Third Word of Community Design - Deuteronomy 5:1-5, 11

A man is being tailgated by a stressed-out woman on a busy boulevard. Suddenly the light turns yellow just in front of him. He does the right thing and stops at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.

The tailgating woman hits the roof, and the horn, screaming in frustration as she misses her chance to get through the intersection with him. As she is still in mid-rant, she hears a tap on her window and looks up into the face of a very serious police officer. The officer orders her to exit her car with her hands up. He takes her to the police station where she is searched, fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in a cell.

After a couple of hours, a policeman approaches the cell and opens the door. She is escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer is waiting with her personal effects. He says, "I'm very sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping the guy off in front of you, and cussing a blue streak at him.  I noticed the ‘Choose Life’ license plate holder, the ‘What Would Jesus Do’ bumper sticker, the ‘Follow Me to Sunday School’ bumper sticker, and the chrome plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk.  Naturally I assumed you had stolen the car."

We continue our journey through God’s Ten Words of Community Design, or as we are more familiar with, The Ten Commandments.  We have discussed how these “Words,” and for those who haven’t been with us on this journey, remember that the Hebrew word we usually translate as Commandments, literally translates as “words” or “sayings,” can help us learn what it means to live successfully in God’s Community.  So far we have been reminded in the First Word, that this is God’s community, not ours, it is about him, not us; that we are important as God loves us enough to invite us to be part of His community; that participation in God’s community is voluntary, not coerced, we are free to choose to be part of it, we are free to choose to walk away from it; and finally, in that First Word, we learn that if we choose to be in God’s community, God has to become our priority, God has to come first.

In the Second Word, we heard that God is no genie in a bottle…that we are not to try and manipulate and control God.  We are reminded that God is the Creator and we are the creature, He is the Potter, and we are the clay, that we are created to be in God’s image, not to try and make God in our image.

So now we come to the Third Word, a familiar one, one that we think is easy to understand, “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.”  Maybe we are more familiar with it sounding this way, “Thou shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.”  This is an easy one, everyone understands this one, and it means “Don’t use the G-D profanity word, right?  Let’s pack up and go home.”

Well, we might need to put our pocket books back down and take our coats back off…this is more to this Word, than not cussing with that particular piece of profanity.  What this Word tells us is that we have to be careful how we use and represent God’s name.  We are warned not to use God’s name too flippantly, not to use it too sparingly, and to be careful how we present that name to the world.

We need to begin by remembering just how sacred that God’s people once held His name.  In the Hebrew culture of biblical times, and even in some circles today, God’s name, YAHWEH, though sometimes it is translated as Jehovah, was treated with the upmost respect and honor.  God’s Name was so sacred that many faithful Jews would not even write out the name, they would use the Hebrew letters for YHWH (which has led to the translation of Jehovah rather than Yahweh).  In fact, they considered God’s name so sacred, that it was only used one day a year, on the Day of Atonement.  Names, in biblical times, were considered to have power, they were not just randomly given, they held significance as to the very being of the person or thing named.

The first case in which we misuse the name of God, or use God’s name in vain is when we use it carelessly or flippantly.  We forget the sacredness of the name, and just throw it out there.  I am not talking only about the times where we get upset and use the “G-D” phrase, though if we remember that when we use that phrase, we are actually calling down God’s curse upon whatever we are putting with that phrase—that ought to give us pause to think, if we use that phrase when we are frustrated with something that we are trying to do, we are calling down God’s curse upon our efforts, and if God responds by cursing our efforts, do we think we will ever accomplish the task?  I am talking about much more than that.  I am talking about how common it is to here Jesus’ name, God’s name, and other references to God in what has become common everyday language.  Expressions floating around such as “Jesus Christ,” “O Jesus,” “O God,” “O My God,” (which has been shortened into “OMG” by text and chat users) or “I swear to God.”  What’s wrong with using God’s name too flippantly?  When we begin using God’s name in our conversations like it is just some expression or some explicative, then we begin having disregard for God’s name.  If we believe, as often is sung, that “there’s something about that name,” that “there’s strength in the name of the Lord,” or that “there’s power in the name of Jesus,” or, as our brother sang earlier, “Filled with wonder, awestruck wonder at the mention of your name, Jesus your name is power, breath, and living water, such a marvelous mystery,” then we, as users of the name, need to be careful in how we use that sacred name, not because flippant use actually diminishes God, but it diminishes our view of God.

Almost the direct inverse of this, would be, to infrequent use of the name of God.  That might seem to be impossible, if we are to treat God’s name as sacred, and the early Hebrews only used it once a year.  Yet Jesus comes to us and teaches us to pray, “Our Father.”  Jesus establishes that we are called to have an intimate relationship with God, and while “Father,” may seem very formal to us, for those in Jesus’ time, it would be like us calling God “Dad” or “Daddy.”  It is a very intimate, loving, reference to God.  Jesus teaches us to pray in the name of God, or pray in His name.  Paul reminds us that everything we do, we are to do in the name of the Lord and that we are to proclaim the name of Jesus throughout all the world.  We are called to stay connected intimately to God, to keep mindful of the close relationship that we have with Him.  To live in this intimate relationship with God, to be able to call him Father, is to have allowed the Will of Jesus, the Will of God, to become our Will…to allow His desires to become our desires.  When we use God’s name too infrequently, we become disconnected to God, and we easily begin to be focused on ourselves rather than on God.

Paul’s call for everything we do to do in the name of the Lord, carries us to the third, and probably least thought about way we misuse the Name of the Lord, or use His name in vain.  The third concern of this Word of God’s Design for Community is how we carry the Name of God in our lives.  This is the concern of the police officer who pulled over the woman thinking she had stolen that car.  In our Baptismal vows, we vow, before God and the congregation, that we “will remain faithful members of Christ’s holy Church and serve as Christ’s representatives in the world.”  When we join the church and as we receive others into membership, we promise to support Christ’s universal church and our local congregation through our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service, and our witness.”  In these vows, we are committing that all that we do will be reflective of our relationship with God—how we live is to reflect who we are and who God is. 

When we profess the name Christian and then reflect the exact opposite, we misuse the name of God, we use God’s name in vain.  When we claim that we are Christians, and cuss out and flip off a driver we are unhappy with, we use God’s name in vain.  When we claim that we are Christian, but treat those whose skin color as different or who speak a different language or are part of a different culture as if those folks are less than us, we misuse the name of God.  When we claim that we are Christian and are sexually promiscuous, having our even pursuing sexual relationships with those outside of marriage, we misuse God’s name.  When we claim that we are Christian and we hold onto grudges or wish ill upon others, we are using God’s name in vain.  When we claim that we are Christian and use others for our own advantage, we make wrongful use of the name of God.  When we claim that we are Christian and place our own desires above the needs of others, we misrepresent God.  All of these and a myriad of other ways are violations of the God’s Third Word of Community Design.

How does wrongful use of God’s Name damage the way that God designed community to be?  It is plain and simple, if we have disregard for God’s name, we have disregard for God Himself, and if we have disregard for God, who is greater and deserves honor and respect more than anything in all of creation, what makes us think that we would treat anything else with respect.  If we are flippant and careless with the Name of God, using it for our own advantage or with little thought, we will easily use those around us to get what we want, rather than live by the self-giving, self-sacrificing love of God found in Christ Jesus, we destroy community by using God and those around us to meet what we see as our needs, it becomes about us, rather than about God.  If we avoid the name of God, if we avoid the intimate relationship with our Creator that Christ has revealed to us, if we cannot be close to God, our Father, the source of all love, then we will find that we become estranged from those around us, we lose the ability to form intimate, life-giving relationships.  And, finally, if we misrepresent the name of God, if folks look at us, as the Church, as Christians, and see that we are no different than the world…if we offer the same pain, the same disregard, the same self-centered focus as the world, then they will see that there is no need to be part of a community that is no different than where they already are.

Yet, my brothers and sisters, when we truly honor the Name of God, we will find that we will also begin seeing and honor those around us who are made in His very image.  When we honor the Name of God, and cherish the intimate loving relationship He offers to us, we will find that we are able to enter into loving bonding relationships with those around us.  When we honor and cherish the Name of God, in how we live out our everyday lives as His servants, and find ourselves living with one another in the way He has called us to live, we will find that we are drawing more and more into His community where life is different than it is in the rest of the world.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit…Amen.