomer minister egos. I know part of his ministry of evangelism was “all about him.” And so, similarly, I want to make you all into “Newcomers.” As I did with Nancy’s daughter Amber, now Amber Newcomer. I want to adopt you all into the Newcomer tribe. I want you all to carry the Newcomer name, write it on your name tags, and post it on the door posts of your house – actually just until the end of this worship hour. But I don’t want any paternity suits. Like ancestor-Abraham, I’m too old for that! But for a few more minutes we could have a church full of Newcomers. I’d see Jim Newcomer over there, and Carroll Newcomer there, and ... well, it would total a number higher than any I found in Wolfgang’s account! Now for one thing, I want you to multiply Newcomerism, to increase the tribe, because I need the support. In many, many ways I need the reinforcement of a collection of Newcomers. A mash of Newcomers. Because I didn’t want to become “D.C. Duncan.” And it could happen! I could be adopted by D.C. The D.C. tribe could capture my spirit. And you know by now that I believe Christianity in our day is counter-cultural first, and most especially in this political culture do I believe Christ is counter-cultural. And so I don’t want the devil in D.C. culture to capture me! If I could just convert you to be Newcomers I could found a fortress against becoming “D.C. Duncan.” Several of you have warned me just this week with words like: “Don’t let the D.C. culture get you!” And I’ve become aware that D.C.’s global heat is on! That the oceans of work are rising! And the land of the spirit if sinking! Soon, like others, I will be important. Soon I will belong, I will be somebody. I will be known, perhaps respected. RUC. --Rockville United Church will become known as “my” church, Duncan’s Church, not your church, not the Church of God, the Church of Jesus Christ, the place of the Holy Spirit! Soon I will feel more and more entitled. I will have expectations of my importance and, like the rest of D.C. culture, I will be super-critical of those who don’t recognize my importance, down to the last spell-check detail of my importance! And the more entitled I become, the less empowered will I feel. As expectations of importance rise, my feeling alive and powerful will sink. After all, RUC will be growing and doing more mission and more ministry. There will be more money coming in and more activity going on. Within a year or two I will be able to look a majority of people in the eye and communicate that I too now work harder than you do! Like in Garrison Keilor’s Lake Wobegone where all the children are above average, I will be able to claim my D.C. area parking space in the lot marked: “works harder than most!” where, ironically, all of us can park. But this doesn’t have to happen! You see “Newcomer” is not really my name. Newcomer is my identity. Let me remind you of this ancient and gospel concept. Once upon a time your name was your name because of what you did, your identity by activity. In Anglo traditions, you were a Smith because you worked in your Smithy with things you made there. Or you were a Taylor, a Cooper; if you were Hungarian, like Nancy’s father, you were a Varga, because you were a tanner. Varga being Magyar for Tanner. When your identity comes from what you do, and your name tells what you do, the possibilities of being a “Newcomer” spring forth. Now, if this all seems terribly tribal and male and patriarchal, and it is, hang on, because you don’t have to loose your last name, like Madonna did, or Cher. If it also sounds racist, and it is, you don’t have to find a new last name to erase slavery names, to be free to “do” your own identity. There is a Christian option here. The Christian choice is this: “Jesus Christ” was not Jesus’ name. Jesus’ name was Jesus Bar-Joseph. Jesus, son of Joseph. Very patriarchal. “Yousuah” and when you read the “Begets” section in Matthew, you find 3 sets of 12 or 14 ancestors forming the ancestors of faith that Jesus had as his tribal identity. Abraham and David being the most important. But Jesus’ identity, and name, changes in the New Testament. Jesus becomes Jesus, the Messiah. And when the Bible is translated into Greek “Messiah” becomes “Christ.” The Messiah is: “the one who saves.” Messiah is what Messiah does. It is a performative name. A new age of peace and justice will come to be. Messiah will empower that to happen. Messiah creates that. That is what Christ does. Love and forgiveness and the very presence of the atmosphere of God, the reign of God, the so-called kingdom of God, will come to be. Now when we become a Christian we may think we are taking on a name, the name of Jesus Christ. But “Christ” is God’s best verb. Not God’s biggest noun.
A new world where grace abounds. Where the yoke is easy and the burden light. Where the spirit rules and death is no more, where love beats sin and peace tops war and justice distributes prosperity. Now there is a hint of such Christ-ing going on in that awkward name of Newcomer, which also is best understood as a verb. “Newcomer” is the verb for post-modern, existential being. “Newcomer” is the one who always is just arriving, who is forever new, who is in the naïve alertness of the newborn and the innocence and idealism of the re-born. “Newcomer” is an English version of a Swiss German word “welcomin.” The ones newly welcoming. The fresh guest. The occasion of hospitality. There is a hint of Christ in all of that. There is more to being a Christian than being a Newcomer, more to Christ-doing than eternal, perpetual newness. But wouldn’t you like to break off from the world of tribalism – which is the root of all evil – wouldn’t you like to cut off from the ancestral burdens, to silence some of the ancestral voices, and sing a new song? come into a new land even if, like Abraham, you don’t know where you are going? Wouldn’t joining as Newcomers, if just in this hour, be a whole lot of new life!? And the best thing about being a Newcomer is you don’t have to work at it. Coming in new, you just have to show up! You just have to be. And in the spirit of understanding (S.O.U.) “just to be” is the gift of God’s grace,” not having to do D.C.-work for your salvation. The assurance of faith is the assurance we can hope for, a conviction of things not seen, not seen here anywhere. But it is freely given, in the spirit, in Christ, in God, everywhere, even here.
Amen.
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