Word to the Wise
Thursday, July 20, 2017 - Thursday in the 15th Week in Ordinary Time
[Exod 3:13-20 and Matt 11:28-30]Moses, hearing the voice of the Lord from the burning bush, said to him, "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, "Thisis what you shall tell the children of Israel: I AM sent me to you."
"What's in a name?" That question from Romeo and Juliet is all important in today's first scripture from the Book of Exodus. For the Hebrew people, a person's name was more than descriptive. To invoke the name of a person was to invoke the presence of the person. Once the name of God was known to them, it eventually became so sacred that it could only be uttered by the High Priest in the Holy of Holies at the temple. The second of the ten commandments reflected that trend, "You shall not take the name of the Lord in vain." This is why Jesus' use of the term, "I AM," in the Gospel According to John is so important and provoked the reaction of attempted stoning [John 8:59]. The church, recently, has asked liturgical authors not to use the word, "Yahweh," which as an attempt to render the Hebrew letters for the name of God, [In the King James Version of the Bible, this was "Jehovah."], to avoid unnecessary offense.
When we accuse ourselves of swearing, we acknowledge that the name of God is not to be casually used, in accord with the second commandment. In the story of Moses' encounter with God in the burning bush, this is a sacred moment in which God reveals God's self not only to Moses but to all who came after Moses, and that includes us. Is there a way that we can acknowledge God's presence in our lives and realize the sacredness of that presence? One way we do this is when we speak of "grace." An awareness of "grace" should alert us to the sacredness of the name of God whose presence in us as grace moves us to live our baptismal identity to the fullest. AMEN
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