What's in a Name?

Exodus 6:2-9 (NRSV)

 God also spoke to Moses and said to him: ‘I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name “The Lord”I did not make myself known to them. I also established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they resided as aliens. I have also heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are holding as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. Say therefore to the Israelites, “I am the Lord, and I will free you from the burdens of the Egyptians and deliver you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgement. I will take you as my people, and I will be your God. You shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has freed you from the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; I will give it to you for a possession. I am theLord.” ’ Moses told this to the Israelites; but they would not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and their cruel slavery.

The great covenant of God - of The Lord - started with Abraham, but here Moses learns that he is being given something that none of his forbearers had: he has learned God's name.  It's as if time had been building to this moment.

What's in a name?  It's a question Shakespeare pondered and it's one that all publicists and agents and celebrities ask when they set up to promote their product or themselves.  Care and thought went into turning Norma Jean into Marilyn, or Frances Gumm into Judy Garland, or Paul Hewson into Bono, or Stefani Germanotta into Lady Gaga.

And here God has carefully withheld that name until the right moment.  Even those who followed him most closely did not know it.  God was more than a name, and even with the name that was new to them - "The Lord" (or YHWH for the Hebrews), they dared not speak it.  

How dearly do we hold names now?  What's in a name to us?  How many ways are names misused, turned into something else - a scorn, a joke?  

For God names were so important that they were protected.  Not only does God protect God's own name, but God protects ours.  Part of the eighth commandment - not bearing false witness against our neighbor - is the protection of our identity.  

For God, the name of God becomes part and parcel with the promise.  It was so sacred to the Hebrew people that they did not speak it.  

Our names our sacred to God as well.  How can we make those names sacred to each other?  How can our own names be connected to our promise to be God's people?

God of time and space, let your name be a prayer on my lips and guide my to always treat each person, whether I know their name or not, as sacred to you. Amen.