American Church in Paris -Sermons

American Church in Paris - Sermons

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What's In a Name?

by Dr. Christine E. Blair, Associate Pastor

1 September 2002--- Ordinary 22

TEXT: Exodus 3:1-15

© 2002 C. E. Blair

There is an intriguing story by one of my favorite authors in which Eve unnames the animals. Adam, you remember, was instructed by God to name them. Although the story is very short, it takes the reader a little while to realize that Eve is telling the story of how she frees the animals of their name:

Eve says: Most of the animals "accepted namelessness with the perfect indifference with which they had so long... ignored their names." Whales and dolphins slid out of their names gracefully; the insects "parted with their names in vast clouds and swarms of ephemeral syllables..."; the names of the fish "dispersed in silence... throughout the oceans." The pets were the ones that had trouble giving up their names (cats swore they only had the names they named themselves and dogs and talking birds liked their given names, until they realized that it was an issue of personal choice). As a result of this unnaming, Eve feels closer to them than "when their names had stood between [herself] and them like a clear barrier...." In the end, Eve gives back to Adam the name given to her and goes in search of her own name and of a new way of seeing and talking (Ursula Le Guin, "She Unnames Them").

How are we then to think of names: are they binding, as in this story, or are they liberating , or perhaps both?

One of the marks of being human is the gift of naming: that's what the story of Adam and God tells us. Our own experience tells us that as well. There is much joy and possible conflict over the naming of a new baby, for example. Names mean something, many somethings: "let's name her Catherine after my mother. No, let's name her Elizabeth after my aunt. I like the name Laeticia: it means ‘joy' in Greek." Or they describe origins: Steinmetz, my husband's last name, means "stonemason" in German; Blair, a Scottish name, means "flat plain" or "peat bog." Or they describe character: our daughter's Chinese name, Lingyan, means "elegant bright one." Or they carry the weight of fame and prominence, like the name "De Gaulle," "Eisenhower," "Churchill," "Mandela," "Aquino," "Gandhi" -- this is true even when the person carrying that name is not related to the famous one. (When we were in England last week, my name of Blair was instantly recognized as famous or infamous, depending on the person's point of view, and I kept repeating that I was not related to their Prime Minister). And all of these meanings can give us roots and relationships that are good and important. Think about your family names– what do they mean? What weight do they carry?

But names are also binding: they can compartmentalize people, forcing them into stereotypes that are narrow and even harmful. They don't allow for a person to grow and change, or to repent or be forgiven. Think of the way children give each other nicknames, sometimes cruel ones: when I taught 3rd grade a little boy named "Winky" acquired the name of "Stinky," which he could not shake off for years. Even positive names, like "genius" and "prodigy" can become a straightjacket which does not allow the bearer of that name to fail, to be ordinary, to be human.

In the ancient world during which the stories in Genesis and Exodus were told and then written down, names carried even more of this complex weight. Name and existence were bound together: something could not exist if it was not named. Knowing the name of something or someone was therefore thought to be powerful magic, endowing the knower with control and power over the named one. This is still true in some cultures today: the Navajo Indians who live in the southwest United States give every child a secret name, known only to them and the giver, or else someone evil could get power over them. Their public name is for convenience, has no power, and can change as often as the person wishes (and it often does, which was very confusing to me as a teacher when I taught there!).

Because of the power of names in these oral cultures, names are the basis of the oaths that seal agreements, contracts of marriage, treaties between tribes, covenants between people and their gods.

In the Exodus stories we are continually dealing with names and their meaning. Moses, is the bearer of an Egyptian name, which in Hebrew we are told means "drawn out," as in saved from the water. Moses, who has fled Egypt after murdering an Egyptian overseer, has settled in Midian and married Zipporah, one of the daughters of a priest of Midian. We are told that he named their son, Gershom, a name related to the word "alien," because Moses is a stranger in an alien land.

In today's sequel, Moses is out tending the flocks when he encounters a bush that burns without falling to ashes, and a voice calls out to him by name, "Moses, Moses," and commands him to take off his shoes, for he is standing on holy ground. Again we have a name -- the voice names itself:

"I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Israel."

And, in this name of the God of the Hebrew people, Moses' people, God calls on Moses to go to Pharaoh and free them. But Moses objects. "Who am I to go to Egypt and bring out the Israelites?" And God gives him a promise to be with him and a sign: to worship God on this mountain. But this is still not enough for Moses: the name so often used to invoke God by the Israelites, the name "the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" – this name is not sufficient. He asks for a real name.

And this is what puzzles me: why? Why ask for a name beyond what he has already been given? He has been given God's traditional name; he has been given a sign of power in the bush that burns without being consumed; he has been given a calling and a promise – all this, but Moses still wants a name.

And God's answer is a strange one – it's not really a name, it's four Hebrew letters that we now know to pronounce YAHWEH, and seems to translate as I AM, or I AM THAT I AM, or some translate, I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE. In fact, people have spent the last 3000 years debating its meaning.

And it is through pondering Moses' question – and God's answer -- that we can learn its importance for our lives today. What's in a name, anyway? How does learning God's name make any difference at all in my life or your life?

At stake in this name are the crucial issues of who God is and who we are to serve. And are we not like Moses, wondering who this God we follow really is? Perhaps if we probe what lies behind Moses' asking God for a name, we can understand ourselves and our God more fully.

First: perhaps Moses was worrying that this God would not be as powerful as the other gods in Egypt that he would be up against. Whom exactly was he to serve? But when God gives this new name, Yahweh, it turns out to also be the name of the God that is worshiped by Jethro, priest of Midian, father-in-law of Moses. God is revealing to Moses that the God of the Midianites is also the God of the Israelites, in fact that Yahweh is the one and only God, the true God, not a tribal God of a small band of people, but the one God of all the peoples. In this story, we have the beginning of a clear understanding of God as One, the beginning of the understanding that the people Moses will save will bring the knowledge of this one God to all the tribes and all the peoples of the world.

Are we not like Moses, surrounded by lesser gods?:

People today are tempted to follow other powers in this world – the gods of fame, money, material goods, political systems – but none can rival the one God; none of these will bring joy and fulfillment; none is the ultimate good. Only one God real, the God "I Am" is the mystery that lies at the heart of the universe, at the heart of creation. Our God is the ultimate in beauty, goodness, joy, and truth: to serve any thing or any One else is to serve lesser powers and to lose the ultimate and eternal good.

Secondly, perhaps Moses thought that by knowing God's name, he could have some sort of power of God, that he could influence God's action, keep God in his control. But God's answer is not an easy one; it unnames human categories: "I AM" is not a name that can be controlled or manipulated!

For God's answer to Moses, God's naming of Godself, is really a unnaming, isn't it? God refuses the categories we humans want to impose, slipping out of the confines of a human name as easily as birds fly out of an opened net or as dolphins slip through water.

Are we not like Moses at times? And we ministers and theologians are the worst: we describe God, and discuss God, and pray to God – and in the end, unconsciously, we are often trying to get God to do what we think is best or what we want "right now please!" But God is beyond all that we can imagine -- even when we meditate on what we now know about our universe, even when we think about how we can see back in time to within nanoseconds of the Big Bang, when we think of atoms and quarks and strings, or black holes, and galaxies and gamma rays, when we puzzle over life in the deepest oceans and the driest deserts — God is beyond all that (as was made clear to Job!). This is the God we worship, the great I AM. We can study, we can listen – we cannot control.

Thirdly, perhaps Moses was just looking for one more excuse to get out of doing the difficult work he had to do, a mighty and valiant work, indeed, but one for somebody else, not him. It is too difficult and too dangerous.

Are we not like Moses?

God has a calling for each of us; God needs us to bring to the world the peace and justice God desires and that is part of the very being of God. This calling is different for each one of us. Each of us has work to do -- in the church and in your work. For example, within the church --the work of teaching, or mission to refugees that we have, or cooking meals at Pizza night, whatever your gift. Outside of church -- your gifts at your work, in your family, in your volunteer services, in your good citizenship. God gives us God's promise to be with us and sends us out in God's unsettling, uncategorizable name.

So what's in a Name? Everything – everything for the world and our individual lives are at stake here; how can we serve any lesser powers? For Yahweh calls: the God who Is, the God who Was and God who Will Be – this God calls us to God's work. Who can refuse the great I AM?

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