A sermon based upon
Exodus 20: 7; 3:11-15; Matthew 7: 21-23; Acts 8:14-24
By Rev. Charles J. Tomlin, D.Min.
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
Year C: Proper 18, 16th Sunday After
Pentecost, September 4th, 2016
She was by any measurement, a ship of destiny.
In the summer of 1945, the heavy cruiser, USS Indianapolis,
carrying a crew of nearly 1200 men, was hit by six Japanese torpedoes and sunk
into the fog covered waters of the Pacific in the Philippine Sea. She sank in only 12 minutes. About 300 men went down with the ship and
900 or more, some naked or in their underwear, managed to don life jackets and
leap into the oil covered ocean.
Others, including Captain Charles Butler McVay, found refuge
on a handful of rubber rafts. In the
morning, they had no doubt they would be quickly rescued. But the day passed. Then a second day. And a third.
Their kapok life jackets were designed to keep them afloat for 48
hours. Now they had to keep their chins
high to keep breathing. Many died of
exposure. Sharks attacked others. It was around noon the fourth day, that the
survivors, barely a quarter of the crewB 317 were spotted by Navy
plane and rescued in a major operation.
Why did this tragedy happen just before the end of the
war? Well the Navy blamed Captain
McVay. In fairly short order, they
court-martialed McVay, finding him guilty of Ahazarding@
his ship while the nation was at war.
The question of why all those men were left helpless in the sea was not
addressed.
Now, after 55 years, the truth about the disaster is finally
coming out. In 1996, a young 11-year-old
movie goer, Hunter Scott, learned about the shark-infested disaster by watching
the movie Jaws where it was mentioned briefly.
He began to do some research. The
truth he found is that the Captain had requested destroyer escorts but was
refused. McVay was told that there was no threat of Japanese Subs in that
area. Young Scott also learned that
three SOS=s
went out from the ship, but that they were ignored. Scott then found that a book entitled, Abandon
Ship, gave a complete list of the survivors who were unanimous in saying a
dreadful wrong had been perpetrated against their captain. One of those survivors, Paul J. Murphy,
testified in Washington, ATime is running out for those
of us waiting...please help us restore our captain=s
good name.@
Proverbs 22: 1, says that Aa
good name is to be chosen over great riches, and being held in
high-esteem is more than silver and gold.@
Anyone who has ever lost
their credit rating, had their identity stolen, or had their integrity
questioned, knows that a good name still has value. But the third commandment strangely reveals
that God is also concerned about his ‘good name’: “Do not misuse the name
of the LORD your God. The LORD will not
let you go unpunished if you misuse his name”
(Ex. 20:7). When you
first read this you might think that God has a P.R. problem or that he is a bit
insecure. The commandment says that God demands
that his people respect his name, but what does this mean for God or for us? If he’s God, why can’t he protect his own
name all by himself? Don’t you find this a bit strange?
When you look at the Bible, especially the Old Testament, you
will learn that throughout Scripture there is a great concern for taking God=s
name seriously and respectfully. Israel
was constantly commanded to bless, have respect and taught to reverence the
divine name. This command had both
negative and positive connotations: Negatively, Israel was not to profane God=s
name, which meant they were not to use the divine name flippantly. Positively, they are instructed through Psalm
after Psalm to Abless the name of the Lord@
and sing praises to God=s
name. We still hear echoes of that call
to reverence in our hymns and prayers when we sing and pray “in the name of
Jesus” Christ.
Orthodox Jews today still treat the name of God with utmost
respect. In fact, Jewish traditions of
the past kept God=s
name so well hidden from those who might misuse it, that they actually lost
it. Among the ancients, the name of God
was never fully written in Hebrew Scripture, but only appeared as consonants without
vowels, as was all the ancient Hebrew Scripture. While the oral tradition among Scribes and
the literate knew the consonants in the language, the only person who knew the
vowel’s that unlocked God’s true name was the High Priest. He was the only one allowed to enter into the
holy of holies, the inner most sanctuary, once a year on Yom Kippur to utter
the name of God in prayer. But after the
temple was destroyed twice, and the Jews were scattered all over the place, the
exact name of God was lost. No one today
knows for sure how God=s
name should be spoken. It’s kind of
like, spelling G.D. without knowing whether it is A, (GAD), an E, (GED), an I
(GID), an O (GOD), or a U (GUD). Today the
tradition puts in suggestive vowels to form the name, “Yahweh” in Hebrew, or
“Jehovah” in English, but to be honest, all we really have is YHWH, which could be, Yohwih (hey, sounds like Joey, I go for
that one), Yohwah, Yehwah, or many other possible combinations. We just don’t know what God’s name originally
was.
The closest we ever get to have the true name of God sounded
out for us is in in Exodus 3. You=ll
recognize this moment as Moses standing before the burning bush. Moses has just removed his shoes, because
this, he was told, he was on ‘holy
ground.’ AI am the God of your
ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,@
he is told. God then proceeds to inform Moses, he is being
called to lead the children of Israel out of their slavery. But Moses is reluctant, even though this comes
‘directly’ from God. Let’s pick up the
conversation in Exodus, 3:11.
AHow can you expect me to lead
the Israelites out of Egypt?@ Moses questions.
AI
will be with you,@
God says. ATell them that the God of your
ancestors is with you.@
ABut what if they won=t believe me, and ask me >Which god are you talking
about?
“What if they ask, ‘What=s his name?’@
God then replied, AI AM WHO I AM”. So say
to the Israelites, AI AM has sent
you....
This is my name forever; it has always been my name, and it will be used
throughout
all generations.@
If God=s
name is AI AM,
@
which in Hebrew reads literally, “I become
who I become”, how do we treat such a strange name with respect?
GOD
WILL BE MORE THAN WE THINK
First let me say right at the first, that we do misuse God=s
name when we claim to know more about God that we really do. This is what this strange text in Exodus 3
reminds us. God=s
name forever remains a mystery just like God himself will forever remain a
mystery. God must remain God, even when
we can something about him. The truth
is, as one great theologian reminded us, we only know what God allows us to
know. We can’t really know anything,
had God not revealed himself. If we
claim to know more than God has revealed, we misuse his name. Religious teachers, preachers, professors, and
very opinionated folks, beware, says James. AThose who teach will be
judged with greater strictness@
(James 3:1). They will be ‘judged’
because know of us can claim know everything about the mind of God. When God
remains God, every person becomes a ‘liar’ (Rom. 3:4) when it comes to knowing
all the truth there is to know, about God or about anything, for that
matter. Our truth must always be ‘the
humbled truth’ or it will end up being no ‘truth’ at all.
In another great Bible passage, Exodus 33, Moses gets tired of
following God ‘humbly’ as a mystery and wants to see God face to face. He wants
to go beyond the mysterious name. APlease let me see your
glorious presence,@ Moses says (Exodus
33:18). The LORD responds by saying,
O.K., Moses, since you’ve followed me faithfully all these years, AI will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will call
out my name to you.... BUT you may (still) not look directly at my face,
for no one may see me and live.@
If I understand any practical
application here, it is that none of us will ever know everything we may want
to know about God. None of us have a
piece of God in our back pocket that we can pull out and say this is everything
God is or means. As Isaiah said, AHis
thoughts are not our thoughts and his ways are not our ways@
(Isaiah 55). If anyone claims to know
exactly what God says, means or is, then they are misusing God=s
name and they are not faithful to the true revelation. In a faith that is faithful to the ‘true’
revelation of God, God’s name will
always be shrouded in mystery, just as the any kind of ‘absolute’ truth always
is—subtle, hidden, out of our grasp, but a constantly struggle that humbles us
and makes us a better and a ‘holy’ people.
I told that at the last Southern Baptist Convention I ever
attended, which was in New Orleans, I found myself after a long day of business
sessions, in the swimming pool talking to another pastor. We were discussing whether a divorced person could
ever be deacon or a pastor. I told him we
must take each case individually, with prayer and humility, asking and seeking
God=s
will. But he already knew in his own mind
that, since God is against divorce, he=s also against divorced
people, including having divorced deacons or having divorced pastors. I told him disqualifying people from grace or
leadership should not be a blanket rule coming down from human
authorities. He disagreed and we argued
for a long time. I could not convince
him otherwise. Later, I wondered what
this guy, who was also a big fan of Dr. Charles Stanley of Atlanta, would have
answered after Stanley=s
own divorce went through. I worry that
since he wasn’t thinking much then, he’s might not be thinking much more even now.
God’s name and His ‘truth’ demands our respect because of what
we don’t know and will never know. We
just can’t have automatic, once-and-for all, uncaring, “pat” answers in
advance, because God and Truth must forever remain bigger than our own
perceptions and conceptions (That’s why we call them “God” and “Truth” with
capitals). God must always be who God will be, and remain a ‘mystery’ to be
‘who he will be’. As God told Moses, God
remains “gracious upon whom God will be gracious” and he “gives mercy to whom
He will give mercy” and he only makes his ‘goodness’ pass before Moses and us,
because “goodness” and “graciousness” is whom God has revealed himself to be,
as the Great “I AM”. While the Bible points
us to the “Truth” about God (and ourselves), and it takes us to the very core,
it never reveals everything. The New
Testament tells us that the things that Jesus did and said are more in numerable
the sands of the seashore. The point
for Moses is not that he ‘know’ everything, but that he ‘experience’ the grace
of the God who is ‘everything’. To
suggest we know more than the ‘goodness’ or ‘grace’ we have ‘experienced’ is to
misuse the name of God and refuse to honor the mystery of it all.
GOD
MAY BE LESS THAN WE THINK
Another, but even stranger angle on how we may misuse God=s
name is found in the story of Job. It
goes with forgetting the mystery, if we try to resolve or solve it with our own
minds. In other words, when we claim to
know more than we know, God could actually be ‘less’ than what we think we
know. I don’t mean that God is ‘less’,
but I mean that he may be ‘less’ or ‘different’ than what we think. Let me explain.
In the story, Job was suffering because Satan wanted to prove
that Job=s
faith was dishonest. In order to ‘test’
Job’s faith, Satan is allowed to bring all kinds of calamity upon Job. But as bad as it was for Job, Job’s friends,
Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zopher, claim they know ‘exactly’ why these things have
happenedC
why Job is sick, why Job lost his moneyC why Job lost his children in
a catastrophe. These friends represent
the kind of religion that does not bring hope, but only claims to know “why”. It says that since ‘bad things are
happening’, Job has done something wrongC so Job needs to confess his
sin so he can be healed. But Job refuses
to confess some ‘great’ sin. He says that
he has nothing to confess. Job is an
upright man and the truth finally comes out that he, or his friends can ‘know’
why he suffers, or why anyone suffers, but we must learn to trust God when we
don’t know ‘why’.
Who ever said that being a faithful person, or even being a
Jew, a Christian, or any kind of ‘religious’ person, means you have everything ‘figured
out’? Job doesn’t have anything figured
out, but he is determined to ‘trust’ God anyway, and not to trust his
‘know-it-all’ friends. In a most dramatic moment of distress and pain, God
cries out ‘cursing’ the day of his pain, even cursing ‘the day he was born’
(Job 3:3), but he will not ‘curse’ or misuse the name of God. Job will keep taking his ‘pain’ and his
questions to God, but he will not ‘blame’ God, nor will he ‘blame’
himself. Job is determined to know much
‘less’ than his friends, than his theology, than his culture, and he even
allows himself to know less, as the book of Job ends with questions, not
answers (we call this humility), and this is what helps bring Job hope.
When I was sixteen, a neighbor lost his six year old child in
a tragic death. The child walked out in
front of a car that failed to stop for a school bus. The child lived until he reached the hospital,
but due to great trauma, the little fellow never had a chance. We did not have a pastor at the time, but an
interim. He was a good man, but he lacked
a proper theological education and because of that, he made a tragic mistake
which he could have avoided, if he had at least gone to school to realize what
he didn’t know. That preacher misused
the name of God, and he took God=s name in vain, when he told that
family, this broken Daddy and Mother, that what happen was ‘the will of
God’. He told them that it would take
time, but they would one day come to accept this as ‘the will of God’. If this still sounds cruel, you’re
right. “To call something the will or
work of God when you don’t know that, is to dreadfully misuse the name of God. Sometimes the ‘truth’ of God, or the truth about
God, needs to be more than you know, but it can also be much less than you
think you know.
In the New Testament God=s name is still taken with most
respect and seriousness in the Lord’s prayers, as Jesus began the model prayer
with : AOur
Father, who is in heaven, hallowed, be you name. Thy will be done on earth, as
it is in Heaven.@
Jesus does not tell us to respect God’s name by ‘knowing’ God’s will, but by
partnering to with God to ‘do’ what we already know to be ‘holy’ and
‘good’. Jesus also tells us to pray in
God=s
name and that anything we ask in His name, he will do it. Those are bold words. They so boldly promise so much in God’s name,
that God’s name could be misused for the sake of power and profit instead of
for the sake of the grace and goodness.
This ‘misuse’ of God’s name and power is what Acts 8 is
about. As mighty things were happening
in ‘the name of Jesus’ during the time of early church, there were some who got
the wrong idea. One of those folks was a
man named Simon. He was a magician. He was amazed at the power being released ‘in Jesus’ name’ and he wonders if he
can get ‘it’ for himself. We don=t
need to judge Simon=s
motives, here. They may have even been
good, but he was terribly mistaken. The problem was, that wanted the power for
power’s sake. Simon believes because of
the display of God’s power being released and is baptized. But when this Simon later meets Simon Peter
and sees the apostles laying hands on folks and the miracles taking place, he
pulls money out of his pocket and is ready to ‘buy’ this power himself: ALet me have this power, too@, he exclaimed, Aso that when I lay my hands
on people, they will receive the Holy Spirit!@ This may have sounded like a worthy request. Simon wanted to heal and to enable people to
receive the Spirit. Peter, however, sees
through his request, responding with a direct warning: AMay
your money perish with you for thinking that God=s
gift can be bought! You can have no part
of this, for your heart is not right before God. A Here, the ‘misuse’ of God’s
name is not simply that Simon thinks that God=s
power can be bought, but it’s also that his Aheart
is not right before God@. This is what the text tells
us. When you use God=s
name and your heart is not right, because you are pretending to be something
you’re not, then you, even by bearing God’s name, you can misuse God=s
name. Another
passage shows us how dangerous it is (for us, not for God) to pretend have or
be something we’re not. In Matthew 7,
21-23, Jesus spoke about the difference between true disciples and false
disciples: ANot
all people who sound religious are really godly. They may refer to me as >Lord,=
but they still won=t
enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The decisive issue, says Jesus, Ais
whether they obey my Father in heaven.@
When I was working on my Doctorate one summer, my Christian
Education Professor, Israel Galindo, told us about his own philosophy of
Christian Education. He said that a ‘true’
Christian education is Aobedience
education@. Dr. Galindo says that people don=t
really learn or come to know God until they want to obey God. There=s a mental block against
learning or doing the things of God until that happens. People cover the same thing over and over and
never get it, until the really want to get it and do it. The issue is not knowledge, the issue is
obedience. Do they want to obey the God
they claim to know? This is the crucial
test of the sincere, honest, respectful use of God=s
name. When we say ALord,
Lord,@
Do we really intend to obey him as our Lord?
Jesus went on to say it does not matter what we’ve accomplish or don=t
ever accomplish; it really matter if seen or performed miracles or cast out
demons in God=s
name. What does matter is that ‘our
names are written in heaven’. They only
way to get your name written in heaven, is to obey God, not just talk about
God. To use God=s
name without obeying God’s name, is to misuse the only name that can save you. When Heinrich Heine, the great German poet and
writer was walking in front of one of the marvelous church cathedrals of
France, a companion asked him, “Heinrich, why can’t we build magnificent
cathedrals like that today.” Heinrich
answered: AToday
we only have opinions, but they had commandments.@ God’s name is less about knowing everything
about God and it is much more about obeying the God we already know about. Can you get this?
GOD
MUST BE GOD
This brings me to a final word about honoring and respecting
God=s
name. You might think it interesting
that I have not yet mentioned ‘profanity’.
Of course, people do ‘take God’s name in vain’ without respect, by using
God in false oaths or as a swear words. Jesus
encouraged his disciples not to make any vows using God=s
name, but to use a simple Ayes@,
or Ano.@ If they had to swear a vow in the name of
God, make sure to keep your word, he said (Matthew 5:33-37). There=s a lot that needs to be said
about the loss of respect in the vulgarity of our language and speech these days. But I honestly think that the problem goes
deeper than our speech. Jesus said that
a Agood
person produces good words from a good heart@
just like an Aevil
person produces evil words from an evil heart.@ According to Jesus, we can
only correct our speech by getting right in our hearts, because it’s what’s on
the ‘inside’ that counts the most. The misuse
of God=s
name is not a ‘mouth’ problem, it=s a much deeper, heart
problem. Our loss of respect in civil speech
tells us who aren=t,
way down deep.
Finally, this is why this ‘commandment’ about God=s
name is so important. It’s not about protecting God, but it’s about you and
your own ‘self-respect. ’ If you’ve noticed, this commandment is the only one
that comes a direct word about punishment or judgment. God demands respect for his ‘name,’ not
because God has a P.R. problem or is insecure.
God warns us not to misuse His name because God is our creator. Because when you fail to respect your creator,
God hasn’t lost, but you are losing the real “you”—the very image of God that
was placed within you. The final warning
is that when you ‘forget’ or ‘misuse’ God’s name, God will let you ‘get lost’---by
losing respect for Him, you finally lose self-respect.
So, if you want to respect who you are, you must also respect ‘whose’ you are. To ‘respect’
God’s name, means that we have respect for this God who is always more than we think,
and can sometimes even be less than we think.
The point is simply this: the only way to fully respect ourselves, is to
respect this God whom we must ‘let be whom-ever
God will be. The message of his respect
for God’s name is found right in the very meaning of God’s name. Only when let God be God, and respect Him as
God, will we live lives or have speech that maintains humility, obedience, reverence
and of course, contains ‘self-respect’. But
when we disregard or disrespect God’s name, it does not hurt God’s reputation, but
we disconnect ourselves from the very source of human and hopeful life.
W.A. Criswell was once the pastor of the historic First Baptist
Church in Dallas. As a young pastor, I found
more truth in his stories, than some of his theology. One of those stories, I have never forgotten,
was about when Criswell was a young pastor, just out of seminary, and he came
in contact with a man who had a terrible, fowl, mouth. That man used profanity in the worst kind of
way and had no respect at all for anyone, including God.
Criswell went to see the man a couple of times, but then
realized it was hopeless and Awiped the dust off of his
feet.@ But after several years went by, the pastor
was informed that the man had a major stroke. Hearing this, Criswell thought
that perhaps the man would have a change of heart. He was taken to the man=s
bedside, but the only the words the man could utter were slurred. Gol Dang!
Gol Dang! Criswell says that it
appeared that the man frozen in a state of anger, disrespect and complete ‘disregard’
for God=s
name. He would not change. He could not change. His last words were words of stubborn, angry,
with complete defiance toward God. He
was as frozen in his lips, as he had been in his heart, and the man died with these
words on his lips: Gol Dang! Gol Dang!
Remember, The LORD will not
let you go unpunished when you misuse his name.” The use of God’s name is something we shouldn=t
take lightly, because finally, it’s not about bringing insult to God, but it’s
about bringing great, perhaps even, an eternal ‘insult’ upon ourselves. If I would leave this commandment ringing in
your ears today, I'd reduce it to a few words spoken in the imperative: Respect God. Respect Yourself! Disrespect God,…..! Now, You finish this... and find respect. Amen.
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