Recycle or Revolution

 

Choosing which traditions to keep and discard

12/23/2025

Luke 1:57-66 When the time arrived for Elizabeth to have her child she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy toward her, and they rejoiced with her. When they came on the eighth day to circumcise the child, they were going to call him Zechariah after his father, but his mother said in reply, “No. He will be called John.” But they answered her, “There is no one among your relatives who has this name.” So they made signs, asking his father what he wished him to  e called. He asked for a tablet and wrote, “John is his name,” and all were amazed. Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed, and he spoke blessing God. Then fear came upon all their neighbors, and all these matters were discussed throughout the hill country of Judea. All who heard these things took them to heart, saying, “What, then, will this child be? For surely the hand of the Lord was with him.”

My Indian culture has a custom of naming babies that can be very confusing, but it’s also kind of cool. We recycle names every two generations. For example, the first-born son is named for his grandfather on his father’s side. The first born-daughter is named for her grandmother on her father's side. The second-born son is named for his grandfather on his mother’s side. And the second-born daughter is named for her grandmother on her mother’s side. Do you see the pattern?

So, let me ask you: since I am the second-born son, who am I named after? You guessed it: I share my maternal grandfather’s name, “Yohannan.” And if a family has more than two boys and two girls, those additional children are given up for adoption. Just kidding, I really don’t know how they are named. But the basic pattern recycles names every two generations. And I feel a special bond with my mom’s dad, even though I never knew him.

The Jewish culture of the 1st century must have had a similar tradition of recycling family names. In fact, the footnote in the USCCB online Bible for Lk 1:59 reads: “The practice of Palestinian Judaism at this time was to name a child at birth…the usual practice was to name the child after the grandfather.” So Malayalees and Middle Easterners share recycling names in common. But Zachariah and Elizabeth break with that Jewish tradition to indicate that something new was dawning.

You see, traditions can serve two purposes. When we follow timeless traditions, we stay firmly rooted in our past, like how I feel a closeness to my maternal grandfather “Yohannan.” But some traditions are made to be broken to usher in a new reality, as in the case of John the Baptist. He would not only usher in Jesus, but a whole “new creation” (2 Cor 5:17), indeed, “a new heavens and a new earth” (Rv. 21:1). In other words, recycling names is sometimes replaced by a revolution.

When my family emigrated to the United States in 1976, we had to make many changes to adapt to our new home. One of those modifications was how we name babies. Obviously, I don’t have any offspring, but my brother and sister have married and used various methodologies to name their children. But rarely did they recycle name like we do in India. So they came up with Noah, Isaac, Sophia, Isabella, Raichel, Luke, Jacob, Adam, and Rebecca, my nieces and nephews.

I sometimes wonder if all the changes in culture and tradition that immigrants to the United States make is not also part-and-parcel of the “American Revolution.” What do I mean? Well, the “revolution” was not only a struggle for the Founding Fathers in 1776; it is relived by more recent founding fathers and mothers arriving on these shores today. But their real challenge is knowing which traditions to keep and which ones to jettison. In other words, how do you not throw the baby out with the bathwater?

Yesterday, I had the funeral Mass for Charlie Kleck. Charlie was born in Morrison Bluff to devout Catholic parents. How do I know they were devout Catholics? Charlie was one of 9 children. Charlie attended Subiaco Academy and remained a practicing Catholic for 93 years. Charlie Kleck was part of a generation of Catholic Americans who decided their Catholic faith was one tradition of their ancestors they would keep, even as they changed others.

But can we say the same for the current generation of Catholics? I went to St. Theresa’s Catholic School in southwest Little Rock and graduated from 8th grade in 1983. By the way, my class was filled with German Catholics: Becks, Ekmans, Gangluffs, Moix, Kordsmeiers, etc. Sadly, only a handful of my Cougar classmates are still practicing Catholics. And I don’t think that trend is uncommon for Gen Xers like me and my friends. That is, our own American revolution meant we threw the baby out with the bathwater, and tragically that was the Baby Jesus.

When Elizabeth and Zachariah decided not to recycle names for their baby and name him John, they were not just trying to pick a cute baby name. They were sparking a revolution no less dramatic than when John Hancock penned his signature at the bottom of the Declaration of Independence. But like with every revolution, the hard part is knowing what part of the past to keep and what to throw away. Some revolutions might throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Praised be Jesus Christ!