Sermon by Rev. David Roth

Sermon: Everybody in the world is looking for the answer, the point of life, the meaning of life. And they are looking for the easy solution. How do I fulfill the obligations of life in a simple way? How many of you when you’re taking a trip look for the shortcut, or the quickest route to get there? Or you buy a new computer or a new DVD player and you don’t read the manual, you just pull out the “how to get started” card and plug it in and hope it works. I definitely don’t read the manual myself. Or do you read the entire novel of War and Peace, or do you pull out a movie and get the gist of it in a couple of hours.

If you had a chance to meet the Lord and ask Him one question, what would that question be? I think often we might think, well, what is the one thing I have to do to get to heaven? That’s my question, what is the thing I need to do? Tell me what to do and I’ll do it. What is that one little nugget of gold that you can take with you and say, these are my instructions, this is my plan, this is what I have to do. There is actually a story of a rich young man who comes to the Lord, and asks Him that question. He says “good teacher, what good thing shall I do that I shall have eternal life?” The Lord answers, “if you want to enter into life, keep the Commandments.” That’s your answer. If you want to enter into life, keep the Commandments.

We’re into the second week of our spiritual growth campaign called Rise Above It. We are trying to learn how to rise above self-centeredness or worldly concerns, and try to live from spiritual principles. We are talking about the Divine set of instructions on how to do this- the Ten Commandments. Spiritual growth happens through applying these Ten Commandments to our life. Last week we talked about how all world religions have these Ten Commandments in one form or another as their foundation. And it’s also not just about knowing them, it’s not just about information, it’s about living them. If we want to enter into life, we have to live the Commandments.

I shared this passage last week but I’ll share it again. Divine Providence reads: “in the spiritual world, into which everyone comes after death, no one is ever asked what is your religion, but rather, what is your life? For everyone’s life is his or her religion.” What a wonderful teaching. What is your life? What is it that you do with what you know to be true? Last week we talked about the First Commandment, about having no other gods before the face of the Lord, no false gods. A false god is anything that gets in the way of us being in the presence of the Lord or being in touch with the Lord’s gifts and love for us. So, when we can identify what occupies most of our mental time, most of our life, most of our intentions, and if we identify a false god in our life, then we need to work on turning away from it, because it is stealing us away from being of service to the Lord and being of use in our life. Half the battle is really trying to identify what it is that we struggle with in our life. It has to be specific, the Lord teaches in His Word, it’s no good to just say “oh, I’m just a miserable sinner.” That is interesting, but what does that tell you about yourself? You have to be able to identify specifically what are the issues so that you can turn from them and work on them. If you went to a doctor because you were sick, and you went to the doctor and said, “Doctor, I’m sick, help me out,” and the doctor examined you and said “yeah, you’re sick, see ya. That’ll be $150,” what good would that be? He or she needs to tell us specifically what is the issue so we can figure out what we can do to change that? We need to name those false gods so that we can deal with it and get a clear diagnosis.

Remember the story of Rumpelstiltskin, from Grimm’s fairy tale, a young girl is held captive under the spell of a wicked little man, and the only way she can be freed from the spell is to discover the man’s name. It is a very unusual name, and it is not likely that she is going to figure it out. At one point in the story he says, “you’ve got three days, if you don’t tell me what my name is, I’ll take your first born child for myself.” Obviously, she’s very distressed. Through a series of coincidences, she secretly comes upon him one night. He is dancing around the fire, proclaiming how wise he is, and how he’s going to get the woman’s child. He accidentally calls out his name and she hears it. The next day she goes and tells him what she had heard. In a rage he runs off never to return, and she is free to keep her child.

In this story, there is a power in being able to name that evil little man. There’s also power in us being able to name the evils that we deal with. Sometimes it’s enough to be able to say what it is that we’re struggling with, because then we can see it coming at us and then we can start to take strides to deal with it. I think of it like naming our hurt. Maybe you’ve experienced this in your life; sometimes just knowing what it is that’s driving your unhealthy behavior is enough to break the cycle or break that dysfunction.

My parents told me several years ago about how they had met one of my old babysitters. They had started talking about me, “well, what was he like,” “oh, he was a cute little boy,” and blah blah blah, and then they brought up: “oh yeah, I remember how when you used to go out, he would cry and cry until he passed out, and then that was how he dealt with the fact that you were leaving him.” How does that show up in my life?

That leads us into the idea of the Second Commandment, you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain. Why don’t you think about your name for a minute, the name that you’ve been given, maybe a name that you chose for yourself. Your parents probably spent a lot of time figuring out what to call you, and why they were going to call you that specific name. Maybe it was a name that expressed the beauty and the wonder of the child that was you, or maybe it was to honor someone that they respected, or maybe it was a name that expressed a quality that they either saw in you or hoped that you would have in your life. So you have your name, and maybe you can think about for a minute. Remember the pain of having nicknames growing up or having someone twist your name around and change it in such a way that they made fun of you. Do you remember that? Did it ever happen to you? That was painful, wasn’t it? Why? It is because our name expresses us. It’s not just a phonetic grunting sound, it expresses a quality, it expresses something about us, it carries a quality, a sense of who we are as a person. To have that name twisted around is actually a dig at our character. Names are valuable. You think about Native American culture and about how people were named according to their qualities. It’s very clear in that culture. Maybe someone would be named Brave Eagle or Swift Arrow, or Laughing Waters, and it carried a beautiful picture with it as well. And it happens in the Bible all the time, people are always named based on a situation or a quality or something that you see. Daniel’s name means God is my judge, and you see that very clearly by his life, that God was his judge, he lived his life according to what God’s plan was for him. Or Joshua, a great warrior for the children of Israel, his name means Jehovah saves, and he fought in that way, knowing that God was the one who was going to deliver him. And Joshua’s name is the same as Jesus in a different language, the idea that Jesus came to conquer the sins of the world, as it were, and the same as Joshua fighting the enemies in the land. And there’s other people with interesting names, Isaac, Esau, Jacob, Moses, all of these names have stories surrounding them. Moses’ name means drawn from the water. Why? Because he was drawn from the water. Very literally, that’s how they named him. Or Jacob, who was named Jacob because he was holding onto his brother’s heel, he was a twin, as he came out of the womb. Jacob means supplanter. It’s something like “hey, I wanted to go first.” His brother Esau, he came out all red, so they named him red, or, Esau. When Abraham and Sarah were told they were going to have a son, even though she was 99 years old, they laughed. There’s no way, they thought. Or maybe they laughed in delight. And they named him, laughter, or Isaac.

So names aren’t to be taken in vain, which means used in an irreverent or blasphemous manner, as if it hasn’t any real value, or it’s a trivial thing, or insignificant. If someone used your name in a way that was not correct, you might think that they didn’t have a sense that your name has any value, or that you had value. People do this all the time, in different situations. The police officers in the 60s were nicknamed Pigs. Do you know why that was? Because it’s easier to slaughter a pig than to slaughter a human being. So if we call them that, then it’d be easier for us to say “kill them.” Indigenous people are often called savages by people who want to control them. The controllers say that the natives are just a bunch of savages, they must be controlled. They call them names like savage to make it easier for to control them or act in a way that feels like it justifies your behavior. That can happen in many situations: racial issues, gender issues, and so on. You can feel better about how you’re treating someone poorly if you have a degrading name for them.

Think about the Lord’s name. If we throw around the Lord’s name in any situation regardless of the dignity of the situation, or the reverence of the situation, that shows a lack of respect, a lack of honor for it, and it might be symptomatic of the esteem for which we hold God and His teachings in our life. The Lord says don’t cast pearls before swine- meaning don’t put things that are holy before things that are unholy which would defile them. The Lord’s name is said to be most holy, and He has about 160 names, indicating His qualities. In the Lord’s Prayer, one of the phrases is “Hallowed be thy name,” emphasizing this idea that the Lord’s name needs to be holy in our life.

I’ll give you a sense of why this Commandment is so important. The Lord gives lots of warnings about not taking His name in vain, in fact in Matthew He says, “therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven them. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age, or in the age to come.” Why is that so hard lined? Because it’s not just a name that we’re talking about, we are talking about a quality of God that’s in our heart. If we don’t hold the Lord in a sacred way, or His teachings in a sacred way, we will use His name in any way we want, regardless of the situation, or how we’re using it.

The Hebrews considered the name of God so holy that they wouldn’t even say it. We don’t really know how the name Jehovah, or Yahweh, is really pronounced because there weren’t vowels in ancient Hebrew. People have said, “it probably sounds like Jehovah or Yahweh,” but the Children of Israel would never have said that. They would call Him the Lord, because they wouldn’t be willing to say His name. That would be a dishonor to Him, His name was too holy to even utter.

Think about marriage, the relationship between the sexes and how conversations surrounding these often use all kinds of lewd remarks and suggestions. Some people don’t think it’s a big deal, but when we use crude words to describe the acts of love and so on, that’s just a reflection of how these things are viewed in our culture. You think about what you call your spouse- the name you use to talk to your spouse. If you come into the house and say, “Yo!” What kind of respect is that? But what if you said, “hey honey,” or dear, or love, or something with affection? It would be a lot different than “Yo, get me my beer,” or “bring me my slippers.”

There is power in names. There is power in naming someone, having the respect to remember their name and use their name. In the sacred scriptures, associated with each great spiritual tradition, the name of God is always held most holy, because it refers to the Lord’s sacred qualities, the qualities that describe His holiness. So every chapter of the Koran begins, “in the name of Allah the merciful, the compassionate.” The Muslims hallow the 99 beautiful names of Allah, because they express all of the qualities that they believe their God has. The same is true in Judeo-Christian culture, examples of the Lord’s name, picturing His qualities – Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Father of Eternity, Prince of Peace, Jehovah of Hosts, Messiah or Christ, Jesus, Savior, Redeemer, Creator, Maker, King, the Holy One of Israel, the Rock, the Stone of Israel, Shiloh, Shaddai, Prophet, Son of God, Son of Man, Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Lamb of God, or Emmanuel which means God with us. Every one of those names, when you hear it, carries with it a different feeling? It conveys a different idea of God, or describes a different quality of Him. The name given for the Lord Jesus Christ is a beautiful combination of all that is loving and true about God. Jesus name means “Jehovah saves,” it reflects God’s desire to help us, to serve us, to love us. Pictures His compassion. When Jesus was born it was said to Joseph “you shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.” You have that Jesus part of the picture and then you have “Christ”, which means “anointed one,” or “the one that is chosen to rule.” “Christ” means He was ruling from divine law. Put those two names together and you have that marriage of Jesus Christ with all that is loving and all that is true, with perfect judgment, perfect righteousness, perfect love. Together it indicates that balance of love and wisdom found in the Lord.

The second commandment asks us to consider our attitude towards holy things. Look at your life. Ask yourself: what kind of speech or language do I use? What do I specifically not use, when I talk about things that I care about, or talk about my God? Do you use the Lord’s name in vain to express mild surprise? Do we use His name to fill gaps in our speech or our conversation? Do we curse with the Lord’s name? In Proverbs it says “if God’s name is used lightly, how shall the righteous survive in times of distress?” If we’re using it in such an offhand way when we really need it we really don’t have a relationship with it. What reverence or esteem do we hold the things that are of the Lord and that are from the Lord? Another thing that’s from the Lord is His Word. That is the Lord speaking to us, so how do we esteem the teachings of His Word or what He says? Do we make jokes about the Word? Do we make jokes about the Lord? When the Lord was arrested and crucified, the abuse that He suffered teaches us how the Word was treated by the Jewish nation at that time. Because they disregarded God and His teachings, they mocked Him, they beat Him, they spat upon Him, and they crucified Him. It shows how disregarded God was by the people of that time, and how His teachings were disregarded as well. If you despise a person, you often despise what comes out of their mouth, don’t you? Remember back during the Presidential election. You might have seen your favorite candidate and everything that he said, you would think “that’s right, he’s so wise, yes, we must have him reign.” But when the other person started to talk, we might have said, “oh, what an idiot, everything he says is wrong.” It’s fun to watch people when, no matter what, whatever camp they were in, the other person was always just completely foolish. But the person they believed in was really wise? If you despise someone, you tend to despise what it is that they have to say, and the same is true of the Lord and His Word. If we love Him, we love what He teaches us. If we don’t love the Lord we despise His Word.

There’s an interesting description in the book of Revelations about a picture of the Lord which at first is beautiful but at some point it becomes ugly. The book reads: “now I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse, and he who sat on him was called faithful and true, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire and on his head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except him himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God, and he has on his robe and on his thigh a name written, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.” That’s a beautiful picture of the Lord, but His robe was dipped in blood. Obviously, it’s discordant with the rest of the picture. What the Writings of the New Church say is illustrated by that picture, is how the Lord’s Word was treated by the Christian world, how it was twisted and turned and defiled by people trying to justify their behavior or trying to control other people using the Lord’s Word.

We’re taught an interesting thing, that when we call in the name of the Lord, He shows up. That could be a good thing, or that could be not a good thing. What are we really intending or wanting and doing when we call on the name of the Lord? It makes me think of the boy who cried wolf: the boy’s out there with the sheep, and he decides to cry “wolf” and people come but since there is no wolf they get angry and go home. Then he cries wolf again and they come and they find that there’s no wolf. This time they say forget it, he doesn’t mean anything by it. If you think about it, if we use the Lord’s name so offhandedly, when we really need His help, does He believe us? Now I’m not saying that that’s something we can actually attribute to the Lord, He’s not that way, but what does it mean to us when we use his name in such an offhanded way? What if we actually need it, do we know the difference between what’s real and what’s not? Using His name in vain is using it in a way that doesn’t mean something, like if you ask for something and let it be ruined, that would be getting it in vain. Or when your kid asks for a new bicycle, and they let it rust outside, it’s a kind of gift given in vain or something they wanted that was received in vain. How many of you have kids want lots of pets? They might want a rabbit this week, a dog the next week, and a cat the next week. You might give it to them and they may pay attention for about a week but then they stop caring about what they got and want something else. It’s like the pet’s been given in vain. Suddenly you start to learn as a parent that, hmm, “if you can show that you can actually pay attention to this pet, we’ll consider another pet in the future.”

There is great power in the Lord’s name, so we are invited to use it wisely. How can we call on the Lord’s name in a good way?

We’re told that it’s good to use the Lord’s name in worship and in our prayers, because it invites the presence of the Lord to be with us. When we sing songs to Him, all of those qualities of Him that we think of can be called upon and expressed. You can call on the Lord at any time, in any place, and He can be there with you. As He says, “wherever two or three are gathered together in My name, in His quality, there I am in the midst of them.” So what are we doing, what are we thinking, what are we feeling when the Lord shows up? Last week we were taught to identify our false Gods, things like self, money, pride, being right, our own intelligence, our own reputation, lust, anger, etc... Once you identify those things in yourself, then you can use the Lord’s name to try to counteract that negative thing in your life. You call on the quality of the Lord that you actually need to fight off that particular disorder, because it says the Lord is present and is summoned by His name, and He listens. If you’re in a state of unrest you might need peace, so you can call on the name of the Lord as Shiloh, which literally means peace, or prince of peace. Oh Lord, prince of peace, be with me. Or you’re experiencing fear and you need comfort, one idea is to call upon the name of the Lord, “Comforter.” You may be experiencing confusion, and you need guidance in your life, you might call upon the name of the Lord as Counselor, I need counsel in this situation, I know you can help me. Use the Lord’s name, but not vainly or lightly. There’s power in it, and when we use it that way we will notice that power.

So pray daily, even moment to moment, and call on the name of the Lord. Read His Word, sing songs, tell stories of what the Lord has done for you. Use the Lord’s name in powerful and positive ways. I love that story from the book of Kings when the prophets of Bael go up against Jehovah. How often do we, like the prophets of Bael, rely on things that don’t work for us and that really have no power? We bow down to them and we serve them. The question that Elijah asks is perfect. “How long are you going to limp between two opinions? If the Lord is God, worship Him. If Bael is God, worship him.” It’s a simple choice. I love that wording – “how long are you going to limp between opinions?”

You might find yourself thinking, “Ah, the Lord is God. Well, maybe not. Well, maybe so. Yeah, the Lord I believe in Him… nah, not today, not in this situation.” This is an image of how we falter between this conviction of whether the Lord is truly there, or not. How long do we limp between these two opinions? If we call on the Lord earnestly, He will answer us. He will be with us. He is present with you and He listens. All of those qualities that those names express can be with us if we call upon Him. There’s a Psalm that says “some trust in chariots, and some in horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord our God. They have bowed down and fallen, but we have risen and stand upright. Save, Lord, may the King answer us when we call."