LD 36, Exodus 3:1-15 "For His Name's Sake" Scott Hoezee

Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy had quite a bit in common. For one thing both men were as well known by their initials as their actual names. If I were to reel off the initials "RWR" or "WGH," you would not necessarily tumble to the fact that I was referring to Ronald Wilson Reagan or Warren Gamaliel Harding. But if I said "FDR" or "JFK," you would instantly know to whom I was referring.

Ironically, another characteristic which FDR and JFK shared in common also has to do with names. Because both men had the habit of casually re-naming people as soon as they met them. Although FDR was always referred to as "Mr. President," he typically addressed others by their first names. Even the King of England, upon visiting the White House, was greeted by Roosevelt with "Hello, George." JFK went one step further in his habit of assigning nicknames. Someone introduced to Kennedy as James Smith might hear the president say, "Nice to see you Jimbo, have a seat." A woman named Inga with whom Kennedy was romantically involved for many years was instantly dubbed "Inga Binga."

Now, of course, both FDR and JFK were also possessed of huge amounts of personal charm. Both men were so affable and congenial that this habit of using first names or even nicknames typically came off as friendly and charming. After all, who wouldn't want to have such a close and casual relationship to the most powerful person in the world? But some observers of both men noted the power-play dynamic that was at work. When someone changes your name on you, he has taken charge of the relationship. He has assumed a high-ness over against you--a superior position. That is all the more obvious in that neither president would have accepted the same treatment from others. FDR or JFK might usher me into the Oval Office and say "Nice to see you, Scottie boy, have a seat." But it goes without saying that I would not have been welcome to respond, "Thanks, Frank" or "Nice to see you, too, Jack."

A name is far more than just a handle, just a way to get a hold of someone. We are protective of our names. That's why if someone whom I had just met really did call me "Scottie" or "Scottaroo" right off the bat, I would be rather leery of this person. Who does he think he is? Our names identify us, and we identify with our names. That's why when someone mispronounces your name, it is you, not the person who made the verbal gaffe, who feels embarrassed. I long ago stopped putting my last name onto restaurant waiting lists because I always felt foolish when someone called for the "Whoo-zeee" party of four. (Actually for a while I put down the Spanish spelling of "José," but when one evening the hostess called for the "Josey" party, I gave up and started putting down "Scott!")

Perhaps much of this seems trite or petty, so much so that you might imagine God would be above such concerns. But according to the Bible, God is even more concerned with how his name is used than we could ever be about our own monikers. This becomes very clear in the Book of Exodus where first God divulges his sacred name to Moses and then later establishes the third commandment to protect that name. Because as we will see, when God's name gets used the wrong way, God is not simply embarrassed or put off a touch. No, such blasphemous misuse imperils the availability of salvation itself.

Let's begin by looking at Exodus 3. In this passage it looks as though this is the first time God ever gives out the name Yahweh. Yet throughout the Book of Genesis this name was used all the time. When Jacob's wife Leah, for instance, had a child in Genesis 29 she said, "For this birth I give praise to Yahweh."

But that was close to 500 years before the burning bush. So either Exodus 3 is not the first time this name was given or the name Yahweh got included in Genesis as a historical anachronism. Since Genesis was written after the burning bush, perhaps the author used the name "Yahweh" even though people like Abraham and Leah had perhaps not spoken the name at the time. Either way you get the impression from Exodus 3 that God has launched a significant turn of events in Israel by giving out his name. Something new is starting.

The name "Yahweh" means either "I am who I am" or "I will be who I will be." In other words, "Yahweh" is a reference to the covenant God who is constant, faithful, abiding, and consistent. The very name of God tells us that he will always be with us. He just is life itself, the bright cosmic center of grace and mercy. In older Bible translations this Hebrew name for God was rendered "Jehovah" but now throughout the Old Testament the divine name is signified by printing the word "LORD" in all capital letters.

I'm not completely certain why the NIV chose to do it that way, but I find it to be a somewhat unhappy choice. The word "Lord," after all, does not sound like a personal name. "Lord" is a title. That's probably why some Bible translations have reverted back to "Yahweh," which in English is about as close as we can get to the original Hebrew. Of course, as we have noted before, no one is completely sure how the original Hebrew was pronounced for the simple reason that no one ever did pronounce this name out loud.

In the Israelite tradition the third commandment was taken to mean that no one may ever speak the Holy Name aloud. Recently a Jewish organization took out a full-page ad in the New York Times to promote some cause. But in this ad, as in all Jewish publications, even the word "God" was not written out--instead the standard way to write this is G-d. Since God will not hold anyone guiltless who takes his name in vain, Jews have concluded that it is safest to not say the name at all!

But we Christians do pronounce God's name of Yahweh as well as the Name we believe is above all names: "Jesus," which stems from the words "Yahweh Saves." But if the third commandment does not forbid pronouncing these names, what does it mean?

In short, it means protecting God's holy names so that they always mean life and love, grace and mercy, faithfulness and truth. God made himself vulnerable in giving out his name. Once that name is out there, it can be misused. So in the third commandment God takes charge both of defining his own name and in dictating how that name is to be used from then on out. God names himself, we do not name him. As we said earlier, people like FDR knew that if you can control someone else's name, you have taken charge of the relationship--you establish yourself as the superior one.

But God alone is in charge of his own name. We use it only the way he wants it to be used; namely, in praise, in worship, in precise witness to his identity as the covenant God of all faithfulness. All other uses, the Bible says, constitute taking the Name in vain.

The English word "vain" derives from the Latin word vanus, which means "empty." Apparently there are ways to use God's sacred name which empty that name of its real meaning, its real power, and its real beauty. That is the essence of blasphemy. By misusing or misapplying God's Name, God's reputation gets damaged.

Blasphemy at its core is an attack on God--it is a form of theft which steals sacred words and symbols away from God, twists and perverts them, and so makes those words and symbols do the exact opposite of what they are supposed to do. The name that should bring life brings death and insult. A pedestrian form of this blasphemy is taking the name of Jesus Christ and using it as a swear word.

But what happens to a person's ability to appreciate Jesus as the Lord of Life when that same name is used as a way to express anger, to belittle someone, or to be a trite way to express frustration? What happens is that Jesus becomes associated with the very kinds of activities he came to save us from. Blasphemy blocks the real meaning of Jesus and the real character of God. It steals God's own language in such a way that God is left with nothing to say. Or think of what happens to the symbol of the cross when the KKK burns it in front a black man's house: the cross becomes a symbol of hatred. The cross becomes a roadblock to shalom instead of a doorway to it.

In William Styron's chillingly brilliant novel Sophie's Choice Styron tells us that the Nazis frequently forced mothers to choose which of their children would live and which would die. Sophie had two children but was forced to decide which one to keep with her and which one to send to the gas chambers. The Nazis in a sense "blasphemed" her motherhood. They knew that as a mother Sophie loved her children more than anyone else possibly could. So they found a way to take this maternal love and make it serve their sinister goal of destroying Sophie's spirit. They forced her to become her own child's executioner, making her point the finger as to which one would die. That act corrupted Sophie's spirit forever.

Similarly, blasphemy sneaks past the love of God, seizes God's holy name and the sacred symbols of his salvation, and then corrupts them, turning them into instruments with which to further bludgeon people instead of heal them. Blasphemy swipes the good things of God leaving him with no way to get through to people. Even as Sophie's motherhood was ruined by having it twisted in an unholy direction, so also with God: when the words that should convey God's love become twisted, a good thing is ruined for those on the receiving end of the blasphemy. God gets jumbled together with all the wrong associations.

But, of course, this can happen not only when people curse but anytime God gets invoked in ways that hinder people's ability to see his love. Sometimes we believers can be guilty of this ourselves. Some of you have perhaps seen the bumper sticker that says, "O Jesus, Save Me from Your Followers!" Throughout history and right up to this present day, some who bear the name of Christ can behave in ways that drive people further away from God instead of bringing them closer.

And once we leave a sour taste in someone's mouth, once we create an association of Jesus with something that is unlovely, then thereafter the Name above all names becomes for that person the last name he or she ever wants to hear again. And then what? How can anyone ever get through to that person with the good news of the gospel? Once we have deprived God of his good name, what language can he borrow to reach out to the lost?

In the first two sermons in this Ten Commandments series we pondered the perils of re-casting God into our own image. The third commandment conveys the same thing: if we swear a false oath and use God to cover our tracks, if we make God the possession of one political party and not another, if we use the name Jesus or the symbol of his cross in ways that diminish people instead of lift them up, then we blaspheme God by stealing away his good name and using it for a purpose that says more about what we want to accomplish than what God does.

Our Jewish brothers and sisters are so cautious in this area that they refuse even to speak God's name aloud. Whether or not that guarantees they will never break this commandment would be an interesting question to consider but at least it shows a devout seriousness where the use of God's name is concerned. And perhaps we all would do well to take a lesson from that. Most of us are so familiar with the language of the faith that we do not find it difficult to talk about Jesus or God or the Bible. It's natural for us. It's part of the air we breathe. And that's good. There is something right about being so filled with the Spirit as to have that kind of holy familiarity.

But this can also introduce a danger for us. Since certain phrases roll off our tongues with great ease, we might accidentally find ourselves invoking God to back up our own political opinions, to further our own personal agendas, to sanction the particular form of our lifestyles over against how perhaps another Christian might lead her life.

The name of God as it was given to Moses in Exodus 3, and certainly now also the name of Jesus, means faithfulness, love, mercy, and grace. If we empty the divine names of that content, if we hinder anyone's ability to see how much God enjoys bringing people home in his plan of salvation, then there is a sense in which we have made the proclamation of God's holy name and his gospel message vain. It becomes just empty talk.

Of course, this is all a bit more complicated than just that. After all, it surely happens quite often that even when we Christians witness properly to God and Jesus, some people are turned off anyway. You don't need to misrepresent Jesus to leave a sour taste in some people's mouths--sometimes a perfectly accurate portrayal of God will have the same effect. But when so, the main thing we need constantly to ask ourselves is if this other person's negative attitude is a result of the gospel or of the bad way we presented it.

It is one thing if someone is offended by the cross because he flat out refuses to believe that anyone ever had to die for sin. It is quite another matter, however, if someone is offended by the cross because of the way folks like the KKK have associated it with racism and hatred. It is one thing if someone recoils from the name of Jesus because she flat out finds it ridiculous that a Jewish peasant from half-way around the world and 2,000 years ago could have any effect on her today. It is quite another matter if someone recoils from the name of Jesus because her next-door neighbor uses Jesus to cover over or shine up a nasty life of gossip, backbiting, and pettiness.

We have been entrusted with a great gift by having received God's holy names. God is the one who divulged those names and God is the one who sets the boundaries on how we use them. It is for that reason that we should adopt the habit of being cautious and even hesitant about saying too much about what God thinks. When we witness to God based on what we find in the Bible, then we can and must speak. But if we're not sure, if we sense that maybe we are talking about God more to make ourselves look good than to really open up people's eyes to the faithful God of the covenant, then in these situations perhaps there is such a thing as holy silence. Like the Jews who refuse even to speak the name, maybe there are times when we also need to not bring God into certain issues.

When the Catechism was written in the mid-1500s, many people were consumed with the worry that swearing an oath in court violated the third commandment. After all, then as now there were those who would casually invoke God's name to make themselves look more credible, even though they were perhaps actually being dishonest. Christians back then were frightened of the consequences that might come if they mixed God in too freely in settings where the divine name did not properly belong. That's probably why this is the only one of the Ten Commandments that receives two full Lord's Days in the Catechism.

Perhaps it goes without saying that these days people don't have that fear anymore. If anything there are at least some in our society who think that the more we can parade God and Jesus into classrooms, courtrooms, political debates, and laboratories the better. But the third commandment remains firmly in place as a reminder and a warning: God is not our mascot. He did not lend us his name to do with what we please but to do with it what pleases God. And what pleases God is an honest proclamation of his covenant faithfulness which climaxes in the death and resurrection of Jesus his Son. That is the message we need to proclaim first and foremost, for his Name's sake. Amen.