Reflection: Names

August 30, 2026

LaSalle

22^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Names”

10:15

Exodus 3:1-15

1Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. 3Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” 4When the LORD saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” 5Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” 6He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

7Then the LORD said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, 8and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 9The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. 10So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” 11But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” 12He said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.”

13But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” 14God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” 15God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’:     This is my name forever,     and this my title for all generations.”

What’s in a name? So Juliet asks in her balcony soliloquy:  What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”

Okay, Shakespeare likely meant this question by Juliet to be either ironic or silly.   Juliet meant well, but it was their names and family feud that ending up in her death and Romeo’s death. 

What’s in a name?

Plenty.  Names matter.

Mid-August we traveled and spent a week with our California grandchildren to help out with their first week of school, which for both our Kindergartener and 2^nd grader was half day.  Mom and Dad needed drop off and pick up help as well as keeping them busy in the afternoon. 

The kids line up by class, places marked by bookbags.  Their Principal comes out and gives the announcements and then gives shout outs for birthdays and achievements. 

The kids love it when Principal Dr. Tri Wen calls out their name.  It’s personal. 

I asked our grandchildren the names of their friends:

Mateo

Kai

Nova

Cruz

Ameliano

Arthur

Jake

Amaya

Bianca

Hallard

You just call out my nameAnd you know wherever I amI'll come running, oh, yeah, babyTo see you againWinter, spring, summer, or fallAll you got to do is callAnd I'll be there, yeah, yeah, yeahYou've got a friend.

Our kindergartener, Isaac, taught me two things on this trip.  First was when he was working on a jigsaw puzzle.  It started off slow and cautious, fitting the pieces one by one, trial and error, framing the puzzle by finding the corners and edge pieces.  Funny thing about puzzles, for as the puzzle makes more sense and the fewer the pieces, it goes faster and faster – like life.

The second was my correcting -- with my grandpa tendency to correct him.  Clear your plate, wait till all are served.  Critical, correcting, carping of what I judged as oppositional misbehavior.  I overheard him mentioning how his Ah-pa (me) didn’t like him.  Personal.  So I tried to ACT less scolding and more encouraging, less antagonizing.  As God said:  “I will be with you.”  befriend him rather than reprimand him.  Makes sense, a lot of sense for Grandpas, parents, teachers, nations.   Imagine if we treated others the way we want to be treated.

So, do you like the name you were given?

You do want to choose a good name for your spawn, especially since they’ll also be representing your last name, a name you really would rather not see listed in the Court and Police blotter in the newspaper.  Who got that DUI?  Dad always sent us out, when we’d go out on our own, saying, “Remember who you are.”

Names matter. 

Our policy, especially for our daughters, Margart and Penelope, was to give them a name flexible enough for them to use either as a cute cheerleader for the New York Giants or when they became the Supreme Court Chief Justice. 

And now introducing Supreme Court Chief Justice Bambi – it just doesn’t cut it. 

Not many kids named Adolph or Benito.

I realize Bible-based names are all the rage, what with: Noah, Elijah, Jacob, Joshua.  But how come you don’t hear any baby being named Pilate, Herod, Onan, Ahab, Rahab?

~~~

A good name makes a difference.  If you have a good name, do you need to show it off?

By our names we are known. 

To be known by your name means someone has noticed you. 

“Hello, my name is Bob.”

“Hello, Bob, pleased to meet you.  Are you Larry and Libby’s son?”

“Why yes, yes I am.”

Or I say, Mark or Larry or Judy, and those names conjure connection. 

Our name represents who we are, what we are – our identity, our attributes, our character, our heritage, our authority, our reputation. 

And, very often, our destiny.  Please join with me:  “My name is Inigo Montoya.  You killed my father.  Prepare to die.”

Names matter. 

By our name we are known.

There is power in a name. 

Hallowed be Thy name….

Even though -- as today’s passage reveals -- we cannot fully know the name of God. 

Otherwise God would be just like Larry or Mark or Judy or Bob.

What we have are hints among the hiddenness of this jigsaw puzzle.  Descriptions.  Revelations.

Moses wanted a name to give to the people so they would know the identity of this God.  Knowing the identity they would know God’s personality and purpose.   For us?  Freedom. 

I AM WHO I AM, God says.

Not really a name, even though the words form the word we know as YHWH.

More a Hebrew participle.  More of a verb of being.  God is a verb, not a being but action. 

I AM THAT WHICH IS IS

I AM THAT WHICH IS AM-NESS

I AM AM

I AM WHAT I WILL BE

So different.  All the other gods of the region – Ishtar, Isis, Horus, Baal, Marduk – were feared as nouns, pre-eminent powerful beings in the sky who needed to be appeased because they control us, outside/in.  This revelation of God as verb, action, the ground of being, not a being but being itself, is very different.  God who needs Moses to make the divine will happen, God’s sovereignty operating inside/out. 

Wherever there is truth, it is the Lord’s – Justin Martyr

Well, is love a verb or a noun?

The LORD whose will is that we be.

A holy name.  So much so the Hebrews could read it but never speak it. 

Holy are you.

Sacred are you.

God as a verb:

·       It’s charity, it’s a garden replacing an ashpit , trees talking in the the wind offering shade and a hint of eternity

·       It’s a little girl’s song or widow’s tears

·       It’s that long sigh when you feel alone and abandoned

·       It’s the awesome extraordinary mystery that completes the ordinary

·       Its’ rejecting the callous and cynical who smirk at those who touch the sky when reaching out with upward hand, who say, I can touch the sky

·       It’s when insight stirs a young person to say ‘aha’ and the spell of confined ignorance is broken

·       God is when we nibble at our corn on the cob or bite into an apple and we dine on the sun – the active source of life.

·       Its eager children recognized by their name.  They matter. 

There is something sacred in this life. 

There is something worthwhile honoring.

There is something worshipping more worthwhile, but, in worshipping God of all being we recognize the sacredness in all of us, whether we are called Bob or Ameliano or Mateo. 

We all worship some sort of God – I’ll take this one, please, revealed by the name of the Living Christ, Christ who is.  A God who cares and cures.

And the friends of Christ each have a name.  All the other gods – Marduk, Baal, Horus, Isis, Ishtar – the people wanted to appease, placate, so they could get what they wanted, what in the world they wanted to gain for themselves.

Then along is revealed YHWH, eventually known through Jesus, the Living Word, who says, for your soul’s sake, do what I do.  For your soul’s sake lest you lose it.  Your psyche. Your  ψυχῆ.  Your essence.  That which makes you, you.  Christianity is a verb.  Christianity calls for true actions versus false actions as defined by Jesus’ life and Jesus’ words. 

Matthew 16:21-28

21From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be saykilled, and on the third day be raised. 22And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” 23But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

24Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. 26For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?

27“For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. 28Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

God love Simon -- Simon Peter corrects Jesus.

Love his conviction that he’s right, so Jesus must be wrong. Listening to his own counsel.

Listen man, you got to play it the world’s way if you want to get anywhere in this world…I want what I want in this world, I want mine. 

Love the irony of how cranky, carping Simon Peter thinks Jesus wrong and tells him so.  Finger wagging wrong.  He rebukes Jesus.  Reproves Jesus. Scolds Jesus.  He wants Jesus to be the Jesus he wants.  Simon Peter must be right because his brand of Messiah is the only one he knows.   It’s about God in control, outside/in.

Simon says…

Listen man, you got to play it the world’s way if you want to get anywhere in this world…

Hmmm… 

Now Jesus turns feisty, for he sees his friend is acting like satan, tempting Jesus with that terrible, terrible temptation to be the kind of powerful, king-like, controlling, strong, dreadful, terrible, demonic Messiah Peter wants him to be, a Messiah bending others to jump to his will. 

That’s no Son of God who transforms souls in order to transform the world. 

Amen