You Shall Not Carry The Name In Vain
For those us within the Christian tradition we are quite familiar with the Ten Commandments. They were the essentials of what it meant to be a person that followed YHWH. In Exodus in the New Revised Standard Version we read:
7 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
Now we are most familiar with this verse being boiled down to one point. We should not cuss, and we should not swear. More importantly we must never swear in the name of God.
But that isn’t close to what the Hebrew meant, nor what this verse calls for. I love the NRSV because this translation begins with saying you shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord. What does it mean to use some wrongfully? Well, we know that wrongful use means that something is used in a way it is not intended. For example, when one uses the power of the police force to enforce racial segregation. Or when someone uses their company’s money for their own financial gain. These are wrongful uses.
The Hebrew actually breaks down this verse more. In the Hebrew it says “You shall not carry the name of the Lord your God wrongfully.” When we carry something, we take it onto ourselves. We carry our families last name. Therefore, what we do, reflects on how others will interact with others with the same name. How we live will impact the reputation of our family. What the Bible is really getting too here is this: if we take on the name of God, we take on a call that impacts God’s name on Earth. We will impact how the family of God is viewed today.
What I mean by that is we carry within us the reputation of our God in this world. Jesus would revisit this very same line of thought when the disciples asked him to teach them how to pray. First, what Jesus highlights is that our lives are not about defending power. Our lives are not about wrongfully using power and religion. What Jesus insists is that our prayer be ordered in such a way that we bend our ethics and action to justice. When a Christian prays Your will be done, what they need to be understanding is that the will of God is that Earth becomes a place of peace.
God wants the house, the world, to be managed well. Therefore, in her top ten is that those who follow her must carry her name correctly. We must be the represent of a God of love and peace. We are to make the world more like heaven rather than waiting to escape. The people God has given birth to in Exodus were told they have a family to represent in this world. In our space today, we carry our divine parents name, and what we do reflects on them.
God reminds us in her infinite wisdom that how we live will impact the very fabric and reputation of God on Earth. YHWH tells us that we have an important role to play. Hence the prophetic tradition, the Jesus tradition, and therefore the tradition of the Church should be speaking truth to power. What the very call of the Church is can be bound up in the idea that we must not misuse and carry God’s name in the wrong way.
That is vital. In 2016 we saw 82% of Evangelicals vote for Trump. Last week we saw that over 46% of all Evangelicals supported Brett Kavanaugh, and thought that Dr. Ford was a political agent. We have seen a #ChurchToo movement that highlights sexual assault in the churches of the US. We are deep in another round of molestation scandals for the Roman Catholic Church. We see a majority of Americans Christians care more for their pockets, than welcoming the foreigner and caring for them. These examples are the essence of carrying God’s name in vain. That is misusing the name of God. It is worse than dropping a G.D. because it is using the power of faith, and the church to silence the oppressed, and assaulted. If the Church is to take to heart the truth of Exodus 20:7 the Church must revisit the name they carry.
To do so I will close with these words of God on those who follow after them. In Malachi 2:17 God says this,
17 You have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet you say, “How have we wearied him?” By saying, “All who do evil are good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.”
As we read these verses I think of those who have rejoiced in the use of God’s name to appoint the evil to places of justice. Those who have elected those of evil to a ruling power. Those who still support the jailing of immigrants and the turning away of refugees while attending the church of a refugee Messiah on a Sunday. We must learn to challenge those who are misusing the name of God. We must be a people that call these actions out, and re-frame what it means to be God’s children.
The way we must use the name of God is to institute, protest, and fight for justice and equality. God cares more that we carry their name in a way that orders this Earth, bends this Earth, to peace, and justice.
May we not forget the story. May we not forget the name we carry. May we be the people that will resist the temptation of power, and embrace the journey to justice.
