45 If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?" ⁴⁶ No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.

The naming of children has been an interest of people for a long time. As far back as I can remember, there have been those lists that give us the ‘10 Ten Most Popular Names’ for both boys and girls. You head into just about any decent sized bookstore and you’re bound to find a section that gives you all of the children’s names that you, and anyone else, could ever think of. Amazingly enough, these books seem to get revised every year as a new trend in the naming of children begins to take hold, or we being to put letters together in a way that had not even been conceived of just a few short years before. For example, Nevaeh. Most of of hear those letters and say, ‘that sounds nice’. But flip it. What it actually is is the word heaven, flipped. This past week there was an article on MSN that described the latest trend of naming our children after nouns, whether that be fruit (‘Apple’ anyone?), or geographical locations (dare I say it, Montana?).

I know that when Jen and I were thinking about Austin’s name would be prior to his birth, we were very intentional. For example, the reason that Austin is named what he is, is because of Jen’s family. Most times, a name is chosen to remember or honor a descendent. Obviously, in those cases the first name is used. However, in our case, the name of Austin was chosen not because of it being used as a first name, but because it’s Jen’s maiden name. Jen has three sisters so despite the fact that there are grandchildren all over the place, none of them carry the family name of Austin, at least until 2005 when the surname was used as a first name. His name has meaning that goes beyond whether or not we like the way the letters sound when they come together.

The name that identifies us should be important to us. It was obvious that this was true in the case of the one who would ultimately be identified as the Messiah. The Pharisees knew their answer right away in regards to Jesus’ question of whose son the Messiah was to be: the son of David.

The thing is, that this is not the name that Jesus is ultimately interested in. Instead, he looks back to the scriptures, to what we know as Psalm 110, the piece of scripture that was our Psalter reading for this morning, and asks the question, "If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?" Just to remind you of how the Psalm by David starts out, "The Lord, says to my Lord". To break it down even further, David is saying is, "God the Father says to my messiah." The name that Jesus is interested in is ‘Lord’ because he knows that David is speaking to his Lord, and if the messiah is considered David’s Lord, then it is David who follows the messiah and not the other way around. The Pharisees had it flipped. They thought that the Messiah would answer to David. Jesus points to the scriptures that they know by heart and shows them that they are wrong. The messiah is Lord and if we claim Jesus as our messiah, then we also name Jesus as our Lord.

So what does that mean? What does it mean to call Jesus our Lord?

To call someone your Lord, at least according the Webster’s Dictionary, is to say that such a person has great power and authority; they are a ruler; they are your master.

As Americans we hear that definition, especially the last portion of ‘master’, and we start to twitch in a not so positive way. As Americans, we have been raised in an environment to respect our leaders, not bow to them. Our forefathers revolted against a king, the king was supposed to be the master and the people of the colonies said, "um, no. We will speak for ourselves and guide our own future; not be beholden to the one that you would create." As Americans, the whole concept of having a Lord, of having a Master, is considered horribly inappropriate. Each person is called to be his or her own master. Sure there are some people who seem to hold more sway than others, but ultimately, the person you answer to is the person you see when you look in the mirror. That’s the cultural ethic that we have been raised in.

With that sort of foundation in place, is it any wonder that when we hear the summary of the law of loving God and neighbor that we start to wonder how to do that? After all, if we are at the top of our respective food chain, then how can we love God or our neighbor as ourselves? To do so would mean that they are, at the very least, on par with us, if not greater than us, and that means that we are beholden to someone else, and if we are the supposed master of our own domain, then how is that possible?

To call Jesus your Lord means something. It’s not just a nice sounding adjectival word that we use in a prayer that is offered up when we’re facing dire circumstances: ‘O Dear Lord Jesus’.

Instead, it means that we place Jesus above ourselves and will answer to him because he has spoken for us through the actions in his life, his death on the cross, and his resurrection from the grave. As Christians we are called to recognize this reality. As Christians, we are called to bow down and follow where Jesus leads us through the movement of the Holy Spirit. That is the life that we as Christians are called to live.

Quick question: how are we doing at that? How are we doing at now only calling Jesus our Lord, but actually living lives that reflect that understanding that Jesus is our Lord? How are we doing? A quick story to help you think about that.

This past Thursday, I was able to stretch out in our Fellowship Hall and extend my right arm so that I could give a pint of blood. The technician who was taking my blood asked me, presumably because I knew all the church members who were there, if I was a Deacon. I told him that I was the Pastor and as soon as he heard that his eyes lit up like the 4^th of July and he started asking me all sorts of questions about this church in particular, the greater church in general, and ultimately about faith.

At one point he started talking about how the church seemed to be more interested in what the church had said throughout the millennia, as opposed to what God was saying through the Bible; that the church seemed to be more interested in what people had said, as opposed to what Jesus had told them. (As I later found out, there had been a time in his youth when the church had shunned him. It was only much later, after a period of time when he watched his marriage dissolve, his mother die, and his job transfer him, that he came to understand that Jesus is not contained by the church, that Jesus (not the church) is Lord, and that through Jesus, true healing can take place.)

I responded by saying that the church has a choice: it can either live by the precedents that it has set, the theology that it has crafted (in essence, the church leads itself), or it can bow down and follow the one that the church calls Lord, which sometimes means stepping beyond the confines of the comfortable religious structures that have been created by humanity.

There are way too many folks who are Christians in name only: folks who say the right things, show up at all the correct places, and then don’t follow through on loving God and neighbor. There are too many people who have forgotten or maybe never knew in the first place what it means to know Jesus as Lord. Listening to that technician’s story, it sounded like he had come into contact with some of those people and they were in positions of religious authority.

We, as sinful and fallen creatures, need to understand that we are not the masters of our own domain. I think that there are too many people, both inside and outside of the church who have forgotten that. We have forgotten that Jesus is Lord. We need to stop living as if our wants and desires are the ones that are the most important, that we are the ones who set which rules as being the most important, and begin to remember and/or recognize that it should be our Lord who makes that determination.

As Christians we say that Jesus is our Lord. In the scripture we hear our Lord tell us to love God with all our heart soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves. But if we don’t care to remember the meaning that is behind that name of Lord, then we end up saying the right things one morning (say for example, Sunday morning), and doing something completely contrary the next (when we’re at work on Monday morning). To say that Jesus is your Lord means that you take what you hear on these Sunday mornings and put it into practice the other six and a half days, regardless of what the world says the consequences may be. To say that Jesus is Lord, means that you will trust in him, even when the world says to trust in no one but yourself. To say that Jesus is your Lord means that you will reach out in love, even after the world declares that you should withdraw in fear.

As Christians we are called to name Jesus as our Lord. There is power and meaning in that name. So what about you? Do you name Jesus as your Lord? Maybe a better way of getter at the true answer to that question is by answering another: does your world know that you name Jesus as your Lord?

We were created to have Jesus as our Lord. Are you ready to bow down and trust in the master?

Holy Jesus, help us to mold and shape our lives so that we are able to truly and totally call you our Lord. Help us to show this trust by living lives that love God the Father and our neighbor as ourselves. Help us to display this truth by bowing down and following where you lead. It is in Jesus’ name that we pray. Amen.