JUST WHO’S CALLING YOUR NAME? [M, 4-20-20]

Christ In Winter: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Times of Winter

JUST WHO’S CALLING YOUR NAME?      [M, 4-20-20]

 Over the last couple of weeks, I have gotten emails from three different women, saying, “Johnny, here is my personal email address…” followed by the actual address. That is so intriguing. It’s really nice to be called by name. Especially by people who have hot-babe names, themselves.

One of our pastors at St. Mark’s, Mary Beth Morgan, preached about that yesterday, April 19. She told about growing up in Chicago with Romper Room on TV. We remember Romper Room, for we lived in the Chicago area [Cedar Lake, IN] when our daughters were little.

The hostess, Miss Suzanne, had a reverse mirror, by which she would look out from the TV and “see” children, and call their names. “I see Bobby. I see Susie…” Mary Beth and her brother listened carefully, hoping for Miss Suzanne to see them and call their names. Her brother’s was called, but not hers. Maybe her name was called before she started watching, though. She is a little younger than our daughters, and our older daughter is a Mary Beth.

The thing Helen and I remember most about Romper Room was not the name calling but the previous hostess, Miss Beverly. There were commercial breaks in the program. Miss Beverly announced one. But she did not return after the commercials. There was a strange period of dead air and then some hastily grabbed other program, maybe part of a Garfield Goose, was thrown into the breach. The next day, there was a new hostess, and nothing was ever said about Miss Beverly again. There’s got to be a great story there, but…

Mary Beth Morgan--whose work I am sharing without permission, because I’m that kind of guy, from the olden days of preaching, when we stole shamelessly from one another without attribution, unless it got a bad reaction, and then we claimed we were just quoting someone else—pointed out how important it is to be called by name, how Mary did not know it was Jesus at the tomb until he called her by name, and she recognized his voice.  [John 20:16]

God knows you by name. The devil knows your name, too. But if you listen carefully, you can tell whether it is God or the devil that is calling your name.

You remember those women who are giving me their email addresses, the ones who called me Johnny? There is no Johnny here.

I tried to be a Johnny, to distinguish me from my uncle, my mother’s youngest brother, for whom I was named, and from my father, also John.

I didn’t want to be a John. John was a stodgy old man name. Still is. When I go to a restaurant-- at least in the days when restaurants were open--and they asked for my name, so they could call me when my order was ready, if I told them “John,” then when they called out my order, every old man in the place jumped up and tried to get my food. So I always have told them in those cases that my name is Ambrose. Not likely to be another one of those there.

The name “John” gets no respect. Unidentified dead bodies are John. Long underwear is John. Customers of prostitutes are John. Guys whose girlfriends dump them are John.

Baseball heroes, though, are Johnnys, not John. Like Johnny Wyrostek, and Johnny Mize, and Johnny Bench. And comic book heroes, like Johnny Dark. So I wanted to be a Johnny.

But my uncle, John Pond, was called Johnny by everyone. And my father was Johnny Mac to my mother’s family. So, to distinguish myself, I became Johney.

I tried to get my high school mates to call me Johney, but they could never quite do it. I was too old and stodgy. And the girls all wanted to pin a note to my saddle when they sent it home. They persisted in calling me John. It’s only God who calls me Johney. It’s the devil who doesn’t know, who says, “Hey, Johnny, here’s my email address...”

If you pay attention, listen and look carefully, there’s always a clue. You can tell whether it’s Christ or the devil who is calling your name.

John Robert McFarland