15th Week, Thursday, July 20
Exodus 3:13-20 / Matthew 11:28-30
What is your name? “I am who am.”
When Moses asks God what his name is, God replies, "I am who am," Designated by the four Hebrew letters YHWH, the expression "1 am who am" is translated LORD in most English Bibles. God's unusual response to Moses suggests that he is who he is, and that's it. In other words, God can neither be named nor defined. Anything we say about God or think about God falls infinitely short of who God actually is. St. Augustine was absolutely right when he said, "We know God more by what he is not than by what he is." God is infinite; that only means he's not finite. God is almighty; that only means he's not limited in what he can do.***
How do we picture God when we address him in prayer? Jesus said to Philip, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?" John 14:9
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In our common understanding, the name of a person is used to identify the person. However, the biblical understanding of a name is that it points to the person himself. The name is not just a means for a cognitive identification but the name is the person.
When Moses asked for the name of God, he was given this mysterious and enigmatic name - I Am who I Am. The "I Am who I Am" was revealed to Moses as the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. Yes, there is so much we know about God and yet there is also so much more that is waiting to be revealed to us. God is more than a name; He is a mystery that keeps revealing Himself to us.
There is this poem by Helen Mallicoat and this can be helpful for our reflection on what God is revealing to us at this moment in time. "I was regretting the past and fearing the future. Suddenly my Lord was speaking: My name is I Am. He paused. I waited. He continued: When you live in the past with its mistakes and regrets, it is hard. I am not there. My name is not I Was. When you live in the future, with its problems and fears, it is hard. I am not there. My name is not I Will Be. When you live in this moment, it is not hard. I am here. My name is I Am."
Indeed, God is the Lord of all eternity, yet He is also the God of the "Now", the God whose name is I Am. And God is saying to us: I Am with you now. And He is telling us to come to Him, with our labours and burdens of heart and He will give us rest. Not just in the past, not just for the future, but now!
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We pay special attention today to the first reading, in which God reveals his name to Moses. God is he who is, he who is beyond any name, but who will also be known by what he does for his people, the God who told Moses: “I will lead my people out of their misery to a land flowing with milk and honey.” He is the liberating God, whose yoke is a burden of love. God is still this God for us today: totally other, and yet nearer to the human heart than anyone else can be, because he gave us our human liberty, respects it and loves us.
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Jesus is an expert of yokes. He has made them in Joseph's workshop till he was thirty. Then already his yokes were easy, not pressing. A yoke has to join the oxen or donkeys so that the burden is equally distributed and lies there where the strength of the animal is: the neck. The yoke makes a team. They pull together and make the cart go. That is actually the function of the law. The Pharisees are told that the yoke they put on the people is heavy and hurting. Their load was heavy, because they added many prescriptions of their own to the law. It was hurting because they failed to see the purpose and meaning and made it unreasonable. It was no more a yoke. It was a subjugation, slavery. Christ and the early Church freed us. Now we are free. The law and our reason demand from us the same.
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The gospel assures us that Jesus is with us and that we can go to him with our burdens and questions. The weak and the poor are open to the love of Jesus, for they are aware that they are fragile and vulnerable. He will give them rest and make them aware that what Jesus asks of them is a light burden, for it is carried in love. They will find rest in him.
Prayer: Unknowable God, you are the God whom we know by what you do for us. God, give us eyes and hearts to see how much you care for us, your people. Be with us, live in us, that we may live for you and one another with the same respectful love with which you have set us free through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
