The "Name Thing" Again!

"This is my name forever..." Exodus 3:15

The "Name Thing" Again!
By Rev. William Dohle

Alright, truth be told now.  I am terrible with names.  Absolutely horrible!  I can't remember names of people I've known for years...and remembering names of people I've just met can be extremely difficult.  I use to imagine a time when I could call people by name at communion...but no more.  After the many times I've called people by the WRONG name at the table of the Lord, I put that practice on permanent hiatus.

I have learned a trick, however, to remember names past the initial meeting time.  I repeat them...over and over again if I need to.  I say their name in my head again and again until, finally, I'm able to look at the person and call them by name.  It works...most of the time...unless I start repeating the WRONG name in my head, which I've done on multiple occasions.

What's so special about our names?  Why do they mean so much to us?

Names evoke something mystical and mysterious in each of us.  It's our favorite word.  The word that makes our heads turn.  Names mean something.  They touch us deep within.  They have power, like no other word can, over us.  Hold someone's true name, and you hold their identity and you hold a piece of who they are.

In ancient times, knowing someone's name gave you power over them.  Curses and blessings were given to people using their names.  Names matter.

So when Moses asks God for his name...we should get worried.  When Moses says to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

We shouldn't expect God to answer!  After all, when Jacob asked this very question in Genesis, God responded: "Why do you want to know my name?"

God has never revealed his name to anyone...until now.

^"God said to Moses, “I am who I am.  This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you."... "Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’

“This is my name forever,
    the name you shall call me
    from generation to generation."

Now you'd think that God giving Moses his name in such a way meant that Moses should USE God's name...that God's name was available to be remembered and that God should be called by God's name...right??

Wrong!

Instead, the ancient Israelites(and even today) refuse to use God's name Yahweh(Hebrew for I AM WHO I AM."  Instead, they said "Lord" in place of God's name...thus we get the capital LORD in our Bibles today.

So...why did God give His name to Moses in the first place?  Why give him that power over him if he wasn't suppose to use it, evoke it?  Why give God's name out freely like that?

Maybe because, as mysterious as God is, God wants to be known.  God wants God's name to be on our lips, in our thoughts.  God wants God's name to be present with us.  God wants to be remembered!

God's name has power.  No doubt about that.  So does, for Christians, the name of Jesus.  For, as Paul says, "Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth  and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."(Philippians 2:9-11)

That's Jesus name.  That's powerful!  But it's not a name that should be whispered or never spoken.  It's not a name that needs to be revered so much that people forget about it...or avoid it.  It's a name to be on our lips.  A name to be remembered above all other names.  When all other names are forgotten, may the name of God and his Son, Jesus Christ, remain on your lips and in your heart and in your mind, now and forever.

God you have called us by name and we are yours.  Give us confidence that we might approach you, calling you by your name, confident in your grace, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.