What’s In A Name?

One wonders why parents pick certain names for their children.  What on earth was the minds of the parents who named their babies, Dweezil and Moon Unit, or how about the little girl named Aquanetta, after the hair spray, or the little Gates boy who was named Pearly by his parents?  I actually met Pearly Gates who was always invited to banquets just so that he could be introduced.  I strongly suspect that I was named after Christopher Robin in Winnie the Pooh, although I’m not entirely sure.  Certainly Winnie the Pooh loomed large in family lore, and my uncle Ian was always referred to as Uncle Eeyore.

Why was Trinity picked as a name by the founders of this parish?  I would hazard a guess that it wasn’t a reference to the Trinity River.  The simple explanation may in part be that Trinity is a very traditional Church name.  On a deeper level it has a meaning that transcends the past history of this parish.

Trinity Episcopal Church is named after the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  For the ancient Hebrews the name evoked the whole person.  When the psalmist says, “May the Name of the God of Jacob protect you, he means, may God, and all that He is protect, shield, and guard you.  When we say that this is Trinity Episcopal Church, we are declaring that the One God, Father Son and Holy Spirit dwells in this place; and that we acknowledge the power, majesty, and sovereignty of the Trinity, three Persons in One God.  We understand that the Trinity is a profound mystery that far excels the power of human telling.

In our Offertory Hymn for today we declare, “I bind unto my self today the strong name of the Trinity . . . his hand to guide, his shield to ward” In saying this we are declare that we put our whole trust in His grace and love.  We do not understand this naïvely.  Sometimes difficult things happen to individuals and to parish families, but we also understand that part of the sovereign work of the Trinity is to make sense out of the past as well as the present.  This Lord God of hosts, in return, declares to us, “I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope, then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.  You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 28:11-13).

Our parish name, Trinity Episcopal Church, invites us into a relationship with this God of Love and restoration.  This is not an abstract thing, but an intensely personal thing.  It is God the Father who loves us.  God the Son is our Friend and Redeemer. It is God the Holy Spirit who offers us the power to rebuild our lives and our parish on a firm foundation as we worship and celebrate His love together.