Don: The final mystery says not only that the mortal will put on immortality, the corruptible will put on incorruptibility, and we all shall be changed, but also that everyone’s name shall be changed. We tend not to make a big thing of names. There may be some sentimentality involved in naming (say) our children. But in ancient times names had far more significance and meaning to people. A child’s name might often be based on its perceived character; in some societies, a child would not be named until it had developed signs of character.
Name changes are common in scripture to highlight a change in mission; to indicate movement in a new direction. There are more than 50 examples. Abraham got that name when god made a covenant with him to become the father of great nations. Sarai became Sarah when god told her she was to have a baby even though she was well beyond child-bearing age. When Jacob wrestled with an angel, the angel (who refused to identify himself to Jacob) renamed Jacob as Israel. Daniel’s name was changed to Belteshazzar when he went into captivity in Babylon; so were the names of his fellow captives Hananiah (became Shadrach), Mishael (became Meshach) and Azariah (became Abednego). Saul became Paul when his mission changed on the road to Damascus.
So everyone’s name changes, ultimately; except for one constant—the name of god. When god sent Moses on his mission to free the people of Israel, Moses asked him: “Who shall I say sent me?” god replied: “Tell them ‘I Am’ sent you.” (Exodus 3.) The notion that “I am who I am, I was who I was, and I will be what I will be”—in other words, that there is no past/present/future tense to god—is a central tenet of scripture. At the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus also made a famous “I Am” statement: “I am the resurrection and the life.” He also said “I am the door, the light in the world, the bread of life, the good shepherd, the way, the truth, and the light.”
I intend to contrast this timeless I Am identity with the name changing that all else must anticipate.
But first a digression, to discuss an issue David raised by email last week, concerning the death of his dog.
David: About a week ago our chihuahua was attacked by a pitbull and after a few days in vet hospital and two major operations followed by a serious setback he succumbed to a stroke. Mikiko and I were devastated by the loss, and were reminded of how deeply we, like so many of us, love our animals. It’s a special kind of love, driven in part by their innocence, and it seems to me to be just the kind of love Jesus exhorts us to have for one another. Yet most of the great scriptures pretty much ignore animals.
Don: Someone who knew of my interest in spiritual matters asked me recently “Will my dog be in heaven?” I answered that I was not sure. She replied, with great sincerity: “Well, if my dog is not in heaven, I would rather be in hell.” Her love for her dog was stronger than her desire for paradise. There are many people like her, who have exceptionally strong bonds with animals.
The oneness of god’s original creation was a oneness of god, wo/man, animals, and nature. So to be at one with animals is a divine concept. The reversal of the disunity engendered by the Fall is seen as a precursor to the final restoration of paradise. A traditional Christian viewpoint is that if an animal does not have a soul (an arguable issue) then it cannot go there. To me, scripture is not entirely clear on this point.
In the story of Creation, animals are created in a planned, detailed, systematic way, showing that god’s interest in animals was more than trivial. The dominion over animals which god gave to humankind was not so much an authority over than it was a responsibility for creatures more vulnerable than us. It was a responsibility to provide sustenance, protection, and to tend to their welfare; it was not an authority to capture and enslave them.
As—day by day—he created the various kinds of animals, god pronounced each of them to be “good”. They clearly are important to god: He views them with delight, he expects humans to interact with animals in a most intimate way, and he made humans responsible for their welfare. Moreover, in the beginning, he told Wo/Man that the animals were not to be eaten, and he established a vegetarian diet for humans that was in place until the Flood, when presumably all vegetation was inundated and animals were the only available food.
In story after story, scripture tells of god bringing the animal kingdom back into oneness with Wo/Man. In the story of Balaam and the donkey (Numbers 22:21-39), the donkey is the vehicle through which god teaches Balaam the right path. Elijah in the wilderness, bereft of nutrients, is fed and restored by ravens acting for god. Jonah’s whale represents god’s grace in saving him from drowning and delivering him safely to shore to fulfill god’s plan. Jesus noted that even sparrows, sold in the temples as cheap sacrifices, are not “forgotten before god” (Luke 12:6). He referred to himself as a mother hen, gathering his chicks under his wing.
Not least, in the earth made new, there is no longer any animal hierarchy: The lamb lies down as the lion’s equal, the child plays with the snake, the leopard and the goat happily coexist. There is no more hostility, no more predation. This prediction of the earth made new does, then, seem to me to mean that animals are included in heaven and that you will be reunited with your pets there.
David: I appreciate the spirit of sympathy with which this summary was delivered but I remain surprised and concerned that unconditional, non-judgmental love—what Jesus was all about—is demonstrably present in animals yet that fact is ignored in scripture.
Chris: In 2 Samuel 12, Nathan tells King David the story of a poor man who raised a lamb as one of his children, only to have a rich neighbor slaughter it to feed a guest. David did not realize that the story was a metaphor for David’s own bad behavior in taking something that was not his, and he grew indignant at the injustice done to the poor man. The point is, though, that the story recognizes the intense loving relationship that can exist between humans and animals.
Donna: That is “need-love”. We all are born with it—god gave it to us. It is there when our need-love is so strong and we are possibly not getting it from people—as we often see with the elderly who are lonely. It is what exists between a mother and child. The mother knows that her child needs to be at her bosom in order to grow. Some people are born with a higher need-love than others. When he visited the United states, a friend from Haiti, who grew up in a grass hut, did not understand why there is more food and clothes for animals in our stores than there are food and clothes for people in Haiti stores. He brought me to the view that this is a symptom of need-love. It is a lot easier to get one’s need-love fulfilled through an animal than through a relationship with people, because that takes one to another level: “Can I love that person even though his need-love is higher?”
Dave: Traveling outside the United States and other areas of affluence, one does not see that level of affection with pets that one sees here. Some may have pets, and they like to have dogs around for protection, but they are still viewed as something apart.
Donna: The danger is that need-love can stop you from loving humans whom god has called you to love, and it could develop into idol worship. In my work, a lot of older people say to me “I can’t do that because I have to feed my dog.” Then your dog is stopping you from living the life that god asks you to live—to reach out to humans, to love people.
Robin: The love that we have for our pets and that they have for us is not the same as human love. There’s a lot more that goes into the love relationship between human beings. When he was young, my son wanted a pet but our home was too small for a dog. We took him to the pet store to look for something smaller, and ended up with a finch that grew to greet us vocally when we came home. When illness kept me at home from work for a few weeks, I noticed how the bird would get excited and vocal when it heard the sound of my husband or son coming home. This behavior continued when we moved to a different home. When the bird died, I cried my eyes out. I think it was because I knew that it recognized us. It was need-love, but it hurt.
Kiran: To teach us how destructive is sin, god chose to make us sacrifice lambs to atone for our sin. But he put conditions on the sacrifice, of which one was that the lamb should be unblemished—it should have no cuts or bruises, etc. To mitigate the risk of its falling and getting hurt, the shepherd would carry the designated sacrificial lamb on his shoulders, but in so doing he would develop an intimate fondness for it, so that the sacrifice would be painful and therefore meaningful—it taught how painful was the result of sin.
Jay: I would not describe myself as an animal person. But it’s clear that love exists between many people and their animals, and it is indeed non-judgmental and non-exclusive—the dog doesn’t get upset if its owner has relationships with other dogs. I think this is the type of love Jesus demanded of us several times, in asking us to be like little children. The very young child is not concerned with the parent’s motivations; the love is pure.
Charles: I think god uses nature—not just animals, but everything from the magnificent universe to a blade of grass—to teach us about his majesty and our individual relationship to the whole, to nature, and to each other. So to me, any such interaction is in a sense a “teachable moment” if one takes a broad enough perspective.
I’ve just had a rough night and a rough morning at the hospital, but driving home by Lake St. Clair and seeing the magnificent sunrise over it reminded me of the majesty of the universe and the contrast with my own (relatively) petty concerns.
I’ve lost a number of pets over the years, so I know the pain. I’ve also had the joy of seeing the joy on children’s faces as they interact with pets.
Dave: My mother died of cancer when she was only 55. She had a black lab called Winston. He had diabetes and we had to put him down while my mom was sick. About a year after she died I dreamed that Winston came running over a hill. I was excited to see him, and then my mom came walking up. I think my mom was sending me a message that she was OK, and nothing will dissuade me that I won’t see that scene again, when I am in heaven.
Don: Next week we will pick up again on the nature of the restoration, and the changing of our names. The passage we will consider is Revelation 2:17:
‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes [what does that mean?], to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.’
We will consider the immutable “I Am” name of god and Jesus’s amplification of it; and what it means to be “the resurrection and the life,” “the door,” etc. There’s a creativity, a generativity, a sustainability, a remediability in these names… perhaps they point to key characteristics of god that can be understood or at least approached through these metaphors. It is fascinating that they lack the sternness and thunder that me might expect from god.
There are several interesting aspects to the new names we are to be given. First, they are to be given with hidden manna. In the Exodus, manna is a metaphor for grace. It is always there, whether you want it or not. If you gather too much, it spoils and is not beneficial. In the Exodus, everyone got the exact amount of manna (grace) they needed—no more, no less. But in Revelation, there is an something to be overcome, perhaps implying a failure to deserve grace. What is the significance of the white stone? Why white and not blue? Why a stone and not leather? Why does the recipient alone know—understand—the name written on it? Is it because the name sums up one’s life and one’s relationship with god in that life, which can only be known in its entirety by its possessor and god?
We’ll try to find out.
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