[I want to preface our hearing of the Scripture today with some clarifying remarks. As many of you know, the personal name for God in the Hebrew Scriptures is Yahweh. That was the covenantal name revealed to Israel and cherished by God’s people. By the time of Jesus, this name “Yahweh” was considered too sacred to pronounce. So, every time the Jews came to the name “Yahweh,” they said “Adonai” (which means “my Lord”). There is only one place in the Hebrew Scriptures where an attempt is made to explain something of the meaning of the divine name, and that is in our passage for today.]
In most translations the meaning associated with Yahweh is “I am who I am.” Some Hebrew scholars, however, would maintain that this may be an inadequate translation of the Hebrew. Perhaps a better translation, reflected in some modern translations or in the footnotes provided in other translations, is “I will be who I will be.” This translation communicates something of the incomplete nature of the Hebrew verb used in this passage. In my sermon, I will follow this choice, translating the name “I will be who I will be.” (Another possible translation is “I will cause to be what I will cause to be” if the verb form is a Hiphil.)
Across the centuries, this scene from the Bible stands apart as one of the great passages of Holy Scripture. Strictly speaking, Exodus 3 is the call of Moses and the commissioning of that monumental figure of faith to begin the process of liberating his people from slavery in Egypt. But because the Exodus was the pivotal event in the Hebrew Scriptures (a historical deliverance which was to shape communities of faith for generations even unto our day), everyone recognizes that Exodus 3 is more than just the call of Moses. Something is being said about the nature of God and the nature of God’s people which is foundational to the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Here and only here in the Bible are we presented with an attempt to explain the divine name Yahweh. The phrase “I will be who I will be” is given by God to Moses as the name the Almighty is to bear for all generations. In other words, what is revealed here is not just a passing fancy that can be dispensed with after the Exodus experience. What is revealed is everlastingly true about this desert God who would shake pharaohs from their thrones and exalt slaves to the status of being a holy nation after God’s own heart.
“I will be who I will be”: What does this divine name mean? How are we to interpret this mysterious phrase? As you would guess, there are many suggestions from biblical scholarship. In fact, most students of the Hebrew Scriptures would see several meanings emerging from this Exodus passage. Today we shall look at one such meaning, suggested by the text itself. And we shall discover that this meaning is as suggestive and provocative for us as it would have been for the people of Israel.
“I will be with you.” This interpretation of the divine name resonates with the conversation between Moses and God in verses 11 and 12 of our passage. Moses, after hearing that God had chosen him to go before pharaoh to lead the people of Israel from bondage into freedom, asked a very good question: “Who am I that I should go before pharaoh and demand such a thing?” Moses was at this point of his life 80 years of age. He was a shepherd working for his father-in-law in the outback of the Sinai peninsula.
Moses had settled down with a wife and kids. He was a man with a speech impediment and a fugitive from the land of Egypt. Surely God could have chosen a more impressive person than a stuttering, old, smelly shepherd to go before the greatest ruler in the world and demand that the pharaoh release his slaves into the hands of some unknown desert deity.
But God responded with the only abiding promise God can give anyone in this world: “I will be with you. Moses, you are promised only one thing as you take on this mission: I will be with you.”
Now Moses wanted more than that. And we want more than that in life. We want promises that if we are faithful, we will not suffer pain or loss. We want to know that those closest and dearest to us will be safe from the trials and tragedies of this world. We want divine assurances that we will have our health and happiness. But God comes to us, as God came to Moses and to all great men and women of faith, and gives us only one promise we can bank on as far as this life is concerned: that God will be with us.
I love James Sanders’ commentary on this promise of God. In a sermon on Joseph who was sold by his brothers into slavery and eventually landed in prison for doing the righteous thing, Sanders quotes this verse from Genesis:
“And Joseph’s master took him and put him into prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined . . . and the Lord was with Joseph.”
And then Sanders makes these comments:
“What is this God who goes to prison? Why doesn’t he do what any decent self-respecting deity ought to do? Why doesn’t he send a medium sized earthquake to crumble the prison walls so that the hero can escape? A living God who solves people’s problems, especially good people, would just blast the Communists, I mean the Romans, I mean the Egyptians, off the map and save the good guy. Now that would be a god who does what a decent self-respecting god ought to do. Now that would be a god you could believe in. You wouldn’t call him ‘dead’! But our poor text says that the biblical God was with Joseph in prison. What a sad, mixed up Bible. And this is only Genesis. If it carries on like this, it’s no telling where it’ll end up. The next thing you know, it’ll be trying to tell us that he was with the later Israelite slaves in Egypt, making bricks without straw. If this keeps up it’ll be trying to tell us that God, too, was a P.O.W. with the Israelite prisoners in Babylon’s dungeons during the Exile. And then the next thing you know, it’ll probably want to say that when old Herod was killing all the baby boys who might threaten his realm, that God somehow got down into one of those cradles. And then you watch it, it’ll end up with some tomfool story about how he got onto the cross of some teacher charged with blasphemy and sedition against the state. ‘And Joseph was there in prison, and the Lord was with him.’”
You see, when God is with us that doesn’t mean everything will be peachy keen. The promise that God is with us means that heaven has cast its lot with earth, and God will accompany us even into Egypt, even into exile, even on a cross. And what is amazing is that the consistent testimony of those willing to take God seriously with this promise is that God’s presence is enough–that eventually, God’s faithful presence gives us the strength to endure, a communion that comforts, the faith to move on, and a love that makes us grateful.
Perhaps one reason God promises the divine presence as the one consistent guarantee we can depend on is because it is God whom we most need in life to become whole–to become free, responsible, creative, and loving human beings. God’s goals for us are not necessarily the goals we selfishly cherish for ourselves. God is ambitious for us—committed to our growth and our salvation and apart from the divine presence, neither growth nor salvation is possible.
Over the years I have been touched by the writings of Etty Hillesum. Etty was a young Jewish woman who suffered interment by the Nazis in the death camps of World War II. In that Holocaust, under conditions none of us can even imagine, Etty found God to be faithful in the promise of the divine presence. I want to share with you a passage from her journal, because her words are the most splendid testimony I know regarding how God is faithful to us even in the worst of times.
One of her last diary entries was written on August 18, 1943, not long before she was moved from one death camp to another (the infamous Auschwitz) on a cattle train with many others.
“You have made me so rich, oh God, please let me share your beauty with open hands. My life has become an uninterrupted dialogue with you, oh God, one great dialogue. Sometimes when I stand in some corner of the camp, my feet planted on your earth, my eyes raised towards the heavens, tears sometimes run down my face, tears of deep emotion and gratitude. At night, too when I lie in my bed and rest in you, oh God, tears of gratitude run down my face and those tears, that is my prayer.”
Out of the windows of the train that carried her to Auschwitz where she died on November 30, 1943, Etty flung a postcard which was later picked up by a farmer. On it she had scribbled her last message to us: “We have left the camp singing.” They could sing because God was in their midst.
The only promise God gave Moses and Etty Hillesum was this: “I will be with you.” Throughout the generations of humankind God has been faithful to that promise. And if perhaps that promise is not enough for us, it is because we have lost our bearings in life– we have forgotten our purpose in living, which is loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength and loving our neighbors as we love ourselves.
God never promised us a rose garden, but God did promise us the divine presence which can make a garden even in the desert of human suffering and sin. And if that’s not enough, then maybe we had better go back to square one in our faith and ask why we are here as children of God. Are we here to live comfortable, predictable lives like a hound dog snoozing in front of a warm fire, or are we here to live faithfully in the presence of God and in the midst of this vulnerable and precious creation?
“I will be with you,” Not a shabby understanding of the Lord for Israel to start out with in her relationship with the God who would take them from Sinai to Calvary to an empty tomb–and not a shabby understanding for us to grow into as we take seriously our pilgrimage with that same Living God.
Communion: The Gospel is the story of how God has come to be with us in special and enduring ways. Certainly Matthew understood it that way. His Gospel begins by calling Jesus “Immanuel” which is Hebrew for “God is with us.” And it ends with that familiar promise, “And lo, I am with you all of your days, even to the end of the age.” Thus Matthew frames his Gospel in that message of grace in Christ–God is with us.
The presence of God is especially felt by us at this Table. In the Bread and the Wine– the Body and the Blood of God Incarnate , we see that ancient promise fulfilled in extraordinary ways. Moses’ burning bush pales in significance before the presence of Christ. What the Lawgiver could see only very dimly we behold face to face–the Word become flesh and the glory of God full of grace and truth. Let no one miss what is waiting for us at this Table.
Commission: God’s promise is sure–God is with us. But it’s important to note that God gave Moses that promise in the context of a mission. Moses was sent out to do God’s will in the world. As we now go into the world with our mission, perhaps the question is not, “Is God with us?” Perhaps the question is rather, “Are we with God as our Maker moves in redemptive and healing ways?” Let us seek God’s presence in the common times and places of our lives as we journey with Christ in the faithful paths of discipleship.
Benediction: May the peace of God undergird you, the joy of God refresh you, and the love of God hold you as you journey into the light of God’s Son.
