"God's New Name"

Sermon: Holy Trinity Sunday (A) June 19, 2011
“God’s New Name”
Rev.  Jeff Springer

I have heard it recently said that the biggest threat to the future of Christianity is the attack on the doctrine of the Trinity.  These attacks are throughout American culture. They come from religions outside of Christianity; the Mormons who claim to be Christians,  the Jehova’s Witnesses who claim Jesus in his pre-incarnate state a created angel and the growing influence of Islam in this country who claim that Jesus is merely a teacher. 

 The most damaging threat comes from liberal main-line protestants who are moving more and more closely to Univeralism in their view of God.  The Universalist believes that everyone worships the same god. Allah, Jehova, Yahweh,  the Hindu gods, the god of Buddah are simply facets of the same god each providing a different path or teachings to reach enlightenment and eventual union with God.  It also means that we all pray to the same God, when we say, “O God.”

 In the recent airing of Oprah’s final show she said the following, “For all of you who get riled up when I mention God and you want to know which God I am talking about. I am talking about the same one that you are talking about; the Alpha and the Omega, the omniscient, the omnipresent, the ultimate consciousness, the source, the force, the all of everything there is, the one and only G-O-D.    How have we lasted 25 years?  I non-jokingly say, ‘My team and Jesus.’”  (Oprah at her final show)

 
Well, Oprah, I’m still riled up and not sure what god you are talking about.  Yes we do have on our Altar here the symbols of the Alpha and the Omega. We teach in our catechism the characteristics of God which are omniscient, all knowing and omnipresent, present everywhere.  There are other important ones that she misses such as love.

 However, I get lost at the terms “ultimate consciousness , the force, the all of everything there is.”  Perhaps it gives her hearers comfort to know that when you pray you are praying to the same God that Luke Skywalker prays too.  “Feel the force Luke!”

 Am I accusing Oprah of being a Universalist, I will let you be the judge when before she describes her god she says, “I am talking about the same one (god) that you are talking about.”

 My question is that in hearing her description of god could any of the world religions previously mentioned have any problem with it.  The fact is that natural man without the Spirit could come up with a similar description, there is nothing distinctively Christian about it.

 Why am I picking on Oprah this morning?  Some of you may be fans of her show and are grieving the loss. It is not my intention to pick on you or upset you but Oprah is influential and has made public statements regarding her beliefs.

 Her influence is so great in American Spirituality that Dr. Michael Lindsey, new president of Gordon College quoted by USA Today observed, “We are the land when 9/11 happens where the memorial service to help the nation grieve is not hosted by Billy Graham, it is not hosted by a Roman Catholic Arch-Bishop, and it is not hosted by the lead Rabbi of New York City. It is hosted by Oprah.  And that she represents the face of what is now normative civic pop religion in America.”

 Oprah’s spirituality has either influenced and or reflected back American spirituality over the past 25 years.  She is an evangelical charismatic in how she uses emotional human stories of change and transformation and you can hear a little prosperity gospel in her “my team and Jesus” talk.

 Interestingly, her message is more mainline liberal protestant. Her message is essentially “accepting who you are.”  This is a religion without a cross and without repentance.   Her show is about confession, confession of mistakes, but in the end the remedy is therapeutic not redemptive.   This is reflected in our culture as country-wide seminaries graduate more people with degrees in counseling then with an Masters of Divinity, but this trend is not helping the church.

 Terry Mattingly of getreligion.org writes that “in an age where main line protestant churches have seen a 45% decline in attendance Oprah is perhaps the most successful main line protestant ever.  Her view of religion sells well at the mall. It works well as a consumer product but it does not put the families with children in pews.”  (Terry Mattingly getreligion.org)

 Liberal mainstream Protestantism since its criticism of the scriptures and its adoption of cultural norms over scriptural norms has driven people from church. Still if you want to sell books, just make claims that the Gospels were all forgeries as a recent book by Dr. Bart Erhman puts it. All this does is to serve as ammunition for Muslim apologists who believe these Christian critics and teach that the Old and New Testaments are human contrivances rather than scripture from God.

 If you do not believe the scriptures then you will deny the true name of God revealed to us by Jesus in today’s text, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

 The therapeutic approach of Liberal Mainstream Protestantism has de-masculated the name of God.  I recall early in my seminary career comparing notes with an Evangelical Lutheran Church of America school classmate of mine.  Yes, I went to school K-8 at an ELCA school in Ft. Wayne and later converted to the LCMS our church body in college.  My elementary school classmate was attending the ELCA seminary in Columbus, Ohio while I was attending Concordia Theological Seminary, in Ft. Wayne. 

 He told me that some of his professors were teaching to baptize in the name of the creator, the redeemer and the sanctifier, in effect bypassing the masculine names of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I asked him why they were teaching this. And he said the masculine names of Father and Son presented a barrier to reaching people who were abused by their fathers or men in general.

 Mission at the expense of Divine truth?  This is a false dichotomy.  How can one call upon the name of the Lord if you have the name wrong?  And is it truly a baptism, if we are not using the divine name Jesus has given to us.

 I am by no means being insensitive to those who have suffered abuse from fathers, step-fathers and other men.  What they have done is sinful and it is the consequence of a sinful fallen world.  But the Father in Heaven, the true and model Father is one who loves what He has created and He continues to sustain believers and unbelievers alike.  He give his gifts to the undeserving and He sends His Son to redeem what he has created and His Spirit to enliven and keep the church in His truth.

 What a person does is not what a person is, each of us has a personal name. It is true that we are fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, engineers, accountants, librarians,  etc… but that is not who we are essentially. The same goes for God. He is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient. He is a creator, a redeemer and a sanctifier.  However his personal name revealed by Jesus is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

 This is the name we pray too. This is the name we call upon in the time of trouble.  We can call God, Father because when He looks upon us He sees His Son. We do not call Him “Father God” like many do, this implies three Gods instead of one, “Our Father” or “Heavenly Father” will do. This is the name Jesus gives us to pray.  When praying as Jesus would have us pray we are assured that God will hear our prayers.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit is the new name or the New Testament name revealed by Jesus for us to use. There were other names in the Old Testament for God in particular Yahweh or I am that was used to deliver the Israelites from the captivity of Egypt.  Yahweh put his name on the Tabernacle and later the Temple so that He may be locally present with His people.

Now this new name delivers you from sin, death and the devil when it is wedded to the waters of baptism. To be baptized into name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit means that He has placed His name on you and that He has claimed you as His own.

Yes, I do believe that the doctrine of the Trinity is under attack from both outside the church and within especially by those who try to separate mission practice from doctrine.  It will become even more important in the future for us to confess what the bible teaches about the Trinity and to continue to support ministries that do.  The name of God is a gift that is essential to our salvation and we are witnesses to that gift of faith.   Amen