A Sermon by Sydney V. (Skip) Jackson — August 31, 2008
Indianola Presbyterian Church, Columbus, Ohio
Texts:  Exodus 3:1-15;  Matthew 16:15-17; 21-26

God said to Moses, “I  AM  WHO  I  AM”  [which could also be
translated as “I  WILL  BE  WHO  I  WILL  BE”]. — Exodus 3:14

[Jesus asked,] “But who do you say that I am?”  Simon Peter answered,
“You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” — Matthew 16:15

Once upon a time the devil was out walking with a friend (I suppose even the devil has a friend) when they saw a man stoop down, pick something up, and begin shouting with joy. 

 

“What did the man find?” the friend asked the devil.

“A piece of the truth,” the devil replied. 

“Well, doesn’t that disturb you?” asked the friend.

“No,” said the devil.  “I shall let him make a religious dogma out of it.”

That’s precisely the problem for us in both of the passages we just heard.  In both we hear names or titles—I AM for God, Messiah and Son of God for Jesus.  But we forget all too easily that such names are pieces of the truth.  They are not absolutes, but instead pointers to something beyond the power of both our understanding and our imagining.  So we risk worshipping the sign pointers instead of what they point to.  The difference between a sign and what it points to is apparent in the photo I chose for our worship bulletin of the signpost at the South Pole where every arrow points north toward the homes of those stationed there.

Names of God.  “What’s in a name?” Shakespeare asks in Act II of Romeo and Juliet and then goes on to elaborate: “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”  The name isn’t the point.  The rose is.  Regardless of what we might call it, the rose remains a rose.

That makes sense.  But still, names do matter.  We care that people remember our names correctly when they speak to us.  And they should be spelled correctly.  I always spell out Sydney (S-Y-D-N-E-Y) when I have to use my legal, given name.  And some people sure seem to care a lot about the names used for God.  Jehovah’s Witnesses insist that the only correct name for God is “Jehovah”—this despite the fact that “Jehovah” derives from misunderstanding ancient Hebrew.  No one in antiquity ever called God “Jehovah.”  The Hebrew people refrained from saying the name of God aloud, so in scripture they rendered the name of God as four unpronounceable consonants [the Tetragramaton, Y-H-W-H) and cued readers by adding the vowels for adonai, the Hebrew word for “Lord.”  In English bibles, this is printed as “LORD” in all capital letters.  “Jehovah” results when you pronounce the four Hebrew consonants with the vowels from adonai while speaking in a German accent.  No Hebrew ever called God Jehovah.

Churches do get into big fights over names for God—especially feminine and masculine names.  What some people call “inclusive language” others deride as mere “political correctness.”  I’ve known pastors who came under attack from people in their congregation for calling God “Mother” in a Children’s Sermon.  Even if you agree with the whole idea of inclusive language, you may still object strongly to changing the words of the “good old hymns.”  (Still, it’s instructive to recall that some of the “good old hymns” have changed a lot since they were written.  Charles Wesley’s 1739 original of “Hark!  The herald angels sing” was, “Hark!  How all the welkin rings.”  Does anyone know what a welkin is?  It’s the dome of the sky.)

According to Exodus, the name of God mattered a lot to Moses.  There at the burning bush, he asked God, “If I come to the Israelites (note the “if”—Moses hasn’t agreed to anything yet).  “If I come to the Israelites… and they ask me who this God is, what shall I tell them?”  Perhaps Moses was only setting yet one more obstacle in the way of what God wanted him to do.  But maybe he really did want to know God’s name.  It was common knowledge that knowing the name of a god granted one a degree of power over that god.  Moses would be able to summon God whenever he wanted to and, better yet, maybe he could get whatever he wanted as well… if only he knew the true name of God.  Or maybe Moses wanted a name to impress the Israelites back in Egypt.  After all, why would they do anything that he, Moses, told them to do?  But if he could say something like, “The Great and Almighty King and Judge of the Universe has told me to tell you…”  Well, that’s pretty awe inspiring… and convincing.  Such a name might even bolster Moses in his own decision—just as Peter was probably reassured and encouraged by knowing Jesus as “the Messiah [and] Son of the Living God.”

Whatever Moses’ motivation or sincerity, the story says that God did give him an answer.  But it’s an answer that for Moses (and us) is beyond imagining.  In Hebrew, God’s answer is “ehyeh asher ehyeh”—which is both more and less than a name.  First off, the words themselves are ambiguous in their meaning.  “I AM WHO I AM” is the usual translation.  But the Hebrew could also be translated in the future tense as “I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE.”  Finally, as Matin Buber pointed out, the Hebrew verb “to be” also carries the sense of “to be present,” so this could also be, “I WILL BE PRESENT AS I WILL BE PRESENT.”

Poor Moses!  Now what?  Imagine Moses going off to Egypt, and the Israelite elders ask him, “Who is this god who has sent you to us?”  Moses looks them straight in the eye and says, “I  AM.”  Sure… right… that’s going to work really well!  And it won’t be any better when Pharaoh asks,  “Who’s going to be making me let your people go?”  And all Moses can say is, “I  AM,” or maybe “I WILL BE.”  Oops!  What a predicament!  What kind of a name is this, anyway?

It’s an impossible name!  It encompasses the past, the present, and the future.  It promises God’s presence… but in God’s way and on God’s terms, not ours.  It names a living God who will not be limited to fitting into our human labels, definitions, and ways of thinking.  As a name it renders all of our other names for God partial and inadequate.  But it also suggests that the only “wrong” naming of God is one that’s sure of having it “right.”  As Lao-tzu says in the Tao te Ching, “The name that can be named is not the eternal name.”  In Christian terms, J. B. Phillips captures this sense in the title of his classic book, Your God Is Too Small.  However we might name God—King, Father, Mother, Spirit—God is far more.

Our naming of God is rather like the parable of the blind men who come upon an elephant.  One feels the elephant’s side and declares, “This elephant is very like a wall.”  A second grasps a tusk and counters, “No, it is very like a spear.”  The third takes the elephant’s trunk in his hands and says, “You are both wrong.  An elephant is very like a snake.”  They argue and argue.  And one version of the story ends, “Each had his own opinion exceeding stiff and strong.  Each one was partly right, but all were in the wrong.”

All names of God are but pointers to God and therefore partial and provisional.  They may be partly right, but all are also “in the wrong.”  So it is important not to cling rigidly to any one naming of God.  Be ready to follow the example Brian Wren sets in the title of one of his hymns, “Bring Many Names.”  In a wonderful hymn called “Source and Sovereign, Rock and Cloud,” Thomas Troeger does “bring many names,” offering up 40 biblical names for God in three verses.  The names are personal and impersonal, animate and inanimate, physical and spiritual.  And each verse ends with the refrain:  “May the church at prayer recall that no single holy name but the truth behind them all is the God whom we proclaim.”  Some names will be more meaningful than others, but only by pondering a range of names in community can we grow in our awareness of the fullness of the living God.  I know many of you love some of the old-time hymns that we’re singing in worship this morning.  But notice just how limited the names used for God and Jesus are.  In 14 verses from 13 different hymns, God is always called “he” and referred to only one time each as “Father,” “Lord,” and (by implication of sitting on a throne) “King.”  The only names we are given for Jesus Christ are “Savior” and “Son of God.”

Now, having partial names for God may seem somewhat strange and awkward.  But most of us know how this works with people.  When I first introduced myself to the Santa Fe Presbytery in New Mexico in 1988, before I went to seminary, I chose to do so by sharing some of my names.  I was born Sydney Vern Jackson—named after my two grandfathers.  But I was given a nickname at birth because my dad is also Sydney.  As a child I was called Skipper—which only my grandmothers and a few aunts continued to call me after I turned twelve.  Salesmen sometimes try to “buddy up” to me by calling me Syd.  Little do they know!  As a scientist I published articles as S. V. Jackson, but whenever I worked with the military I was Dr. Sydney Jackson, for my Ph.D. gave me an equivalent rank somewhere between Major and Colonel, letting me sit at the conference table with the officers instead of in the peanut gallery with the Second Lieutenants.  In the years since, I’ve acquired some other names—like Reverend and pastor, and, of course Daddy.  But at that presbytery meeting I closed by speaking of my alcoholism and my sobriety, and of how I felt called to the ministry.  I explained that when I am at A.A. meetings, I say, “I’m Skip, and I’m an alcoholic,” and everybody there says, “Hi! Skip!”  I said that when that happens I feel accepted and known and welcomed.  Then as I stepped back from the podium, the presbytery responded in one voice, “Hi!  Skip!”  We all have many names.  But no one name—not even all of them together—captures who we are completely.

Just so God is beyond any name we might speak.  Yet an abundance of names offers us glimpses of the truth and great Good News besides.  God will be who God will be.  Yet always, God’s steadfast love endures.  In Exodus, God comes to the burning bush as the One who delivers people from oppression, freeing them from slavery.  In Matthew, Peter recognizes Jesus as Messiah and Savior.  But notice also how in just a few short verses, Peter will totally misunderstand what these two names mean, thinking they are about power and conquest rather than suffering and sacrifice.  The important thing is that when we are asked, as Peter was—“Who do you say that I am?”—we recognize that no matter what our response might be, it will point the way to far more than we can imagine.  The Gospel tells us that “Messiah” and “Son of the Living God,” translate into suffering and death, yes.  But in the end there is resurrection and new life, as God will be who God will be.  Thanks be to the living God.  Amen.