Names are important. Each of us likes to be called by our own name, and while we are gracious to someone who mispronounces our name or forgets it, we don’t like it to be a habit. Our name tells us and
others who we are and perhaps what we are about. And when we remember the names of those who are no longer with us, they are momentarily with us once again.

I am named for my father, thus a part of my name is a Junior at the end indicating that I am the second in line with that name. I remember as a child, my father writing down “Doyle Klinger” on a piece of paper and saying to me, “That’s my name.” Then he wrote a “Jr.” after it and said to me, “That’s your name. When you grow up, you need to use your name, not mine.” And thereafter, I began signing everything with my name, Doyle Klinger, Jr., not my father’s. Later I added my middle initial to my signature to set me apart. In effect, my
father was giving me my own identity, even though we shared the same name. He wanted me to be me,not him.

As a child, my family and all of our neighbors knew me as and called me “Junior.” Until I went to school at 6 ½ , I was always called Junior Klinger, never Doyle Klinger. Even today, my father, my aunts and
uncles and many of my cousins still call me Junior. While this distresses my wife, to me it’s just one of the names that has had special meaning for me as a child. And of course, even when I retire and will be considered a senior citizen, my father will still call me Junior, because to him that is who I am and always will be as his son.

When I went to first grade (we didn’t have kindergarten when I was a kid), my mother took me on the first morning and sat with me as the teacher took role. Most of the children had their mothers with them, but
one little boy who became my close friend, was alone. As the teacher called out the names, each child was to answer, “Here.” But when she got to my future friend, Stephen Kalanick, she mispronounced his name, and he wouldn’t answer because he hadn’t heard his name called. While this comedy was unfolding, my mother leaned over to me and said, “When they call Doyle Klinger, you answer ‘here’. That’s your name.” She later said that she was afraid that I would only answer to Junior Klinger.

Jesus said to his disciples, “I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (14:13). This statement comes at the end of a familiar teaching that we have heard many times, particularly at funerals. It is a passage of scripture that gives us comfort for the loss of a loved one, that Jesus has received that person in heaven.

Yet, this passage first spoke to early Christians about how Jesus would be with his followers here on earth after he had left them and ascended into heaven. Jesus spends time explaining the relationship between God and the Son, Jesus. They are one and the same. If you have known me, you have known my father. “I
am the way, the truth and the life,” Jesus says. “It is through me that you come to God. There is no other way.”

“Therefore,” Jesus instructs, “if you use my name when you call upon God in worship, I will be present with you. I’ll be there.” Which says that the name of Jesus has special meaning and power. Not magical power. Not the kind of power that lets us get what we want. The power of the name of Jesus tells us who Jesus is and comforts us that when we call upon Jesus. When we use his name in our worship of God, his name will be a channel for the risen Christ to come and be with us in our worship. Not magic, but signifying that we have a
special relationship with our Lord and Savior God. It is why it is imperative that we Christians always use the name of Jesus in our worship and in our prayers. We cannot be followers of Jesus if we don’t have Jesus with us to follow. Using his name includes him in our presence so that we may hear and follow him where
he wants to lead us.

On this day of Holy Communion, this Eucharist or thanksgiving celebration for the death and resurrection of Christ, we worship in the name of Jesus with these symbols of the risen Christ, our Lord who is right here with
us. Here is the broken body and the shed blood in this bread and grape juice that proclaims to us once again that God so loved the world that God gave the only son so that we should not die but have eternal life. Christ is here to comfort us with the message and the fact that our sins are forgiven and our lives are made new. “I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (14:13). Words from the mouth of the risen Christ who is here with us and who invites us to eat with him at his table.