Out of the depths I cry to You … to You… 

When we fall to our knees and from our depths cry out to this You, or when we rise and from our depths give thanks to this You, or give praise or revel in glory or awe before this You, this word “You” is for us a fundamental kind of evoking the Holy One. Our “You” spoken in such a way expresses a posture of being where our very sense of self can empty and open into a fuller relation with the Holy One.

Our primary word in English for that Whom we address with this You is “G-o-d.” This word, “God,” is something we receive from the ancestor languages of English, and it likely has its roots very far back in an ancient word “ghut-” in the very ancient tongue which was ancestor to tongues stretching from India to Ireland. This ancient word “ghut-” means “To evoke, to call, to summon forth.” 

Whatever word or words we use to evoke, to call, to summon forth the Holy One Beyond All Name, what is most important is that we use those words sincerely, whole heartedly. When we sincerely, whole heartedly call forth the Holy One, the Holy One can calls forth us, what is called forth is our relationship with the Divine. But the particular words do matter. 

Every sacred word that our tradition uses to call forth this Holy You has a way of evoking and shaping our relationship with the Divine in ways that are life-giving, as long as we are sincere and thoughtful about how we use this word, and don’t take them to be idols. 

The ways we name God help us to be named by God. 

This Sunday I’m going present a crash course, God help me.  

The word that Jesus uses the most in the scriptures is “Abba,” which means Papa. “Father” is much to formal – “Papa” is what Abba means, like a child delighting in the love of their father. Jesus is evoking a tender, endearing closeness with his Holy Creator, the Source of All Being. This calls us to be tender people, humble people, ready for growth.

Last week we explored some about the Name at the heart of the Hebrew scriptures: the mystery of the intimacy of holy infinity that is evoked in the unpronounceable Name spoken to Moses. Y H W H could well suggest that our very breath can be an invocation of the primordial wind that stirred the first waves of creation from the surface of the deeps, Yyyyyyy Hhhhhhhhh Wwwwww Hhhhhhh. 

In this revelation Moses did not receive just one name-beyond-name, but two or three: ‘ehyeh ‘asher ‘ehyeh “I Am That I Am” or simply ‘ehyeh, “The I Am,” “The You Who Are,” “The One Who Is,” “The Being of Being.”

What happens when we pray with that kind of Name on our breath? O Being of Being, O Breath of All Creation! 

What happened to Moses is that he was called to be an agent of liberation for his people, and a channel for a moral code that honors the life and dignity of others. Moses asked “Who am I that you are calling me to this?” The reply was “I will be with you.”

A frequent name used in the Hebrew Scriptures for this God beyond “God” is “Adonai.” “Adonai” means Lord or Sovereign or Ruler. These days we only hear the word Lord used for God or Jesus, but we must remember that for the ancient Hebrews and the early Christians and for most believers before the rise of democracy, you’d hear this kind of word, “lord,” used for all kinds of people, from kings and queens, to slave owners, and heads of households, feudal lords and ladies, warlords. 

(“Landlord,” come to think of it, we still use – maybe we haven’t outgrown feudalism quite as much as we’d like to think we have.) 

Anyhow, in the social contexts that gave birth to our faith, it’s a big deal to say that God, not the king, not the slave-owner, is Lord, is the true ruler of the universe – or that Jesus, not Caesar, is my Lord and savior whose command I follow as I serve all and whose law I obey as I love all. Caesar was literally called “lord,” and “savior,” and “son of god.”

So, while “Adonai” places us in a posture of humility before the power of the Divine, it also has a way of freeing us from human powers that may oppress us.  “God is my landlord.” 

For me, for what it’s worth, I like to translate “Adonai” as something like “True Ruler of my Heart,” or “Power of the Universal Law,” or “My shepherd.” 

Many of the names for the Holy One we find in the Hebrew Scripture use the word “El.” “El” can mean basically deity. The word comes from the word for power. In the scriptures “El” is often used along with another word to convey different aspects or qualities of the Holy I Am that are important dimensions to what makes “God” God. 

When Hagar, the woman that Abraham and Sarah held as a slave, became pregnant by Abraham, Sarah, although it was her idea in the first place to force Hagar to bear a child for the patriarch, became jealous and drove her out into the wilderness. Fleeing alone in the desert, desperate, Hagar met an angle of Yhwh who blessed her and tells her it’s going to be okay. Hagar prays to Yhwh in gratitude, saying “You are El Roi,” the “God who Sees Me’” – “I have seen the God who sees me.”

This is a powerful name we can use when we pray, when we cry out: “O God who sees me.” “O God who saw Hagar when she was cast out to die in the wilderness, I call to you.” “El Roi” names God the Divine as a transcendent witness of human suffering. 

There are many other names of God that begin with “El.” I can’t do them justice here. 

“El Olam,” means God of the Ages, Eternal God, Everlasting God. 

El Eyon means “Most High God,” or “Supreme God.” We could take inspiration from the great John Coltrane and say “Love Supreme.”

El Shaddai is traditionally translated as “Almighty God” or “All-Sufficient God.” Some argue that Shaddai is from the word for mountain. Some argue that Shaddai is from the word for breast. God of All-Sustaining Power. God Who Nourishes All Being, Mountainous Source of the Rivers of Life, Mother of the Mountains. 

There are names for God’s protecting powers – Sabaoth – Lord of Hosts, Sovereign of Heaven’s Vanguard.

To call on God’s Wisdom we can say Hochma. 

To call on God’s Spirit we can say Ruach. 

To call on God’s Presence we can say Shekinah. 

And then there is Jesus.

Yeshua – Jesus – means God Saves. God Delivers. God Rescues. What a wonderful name to call on in our need: Jesus, Yeshua, God Saves.  

Another word for God is Emanu-el: God is With Us. 

Elohim, an ancient name, is plural, a They. Perhaps this is because Divinity is seen as an abstract noun, which in Hebrew is sometimes in the plural case. Perhaps this Elohim evokes how God in Holy Oneness contains such astonishing multitudes. 

Many Christians see in Elohim an expression of our Trinity. 

We evoke God as Three-in-One. We pray to the Father, to the Son, and the Holy Spirit; 

To the Creator, the Christ, and the Spirit. 

To the Infinite, the Intimate, and the Movement-Between.

To the Transcendent, the Embodiment, the Ever-Present

To the Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver

Yah, Yeshua, Ruach

Holy Three in Unity. A Mystery.

An inter-relation in heart of Divinity.

The old church fathers called the inter-relation of the trinity “perichoresis” – a round dance of the movement they called “kenosis,” self-emptying, each pouring out to fill the other: Creator to Christ to Spirit to Creator and round again. 

O You whose dance saves us from the fetters of ourselves, we call out to You, so we may revel in your Holy Nature.

“Holy God,” as St. Francis prayed, “you are Three and you are One,
“you are goodness, all goodness,
you are the highest Good,
Holy God, living and true.

You are love and charity, you are wisdom,
you are humility, you are patience,
you are beauty, you are sweetness,
you are safety, you are rest, you are joy,
you are our hope
and our delight,
you are justice, you are moderation
you are all our wealth
and riches overflowing.

You are beauty, you are gentleness,
you are our shelter, our guard
and our defender,
you are strength, you are refreshment,
you are our hope.
you are our faith.
you are our love,
you are our complete consolation,
you are our life everlasting,
great and wonderful Lord,
all-powerful God, merciful Savior.”

Amen.