Calvary Episcopal Church
Memphis, Tennessee
September 1, 2002
The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

What's In a Name?
The Rev.George S. Yandell

Old Testament Lesson: Exodus 3:1-15
Gospel: Matthew 16:13-20
(This sermon is also available in audio.)

What's in a name? From early childhood, I was told 'George' meant 'farmer.' Now no offense to anyone who farms, but I was a city boy and I didn't like thinking my name meant 'farmer.' The only farms in east Tennessee I had visited were dirty. The farmers' lives were tough. There was manure everywhere, and they smelled bad to me. Only later, when I began to study Greek in seminary, did I find my name ge-or'gos also meant 'gardener, vinedresser, husbandman.' So I began to realize a deeper significance to my name. And now I've come to love growing herbs, tending plants, getting dirt on my hands. (And you know, preachers are known for how they can spread the manure.) I guess I've come full circle.

In the early history of the Hebrew people, the name for God was El. One of the first conversations I had with Elroy Bond, our plant manager, was about his name, which can mean 'child of God.' Beth-el in Hebrew means 'House of God.' From the time of Abraham (about 2000 BC) forward, the Hebrew people called God El. Ancient times. Then around 1250 BC, a most intriguing change happens. The Hebrew people began to call God a new name. How and why?

The Hebrew people migrated from Canaan to Egypt in about 1650 BC. We've been reading the cycle of those stories over the past Sundays. You remember the story--Jacob's twelve sons sold Joseph into slavery. He was carried to Egypt, rose to become Pharaoh's second-in-command, and then gave sanctuary to all his father's and brothers' people. The Hebrews lived in Egypt for 400 years. Over time they became slaves to Pharaoh, and many were put to work building the pyramids.

Around 1250 BC, a child was born to Hebrew slaves. His parents were from the tribe of Levi, the priestly tribe. But Pharaoh had decreed that all male children born to Hebrews were to be killed at birth. So the mother hid the baby in a tiny raft and placed it in the Nile River. The daughter of Pharaoh spied the little canoe and the baby, and wanted to take him in. The baby's older sister happened to be there and suggested to Pharaoh's daughter that she could find a wet nurse for the baby. She went and got her mother, and the baby and child were reunited. The mother raised the baby to a teenager, at which time she presented him back to Pharaoh's daughter. Pharaoh's daughter said, "I'll call him 'Moses' (from an Egyptian word Mosheh meaning 'to beget a child') for I drew him out of the water (from a Hebrew word Mashah meaning 'to draw out.')" Fascinating, isn't it, how that name would ring with deeper truth?

The child Moses went, in a moment, from being a slave in a downtrodden race to magnificent privilege. He lived in the household of the world's most powerful man. Then one day strolling amongst the construction sites, Moses saw an Egyptian policeman beating a Hebrew slave. Moses was filled with outrage. He killed the policeman and had to make a run for it. He fled to the land of Midian, over 400 miles away. Moses identified so strongly with his people's plight he killed a man, marking him forever as an enemy of Pharaoh.

One day years later, while tending the sheep of his father-in-law, Jethro, God appeared to Moses in a flaming bush near Mount Horeb. Moses had to see more. (Read Ex. 3:3-8) "I have come down to deliver my people from the Egyptians, to draw them out [Mashah] from Egypt." "Moses said to God: Which of the gods will I say sent me to deliver Israel? When they ask me his name, what shall I say?"

In antiquity it was believed that selfhood was expressed in the name of a person. When you knew someone's name, you gained power over him. In this moment, the God known only as El told Moses his personal name-YAHWEH--a verb. This verb form can be translated: 'I am who I am; I am what I am; I will be who I will be; He causes to be; I am who I choose to be.' Whew! What a name! From that moment on, Yahweh has not had a quiet moment. Just as Yahweh chose. Yahweh chose to relate to God's people personally. God chose Moses to draw out God's people into freedom.

We are descendents of Moses today. Our spiritual ancestors were chosen by the God whose name means 'being, change, choice.'

There's one more name most important in our spiritual history--the name Yahweh bestowed on Yahweh's son, born of Mary--Jesus. Jesus translates 'he will save.' Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua, or Yeshua. We sit here today as the tribe whose members, both living and dead, bear the mark of Yeshua's crucifixion on our foreheads. God has claimed us, we have claimed God in the name of Jesus. Yahweh moved in history to get us to this point. Will we be bold like Moses? Will we work with Yahweh to live into our Christian names? Here, nearing the anniversary of 9/11, will we find resurrection from the horrors from a year ago? Are we ready to draw out those around us to live with us in God's freedom?

What's in a name? Identity, being, mystical relationship, salvation. By God's acting to draw out Moses, by God's acting through Jesus, in Jesus we are made whole. That's where our story begins. As we live out our lives we yearn to know God face to face, to grow into a fuller and fuller relationship with God and God's son. Yeshua has saved us. Now we are challenged to carry on what God has begun.

Copyright 2002 Calvary Episcopal Church

Old Testament Lesson: Exodus 3:1-15
3:1 Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 3:2 There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. 3:3 Then Moses said, "I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up." 3:4 When the LORD saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am." 3:5 Then he said, "Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." 3:6 He said further, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. 3:7 Then the LORD said, "I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, 3:8 and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 3:9 The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. 3:10 So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt." 3:11 But Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" 3:12 He said, "I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain." 3:13 But Moses said to God, "If I come to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" 3:14 God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." He said further, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" 3:15 God also said to Moses, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you': This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations.

Gospel: Matthew 16:21-28
16:21 From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 16:22 And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, "God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you." 16:23 But he turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things." 16:24 Then Jesus told his disciples, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 16:25 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. 16:26 For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life? 16:27 "For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. 16:28 Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom." NRSV

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