September 28, 2003
Respect for God
Riley E. Jensen

Here we are on the Third Commandment, and it may surprise you that we are still talking about God.  When most of us think of the Ten Commandments, we think of a non-sectarian code of conduct.  While the final six commandments fit that description, the first four make it clear that the quality of life in community is dependent upon the quality of our relationship with the living God.

Over the last two weeks we have dealt with the first two commandments having to do with loyalty and faith.  Now as we come to the third we are building on the first two and thinking about how we show respect for God.  Certainly what is meant by respect for God in this instance is much more than just observing a sacred protocol for politeness.

Recent surveys by George Gallup continue to show (as they consistently have over the years) that Americans in overwhelming numbers affirm a belief in God.  Our politicians invoke God regularly, usually giving the impression that they are on very friendly terms with the Almighty.  Our children decorate themselves with crosses.  Our churches receive tax breaks for teaching respect for God and encouraging people to contribute to the moral fiber of the community.  Therefore, it seems that when talking about family values, respect for God ought to be high on the list.

Our scripture lesson talks about the revelation of the name of God.  This is one of the key passages in all of the Bible because the Hebrews believed that the name revealed the essence of one’s character.  To know someone’s name was to really know that person.  And to treat a person with respect usually begins with how we treat their name.

Unfortunately, one of the saddest memories many of us had when growing up was the cruelty that could be employed by our peers to make fun of others by twisting names into various forms of contempt.  “Fatso”, “spastic,” and “queer” were terms of derision that might as well have been arrows piercing the heart.  Today we call it trash talk and have somehow elevated it to an acceptable form of discourse.

The case I want to make this morning is that the way we treat each other may have something to do with the way we treat God.

I.                  We Have Respect for God Because of Who God Is

The first point I want to make is that we have respect for God because for us God is the head of the family with whom we have a covenantal relationship.  When we grow up in families, we grow up with defining stories.  These stories get told and sometimes repeated over-and-over again by parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins.  We hardly think about them until we start repeating them over-and-over to our children, adding our own stories which affirm the same values.  In doing so we are teaching respect for that which has gone before and for the values which they represent.

This scripture lesson from Exodus contains one of the defining stories of the family of God.  God has gotten Moses’ attention with a burning bush in the middle of the desert and has told him the mission he has in mind for him -- to go to Pharaoh and convince him to let the Hebrew people go.  Moses quickly becomes convinced that it will be difficult to avoid this particular draft notice, but like most of us he is looking for guarantees that he is not being sent out on a limb only to get it chopped off.

The guarantee he is looking for may seem strange to us because he asks for God’s name.  If the name is supposed to show the essence of God’s character, many of us miss the point because this name tends to sound a bit like gibberish or an esoteric riddle.  For the name of God given to Moses was “I Am who I Am”.

Much has been made of this name of God in Biblical interpretation, but it is sufficient to say that in those words God was revealing the essence of being as the Creator God.  The significance to Moses was that as the Creator God, this God was all-powerful, exercising dominion over the lesser territorial gods.  Moses then could go to the people under the mandate of One who had the power to deliver them from Pharaoh and Pharaoh’s god.  The giving of the name then was like giving a promise that this is a god who can be counted on.  It was a way of giving the people an image of God they could carry with them.

Not many of us think about God having a name.  God is God and that is all there is to it!  But in the Bible God is referred to by many names -- Yahweh, Jehovah, Adonai, Logos, and Jesus Christ.  In Proverbs this God is personified as Wisdom using the feminine gender, and the same Jesus who taught us to pray, “Our Father” also taught us to think of our God as being like a mother hen.

A few years ago a group of women in the Presbyterian Church gathered at a conference to think about God and how as women in a male dominated culture they could best relate to this God (hopefully not an unusual thing for anyone in the church to do).  They called it a re-imagining conference, and interestingly enough it received a great deal of press and created quite a stir in our denomination.

One of the things that created the most controversy had to do with giving God a new name -- “Sophia”, meaning “Wisdom” and taken from Proverbs, was that name.  When word got around the church that some Christian women had renamed God, you would have thought that the sky had fallen.  All of a sudden the name of God (which most of us had approached with yawning indifference) became a battle cry.

Why was this so?  Particularly since Biblically we know that God has always been known by many names -- none of which can exhaust God’s character but many of which constitute the ways in which we have known God as love and mercy and justice.  I would suggest it is because a name is always associated with an image, and from the time of Adam we have wanted to create God in our own image.

I believe that one of the reasons that talk of God as Sophia at that re-imagining conference raised such a furor is that we have gotten comfortable with a limited number of images of God and are reluctant to admit that God is much bigger than we can imagine.  The women of our church who were focusing on God as Sophia-wisdom were not trying to replace God but expand our view of God beyond male attributes.  And that is where we must begin in our respect for God -- acknowledging that God is bigger than we can imagine.

II.              We Respect God Because of Who We Are

My second point is this.  We not only respect God because of who God is, we respect God because of who we are.  As one who spends a lot of time thinking about God, let me tell you that is an exercise that can drive one crazy if you spend too much time on it.  God is God and cannot be bound within our rational constructs.

According to the first chapter of Genesis, we have been created in the image of God.  There has been a lot of debate as to exactly how that image manifests itself, but the point is that there is an intimate personal connection between the Creator God and God’s human creation.  In short, we are those who have been created and loved by God.  Therefore, we must be of great value.

Do you believe it?  A lot of years of pastoral experience tells me that most of us don’t believe it.  We don’t believe it because when it comes right down to it, the crucial test for whether or not we love and respect God has to do with whether or not we love and respect ourselves.  And I am talking about something more here than just developing a cult of self-affirmation where we start out every day by looking in the mirror and saying, “I’m really good”.

Part of the great concern for family values these days is in response to the increasing violence of our society as seen in child abuse, sexual abuse, battered women, and children who feel the need to carry guns to school.  Every right-minded person is horrified by the violence of a society where drug deals and drive-by shootings are commonplace in certain parts of our cities.

Gun control laws and bans on assault weapons have been much debated for years as legislative remedies.  While I happen to be one who is sympathetic to such crime bills, on a more basic level I believe that we need more programs like the Valley Center which is operated out of St. John the Divine in New York.

The Valley Center works with youngsters from the toughest parts of that city, teaching them how to respond to violence in a non-violent way.  The core of their message is “love yourself” and  “learn to respect yourself”.  Self-respect is not something that can be packaged in a crime bill.  There would be fewer violent crimes if those involved had a finer sense of the sanctity of life and a greater realization of their own self-worth.

I would submit that a serious omission in much of our preaching and teaching and maybe even parenting is the failure to encourage self-love.  “But if we ask people to love themselves,” some may say, “aren’t we encouraging selfishness?  I thought the task of life was the rejection of self in service of others.”

It is true that condemnation of selfishness and exaltation of altruism is the traditional teaching of all worthy religions.  But when the Bible -- in both the Old and New Testaments -- proclaims a healthy altruism, it also couples it with a healthy egoism as in “you shall love your neighbor as yourself”.  And isn’t it interesting that Jesus made this a part of his summary of the Ten Commandments.

You see, we are not talking here about the kind of love that sets self above others, but the kind of love that appreciates our own best gifts and determines to make something of them in order to give our best to others.

“You sweat too much blood for the world,” Leo Tolstoy told an enthusiastic young reformer.  “Sweat some for yourself first.  If you want to make the world better, you have to be the best you can be.  You cannot bring the Kingdom of God into the world until you bring it into your own heart first.”

III.           We Respect God Because of Who Jesus Christ Is

Finally, we respect God because of who Jesus Christ is.  For most of us the idea of God is pretty abstract until we start focusing in on Jesus Christ.  When we want to see what respect for life looks like in human action, we look to the One who, as the book of Philippians teaches, “did not think equality with God was something to be grasped, but emptied himself taking the form of a servant.”

Jesus was unwilling to take God’s name in vain by compromising his own character.  And we know that his uncompromising life of love led him to the cross.  You see, such things as swearing and what we normally think of as profanity are a very small part of what it means to take God’s name in vain.  That has to do more with bad taste and a limited vocabulary.  But when we show a lack of respect for life, and for ourselves, and for others whom God has created, then we are violating the third commandment.

I have just completed Ken Burns epic eleven-hour documentary on the Civil War given to me last Christmas by my son.  That grand and awful period in our nation’s history raised up heroes on both sides who fought to the death for their convictions.  One of those was the great Southern General Robert E. Lee.  It seems that after the war Lee had exhausted his personal resources to the point that he was practically penniless.  At that point in time he was sought out by a powerful financial group that was organizing an insurance company and wanted to list his name as its president.

It was explained to him that he would have no actual duties but would receive a fine salary because what the company really wanted was his name.  Replying with a great deal of integrity and insight, Lee is quoted as saying, “I have nothing left but my name, and that is not for sale.”  Today’s world would have a difficult time understanding Lee’s action because it believes that everything is for sale, especially a person’s name.  To make a name for yourself today means to become famous enough to sell it.

Referring to Jesus, the Bible says, “There is none other name under heaven whereby we must be saved.”  And in another place, “ At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow”.  The name of Jesus is so powerful -- not because it is some kind of magical incantation but because of what it represents.  It represents a life lived in love, compassion, kindness, and service.  Wherever lives are lived in this way, the name of Jesus is honored.

As Christians we have taken on that name; we are “Christ Ones”.  My friends, it is a serious thing to be called Christian in a world such as ours.  A Christian is one who bears the name of Christ, and therefore seeks to show respect for that name by living his life in the world.

Our respect for the name of Christ and all that he stood for should be such that we have instilled in us the kind of pride and love for that name that we will permit in ourselves no bigotry, or prejudice, or attitudes, or habits that might negate the help we can bring to others.

“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain” is a matter of respect which makes a difference in how we live.

Amen.