What's in a Name?

“What’s in a Name?”

“What’s in a Name?” Juliet said to Romeo, caught as they were between two feuding families; the Capulets and the Montagues but loving hearts beat within them as she said; “Romeo, Romeo, doff thy name and for thy name which is no part of thee take all myself”. ~Romeo & Juliet Act 2, Scene 2, lines 47-49.

As naming was relational to Romeo and Juliet, so it is for all Teachers who must learn their students’ names. So too must clergy when they come to a church. As I continue to learn your names, I also continue to be grateful for your wearing name tags. Knowing names builds relationships.

Likewise we seek to know God’s Name. So let me ask you this about your relationship with the Holy Name; can you remember your first experience of God, or Jesus or the Holy Spirit? Has there ever been a time when the “Holy” has touched your heart? You life? How? What have your subsequent experiences of God been like? Or have you always been an Episcopalian and like a fish to water, God is so much a part of your life, you don’t notice it simply because you “live and move and have your being in God”? Still, has there ever been a time when the word “God” became an existential experience to you? The word is more than three letters and a single syllable. God is a living encounter.

In colloquial English we use so many expressions involving the word God; 

• God bless you

• O my God!

• O for the love of God

• Good God almighty!

• God forbid!

• God only knows!

• God rest his/her soul

• God willing

• God works in mysterious ways wonders to perform

• Honest to God

• Let go and let God

• There but for the grace of God go I

When you think about it, the word “God” takes a prominent place in our lives, our experience and in our hearts.

Apparently Moses was trying to avoid God and problem of slavery and oppression in Egypt. So he took up tending to the flock of his father in law Jethro. Today's first reading tells us that one day while minding his own business he came across this extraordinary sight. There was a bush on fire. Yet it was not consumed. By the way you can see what is called the burning at the foot of Mount Sinai in St. Catherine’s Monastery, the oldest monastery in the Christian wold. When the bush shimmers in the desert winds it appears to be on fire.

Whatever the case, what Moses saw was fire, yet the bush was not consumed. Moses turned aside to see this great sight. He could avoid it no longer. It seemed at first like an angel and then clearly this was God. It was an encounter with The Holy; what we call in Biblical Theology “A Theophany”; literally a showing or revelation of God. Moses removed his shoes because the very ground he was standing on was holy. 

In Celtic Christianity there are what we call “thin places” on earth; places where the distance between us and God seems somehow nearer. Places that seem to take your breath away like Iona in Scotland, Holy Island in Britain or Mont St Michel in France. I feel it in places like this or in the lives of those who suffer. Never do I feel the holy more intensely than in that sacred moment when I walk with someone to that last great moment when we stand together at “The Gate of Heaven”.

And so it was that Moses had an “Honest to God” encounter with the holy at the burning bush. God spoke to him and said, “I have seen the misery of my people. So have you.”

God spoke to Moses somewhere deep in his heart and from the burning bush; “I want you to go down to Pharaoh and tell him; “Let my people go!” It was a dangerous thing to do. 

You can imagine, going to any tyrant and telling him something he doesn’t want to hear. History tells us again and again that those in power don’t take well to criticism and do not like their policies questioned no matter what the moral implications. In fact tyrants like to make up the truth as the go along. 

You can imagine Moses’ reluctance. “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” ~Exodus 3:11

God’s response is fascinating. I’ll give you a sign Moses. “When you have brought them forth out of Egypt you shall serve God upon the holy mountain.” ~Exodus 3:12

Moses may well have questioned such a sign. After all, that was well in to the future. So quite naturally, Moses presents God with a follow up question: He might well have said; “Look, all the nations around us have Gods. The Egyptians have Ra, the Babylonians have the Baals, the Midianites have Baal-peor and Ashteroth, the Queen of Heaven. How about us? Who shall I say sent us? Tell me, if you will, “What is your Name”?

Here the Biblical narrative reaches deep into the nature of Being itself. “You go and tell my children “I AM WHO I AM” has sent you. This is my Name forever: “I AM.”

Now then, for the linguists among us. In Hebrew there is what we call the “aorist” mood of a verb. In English we have the indicative, the imperative, and the subjunctive, but there is no such equivalent mood in English so it is a bit challenging to catch the full sense of the translation. Here we have the “aorist” of the copula verb “to be”. The verb requires in its nature a coupling of one thing to another. When God reveals the Divine Name, God “couples” the Being of God to the Being of humankind.

Thus when God says “I AM”  he also requires you to say “I am” too. Obviously the “I AM” of God is in all CAPS, whereas the “I am” of the human being is in small letters. Apart from God I am nothing. But with God and in God we come into relationship with the Eternal nature of Being itself. 

The great Hebrew mystic/theologian Martin Buber, postulated that the very relationship between God and humankind is based exactly on this very kind of encounter. I AM, says God. “I am” too says I. Thus the I-Thou connect in the very act of being. And because God is eternal and without end, when I love God I too become eternal and without end. And when we love one another the eternal, unending nature of the sacred relationship is established among us all. We become the people of God.

Back to the grammar for a moment. The verb “to be” in this case is actually in the third person. So at yet another level of translation it can be rendered to mean “God will cause to be”. In other words, God is not to be understood to be a nationalistic symbol like other nations have when they speak of their gods. The God you encounter at the bedrock of your heart is the God of all history.

So when any people find themselves in bondage and in suffering, God will act in history and bring them up out of slavery and into the promised land. The message of freedom is not for the children of Israel alone but for any people finding themselves in bondage and in suffering. God will act again and again in history.

When you take that journey within to that place where the living God comes to life in your heart of hearts, honest to God, you will find a God who will act in your history and in the history of all those who mourn, the poor, the meek, the oppressed, the elderly, the little children, the persecuted, the ostracized. Isn’t this what Jesus teaches us in the Beatitudes?

In today’s Gospel, Peter didn’t get it; the part about suffering and death. But lets be fair to Peter, who does? I sure don’t like getting old and arthritic. Sometimes it hurts so bad that I’m driven into myself so far that my fear and dread are all that I can think of. Fair enough.

But Jesus, rebukes Peter and the rest of us out of our fear and our self consuming dread. “Look,” says Jesus, “The Son of Man must endure great suffering and death before he knows the power of God’s resurrection.”

Interesting, Jesus Names himself the Son of Man. In fact he does so 81 times in the Gospels. That is to say he is not only the essence of God, but your essence also. Jesus is fully God. Yes. But Jesus is fully human too. 

As Jesus is one with us in our suffering and death so too he is one with God in the victory over sin and death. In the Name of Jesus we become one not only in his suffering and death, we also become one with him in his glorious victory over sin and death.

This is where the rubber hits the road for Peter and the disciples of Jesus. Go ahead, take up your cross and follow Jesus. The Cross and the Crown are two sides of the same experience. For the Son of Man is also the Son of God and he has come to us in the person of Jesus where the two natures meet. And the word “God” has come to life.

Into today’s Epistle, Paul proclaims that the change in us is so profound that we can “Bless those who persecute us.” We can;  “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly” We do “not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.” We “live peaceably with all.” We are “not to be overcome by evil, but we overcome evil with good”. ~Romans 12.

So what’s in a Name? Your name, my name and God’s Name? It seems that in a name there is something of the essence of who we are. There is the sacred encounter where we learn to love, forgive, and reconcile, but above all where we encounter something holy, eternal and everlasting. That is why I end my sermons

In the Name of God; the Most Holy, Undivided, and Everlasting Trinity. Amen.

Fr Paul

Speaking the truth to Power and Money!

Go Down Moses!

In a few more minutes from now, we will baptize Logan and Makenna Franey. Last week, we baptized four youngsters and today we will baptize two more. If I had my way, I’d baptize as many kids and adults as I could get my hands on almost every Sunday of the Christian year. It is especially appropriate to baptize folks on Pentecost as we did last week, on All Saints Sunday in November, on the great Feast Day of the Baptism of our Lord in January, on Easter Eve and on the occasion of a visit from our Bishop.

As Pentecost celebrates the gift of the Holy Spirit to the church; a time when the Spirit of God fills our lives and thus the church is born, so now we come to the great feast day of Trinity Sunday. 

On this day we celebrate the great mystery which is in the Name of God. 

In the former instance, Moses was minding the flock of his father in law Jethro, just passing the time of day as it were, when he happened upon a mysterious sight. There before him was a burning bush and yet it was not consumed. It was on fire, yet it didn’t burn up. 

“What’s this?” Moses mused.

God answered from somewhere deep within Moses’ heart. “Take your shoes off Moses. The very land on which you are standing is holy ground. I have seen the sorrow and the suffering of my people in slavery. I want you to go and tell old Pharaoh ‘Let my people go!’”.

Moses reasoned with himself; “What then shall I tell the people? Who are YOU. What is your Name. “Every god has a name. Who then are YOU? 

God said; “I AM. That’s who I AM.”

Moses and God spoke together and began a dialogue which we continue up to this day. It is a dialogue of the inner heart. The "I am" who I am is always in conversation with the "I AM" of who God is. You see, it is a conversation of the inner heart. It is a conversation born out of the discovery of "Being" itself. I discover that I am. If I look deeply enough, I discover that God IS too. 

Yet having established the obvious is not enough. There is something to be done about the fact that God IS and so am I. God and I both have noticed that there is suffering, oppression and injustice. And when God in my inner heart notices such a thing God wants me to do something about it. God wants me to go to Pharaoh and tell him; “Let my people go.”

But, like Moses, who wouldn’t be afraid of going to Pharaoh and telling him to release the foundation stone of his economy? Who wouldn’t be afraid of going to the power holders, and the money holders of any age and telling them, “Let my people go”? Telling the truth to power and to money is a terrifying challenge. Look what happened to Jesus when he spoke to the money holders in the Temple precincts!

When God’s people suffer from the rod of oppression, my heart will not be silent. God’s heart will not be silent. And we must then be on our way to Pharaoh. We may resist doing so out of our fear. Pharaoh will resist complying with the mandate for justice. He will not give up without a fight. Power and money will resist mightily against the call for justice.

But God will make known the way and the truth and the life, there is no possible way to make your way to God if you are the agent of suffering and injustice, and somebody must be willing to say so. 

“Go down Moses; and tell old Pharaoh; ‘Let my people go!’”

That’s why God’s flames burned within the bush where Moses stood without consuming its leaves. This is why God’s flames burned over the heads of the disciples at Pentecost. This is why God’s flames of loving justice burn within our hearts today. It is to catch our attention. It is no magic trick. It is God’s heartache over the suffering of God’s people.

Does your heart not ache with God that so many suffer in the throes of warfare, poverty, unemployment, crime, natural disaster and disease? It is bad enough when we suffer from the caprice of nature. “The thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to” (Hamlet 3:1) as the Bard would say cry out to our hearts and our prayers. Yet so much suffering is caused by the print human hands. 

Do you not want to speak up to Pharaoh?  Are you looking for a place to speak your heart or God’s heart? Then follow the money. Speak to power. That will guide you to where God wants you to go. God has seen the suffering of his people. So have you. Look at inner city Philadelphia or Reading and ask yourselves; “What’s this? What is this suffering?”

Why not just give everybody in America a good job with full benefits. Surely if we can bail out banks too big to fail, we can put our own people to work...don’t you think?

Life is a prayer obviously. We’re always speaking to our own hearts and in our own hearts and to the hearts of others. God’s heart is within and among our hearts. Calling us again and again to go to Pharaoh.

My prayer is a conversation with you much like I do every Sunday. No need to bow your heads or close your eyes when you pray, especially when we pray out loud like this, or when we are alive to God and our brothers and sisters. If I were to pray in this moment I might begin to use some of the words of Richard Rohr, a Franciscan who speaks widely in ecumenical circles; a wonderful prayer for Trinity Sunday:

“O God your name is veiled in mystery, yet we dare to call you Father, your Son was begotten before all ages, yet is born among us in time, your Holy Spirit fills the whole creation, yet is poured forth now into our hearts.” ~Richard Rohr

I like that prayer for this day. You have created us. You have redeemed us. You fill us with your gifts of the spirit and fill us with your wisdom. And now you speak to us and say; “I have noticed the suffering of my people. Go to Pharaoh and tell him; ‘Let my people go’”.

When I Baptize Logan and McKenna today, I will ask them as I ask you to seek justice and to respect the dignity of every human being. You and I must go to Pharaoh to make possible the Dream of God in which we can “do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.” ~Micah 6:8

This is not just a fanciful dream. It is a fire burning in the bush, and God tells us to take the shoes we’re wearing and remove them because the very ground we’re standing on is holy ground. 

God wants us to see what he sees. He wants us to see the suffering of God’s people. He wants us to go to Pharaoh and tell him “Let my people go!”

On this Memorial Day weekend we remember those who have paid a dear price for our freedom and who had the courage to speak up to the power of an oppressor of another time. We have come to another time in our Nation’s history where more is to be done to bring justice to the poor and to the suffering. It will be a different kind of struggle. It will be a different kind of warfare. So much of the suffering of our people is now from a place that presents itself to us in many disguises.

Seems funny when even Congress notices that Apple and Google pay next to nothing in taxes. The British Parliament is beginning to catch on to the same phenomenon there. You and I pay our taxes. Why not them. Yet, it's all perfectly legal. We voted for our representatives. They voted for the tax code. Mmm! Something fishy is going on in our democracies.

But there is plenty of time for all that. For one thing I do know, someone will go for God and tell old Pharaoh to let my people go. Right now, lets get on with something to gladden our hearts. Lets baptize Logan and Makenna in the Name of God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen

Fr Paul