Thoughts on the Name of God for this Sunday morning. I grew up in a nonreligious household, but in a very religious community. When I was a child, my parents and grandparents would use the GD and JC as curses casually and frequently. But outside of my home everyone I know was utterly scandalized by that kind of language. I dont remember the first time I heard the phrase taking the Lords name in vain, but I know that every other child I knew treated it as terrible taboo. It was invested with an almost magical kind of awe, as if saying Gods name could easily call down a lightning bolt. I dont mean to dismiss this. There is definitely something to the ways that language can shape our unconscious mind, and instill us (or not) with a kind of appropriate reverence and respect for God. But when I look at the whole of Scripture, and when I look at the way religion interacts with the world, it seems to me those childhood superstitions were missing more than half the point. For some reason we automatically translate taking the Lords name into saying the Lords name. This is an error. To take a name is to take it as your own, to identify yourself publicly with that name. To take the Lords name is to present yourself to the world as the representative of the Lord. This is the kind of taking of Gods name that I think the authors of Scripture were concerned with, the kind of taking the name that is not to be done in vain. And ironically, and sadly, many people do this with shocking casualty and unconcern. We take the Lords name whenever we declare that God says something. We take the Lords name whenever we proclaim something as the will of God. We take the Lords name every time we ascribe God credit for minor lucky coincidences. And most of all, we take the Lords name any time we call ourselves Christians. And how often we do that in defense of arbitrary, narrow, rigid dogmas. How often we do that in defense of our own politics. How often we do that when imagining a god that exists only in our small, transient cultural and economic context. How often we do that when the word god is really a proxy for the word ego. All of those things are what it truly is to take the Lords name in vain. To use the Lords name in a way that marginalizes, wounds, excludes, and ignores those whom God loves, in service to our own particular agendas. Be cautious, reverent, thoughtful and prayerful before you start talking about what God says, or wills, or is. Be just as cautious and reverent before you identifying yourself with one of the many names of God. They should not know we are Christians by our rightness, our persecution complex, our forced and artificial serenity, or by our good luck in finding parking places. They should know we are Christians by our love.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 16:57:31 +0000
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