Jan. 17 Sermon: Hallowed be God’s Name
Hallowed Be God’s Name
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Holy Covenant UMC
Rev. Kate Hurst Floyd
Exodus 3:13-15
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We gather this morning with heavy hearts for the people of Haiti. As we watch the coverage, in horror, things seem to get worse: more names added to the tally of the dead, more survivors with wounds that cannot be healed, chaos and desperation as people are in need of food and water that does not exist. We grieve with our brothers and sisters in Haiti, and for those here and across the world who are grieving for friends and family.
The tragedy is confounding. There aren’t answers for why or how; no pat solutions or pretty words to make things better. We can’t make sense out of what is happening. I’m not here this morning to give you answers…it’s not why we gather. We ARE gathered to worship God with one another…the God of love and life and hope and justice…even in the midst of our doubts and questions and anger, we worship.
We gather to worship this morning, beginning our series on the Lord’s prayer, the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray…the central prayer of our Christian life. How appropriate, today, to be in an attitude of prayer. Jesus instructs us to begin: hallowed be God’s name. God’s name is holy. What is this holy name? We can’t always make sense out of it, especially in the light of such tragedy in the world. It’s confounding.
We meet Moses, in our reading from Exodus, Moses who can’t make sense out of this God who is speaking to him. Who asks God’s name, who wonders why he is called. Moses asks God, what is your name? Who should I tell people called me? God says to Moses: I am who I am. Another translation from the Hebrew is: I will be who I will be.
I am who I am. I will be who I will be.
That’s not the answer Moses was looking for. He’s left even more confused, and so are we.
Let’s back up, and review a bit of Moses’ story. He’s an Israelite by birth, one of the Hebrew people, people who were oppressed by the Egyptians. For years, the Egyptians kept the Israelites in slavery—a world of forced labor and violence and hatred. The hatred became so bitter, that the Pharaoh declared that all the male Hebrew children must be killed, for he did not want the people to prosper. When Moses was born, his mother, fearing for his safety, places him in a basket and floats him into the Nile river. Pharaoh’s daughter finds him, and Moses is raised as a favored one in the house of Egyptian power.
Still, though, Moses’ identity as a Hebrew was strong, and he couldn’t face the oppression of his people. So he killed an Egyptian and fled the palace to the mountains, the land of Midion. It was there that he married and got a job tending sheep. Life was peaceful again, safe.
But not for long. One day, Moses was minding his own business, on the mountain of Horeb, known as God’s mountain, watching his flock. But then something extraordinary happened: A bush was burning, but was not consumed. So he turns aside to stare at this bush, this miracle, before him. And a voice, God’s voice, says to him: Moses, take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground.
In a matter of minutes, Moses went from an average day at work to an unimaginable day in the presence of God.
Moses is confounded. Suddenly a bush is on fire but not burning up, he’s standing on holy ground, God is speaking, saying “I am the God of your ancestors”. It’s too much, and he has to hide his face. But God continues to call out and says: Moses, I have called you for a great purpose. You will be the one to lead your people out of slavery in Egypt. Return there, and with my presence and power and guidance, free your people from oppression and suffering.
Moses argues for a while—we’ve all been there, haven’t we? When we know God is calling us to something, but we don’t want to do it, don’t believe we’re worthy or ready or brave enough, and so we argue. But God doesn’t let Moses win. So Moses finally says to God: Well, when I go there, and I proclaim liberty for the Israelites in the name of God, who should I tell them sent me? Who are you? God says: I am who I am. I will be who I will be.
This is God’s name. This is the holiness we pray to in the Lord’s prayer. Moses wants a God, a name, that will fit into a simple word, a neat box, a brown paper package tied up with string. A simple name that he can proclaim to the people, that will make everyone believe and give them the answers they’ve been looking for.
But God says: I am beyond your human labels and categories and understanding. My ways are outside the scope of any limits you try to place on me. My name can’t be summed up in a static noun. No, my name is a verb: I am. I will be.
I’m on the move, ever-present, always acting, always with you, beyond a single name. I am.
I am the God who makes bushes spark with fire without being consumed with death.
Is this the God Jesus is calling us to pray to? The God who is beyond and over and above?
Yes….and no.
Jesus doesn’t give us one simple answer to who God is. In one line, the first line of the prayer: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…Jesus tells us that God is both holy, beyond human comprehension, and intimate, as a parent. Things that seem opposite, but both are true.
Through Jesus, we have a God who is beyond our limited understanding: God is beyond what we can hold or know….God, after all, is the one who brings creation out of chaos, life out of death. Holy indeed.
But we also pray to the God who is right here with us and beside us. The God who came to earth as a human being, one of us, Jesus.
For Jesus also uses the personal name, Father, when he prays. When Jesus uses this name, he is revealing an intimacy with God, a closeness, a family connection, that he calls us to share in. So when we say “Father”, we are addressing a God who is part of our family, proclaiming a closeness that is closer than any human relationship can ever be.
Jesus used “father”, but as we say it, we are powerfully aware that our language is limited and can never express who God is. For God is I am. God is beyond gender. In this service, we’ll not only use father, but other images for God…female imagery, as women are created in the image of God, images that are beyond gender, as we try to concretely grasp the God who can’t be grasped.…We’re also mindful of the great damage that exclusively male language for God, used over the centuries, has done and continues to do to all of us, not just women. For when we assume that God is male, we make assumptions about humanity, that men have more rights and power and entitlement because they are more God-like than women.
This was not Jesus’ intention, and this language has been perverted over time. Jesus calls us to pray to the confounding and beautiful tension of a God who is sheer holiness and deep intimacy for all.
This is what’s happening for Moses, too: this mix of a God who is beyond, who is I am, and yet who is intimately present in our lives. Yes, I can make miracles like the burning bush happen, God says. But I am also the very real and intimate and relational God of your ancestors: the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; of Leah and Sara and Rachel; of Mary Magdelene and Paul; of each of us gathered in this sanctuary, by name, of all those in Haiti. I am also right here with you on this very ground you stand on. I’m in the air you breathe, everywhere you walk, right here in the mud and the muck of life with you, between your toes. All ground is holy ground.
This week, the ground shook.
Do we know why? This is part of the holy otherness of God…why does creation destroy? Why do people live in abject poverty? Why is there so much suffering? We don’t know.
We do know, however, that God is a God of intimacy and compassion, who wills life. Who is good and on the side of humanity. Who did NOT plan this tragedy or send it as some kind of punishment. We know that God cries with us and suffers with us and feels the ground shake as deeply as we do. Who came to live on this holy ground in the person of Jesus, in the flesh, in our flesh. Jesus who loved, healed, and taught, and died a painful death on the very same ground. But out of death, brought new life to all he encountered. Abundant and everlasting, through the resurrection.
In light of this intimacy, the life of Jesus, the call of Moses to end oppression, we are called to act: To act with a hope and comfort and spirit beyond what we can imagine right now with our human limitations, in the confidence of a holy God who promises to make all things new. That in the midst of an aching world, we are to do all that we can with all that we have to bring God’s holiness to earth. To be God’s hands and feet.
This is the weekend we remember Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr…a man who lived and work and taught and prayed and preached on shaky ground, in the midst of suffering. What better way to honor his legacy this week, than to heed his call to act in the face of tragedy with Christian love. To know that, in his words, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”. We can’t make sense of the tragedy, but we can give: Donate money to aid organizations—today we have the opportunity to give to the United Methodist committee on Relief; donate items for health kits to supply immediate needs. And we’re called not just to act in the coming days, but in the coming years, to find ways to help the country recover and heal.
We act grounded in a spirit of prayer. We pray in the name of the one who is ever-present, who was and is and ever will be. The great I am. Knowing that even when the ground is shaking, God’s holiness rises up to meet us. Believing in resurrection.
We don’t have answers for Haiti. And there will be much more grief and tragedy. We see unimaginable deaths and will see more. But we also see life and spirit and will find witnesses to this life more and more. We pray with the confidence that out of this tragedy, out of the rubble, all, ALL, will rise. Because God will be who God will be. Amen.
