Word to the Wise
Thursday, July 20, 2023 - 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, "This is what you shall tell the children of Israel: I AM sent me to you." [Exodus]
The classic question in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is "What's in a name?" has echoed in many many ways in human relationships and discourse. But, if Romeo had said that to Moses and God, the response would have been "a tremendous amount!" For the Hebrew culture, the name was equivalent to the person, not just a tag to distinguish one person from another. The name of God, I AM, came to be so sacred that only the High Priest could utter it, and only in the "holy of holies" place in the temple in Jerusalem and only at a certain time! The result of this was that the exact Hebrew word was somehow lost. The names, "Yahweh" or "Jehovah" are approximations of a four letter Hebrew word that scripture scholars refer to as the "tetragrammaton!"
All of this can help us understand the importance of the moment when God reveals God's name to Moses. God is not only the god of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as if God were a tribal deity. God is the source of all being because God is being itself. In the Gospel According to John, Jesus bluntly tells his Jewish adversaries, "Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM." [John 8:58] To invoke the name of God is not simply to say a word but to invoke God's presence and action. This is the meaning of the second of the Ten Commandments: "You shall not invoke the name of the Lord your God in vain!"
Moses' encounter with God in the burning bush is not simply a "bible story" enacted in an epic movie. God's self-revelation in Jesus is our introduction to a being who is love itself. AMEN