October 4, 2015: Moses and God’s Name

Exodus 1:8-14, 3:1-15

1 ⁸ Now a new pharaoh came to power in Egypt who didn’t know Joseph. ⁹ He said to his people, “The Israelite people are now larger in number and stronger than we are. ¹⁰ Come on, let’s be smart and deal with them. Otherwise, they will only grow in number. And if war breaks out, they will join our enemies, fight against us, and then escape from the land.” ¹¹ As a result, the Egyptians put foremen of forced work gangs over the Israelites to harass them with hard work. They had to build storage cities named Pithom and Rameses for Pharaoh. ¹² But the more they were oppressed, the more they grew and spread, so much so that the Egyptians started to look at the Israelites with disgust and dread. ¹³ So the Egyptians enslaved the Israelites. ¹⁴ They made their lives miserable with hard labor, making mortar and bricks, doing field work, and by forcing them to do all kinds of other cruel work.

3 Moses was taking care of the flock for his father-in-law Jethro,^[a] Midian’s priest. He led his flock out to the edge of the desert, and he came to God’s mountain called Horeb. ² The Lord’s messenger appeared to him in a flame of fire in the middle of a bush. Moses saw that the bush was in flames, but it didn’t burn up. ³ Then Moses said to himself, Let me check out this amazing sight and find out why the bush isn’t burning up.

⁴ When the Lord saw that he was coming to look, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!”

Moses said, “I’m here.”

⁵ Then the Lord said, “Don’t come any closer! Take off your sandals, because you are standing on holy ground.” ⁶ He continued, “I am the God of your father, Abraham’s God, Isaac’s God, and Jacob’s God.” Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.

⁷ Then the Lord said, “I’ve clearly seen my people oppressed in Egypt. I’ve heard their cry of injustice because of their slave masters. I know about their pain. ⁸ I’ve come down to rescue them from the Egyptians in order to take them out of that land and bring them to a good and broad land, a land that’s full of milk and honey, a place where the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites all live. ⁹ Now the Israelites’ cries of injustice have reached me. I’ve seen just how much the Egyptians have oppressed them. ¹⁰ So get going. I’m sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”

¹¹ But Moses said to God, “Who am I to go to Pharaoh and to bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

¹² God said, “I’ll be with you. And this will show you that I’m the one who sent you. After you bring the people out of Egypt, you will come back here and worship God on this mountain.”

¹³ But Moses said to God, “If I now come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ they are going to ask me, ‘What’s this God’s name?’ What am I supposed to say to them?”

¹⁴ God said to Moses, “I Am Who I Am.^[b] So say to the Israelites, ‘I Am has sent me to you.’” ¹⁵ God continued, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, Abraham’s God, Isaac’s God, and Jacob’s God, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever; this is how all generations will remember me.

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Introduction

Notice how it all starts with fear. Pharaoh, the most powerful man in Egypt (and maybe the world) is afraid that this power could be wrenched away from him. He’s anxious about these Israelites who have grown in strength and numbers throughout his land and he is afraid that they will start to take over.  His fear will lead to the suffering and subjugation of the Israelites who will cry out in pain for help.

We’re often confronted with this kind of thinking (sometimes called realpolitik) and when things get difficult and uncertain, it is very tempting to follow pharaoh’s example.  Examples of this concept are found throughout history and literature. In the Harry Potter books, a villain named Professor Quirell states, “There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it.” A character on the popular HBO show Game of Thrones has said “All rulers are either butchers or meat.”

Harry Potter and Game of Thrones might be works of fiction, but these ideas have been around since the dawn of civilization.  In Ancient Greece, the large and powerful city state of Athens demanded that the people of Melos surrender their city and pay tribute to the stronger Athenians. The Melians object to this attack and open a debate with Athenian Diplomats. The Athenians tell them, “…you know as well as we do that “right,” as the world goes, is only in question between equals of power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” When the Melians decide to resist Athens, the Athenians besiege and starve their city, slaughter the men of military age, and enslave the women and children. Realpolitik.

We see this sort of outlook today as well. Adam Grant is a professor at the Warton School of Business and a best-selling author. In his book Give and Take, he has discovered that there are three different types of workers in a company: “takers,” “givers,” and “matchers.” He finds that “takers” are people who are always looking for an opportunity to get something from other people without having to give back. According to Grant, “Takers believe that the world is a competitive, dog-eat-dog place. They feel that to succeed, they need to be better than others.” (learn more at www.giveandtake.com)

Most “takers,” Grant notes, are not cruel cut-throats, but they are operating like the Pharaoh in our story: if I don’t take care of myself, no one else will.  In the case of Pharaoh, he is saying, “If we don’t beat down the Israelites, they’ll do it to us!” 

Is this how the world works? In response we can see the actions of the God of Israel, who speaks to Moses out of a burning bush and who is ready to liberate God’s people.

The Technical Stuff:

When Exodus begins, the Israelites have been living in Egypt for awhile now: Jacob’s son Joseph had risen to great prominence in Egypt through a series of interesting escapades and with that power he was able to bring the family down into Egypt while a terrible famine raged in Egypt. Years have passed, however, and the new pharaoh “didn’t know Joseph.” Moses, an Israelite who had been raised as an Egyptian, has fled from Egypt and is now in the wilderness tending his father-in-laws flocks.   When the LORD speaks to him from the burning bush, his words connect this episode with the rest of the story: “I am the God of your father, Abraham’s God, Isaac’s God, and Jacob’s God.” The LORD had made promises to these individuals and now the LORD is continuing to keep those promises.

In addition to the promises of God, another theme that is found again and again in the Narrative Lectionary readings is that of “relationship.” God has a great desire to have a relationship with the people of Israel, and through them, with the entire world. The LORD says, “I’ve clearly seen my people oppressed in Egypt. I’ve heard their cry of injustice because of their slave masters. I now about their pain. I’ve come down to rescue them from the Egyptians in order to take them out of that land and bring them to a good and broad land.” This is the relationship that the LORD is bringing to the people: a saving relationship that will free them from slavery. 

Also, a quick word on the LORD’s name. When Moses says that the Israelites are bound to ask for God’s name when he approaches them with this liberation operation.  He asks, “What am I supposed to say to them?” God says “I Am Who I Am. So say to the Israelites, ‘I Am has sent me to you.’ When I heard this statement growing up, “I Am,” certainly didn’t sound like a name to me and I became very confused. You might be too at this point.

In his excellent presentation called Everything is Spiritual, Rob Bell explains it in a way that is both accessible and scholarly.  (You can find it on DVD) He says that “Wherever you have ten rabbis you have twenty opinions about what the name means. Some say the name means, “I always have been and I always will be.  Others say that name is too cumbersome and the name means “raw essence…I am just pure existence.” Some say the name is a way of saying, “I am not trapped in time like all the gods and goddesses you know of, I stand outside…I simply am existence in its pure, primal form.”

It’s also important to know that when our English translations say “Lord” or “LORD” in all capitals, they are translating the proper name of God, “Yahweh.” It’s translated as “LORD” to follow the Jewish practice of reading the word Adonai (“Lord”) for Yahweh. The idea was that God’s “proper” name was so sacred, that is shouldn’t be spoken aloud lest it be profaned.

Biblical scholar Terence Fretheim makes an important point about God’s name: “Naming also entails vulnerability. In becoming so available to the world, God is to some degree at the disposal of those who can name the name.  God’s name may be misused and abused as well as honored. For God to give the name is to open himself up to that hurt.  Naming entails the likelihood of divine suffering, and so this act of name-giving is decisively continuous with 3:7: ‘I know their sufferings.’” (Terence Fretheim, pg 65, Exodus from the Interpretation Series)

In this way, the communication of God’s name itself shows the importance of relationship. God cares so much for us that God is willing to become vulnerable…as any individual in a true relationship must be. 

What Does This Say to Us?

We live in a world that is motivated by fear. We’re told again and again to be afraid of any number of things: terrorists, diseases, losing our jobs or retirement benefits, becoming a bad parent, gaining too much weight, having the wrong clothes or house, “losing” our country to immigrants or people of other races, etc. Quite often these fears are fed to us by businesses attempting to make money or politicians wanting our votes. 

Under the control of this fear, we can be tempted to act like Pharaoh, “taking” from the Israelites before they can “take” from him. We might also feel like the Israelites, enslaved to fear, miserable because of the power anxiety holds on us.  In the midst of this situation we need a liberator, we need salvation.  Thankfully, a saving relationship with God is possible and available to us through Jesus Christ, who liberates us from sin, death and also our fear. 

When the world tries to tell us that “you’re either the butcher or the meat,” that “there is no good or evil, only power…” or that “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must” we know that there is another, better, way.  We can be liberated and freed from a life of slavery to fear. The beginning of this “liberation” or “salvation” process begins with the giving of God’s own name. Rather than operating out of fear, the way pharaoh and so many other’s do, God operates out of love, becoming vulnerable enough to give God’s own name to Moses and then the people of Israel. God will continue to show this vulnerable love throughout scripture, but it will reach its apex with the death of God’s Son Jesus on the Cross.

Liberation will come to the Israelites. They will receive a new existence that is filled with freedom and not slavery. We are given a new existence as well, by a liberating God who has conquered fear with vulnerability.