A sermon given on the 2nd Sunday of Christmastide at St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral, by Fr. Tim Sean Youmans.
Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today, to get through this thing called life. Electric word life, it means forever, and that's a mighty long time, but I'm here to tell you...There's something else...the afterworld. A world of never ending happiness, you can always see the sun, day or night. So when you call up that shrink in Beverly Hills, you know the one, Dr. Everything'll Be alright, instead of asking him how much of your time is left ask him how much of your mind, Cause in this life things are much harder than in the afterworld in this life, you're on your own.
I’m “aging” the room when I ask,”Who knows what I’m quoting here? That’s right, the introduction to Prince’s song “Let’s Go Crazy.”
Prince who died back in 2016, may light perpetual shine upon him. He was an elusive fellow, peculiar, hard to define, an enigma wrapped in a mystery. And he was spiritual. Raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, he was known to do that very thing-witness-to his fellow celebrities.
Back in the 90s Prince did something esoteric. He announced that he would no longer be known as Prince, but instead only be known by a symbol he had created. It was a protest against his record company who would not give him creative control of his music and he felt like “Prince” had become someone else, someone out his control. And so he became “the artist formerly known as Prince,” did not want to be limited by other definitions of him.
Often when others name us, it is their way of controlling us. Beware people who are too quick to give nicknames.
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The voice in the Burning Bush told Moses to go back to Egypt and rescue his people.
Moses says, “Suppose my people ask who it is that sent me? Who should I tell them sent me?”
And God’s response is esoteric. In the Hebrew, it is four consonants, Yod, Hey, Waw, Hey, translated by sound into English as YHWH. But this was a word that was not a word in use. But it was close to a word, an approximation of the verb “to be.” And so it gets translated as “I am that I am.” It's intended meaning was not clear, because it did not have a familiar tense. And as peculiar as it is, it’s intended meaning was likely the idea or reality of “existence.” Moses asks God who he is and he says “existence.”
What happened over time is that the name of God (“Who should I say sent me?”), permanently became an unknowable, unspeakable, esoteric. Conservative Jews don’t ever refer to God by that name, or by any name, but rather by simply saying, Elohim Hashem, or god of the name, or an even longer version “he whose name may not be uttered.”
Does that make anyone here think of anything? Lord Voldemort, from the Harry Potter stories, yes?
So, what happens over time in that culture is that God, or “that which name may not be uttered” garners and collects nick-names. God was given descriptive names based on how they perceive God acting and behaving among them.
El Shaddai (God almighty, God is enough, or God of the dark mountain)
Jehovah-Raah (The Lord My Shepherd)
Jehovah Rapha (The Lord That Heals)
Jehovah Makeh (The Lord Who Strikes You)
Jehovah Shammah (The Lord Is There)
Jehovah Tsidkenu (The Lord Our Righteousness)
Jehovah Shalom (The Lord Is Peace)
Jehovah Uzi (My Strength)
So “that which name may not be uttered” is known to us, but known only as though seen through a veil. Our knowledge of God is limited and elusive. St. Augustine, who wrote prolifically about God, said it this way. “We can say nothing about God, but we must say something.”
With this in mind, I want you to begin to hear, as we read scripture together at church in the coming year, how often there is a reference to “the name” of God. Scripture asks us to honor the name, revere the name. How can we honor something that we do not know fully what it is, how can we worship a mystery?
This isn’t an unusual question in reading the Scriptures. There is a pattern in the Jewish tradition of interpretation, or Midrash, as it is known, of holding a variety of ideas about God together, even when they seem to conflict.
Jewish stories almost always are asking you to consider “on the one hand this” “on the other hand that.” A session of Midrash takes a story or a precept and literally write it in the middle of a blank piece of paper and then in the margins write the various ways the story could be understood depending on context.
John Dominic Crossan calls this pattern in scripture a rhythm of assertion-and-subversion. He says that “a vision of the radicality of God is put forth,” he says “and then later, we see that vision domesticated and integrated into the normalcy of civilization.” He calls it a pattern of
yes and no
declaration and invalidation
pronouncement and annulment
assertion and subversion. God is playing cat and mouse with us.
But then God became flesh. On the 8th day Joseph and Mary have the baby circumcised, he becomes a child of the Covenant. This day was celebrated on the 8th day of Christmas, which was this past Thursday. The Angel told both Mary and Joseph, “Call him Yeshua,” which means salvation.
Into this world God comes, this broken, fragile world. And God comes this time, finally with a proper name. Jesus comes to save. Saving comes into our lives, to bring healing, to repair what is broken, to bring order to our disorder. And I must say that I've always been confounded that in the larger Christian community this notion of salvation has primarily been understood as being saved after this life into the next. I have no doubt that is part of God's larger economy, but his saving means to rescue us now, in this life; in our marriages and in our relationships, our work, the anger, the frustration, the brokenness. It is there that Jesus brings his energy, his wisdom and redemptive rescuing presence. Jesus saves us now as much as after.
I don’t know what kind of year this has been for you, and to what degree you have seen the work of God in your midst; on-the-one-hand-this, on-the-other-hand-that, assertion and subversion. But God is among us, saving us.
And so with that in mind, I close this sermon with a poem by Mary Sarton called “New Year Poem.”
Let us step outside for a moment As the sun breaks through clouds
And shines on wet new-fallen snow. And breathe the new air.
So much has died that had to die this year. We are dying away from things.
It is a necessity—we have to do it
Or we shall be buried under the magazines,
The too many clothes, the too much food. We have dragged it all around
Like dung beetles Who drag piles of dung
Behind them on which to feed,
In which to lay their eggs.
Let us step outside for a moment Among ocean, clouds, a white field,
Islands floating in the distance.
They have always been there. But we have not been there.
We are going to drive slowly
And see the small poor farms,
The lovely shapes of leafless trees
Their shadows blue on the snow.
We are going to learn the sharp edge
Of perception after a day’s fast.
There is nothing to fear
about this revolution…
Though it will change our minds.
Aggression, violence, machismo
Are fading from us
Like old photographs
Faintly ridiculous
(Did a man actually step like a goose
To instill fear?
Does a boy have to kill
To become a man?)
Already there are signs.
Young people plant gardens.
Fathers change their babies’ diapers
And are learning to cook.
Let us step outside for a moment.
It is all there
Only we have been slow to arrive
At a way of seeing it.
Unless the gentle inherit the earth
There will be no earth.
Crossan, John Dominic, How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian: Struggling with Divine Violence from Genesis Through Revelation, Harper Collins, New York, NY 2015.“New Year Poem” by May Sarton from Collected Poems. © Norton, 1993.
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