Sermon for August 25th, 2013

Deuteronomy 5:6-11

6 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 7you shall have no other gods before me. 8 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 9You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, 10but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. 11 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

Ten Laws, One Love: The Name of the Lord

The three wise men visit Joseph and Mary in the stable to see the newborn son. One extremely tall wise man hits his head on the door frame and exclaims, "Jesus Christ!" Mary looks at Joseph and says, "Write that down -- that's better than Clyde."

Some of you might be thinking right now that in telling that joke, I've broken the third commandment--you shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God...or in the more traditional language, you shall not take the name of the Lord in vain. If so, I hope I can convince you today that this commandment is about so much more than simply "watching one's mouth" or avoiding certain words and names for God in casual conversation.

Leading up to this week's sermon, I did a little bit of an informal survey--I asked several people what exactly they understood the third commandment to mean. I got one or two interesting and thoughtful responses, but most answers were something along the lines of "don't use the word 'god' when you cuss, or as an expression of surprise." That's it. That's the popular essence of the third commandment. I suspect you're all familiar with the two phrases most frequently used that way, but just in case, I'm referring to the curse "god damn it!" and to the exclamation "Oh my god!"

Now before you get too offended that I used those expressions in a worship service, please know that I do not use them lightly or casually--I'm using them to illustrate a point, and I'm also using them very intentionally because I think sometimes our prim and proper shock and taboo against those expressions borders on its own kind of superstition and idolatry--which would be a violation of the second commandment: not to confuse anything made by man, whether a graven image or three simple letters of the alphabet, with the God of the universe who cannot be captured or contained by our words and by our speech.

I have to say I've always found it humorous that we think we can just change around a few of the letters: "Gosh darn it" or "Oh my goodness!" and think we've somehow fooled God into thinking we're talking about someone else. And incidentally, God's name isn't "god" any more than my name is Dad, or Pastor--even though I am both of these things to different people, neither of them is my name.

So if God's name isn't god...what is it? If we are to understand the third commandment, it seems like it would be an important thing to know. Unfortunately, like many things in the Bible, the answer is actually a little bit more complicated than it might seem.