OMG

From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

OMG 19 June 2011 Trinity Sunday The Revd Jenny Wilkens

• Isaiah 6:1-8
• Psalm 150
• John 16:5-15

http://wellingtoncathedral.org.nz/index.php/Sermons

Oh My God! I wonder when was the last time you heard that said? Perhaps it was on a TV show when someone saw the result of a makeover done on their house, or perhaps it was when someone saw what the latest shake in Christchurch had done to their house, a makeover of a very different kind? Perhaps you heard it coming from a flock of excited teenagers, or read it in a text or on Facebook?

I had a couple of interesting conversations last week about the OMG phenomenon, if we might call it that. First of all, when I was trying to explore the meaning of the Trinity with a group of young choristers, I heard one of them Oh my God as part of an animated discussion with a neighbour. Deciding to grab a 'teachable moment', I said how about we have a think about what we mean when we say Oh my God? Two of them promptly and piously chipped in, oh we say Oh my gosh… But clearly they hadn't thought too much about it, was it just the exclamation of the moment, or is there something more going on?

The other conversation was with my Education for Ministry group as we discussed the Lord's Prayer (Mt 6, Lk 11). We talked about the line, "Hallowed be your name", and how it has been translated in various versions of the Lord's Prayer. Some modern translations change the verb hallowed to the adjective holy - holy be your name. It’s interesting that Jim Cotter's alternative version of the Lord's Prayer used in Night Prayer of our Prayer Book (p.181) still retains the word 'hallowed': "the hallowing of your name echo through the universe!"

Just what does that word 'hallowed" mean? Set apart as holy, highly venerated, sacrosanct, respected, honoured greatly. Why is God's name to be hallowed, regarded as holy? Because in Jewish understanding, the name of someone reflects their character, their very being and nature. Hence if God is revealed to us as holy, then God's name is also to be treated as holy. The holiness of God's name in Judaism is further unpacked for us when we consider the names of God used in the Hebrew Scriptures, and how they are read and pronounced in public liturgy.

We as Christians are familiar with the usage of God's name revealed to Moses at the burning bush, in English, 'I am who I am', or 'I will be who I will be', a version of the verb 'to be'. The four Hebrew letters used for this are called the Tetragrammaton, which just means in Greek, a word having four letters.

The four Hebrew consonants come to us in English as Y, H, W, H. Scholars are not sure what vowels were used with these consonants, as the vowel pointing was only put into Hebrew script by the Masorete scholars in medieval times. However the scholarly consensus of the best combination of consonants and vowels is Yahweh.

From ancient times the Jews have considered this name Yahweh too holy to pronounce, for fear of mispronouncing or error, so they have substituted the word Adonai, meaning Lord. This is the translation used for Yahweh in our NRSV translation, you'll note it has 'the LORD' in capitals. Hebrew scholars would indicate that the word Yahweh was to be replaced with the word Adonai by putting in the consonants YHWH with the vowels of the word Adonai, a-o-ai, and if you put the two together, you get the word Yahowah, more familiar to us as Jehovah, used in some Bible translations, e.g. the King James version, the New English Bible.

In modern Judaism, those reading or praying will either substitute for Yahweh, the word Adonai (LORD) or Ha-Shem, which simply means The Name. In written English, some will spell God as G-d, and this has been taken up by some Christian theologians too, as a way of showing respect to our Jewish heritage, and also re-sensitising readers to the holiness of God's name.

What's in a name? you may think, but perhaps hearing about the practice of our sister faith may make us reflect a little on this Trinity Sunday about our propensity to take God's name for granted, to treat it lightly, to forget the holiness of God which so awed the prophet Isaiah in his vision of God in the temple.

One other recent example I want to bring before you: I saw at one stage on-line a video clip of the Dean of Christchurch, Peter Beck, being taken up in a helicopter to view the city very soon after the February 22nd quake. I guess they would call it raw footage, as it was obvious to all how shocked and moved he was by this first view of the damage to the city from above. It made very poignant viewing, compounded by all that he was going through at the time, knowing of many deaths from the quake, and fearing that there were still people trapped and perhaps killed in the Cathedral.

I remember hearing at the time comments about that clip and about the language Peter used, particularly that on a number of occasions as he responded to what he saw, he uttered such expressions as "Oh my God", and "Jesus…". Some people objected to this as blaspheming, others asked whether this was in fact a form of prayer, the only sort of prayer possible, prayer that is wrenched from us in times of utter shock and horror at witnessing scenes of devastation and tragedy.

Those same expressions were and are heard on the lips of many in the grip of the frightening quakes and aftershocks - what do you think is going on there when all sorts of people, secular people, people of faith and none, resort to calling on the name of God in times of disaster and extreme fear and anxiety?

And is there any surprise that such expressions come to the lips of people of faith, who are used to speaking the name of God, the name of Jesus, in prayer and worship? Are they doing any more or less than did the Psalmists who cried out to God, "oh my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer…my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Ps 22:2,1). "Save me O God for the waters have come up to my neck" (Ps 69:1). It's said that 40% of the Psalms are in the form of laments, pouring out to God raw emotions, telling God how it is, and often in no uncertain terms. Can we do any less?

Perhaps Trinity Sunday is a good day to reflect on how the writers of the Old Testament held together both the highest conception of God's holiness and majesty, and the strongest understanding that this was a God who hears the cries of his people in their griefs and sorrows, a God with whom we may be honest, and with whom we are encouraged to be honest and real, a God big enough for our reality. So let us hold before us that awesome vision of Isaiah 6, of a God so beyond human conception that just the hem of his robe filled the temple - hold that picture alongside that of a God who in Christ will allow a woman just to touch the hem of his robe in faith, and at once know healing and restoration.

Hold that picture of the seraphim, literally the burning ones, wings of fire, their voices shaking the temple as they declare God's holiness, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory". Close your eyes next time you hear the Choir sing the Sanctus at the Eucharist, and call to mind this picture of the worship of heaven.

Hear again the utter devastation of Isaiah as his awe turns to shame, and reflect on your own use of language, as I do, as we hear him say, "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!"

Picture again this dramatic, strange, pain-filled act of cleansing as a live coal is taken from the altar and touches the prophet's lips: 'now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out'. Pictures of searing pain always combine for me with images of the cross, and the altar of the eucharistic sacrifice, the place of our forgiveness, of God's burning compassion that will not leave us in a place of sin and guilt, of God in Christ who this time bears the pain for and with us.

Only then, cleansed and touched by God, is Isaiah able to move beyond paralysis and terror to hear and respond to the call of God: "Then I heard the voice of God saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I : send me!"

I wonder if there's not some truth in that, that only when we have been thrust into a situation where we are suddenly beyond our own resources, out of our comfort zone, fearing for our future and for our very life, are we able to hear God calling us into a new place, a new mission, a new journey of trust.

And part of that may be having new things to say, new language, a new voice. As Isaiah found, what we have to say may not always be easy, may not always be well received, but we will have the conviction that we go and we speak in the name of a God who is holy and compassionate, majestic and merciful, awesome and loving. May we worship that God this Trinity Sunday and always. Amen.