What Did You Call Me?

              “Misnomer”:  Applying a wrong name to some person or thing (Webster’s New World 

College Dictionary).  The misnaming of a thing is often due to ignorance of the truth or a misunderstanding of the word(s) being used.  For instance, “sunrise” is a misnomer applied to a daily event as a result of a lack of scientific understanding regarding the rotation of the earth.  We know better today, but we continue to use the misnomer.  We also continue to refer to making a phone call as “dialing” a number, when in reality, there are no more dials on our phones.  I’m still debating about the term “old guy” when applied to me.  Is that a misnomer, the truth, or just an insult?

                I was thinking about this phenomenon the other night while I was watching the third game of the World Series.  As a side, I seldom watch baseball during the regular season, but enjoy watching the World Series for some reason.  Every four years I enjoy watching Olympic events that I never watch at any other time.  I’ll have to explore the reasons for that some other time.  Getting back to the World Series.  Shouldn’t they be called the Most of North America Series?  There is plenty of enthusiasm for baseball in the rest of the Americas, and in some other countries such as Japan, but the so-called World Series includes only U.S. teams and the Toronto Blue Jays from Canada.  It really isn’t the “World” Series.

                And how about American “football”?  Really, how often does the foot become an integral part of the game?  Certainly not nearly as often as the hands, arms, legs and shoulders.  Maybe a better name for the game would be Prolate Spheroid.  Or, if that’s too cerebral for Oakland fans, Funny Looking Ball That’s Carried or Thrown Much More Than It’s Kicked.  Football, in the U.S., is a misnomer.  “Soccer” is not so much a misnomer as a bad slang term invented, believe it or not, by the British.  Yes, the same British who are so adamant that the game is called football (or the Spanish equivalent futbol).  It seems an association was formed in the 1860s to standardize several different kinds of football games being played in the empire.  Being a people who loved to abbreviate words, the first five letters “assoc” were extracted from “association” and used to describe the official game of football.  For whatever reason, and I can immediately think of one possibility, this abbreviation was quickly shortened to “soc.”  At that same time in history there were people who enjoyed adding “er” to certain words.  Thus, rugby was often referred to as ruggers.  So, “soc” became “soccer” in no time at all.  This is now the name of the game in countries where there were already games called “football” when the word “soccer” was introduced (U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, parts of Ireland).  “Football” is not a misnomer when referring to soccer.

                As all this was swirling around in my head Sunday morning, it occurred to me that we Christians cling to some misnomers that could be detrimental to our spiritual growth or understanding of who God is.  Take, for example, the word “sanctuary.”  In spite of decades of attempting to educate locals about the proper use of the word, I still hear people refer to the room where we gather on Sundays as the “sanctuary.”  In the Old Testament the sanctuary is the place where God lived.  There were altars for sacrifices, priests who acted as go-betweens, and strict rules protecting the holiness of the place.  In the New Testament the people of God are the sanctuaries.  No longer does God live in temples built by human hands (Acts 17:24).  Instead, he lives in us.  We are his temples as individuals (I Corinthians 3:16a) and we are his temples as gathered groups of believers (I Corinthians 3:16b and 6:19).  He lives in us, not in our buildings.  Therefore, “sanctuary,” when referring to a meeting place, is a misnomer.  His sanctuary meets in an auditorium, gymnasium or living room.  He is in us at all times, and we don’t need to be in a particular place to be in his presence.

                Now, I’m waiting to see how someone might abbreviate that.