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Why Your Name Doesn't Mean Anything (But God's Does) · Faith at Work

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: My journey out of the Mennonite Church has been both interesting and humbling.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: In the Mennonite Church, my name was known.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: My picture was on refrigerators for years with pray for this family over it
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: while we served the mission field in Italy.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: I was involved in both regional and national roles,
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: and when I went to national conference,
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: I knew almost every one of the thousand people that attended,
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: and they knew my name and all of the history behind it.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: In the Church of the Brethren, that has not been the case.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: My name carried No history and no weight when I introduced myself.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: I could count a number of people that I knew and the people
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: that knew my name literally on one hand.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Same name, different recognition and value.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: The only time that my name really carried Any way is when people realize
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: that I was married to Beth Jarrett.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: And they say, oh, you're Beth's husband.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say, I am.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: That, I am.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: But that's changing.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: That is changing.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Not the married to Beth part.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Today, don't worry, today's our 40th anniversary.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: And we do plan to continue that part.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: But the part about my name not carrying any history or weight, well, that's changing.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: I got a call yesterday from someone on the discernment gifts committee of
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: the district, and she said, hi, this is so-and-so, and is this Harry Jarrett?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, Yes, this is Harry.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I'm calling to ask you to consider a role on a district's committee.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: We've heard about you.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: She not only knew my name,
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: but she also knew,
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: I guess, some favorable character traits that she went on to name.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: We heard you're such and such and such and such,
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: and we think that you would be great to serve on this committee.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: She knew my name,
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: but more importantly,
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: she was able to describe my character, to which again, I said, I am that I am.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Something similar, as you probably are already aware, is happening in the biblical story today.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Moses is not looking for God.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: When he sees the bush, He is doing the most ordinary thing.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: He's tending the sheep of his father-in-law.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: The flock is wandering around,
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: and it wanders out past the edge of the wilderness to a location just underneath
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: the mountain of Horeb.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And there,
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: in a bush that has no business still being a bush,
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: he sees fire that burns, and the bush is not being consumed.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: And he turns aside to look.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's such a human detail, I think.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Not he fell on his face in terror.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, at least not yet.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Just, I must turn aside and see this great sight.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Why the bush is not burned up.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Curiosity before fear.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: We'll come back to that.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it is that turning aside the ordinary human decision to go look closer
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: at something strange that gets him addressed by name from God, Moses.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Moses!
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: And the ground under his feet, ground that he has walked on hundreds of times, is subtly holy.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then God does something worth really slowing down for God, introduces himself.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the introduction is a family tree, it seems.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Three generations named out loud.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And this is not a title and it's not really a name either, it's a resume.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: It is God saying to Moses,
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: you can trust me because of who I have already been faithful to in the past.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because of the relationships that I have already kept.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: And for a while, that is enough for Moses.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: It is enough right up until God tells him to go and stand in front of Pharaoh.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: The most powerful leader in the world at that time.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And lead a couple of hundred thousand enslaved people out of that most powerful empire on earth.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that is when Moses starts asking harder questions.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Who am I that I should go and do that kind of thing?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And God answers to that.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: One that's not really a resume either.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's a promise.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: I will be with you.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: But then Moses asks something different, and it really is worth noting that he asks it.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Suppose I go to the Israelites and I say, the God of your ancestors has sent me to you.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then they say, what is his name?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: What am I supposed to say then?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: And here is the question that I want us to really sit with today
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: because I do not think we ask it enough.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Why isn't the God of your father,
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob not a good enough answer?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it is true.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it is impressive.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Impressive.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: It has three patriarchs listed right in there.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Why does Moses need more and why will the people that he's going to speak to need more?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, because in the world that Moses lived in, a name was not a label.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: It was a description of character.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Think about how we name things now, all right?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: We pick a name for a baby because we like the sound of it,
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: or it runs in the family, or maybe it's just trending on social media that year.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Scott doesn't mean anything.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Brenda, sorry, Brenda, doesn't really mean anything.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: You really could swap them out, and nothing about the person would change.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: That is what shaped her whole point when he has Juliet say that a rose
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: by any other name would smell just as sweet.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: She is arguing that the label is arbitrary.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: The substance stays the same no matter what you call it.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: That was not true in the ancient world and it is not true in
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: the biblical text how it was written.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: In Genesis,
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Jacob's own name means something like heel grabber or the one
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: who takes another one's place because he came out of
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: the womb holding his twin brother's heel and it turned out to describe exactly
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: the kind of man he would become in the world.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Later in the story of Genesis, a man named Nabal refuses to help David and his men.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: And Nabal's wife comes in and he says to David very plainly, as his name is, so is he.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: Nabal is his name and folly is with him for he is a scoundrel.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: That is exactly what the name Nabal means.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: It is not a label.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: It is a description of character.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: So the name is not just decoration.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: The name is a declaration.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: So when Moses asks for God's name, he is not asking for a label to write on a name tag.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: He is asking in effect, what are you actually like, God?
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: What can I count on you to do over and over again when it really matters in my world?
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: A family history tells you who you have been faithful to in the past.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: A name as I'm describing it tells us who you are now.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: That is why Rose, by any other name, Would not be a rose.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: At least not for God.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: If God's name doesn't actually describe God's character, then it is worthless.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: No matter how many patriarchs or past it is attached to.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that is exactly why the resume,
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: the God of Abraham,
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: the God of Isaac,
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: the God of Jacob,
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: was not going to be enough for Moses to carry back to a people
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: who had spent 400 years enslaved.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: They did not need a family tree.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: They already knew it.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: They needed to know what God was actually going to be like when he counted today.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, God answers, I am who I am.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: I am.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then say this to the Israelites, I am has sent you.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then a third time using a name that gets translated in our Bible
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: in small capitals as the Lord,
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: the Lord, it really should be in capitals, the God of your Father.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: This is my name forever.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now preachers have spent centuries turning that phrase into a philosophical lecture.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: I am self-existent.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: I am the ground of all being.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: I depend on nothing and no one.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm making light of it, but there is truth in that.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: But if you only hear the philosophy behind it,
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: you miss what Moses' audience actually needed to hear.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: And unless we look at the Hebrew, we just don't get it.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: The Hebrew verb underneath, I am, is hayam, to be.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: And of course,
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: scholars who have spent their careers with this have looked at it in a lot
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: of different ways.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: But basically, the word means to be.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: To exist.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: To be present in the moment.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: So.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Rather than saying I exist in the abstract,
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: God is saying I am here, I am showing up, I am at work.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: The Old Testament that carries on, sorry, lost my place.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's where I'm at.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, missed it.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I can't really tell you exactly what the exact reading would have been for Moses
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: and his people.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: But I do think it is something like this.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: He is.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: He causes to be in the moment.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: We are looking here at a God who is named that is relentlessly Actively present and
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: whose presence changes what is possible in our world in the moment.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that is the name that God gives Moses to carry back into Egypt.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Not a resume, but a description of what is about to happen.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: This God does not exist somewhere out past the stars or just in the past.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: This God is about to show up in a burning bush,
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: in tent plagues,
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: in a parted sea,
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: in a pillar of fire and smoke that is going to guide the people of God through
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: the desert of day and night.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: The name and the character are the same thing.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that is the whole point.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as I said,
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: most of us don't My name does not really describe my character
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: and neither does yours.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: But that is not how the naming of God works in the Bible.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: We need to think a little bit about the name of God that we offer people today
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: because I don't think that just saying God Or Jesus today carries enough weight
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: and thought and understanding and expression of God's character.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't hold what it used to hold.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: We must say more about the character and presence of God for people to know
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: who we are really talking about.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: For years, I have spoken to people who tell me that they do not believe in God.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I respond, okay, what God don't you believe in?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: To which they begin a long articulation of the character of God that they do not believe in.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: And after allowing them to finish that story,
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: almost always I am able to say, I don't believe in that God either.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then the real conversation Can begin.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: I can begin to name who I believe God is.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: And many times it's the same God that they would like to believe in.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: So here are three things to consider this week.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: First, become curious.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Become curious.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: For the first time or once again.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because that is where deep understanding begins.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Don't take this too personally,
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: but if you believe that you know everything about God already,
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to gently say you are sadly mistaken.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: There is so much more about this immense God that we say we love and follow.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: And if we are not continually curious and never turn aside to discover more,
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: we will follow,
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: worship, and present to the world a very small and distorted image of the divine.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, we need to accept who God says God is.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: I am finding that much of what the church and orthodoxy have long told me about God
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: and Jesus is distorted at best and just outright incorrect at worst.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm finding that by deeply studying the biblical text with a more open mind,
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: looking at what it actually says,
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then reflecting on that in light of culture of the time and
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: the progressive revelation of God's image,
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: I am seeing things in Scripture that I have never heard anyone say out loud before.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm allowing that to have more weight than the history tells me.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I suggest that you consider doing something similar.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: And third, ask others how they have experienced a present God and then listen before you judge.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: You might just learn something.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to remember what you heard me say a few weeks ago from Genesis about
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: a boy named Ishmael,
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: cast out into the wilderness with his mother, dying of thirst under a bush.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: And his name meant God hears.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: And God heard him right where he was, not where he should have been.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: The name was a promise before it ever became true.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then it became true.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that is what I want us to carry from this sanctuary this morning.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: Our names are mostly just sounds we like.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: The God who met Moses at a bush That would not stop burning does not have that problem.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: God's name and God's character have always been the same thing.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: And they still are.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Not the God who was.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: The God who is.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Not the God who showed up once a long time ago to a man named Moses on a mountain in
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: the middle of nowhere.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: The God who is present.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: Right here in whatever wilderness you are standing in this morning,
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: still calling your name and still me every word.