"My name is Anne."

I'm acutely aware that I've spoken frequently of my childhood from this pulpit, and would ask that you bear with me this morning as I recall yet another episode from that period of my life.

I hope you'll appreciate that, when it's 30 below zero, one's thoughts just naturally turn to Winnipeg, and to winter - memories of snowsuits; of mittens attached with string; of scarlet red faces with those icicle eyebrows; and of getting one's tongue stuck on just about everything.

In any event, I found myself thinking about Winnipeg this week, and of my childhood there. I think I've mentioned before that my most significant memories of my childhood concern my inability to pronounce my own name.

My name is Sharon Schollar. But I would say "Shawin," and I would say "Squalor." "Shawin Squalor." And people would laugh. Soon I was afraid to say much about anything, and simply terrified to speak my name aloud.

I remember once when my family - my mom, dad, and my sister and I - were traveling by car to the United States. We were stopped at the border. Evidently, a little girl had been abducted and officials were being particularly careful to question travelers with children. My mom and dad told the guards that the two girls in the back seat were their daughters, Pat and Sharon. One man poked his head through the window to verify these facts.

"What is your name little girl?" "My name is Patsy," replied my sister in a calm and confident voice. The man then turned to me. "And what is your name little girl?" I was petrified, of course. I could not - and would not - say my own name. And so I chose another, one that I could pronounce. "My name is Anne."

Immediately, we were asked to step out of the car and enter a building. We were placed in separate rooms, and interrogated for some time. I can't imagine what my parents were saying, but I stuck to my story for quite a long time. "My name is Anne, just like the pwincess."

Eventually, of course, we resumed our trip - but I will never forget that experience, and I've been afraid of crossing borders for most of my life.

The point is that our names are significant. They are personal. They are intimate. They are a sign, and symbol, of who we are. Names identify us as individuals - unique, special, "fearfully, and wonderfully made." It hurts when someone can't remember our name, and feels very good when someone can.

To be called by name is to be singled-out, to be recognized, to be known. It's an epiphany of sorts. To be called by name is to be made manifest, made visible - to be "called forth."

Similarly, I think, that if one is unable - for whatever reason - to speak one's name, with authenticity and with confidence, one may feel - indeed one may "be"/or become - invisible, unknown, unrecognized, and quite alone.

Unfortunately, this is the predicament of hundreds of millions of people who cannot "speak their name" due to illness, or poverty, or violence; people who cannot speak their name because they are "petrified" - or otherwise silenced - by oppression; people who cannot speak their name because they are denied the most fundamental of human rights.

Our first reading today paints a portrait of an insistent, and persistent, God who calls a young boy, Samuel, by name.

God beckons Samuel to leave one place - where eyesight had grown dim, and "visions were not widespread" - to go with God to someplace else.

God beckons Samuel to leave what has become old, and weary, and become with God the co-creator of something brand new.

God beckons Samuel to break with the past, and to "cross a border" with God into the unknown future.

It is a deeply personal, and intimate, experience. Samuel listens and responds, and his life is transformed.

In our gospel for today, Philip and Nathaniel are similarly called by name. They are called to leave one place to go to another; they are called to become co-creators of something brand new; and they are called to "cross a border" into an unknown future. Once again, the experience is deeply personal, and life changing.

For me, today's readings serve to remind us that the bedrock of our Christian faith - our mission and ministry - is a deeply personal, and intimate, engagement with God in Christ Jesus. It is foundational - constitutive of our identity as children of God, and members of the Body of Christ. And it is something that we must nurture always - in prayer, in silence, in solitude - intentionally listening for God's voice, with the hope and expectation that we will hear it.

Our readings reminds us as well that, in Christ, we are known by name - and that, by name, we are continually "called forth" into places just off the map of our present experience. We are summoned to cross borders without fear or shame, and with boldness to seize the new day. And we are assured, like Nathaniel, that in future we "will see greater things than these." (John 1:50)

On a more personal note, our readings reminded me that in Christ we learn to "speak our names aloud." To be wholly authentic, unique, and visible - to be precisely who God intended us to be. To take up our space in the world, so that we may serve the world - and, in so doing, become the co-creators of something brand new.

It is to this end that we pray -