What's in a Name?

"WHAT'S IN A NAME?"

a message by Rev. Dr. Bruce Havens

Coral Isles Church, U.C.C.

September 21, 2025

Mark 5:1-20 NRSV

They came to the other side of the sea, to the region of the Gerasenes. 2 And when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. 3 He lived among the tombs, and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain, 4 for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces, and no one had the strength to subdue him. 5 Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones. 6 When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him, 7 and he shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” 8 For he had said to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” 9 Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” 10 He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the region. 11 Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was feeding, 12 and the unclean spirits begged him, “Send us into the swine; let us enter them.” 13 So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine, and the herd, numbering about two thousand, stampeded down the steep bank into the sea and were drowned in the sea.

14 The swineherds ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came to see what it was that had happened. 15 They came to Jesus and saw the man possessed by demons sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion, and they became frightened. 

What’s in a name?  Did your parents tell you not to misbehave in public or such things because it would give the family a bad name?  In Biblical times names that were given to people had meanings. Remember “Peter?” That was a translation of the word “rock.”  Jesus called him that because he was “the rock” upon which Jesus would build his church.  Also, people believed that knowing someone’s name gave you power over them.  Another question about names: these days we do a lot of name - calling around public issues, don’t we?  As we talk about mental wellness, what impact does that have?

When I was a kid we used to use a lot of ugly names for people who were different.  I won’t repeat them, but you know what I mean. If you grew up with the kind of siblings, friends, school mates like I had you might have been called some of those names.  And we might have done some “name-calling” ourselves, to our own embarrassment now.  Some names might have been painful enough they might have genuinely harmed our mental wellness in ways that still echo today.  Names have a power larger than we often recognize.  They can cause us inner conflict and chaos and maybe even outer conflict and chaos. That’s one way it can affect our mental wellness.

The story I just read could be titled, “conflict and chaos.”  There is inner conflict and chaos, as well as outer conflict and chaos.  The man called Legion was possessed by many spirits.  He was a living expression of what today we might call a person with mental health issues.  The description of him is quite vivid. Violent enough chains and shackles couldn’t hold him.  Clothes couldn’t hold him.  The community couldn’t hold him, and so he was banished to the local cemetery.

It is interesting that the minute he sees Jesus he names Jesus - calls him “Son of the Most High God.”  Interesting that a demon-possessed man knew Jesus’ identity but most of his own followers weren’t sure of it.  Jesus commands the spirits torturing the man to come out of him.  They resist, as many of us do when we face a change to our reality even if our reality has meant pain, suffering, and chaos.  The spirits beg to be sent into a herd of pigs nearby.  That results in their destruction as they go flying off the cliff to death below.  Also a common sign of mental health issues.  Chaos and conflict.

Today, our reality seems to be overflowing with chaos and conflict. It is even worse if one doesn’t fit the mold of what some deem acceptable or normal.  A lot of people seem to have a powerful desire to spew hatred at anyone who doesn’t fit their definitions of “normal.”  If you are non-binary, unhoused, challenged with mental health or other wellness issues the hate and dehumanization seem to flow like tidal waves from the hearts and mouths of the loudest voices in our world right now.  What can save us from this chaos and conflict? 

Let me suggest that salvation starts with a disturbing name by which God calls us: beloved.  I say disturbing because it is often terribly hard to believe and terribly hard to accept that God can truly love us.  Even more difficult to believe those we label with hatred and fear in our hearts are beloved.  I confess it is a struggle I deal with. It is part of my mental wellness challenge.  To preach that you and I and all those “others” we hate for their hatred are “beloved” is one thing.  To believe it and to live it out is another.  But if we can believe God calls us beloved, and calls even those we are tempted to hate “beloved” too, it can lead us away from the conflict and chaos of these times.

An old preacher, [older than me], told a story that maybe speaks to learning what it means to be God’s beloved, and how it can liberate us from evil, [Wm Self, “What Do You Want…,” Day1,org, 11/22/09].  He wrote, “Mark [shows] us that Jesus can deal, not only with the natural evil of a storm” by stilling it, “but with the evil that infects humans as well.” 

He said back when he was a college student at a Christian college, the kind where being “saved” is the most important thing, another student asked a visiting professor, ‘Sir, are you saved?’ Immediately, the professor turned to the young man and said, ‘Saved from what?’  There was a deep silence, then he looked at the students and said, “What are we saved from?”  The class ended, and the students went back to their dormitory rooms, somewhat confused at the evasive answer given by the professor.  Throughout the night, the preacher said he was “troubled by the question, ‘Saved from what?’ Deep into the night it began to unfold” for him.  “Finally, it came into focus.  Jesus saves us from ourselves.”  Salvation is liberation from all that chains us. 

He said, “The liberating word of Christ neither drives us back into ourselves, chaining us in the tombs with provincialism and archaic mindsets, nor does it fetter us with Mickey Mouse morality.  Rather, liberation strips these chains from us, drives the demons out, and makes us free to understand what St. Augustine meant when he said, ‘Love God and do as you please.’”

That old preacher went on: “I’m having some difficulty describing liberation, for most of us do not have ears with which to hear or eyes with which to see. To hear the liberating word is a shattering experience, for it’s something totally new. It would be like a deaf person hearing a symphony for the first time, or a blind man having the bandages removed from his eyes. The liberating word is when one hears for the first time that he or she is worthy of being loved.”  In other words, you and I are God’s beloved, but so are all those we are tempted to hate and who let hate chain them to evil.

“But we forget that Jesus disturbed with love and grace. Jesus loved the citizens of Gerasene; he loved them and sought to heal them, for they, too, needed to be liberated from their own demons. The tragedy was that they chose pigs over Jesus.” Then, that old preacher adds, this and it too, challenges me. He said, “My own walk with Christ has convinced me of the pain of hearing his word. He calls all my values into question daily.  He is a constant disturbing presence. I personally rage at his goodness and wish that he would leave me alone, but Mark tells us that his disturbing presence is his loving hand moving us to freedom.”

I think it takes a great, great God to name us “beloved.”  In some ways I think that might even be disturbing!  I think, how much God needs to change me! I think it takes a great, great Messiah to liberate us. I hope and pray that God is not only great enough to help me believe I can be changed, but to help liberate me to be changed, to become truly beloved. I hope that same thing for you, I pray it for those who are filled with hate, and I believe it can happen because I do believe, “Great is the Lord.” AMEN.