Word to the Wise
Thursday, July 14, 2011 - Thursday in the 15th Week in Ordinary Time
[Exod 3:13-20 and Matt 11:28-30,1016]"When I go to the children of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' if they ask me, 'What is his name?' what am I to tell them?" God replied, "I am who am." Then he added, "This is what you shall tell the children of Israel: I AM sent me to you."
These few lines from Moses' dialogue with God in the "burning bush" have fascinated theologians and mystics for centuries on end! In the Hebrew language of the time, the name of a person was equivalent to the person! To say the name of God became so sacred that it was pronounced only once a year when the high priest entered the Holy of Holies in the temple to offer incense! In fact, the exact pronunciation of the Hebrew letters (four letters called the "tetragramaton") has been lost to history! Our "Yahweh" is at best a guess. "Jehovah" was also an attempt to capture the name. Since the goal of any spiritual life is to become as "close" to God as possible, the thought that one might be able to have that closeness simply by saying the name of God is appealing! However, our Western notions of a name do not come even close to this. As Shakespeare wrote in ROMEO AND JULIET, "What's in a name?" [Act 2, Scene 2].
God's name in this scene from Exodus is not meant to provide Moses with an easy mystical experience! It is meant to provide Moses with credentials for a skeptical audience. Imagine how we would feel if somebody comes and says, "I'm from Washington, DC, and I've come to help you!" We might be even more skeptical if that person comes and says, "God has sent me to you!" In Moses' case, we do not subsequently hear him saying, "I AM sent me to you." Rather he invokes "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob" sent me. His audience would readily understand those credentials!
Moses would maintain his personal and direct encounter with God, especially on Mount Sinai, but in other circumstances as well. The great patriarchs and prophets would show that same familiarity. One of the great ironies is that when God became human and lived on earth, the idea of the sacred made it impossible for many to accept that a carpenter from Nazareth might be the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! When I preach, I realize that I am making a claim, certified by the church through ordination, but a claim nonetheless: God has sent me to help you!! Before I do that, I probably should ask myself the same question that might be forming in the minds of the faithful: "So what?" AMEN
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