By Rev Bill Stewart
Back in the late 1990s everyone was talking about Y2K and wondering if their computer would still work on the 01/01/ 2000. The new millennium was all over the media. The Australian magazine even ran an article called "10 Commandments for the next Millennium" (7-8 March 1999). No longer was Moses like Charlton Heston with a long fluffy white beard in the 1950s movie The Ten Commandments. Now Moses looked more like David Beckham! Right across the front page was this new millennium metrosexual Moses with a goatee, standing on the top of a skyscraper with the Commandments written in HTML. "With their asses and oxen" the article began, "the Ten Commandments seem wildly out of date. Here are the Ten Amendments for the next millennium." Unfortunately the Ten Amendments sounded like they’d been written by David Beckham not God. Someone had certainly bent them like Beckham!
The First Commandment in the Bible says: "You shall have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:3). The new first amendment says: Be serious.
The Second Commandment says: "You shall not make for yourself an idol" (Exodus 20:4). The second amendment says: Get real.
The Third Commandment says: "You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name" (Exodus 20:7). The third amendment says: Be humble.
The author of the Ten Amendments took it for granted that in the modern world we shouldn’t believe in universal rules. He also assumed that we make our own rules. "I have spoken" are the last words of his article. But the teaching of the Ten Commandments was valid in the past and is still valid in the present because, as we are trying to show in this sermon series, they deal with "The Ten Greatest Struggles of Your Life". And because only a sense of responsibility and accountability before God, which is informed by true knowledge of God, can empower us to fulfil our responsibilities to God and our fellow human beings.
But why is God so precious about his name? Doesn’t he need to lighten up a bit – get a sense of humour? "Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me". Unfortunately God knows that misuse of God’s name does hurt me and it hurts others too. In the Bible misusing the name of the Lord means:
(1) Using the name of the Lord for something false or evil, or
(2) Using the name of the Lord with no heart, no purpose, no thankfulness.
I think we all know people who have rejected Jesus because of the church, and people who have not really rejected Jesus, but have certainly rejected the church! Some of you might remember this article in The Melbourne Anglican (October 2004) with the headline: "Jesus attracts but the church repels." The article was about the results of research by the Bible Society [in New South Wales] which found that "The Church is an almost insurmountable problem for most people". The research report concluded that "as soon as people think of Christianity, they think of Christian churches, they think of the practice of religion and the negative associations they have with churches and their hierarchies." According to the report, the two most significant "negative associations" people had with Christianity were:
(1) Perceptions of hypocritical behaviour on behalf of church leaders and people who stand for Christian beliefs;
(2) Involvement of churches in issues of paedophilia.
Many of you would also know that in the last couple of years a couple of atheist writers have sold a lot of books arguing that religion itself, whatever religion (although Christianity and Islam were their major targets), are actually dangerous and evil forces in society. The best known of these books is the The God Delusion by the biologist Richard Dawkins of Oxford University. Those of you who are into science probably know some of his books about biological evolution but if you’re like me and more into science fiction then you probably know him as the man who married Romana from Doctor Who! (That’s the second Romana, not the first, for all those Doctor Who freaks out there). Dawkins argued that religion is basically the root cause of most, if not all, the evil in the world, and if we all just became good atheists like him all our problems would be over. Of course, he made the point in a more sophisticated way than that but it was the gist of his argument. (What did Romana see in him?)
There’s not room in the sermon today to deal with those issues. But his ideas have, I believe, been very effectively criticised by Alister McGrath in his book The Dawkins Delusion. McGrath is also a professor at Oxford University and an expert in theology as well as biology. But one important point about Dawkins arguments is that while McGrath has sold a few thousand books, Dawkins had sold millions. It was Dawkins book not McGrath’s that has been displayed in a prominent position in every airport bookshop in Australia for the last year.
Last year another Brit, journalist Christopher Hitchens, published a book called God is not good: how religion poisons everything. A think you can get his point from the title without me explaining it. Now Hitchens is the same man who called Mother Teresa "a fanatic, a fundamentalist and a fraud." So it’s tempting to completely dismiss Hitchens but I think what he says is much too important for that. One of the reviewers of his book on amazon.com said that Hitchens reveals "religion’s worst face". He ignores its other faces, of course. But the most important point I think these books by Hitchens and Dawkins make is that religion in general, and in our case, Christianity in particular, has given these writers more than enough ammunition to make a case that has been very persuasive to many people.
"God" has been claimed as the justification for some horrendous crimes: the medieval crusades, the wars of religion in the 16th and 17th centuries, the persecutions of Jewish people, and the witch hunts, to mention a few infamous episodes from the past; terrorist attacks and suicide bombings come to mind in our recent experience. No one in history has had their identity stolen and their reputation abused more than God. I wonder how often God has thought, "with friends like these who needs enemies!"
Personally speaking, one of my closest and longest standing friends, who I’ve known since primary school, has said that he doesn’t want to be seen dead in church. And to prove it he has specifically stated in his will that he is not to be given a church funeral under any circumstances. Now as much as I love my friend, he is someone like Dawkins and Hitchens who is very good at seeing the worst in those he disagrees with, and it is also offers a convenient justification of his own lifestyle. But from his point of view the final straw was when, he believed, the former Anglican Archbishop Peter Hollingworth, then the Governor-General, refused to take responsibility in relation to ministers who had sexually abused children. You can imagine the situation this puts me in as an Anglican Minister who wants to share Jesus with my friend. I am glad to say that our Anglican Church is now taking these matters very seriously, but for my friend and many others it may be too late. Clearly its not all my fault but I’m sure it hasn’t helped that because we have known each other almost 30 years, my friend knows very well about my teenage years when I called myself a Christian but didn’t take living a Christian life seriously.
The one thing that Dawkins and Hitchens have got exactly right is that misusing God’s name is not a trivial matter. And it’s not just a PR [public relations] problem for the church! Misusing God’s name for something false or evil is a matter of life and death. And even using the name of the Lord with no heart, no purpose, no thankfulness, is an abuse. It is not just a matter of our words but equally of our actions and actions, as we know, have consequences! And, as the examples I mentioned earlier demonstrate, the consequences can be deadly! That is one reason why God takes the use of his name so seriously. It’s a pity Dawkins and Hitchens don’t seem to have noticed that Jesus takes the misuse of his name just as seriously as the Third Commandment. Be warned, he said, in the end I will permanently disassociate myself from people who claim my name in vain:
"Not everyone who says to me, ’Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ’Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ’I never knew you; go away from me, you evil doers’." (Matthew 7:21-23)
Three times they say we did these things "in your name" but Jesus replies just once: "I never knew you, go away from me..." They claimed to be ministering in God’s name but Jesus says that they weren’t doing the will of his Father. That’s why Jesus didn’t know them and, he doesn’t say it because it goes without saying, but they didn’t know who Jesus really is.
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But the motivation for honouring the name of God is not fear of punishment but the desire to conform to the will of God. Two weeks ago we saw how the Second Commandment against idolatry was actually "good news". It was good news because in the Commandment God gave us instruction about the danger of robbing ourselves of a real relationship with the true and living God by worshipping objects which offer only lifeless, worthless and useless substitutes in return . This morning I want to suggest that the Third Commandment banning the misuse of God’s name is given for a similar reason.
Whenever we read the Commandments we need to remember one crucial fact. It is impossible to overstate the importance of the fact that every one of the Commandments is given after God reminds the people of Israel who he is: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery..." (Exodus 20:2-3). Who is God? God is the saviour of his people – the God who delivered them from slavery. Today’s reading from the Old Testament comes from a period centuries after the Commandments were given through Moses to the people of Israel. But once again the people have been oppressed, this time by the mighty Assyrian empire. And God’s response is the same:
"Long ago, my people went down into Egypt to reside there as aliens; the Assyrian too, has oppressed them without cause. Now therefore what am I doing here says the Lord, seeing that my people are taken away without cause? Their rulers howl, says the Lord, and continually all day long, my name is despised. Therefore my people shall know my name; therefore in that day they shall all know that it is I who speak; here I am." (Isaiah 52:4-6)
God will save his people so that they and everyone else will know his name. This sums up very well the Old Testament teaching about God’s name:
(1) God’s actions are the way he "made a name for himself" (see, for example, 2 Samuel 7:23; Nehemiah 9:10)
(2) The motive for God’s outreach to his people is often described as the Lord acting "for the sake of his name" (for example, Ezekiel 20:9, 14, 22, 44).
(3) As a group and as individuals the people of God are "called by his name" (for example, 2 Chronicles 7:14; Isaiah 43:7; Jeremiah 14:9; 15:16; Amos 9:12).
And knowledge of the name of God brings people into a wholly new relationship with God. We become God’s intimate friends (see Exodus 33:12, 12, 18-19; John 17:6). And God cares for those who are "called by his name".
Proverbs 18:10, for example, says:
"The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run into it and are safe."
And Psalm 20:1 says:
"The Lord answer you in the day of trouble! The name of the God of Jacob protect you!"
So the "name" of God is a summary way of stating who God is: (1) God’s name is all that is known to be true about God and God’s motives for action and (2) who God is to others, allowing them to know his name (which means letting them into his truth) and sharing his name with them (which means letting them into his fellowship, to become his intimate friends). So our motivation for using God’s name in the right way is that through our obedience not only will we know God and be known by God, but others will also come to know the name of God and be known by God.
The bad news is that the name of the church often repels but the good news is that the name of Jesus still attracts! "Who is Jesus Christ?" John 1:12 says: "But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God" To everyone in here who believes in his name, and to everyone out there who receives him and believes in his name, Jesus has given the power to become children of God. What more motivation than Christ’s name do we need to live a life of integrity!
Let me finish with some words from a hymn by Charles Wesley, which seem to me very appropriate for this morning. They are found in the first verse of hymn number 480 in the Australian Hymn Book. You might like to turn to them and repeat them with me.
Forth in thy name, O Lord, I go
my daily labour to pursue;
thee, only thee, resolved to know,
in all I think, or speak, or do.
For more sermons from this source go to http://www.stthomasburwood.org.au
