A Sermon
Based Upon Romans 16: 1-16
By Rev. Dr.
Charles J. Tomlin, DMin
Flat
Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
Sunday, November 23, 2014
“Greet one
another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you.” (Rom
16:16 NAU)
Who can get excited about reading a list of names?
Preachers have been warned to stay away preaching
on lists of names, even when they appear in the Bible. Preachers shouldn’t take names, read names,
nor make roll calls in churches. If you
think about cutting the church roll, even if they don’t come to church, don’t
even think about it! If you’re a
preacher or a deacon, just say to yourself:
“Blessed be the Names!”
In one church I actually suggested at least looking
down the large list of names on the church roll that consisted of over 1,000
members; over 5 times our average attendance.
They had relocated out of the inner city. They left their building behind, but they
were sure to take that large list of names on the roll that nobody knew. “Well, we used to know them,” they said. “They moved to Florida.” “They moved West.” “Nobody’s seen or heard from them in
years”. I suggested we might contact
them and see if they had joined another church or were deceased. Then we could cut some of the names. “Somebody
might get mad, if we call them! The
deacons listened to what I had to say, but nobody got excited. It was just a list of names.
Then, one day we needed to build a new
building. We had a consultant come in to
help us raise the money. He was going to
charge us a simple and fair fee, based upon all the members we had on the
roll. You should have seen how fast they
were calling the names on that list. “Blessed be! The
names!
STRANGE
SOUNDING NAMES
Remember how they
called the roll of names at school, and sometimes even in Sunday School? It always came at the beginning of the class
or the day, but here Paul calls out the names at the end, and the names are
really strange sounding These names are
hard to read and hard to pronounce, just like the first one, “Phoebe.” “I
commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae….” It’s hard to say whether it was official, but
she was at the top of Paul’s list.
There are other
strange names on Paul’s list, like Prisca
and Aquila. One sounds like a soft
drink and the other like an ink pen. In
other parts of the Bible they are known as “Pricilla
and Aquila”, but Paul knows them personally. He puts her name first. Then comes another married couple, whom Paul
‘strangely’ calls them both ‘apostles’. To call a woman an ‘apostle’ was so strange that some Bible translators changed her
name to a man’s name, Junias, but her
real name was Junia, as in petunia. These are just some of the ‘strange names’
on Paul’s list, but to Paul they weren’t strange at all. He ‘commends’
them and ‘greets’ them as friends,
co-workers, and brothers and sisters in the Lord. It doesn’t matter whether they were men or women;
Paul treats them like his equals, and all equals to each other, honoring their
work in the Lord. Without hesitation or
even a hint of discrimination (common for that world and ours), Paul makes all their names blessed because, “In Christ, there is no male or female…Jew
or Greek, but all are the same in Christ.”
Back to Phoebe. Perhaps she was at the top of Paul’s list,
because she was carrying the letter back to Rome on a business trip, for she
was a prominent lady. How Paul
‘commended her’ reminds me of a recent documentary by Ken Burns on the
Roosevelt’s. It was primarily about the
President’s, Teddy and FDR, but when it ended, the most celebrated Roosevelt,
was the one named Eleanor. A lot of
people didn’t like Eleanor, because she was a strong woman. She had to be. When she was small, her mother told her that
she was ugly and looked old. She never
had any self-confidence, even though she was the niece of Teddy Roosevelt, and she
was a Roosevelt herself, her husband’s 5th cousin.
When they were
married, Franklin Roosevelt admired her, but he never loved her. They were political partners, good friends,
but they were never really husband and wife.
But she kept going, and she learned to be the best political partner and
advocate for her husband, even after he was stricken with polio. She didn’t give up, and in the end, she was
the last Roosevelt standing. While Teddy
and FDR are remembered as great presidents for the United States, Eleanor is
remembered what she did for the world.
After, her husband death, she was set free and she was called to work
for the United Nations, where she eventually wrote the Universal Bill of Human
Rights, perhaps the greatest accomplishment of any man or woman.
“I commend to your our sister….Phoebe, and Eleanor, and others….
When you read something like this, you mustn’t dare see them as just
names on a list. Could your name
could be on a list like that? You
don’t have to be famous. In fact, I
wouldn’t remember any of these ‘names’ in the Bible. They are so ‘strange’, hard to pronounce. They might not even be on Paul’s list either,
if they weren’t also on God’s list. You
could be on that list, too! BLESSED BE
THESE NAMES!
DON’T CALL IT A LIST
“When you read this
list,” says the preacher Fred Craddock (who gave me the idea for this sermon),
“Don’t just call it a list. It’s not
‘just’ a list. Even lists of names can
get interesting. Dr. Craddock, in his
home spun way, tells of going to court on jury duty down in Georgia, where he
retired. He recalled about 250 names
being read from a list and some of them were interesting.
“There were two Bill Johnson’s on the
list; one was black and the other white.”
Then they came to read the name of “Mrs.
Clark” and a male voice answered, ‘here!’
The clerk of court
looked up suspiciously, and said again but this time in the form of a question.
“Mrs. Clark?”
“Here”, the male voice answered.
The Clerk was sharper, “Mrs.
Clark?”
“Well, the male voice answered, “I
thought the letter was for me.”
The Clerk said, “We summoned Mrs. Clark.”
“Well,”
he said, “I’m here. Can I do it?
She doesn’t have any interest in this sort of thing?
The Clerk said, “Mr.
Clark, how do you know? She doesn’t even
know she been summoned.” (As told by Fred
Craddock in sermon, “When the Roll Is Called Down Here”, as printed at the
website: http://notgreener.blogspot.com/2011/12/when-roll-is-called-down-here.html).
That was an
interesting list.
When I was in
college, I recall many interesting names I’d never heard before. Gardner-Webb had many New Jersey names like
Krushinski, Linderman, Query, Saknini, and Naser. Ali
Naser, from Iran, was my roommate for a semester. We were from different worlds.
Tom Query had a weird name, but he was a great guy. He was a very talented Christian magician who
captured our undivided attention with his tricks. He said they were really sleight of hand, not
magic, since magic was forbidden in the Bible.
He sure could get our attention, and then he would preach a sermon. Once he took my class ring and made it
disappear by rolling it on the back of his hand, he said. But I never saw it. It was magic to me.
One of my best new buddies
was Nageel Fuad Sakhnin. He was from Nazareth. How appropriate was it to be studying at a
Christian college getting to know a guy from Jesus’ hometown. That made an impression on me. We
became great ping-pong buddies and I never ever beat him, not even once. I used to be pretty good at ping-pong, too. But when I played him I had to stand 10 to
15 feet from the table just to return his serves. He taught me a lot. He taught me that something ‘good could still
come out of Nazareth’. I wonder where
Nageel is today. A Baptist pastor in Nazaeth
has his name, but it was too dangerous to show his picture. I’ll just have to settle for blessing the
name.
When I think about
people that Paul knew, people who partners with him in faith, I wouldn’t call
these just a ‘list’ of names either. I feel the same way about ‘names’ when I walk
through a cemetery at my home church, or at other churches with cemeteries,
were I’ve been pastor. I’ll never forget how at my first church, while I was preparing for the evening worship
service, I noticed an older fellow walking around in the cemetery, so I went
out to invite him in.
“We would love to have you come in and
worship with us.”
He paused a moment, then answered: “Preacher, when you get as old as I am,
you’ve got more friends out here, than you do in there!”
He’s right. These are not just names. Blessed be the names!
NAMES WRITTEN IN HEAVEN
Think about what
Jesus once said when announced to his disciples that he in the coming of God’s
kingdom, he had seen “Satan, falling
like lightening from Heaven.”
Immediately after this, he said,
“But rejoice not because the
demons are subject to you, but rejoice because your name is written in heaven!” Now, you will want to be on that list!
I know that you have
your own list of names that may not be anyone else’s list, but they are on yours
and they are on God’s. Someone you
loved. Someone who loved you. One of the things that made Prisca and
Aquilla so special to Paul was how, he said, ‘they risked their necks out for
him’ (16.4). You just don’t
forget people like that.
I recall how my Aunt Katie went to the beach
with us one year. Her husband, my dad’s
brother Roy, had just died from complications from an accident. She had to raise her two sons alone, Ronnie
and Bruce. Katie was such a wonderful,
kind, caring person. When I was real
small, she took me to the beach to play in the water. She said I went under the waves, but she quickly
pulled me back up. It was the first time
I’d ever been under water. When we got
back to the house and mom asked how things went, I said: “I’m
OK, but Katie let me drown.” Really, she saved my neck, and I didn’t know
it. Blessed be the Names!
Folks, names like
these are not boring at all. They are
people, Paul’s people, real people, my people, your people, our people. They are people who lived, who loved, who
served, who cared, and who died in Christ.
Their names are anything but mere names in a list. Don’t call it a list. Don’t read over it without a prayer. Because of their names, your name might one
day appear there. Blessed be the Names!
I can imagine you
know some names who should be there.
They are on your list. When I
think of all the names of people I’ve known, people who risked their necks for
me, people who stuck out there necks
with me, and people who cared for me, when I didn’t even know how to care about
life itself. When I think about people
like that, I remember someone who said, “My mother is gone. I didn’t visit her like I should. I didn’t think of all she’d done. I didn’t even realize what all she did do,
when she was here with me. But now I
know. And now that she is gone, I’d give
everything I own, all the money I have in the bank, just to have one more
moment, one more minute, maybe even an hour, to tell her what I should have told
her all along. Blessed be the Names! Don’t ever call it a list.
There is one more
name we need to notice, to remind us of how we all get on that list, we must
never call, just a list. His name comes
in verse 5, where Paul says, “Greet Epaenetus, who was the first convert
in Asia for Christ” (16.5). Now that’s certainly someone to
remember. That’s certainly not just any
name. The first person who gave their
life to Jesus in the larger, Gentile world, is more than a milestone, they are
still a living, loving, caring and compassionate witness. Did you notice how Paul still calls them, “My
Beloved”?
I know a little of
what Paul felt about Epaenetus. When I
worked as a missionary, conversions were hard to come by. We saw a sizeable core group of youth
develop, as they met in our homes and finally at the church. We watched movies together, ate meals
together, went on bike rides together.
We weren’t just a group, we were becoming a family.
When several years
later, I had to leave Germany, they gave
us a farewell party. They presented me
with a framed picture of their faces, and they gave me a T-Shirt. They had printed a picture of us all together
and then they signed all their names.
Those aren’t just names ---Burckhardt, Torsten, Olaf, Jackie, Katie,
Anna, Alexandra, Marko and Frank. Pronounced
in their language, they might sound strange to you, but there family to
me---blessed be the names.
BLESSED BE, EVEN MORE NAMES
I could go on. But you get the picture. When we read these names, they aren’t just
names. There are 36 names on Paul’s list, 423 in the
New Testament, and 3,237 in the entire Bible. Those are a lot of names. We can only recall a few at a time—Abraham,
Issac, Jacob, Jesus, Peter James and John, and Paul. Sometimes even thy are hard to remember,
like the guy on the street who was asked to name Jesus’ closest disciples and answered: Paul,
John, George and Ringo. Who were they? How many where they? There could be more. Let
me explain as I tell you one more story, from the master storyteller, Fred
Craddock.
Before he married
Nettie, the young preacher Fred Craddock, moved down to a little village on
Watts Barr Lake between Chattanooga and Knoxville. He said, “It was the custom in that church
at Easter to have a baptismal service, and it was held in Watts Barr Lake at
sundown on Easter evening. Out on a sand
bar, he stood with the candidates for baptism. After they were immersed, the
candidates moved out of the water, changed clothes in little booths constructed
of hanging blankets, then went to the fire in the center. Last of all, the
young preacher went over, changed clothes, and went to the fire where the
little congregation was gathered, singing and cooking supper.
Once we were all around
the fire, Glen Hickey—it was always Glen—introduced the new people. He gave
their names, where they lived and worked. Then the rest formed a circle around
them while they stayed warm at the fire.
The next part of the
ritual was that each person around the circle gave her or his name and said,
"My name is____,
and if you ever need somebody to do washing and ironing, call on me."
"My name is____,
and if you ever need anybody to chop wood, call on me."
"My name is____,
and if you ever need anybody to baby-sit, call on me."
"My name is____,
and if you ever need anybody to repair your house, call on me."
"My name is____,
and if you ever need anybody to sit with the sick, call on me."
"My name is____,
and if you ever need a car to go to town, call on me."
And around the circle they
went. Then they all ate and had a square dance. They were disciples, not Baptists. Finally at the appointed time, Percy Miller,
with thumbs in his bibbed overalls, would stand up and say, "It's time to
go." Everybody would then leave.
After his first
experience of this ritual, “Percy Miller saw me standing there, still,”
Craddock said. “ He looked at me and said, "Craddock, folks don't ever get
any closer than this."
Do you know what they
call a ritual like that, “THEY CALL IT
CHURCH” Blessed be the Names.
"I thank my God for all my remembrance of you." That what Paul says elsewhere. Why don’t you go home and write that down and
add a name to it. Then write another
name, and another name, and another. Keep
the list, keep in in your Bible, because, it's not just a list. In fact, the
next time you move, or when you go to hospital, or when you feel alone, hold on
to that list. Even if you have to leave and
lose everything else, Craddock
says, your car, your driver’s license, your
furniture, your land, and everything else.
Whatever you do and wherever you go, take that list with you (As quoted and embellished from link
above).
There’s just one more
thing, that I will add to Fred Craddock’s list you shouldn’t just call a list. Make sure that your name is on somebody’s list, and of all things, make sure you are on God’s list.
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