Name-Calling

In the creation story there is a pattern in which God names things. In doing so God draws them into being. In Genesis 1 God names the light ‘Day’, and the darkness ‘Night’, God names the dome over the earth ‘Sky’, the dry land ‘Earth’ and the waters ‘Seas’ and so on. God names each of these things with individual names, and then he names them again – he calls them ‘Good’.

After creating Adam, God invites Adam to follow this pattern. In Genesis 2: 19-20 God brings to Adam the animals ‘to see what he would name them’ and then ‘whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.’ Whatever Adam named things, that was its name. Bad luck for the hippopotamus.

Names are incredibly important to us, new parents spend ages thinking of what they can name their child, believing that in some way, this name will influence their future and their very being. We name and re-name things all the time, its helps us to understand who and what we are - and our cities are not immune to this.

Flint, the city in Michigan where we have been spending time this week is often given names. I mentioned that it is known to some as the most violent or most dangerous city in America (actually since February this name is now passed to Oakland in California… lucky for them). Other names given to Flint have included the most Illiterate City, or the city with the highest levels of arson. Detroit where we have spent the last couple of days has also earned these titles, and a few others; in 2013 it was named the most miserable city in America.

These names stay with us, and as we are called, so we become. For this reason it is so important for the Church to name hope in our cities. One of the episcopal churches we visited in one of Detroit’s poorest neighbourhoods is called ‘Spirit of Hope’. From this church and its with a small but growing congregation, an urban garden is tendered. From here the church with only a handful of volunteers and much less cash manages to give away six tons of food and 20,000 meals every year. In the spirit of the Heidelberg project members of the church are decorating old church pews and hymn boards with messages of hope for their community, placing them in public places. As part of this they are praying for their community and telling them about resurrection for all – naming hope for the here-and-now. This kind of hope whispers resurrection, whispers that a city is not dead in a tomb, Christ is risen for the all of us, and all of us are a part of sharing a hope filled resurrection life. Resurrection isn’t just for the shining cities and booming financial districts and fashion capitals, resurrection is for the derelict, the forgotten, the places that have been named the bad names.

One of my friends, Andrew, is working on a performance project with the Flint Youth Theatre. Its called “Flint, the most _________ city in America”, part of the project is allowing the community to fill in the blanks, to make their own name for themselves, based on the positive that they bring and not simply acknowledging the negative that they are labeled with. We need to stop 'name-calling' in the negative and start 'name-calling' our cities in the positive, we need to be honest about our problems but we also need to speak that truth in love and in the light of resurrection hope. So we are named so we create who and what we are.