What’s in a Name?

I was sitting with family members on our back porch the other day. I heard a birdcall that I did not recognize. I pointed it out to the others, but no one could identify it. But of course, there is an app for that! I have used the Merlin Bird ID app for several years. It can identify a bird by its photo or sound. It turns out that the bird in question was a broad-winged hawk. I should have known!

The next Sunday morning I was sitting outside in worship. The church we attend during the summer has an outdoor worship service that we enjoy. There is something about worship amid nature that adds another level to worship. During the time of prayer, I heard another bird. Once again, I did not recognize it. (I am not very good at identifying birds by their calls.)

It seemed inappropriate to take out my iPhone and open an app in the middle of a worship service, especially since we were seated in a circle. So, I just listened to the bird. I imagined the bird was praying along with us humans sitting below. It was a holy moment. The bird’s song seemed to be a more natural style of worship than the human practice of sitting on plastic chairs, singing and praying words written on a piece of paper.

As I heard the bird glorify God, I felt comfortable not knowing the bird’s identity. Just like I do not need to know the name of a soloist to appreciate the music. In fact, not knowing the bird communicated the sacred even better. The name of the bird would have added nothing to the experience.

Actually, it would take away something! A name gives the illusion of knowledge when it is really just a mental shortcut. It makes it easier not to pay attention to the birdsong as carefully the next time. We file our bird experience away in our mental treasury of ornithological knowledge.

This is scientific knowledge, but not spiritual knowledge. I respect scientific knowledge; it is valuable. I appreciate spiritual knowledge more. Medical knowledge can identify all the parts of the human body and their function. That certainly helps our medical care, and I am grateful that my primary care physician knows her stuff. But does medical knowledge tell us about a human’s true nature and identity?

The same is true with naming God. We give the Holy all kinds of names to distinguish our experience of the Divine from others’ experience. But the names add nothing to the experience. They can actually separate us from the Divine. A name can become a barrier to communion with God rather than a portal into the presence of God.

What is in a name? A name for God is not God. That is the proverbial error of mistaking the finger pointing to the moon for the moon. Like with bird identification, assigning Divinity a label only gives the illusion of thinking we know God.

That is why the Hebrew scriptures avoid giving God a name. God would not reveal a name for God to Jacob at the River Jabbok or Moses at the Burning Bush. The only name that is given is a non-name: I AM THAT I AM, often said to be the meaning of the Hebrew tetragrammaton YHWH. Humans want a name, but God has something better in mind - a Nameless Name.

All a Divine name does is erect an image in our mind that we can bow down to. An image is nothing more than an idol, as the first couple of the Ten Commandments make clear. An image is an image whether graven in stone or in neural pathways, whether a Golden Calf or a mental image made of ideas and expressed through words.

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet.” What is true of roses is also true of God. The Muslims list 99 names for Allah. Hindus have thousands of names for the Divine. Christians exalt the name of Jesus, but also assign him biblical names like Immanuel, Master and Savior.

As a Christian I use all those terms for Jesus. But I realize that they add nothing to the awareness of the One I know as the Eternal Christ. The Nameless Name is the “name above all names.” That is the only Name “by which we are saved.” The Wayless Way is the only Way.

No human tag can touch Nameless Reality. The Tao Te Ching begins: “The Way that can be spoken of is not the Eternal Way. The Name that can be named is not the Eternal Name.” There is no app to help you identify the name of God. There is no religious shortcut to the Divine. How can there be a shortcut to Omnipresence?

The only way to Life is to lose your life. You lose yourself, and you find yourself. Die to self and you find Self. Selflessness is Eternal Life. Jesus died to his earthly self and discovered his Divine Self. That is what Jesus meant when he said, “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.”

That is what Jesus meant when he said we must take up the cross and follow him. Bearing the name of Christian means nothing if one does not follow in the Way of Christ. Jesus never said, “Worship me,” but he often said, “Follow me.” To follow Jesus is to follow him into the Nameless Name.

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