Living Up to Your Name

I was doing the most mundane of tasks this morning, taking out the trash, when I was called upon to live up to my name as a birder. Well, that makes it sound like the demand for my skills was some matter of importance. Naturally, it was simply the fact that I noticed birds in the tree top and wanted to investigate. Still, the fact remains that I needed to “transform” into a birder in an instant, which, of course was no transformation at all since I’m never not a birder.

The reward of being prepared (my binoculars were practically at my fingertips to begin with) was adding two more species to the list of birds I’ve seen in or from the parsonage yard. For those keeping score at home, I had heard a Red-shouldered Hawk being harassed by crows prior to taking out the trash, then Nashville and Tennessee Warbler joined the hawk on the yard list bringing the total in four years to 66 species. This was an event typical in the practice of my birding in that I never know where or when I will be called upon to live up to the name of birder.

If “living up to my name as a birder” sounds a bit forced, that is because it is. I intentionally want you to think about living up to your name as a Christian, a much more important consideration! The name Christian literally means little Christ. Some children are named after famous and important people and may feel a bit of a burden in living up to their name. How much greater is our burden in living up the name of Christ. Part of our worship each Sunday is glorifying and honoring the name of Christ.

In her book, How Shall We Worship?, Marva Dawn asks these important questions:

Does the character we exhibit in our daily lives bless [Christ’s] name or blacken it? Do we honor God’s name or malign it by the way we worship? If we engage in our supposed “worship” only to make ourselves feel good, are we exalting the Holy Spirit’s name or denigrating it?....Do we sing to God with all our being? Do our practices of public, corporate worship and private, personal devotion form us to be people who live praise?

When we engage in the rituals of our worship it is clear that we are Christians because of the form and content of the worship. But what happens when we leave the sanctuary? First of all, do we continue to worship during the week? Second, do we engage in any practices that identify us as Christians? Would anyone see in our lives the living of worship and the living up to the name of “little Christ”?