What's In A Name?
Illustration
Stories
God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’” (v. 14)
What’s in a name? Sometimes very little. There’s often an interesting history behind various names but many of us won’t know ours. Nowadays, however expectant parents pick a name just because of the way it sounds, or because it is associated with a celebrity, or a favorite author or actor. But it’s hard to imagine that someone would attach to themselves the mysterious name God uses after Moses asks God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” (Exodus 3:13) And that name was, “I Am that I Am.”
But that’s what author, actor, and celebrity, William Shakespeare, did in “Sonnet 121”. He was grousing about the way that people were speaking about him, then said, with alarming audacity that borders on blasphemy, “I am that I am.” Yet he’s not crazy. There’s method in his madness, which is not surprising a surprising thing to say about Shakespeare, seeing that, like so many phrases we use in modern English, it was Shakespeare who invented it. (In the play “Hamlet” the character Polonius says, "Though this be madness, yet there is method in't." Act II, Scene II).
In Shakespeare’s day, he was not known as the greatest writer who ever lived. After all, he was best known for writing plays, which is the same as writing television scripts in our day. How many times have you waited for the credits at the end of your favorite TV show to find out who wrote that episode? Not only that, but people looked down on actors, and they were legally classified as vagabonds, since they did not work for an honorable profession. They had to seek sponsors among the nobility so they could avoid being arrested.
Shakespeare never seems to have paid attention to the publication of his plays. He did write poetry, however and his two long poems, “Venus and Adonis,” and “The Rape of Lucrece,” were the only published items of his that he gave his attention to.
His sonnets, however, were written in the 1890s and meant to be circulated in hand-written copies. When they were published in 1609 in an unauthorized edition, sonnet writing was long out of fashion.
In Sonnet 121 Shakespeare starts by saying,
Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed
When not to be receives reproach of being,
And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed
Not by our feeling but by others' seeing.
In other words, “You’re better off acting in a contemptible fashion and have nobody notice than to act virtuously when everything already thinks you’re contemptible.”
For why should others’ false adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
Which in their wills count bad that I think good?
Which means: People seem to think my faults are worth praising, and those parts of me that are praiseworthy are taken as faults. What’s the use?”
And then he says:
No, I am that I am; and they that level
At my abuses reckon up their own:
I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;
By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown….
I am that I am. Or, as Popeye put it, I yam what I yam. Therefore, when people say I’m bad, they’re really talking about themselves. They’re the ones whose bubble is off the level. I’m not going to be judged by their standards.
I am that I am, Shakespeare says, and if you want to know who that is, you must get to know, walk with me, step on the stage and act with me. Otherwise you’re just projecting yourself on me.
Which is what God seems to be saying to Moses. The nations that surrounded them gave their gods names and human attributes, as well as all sorts of human facilities. But God is suggesting that a name is not as important as the relationship,. And God invites the people to rely less on a name and more on the history they shared: “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob….”
Call to mind Abraham’s walk with God, Isaac’s life with God, Jacob’s struggles wrestling with God. Now you know something about God.
Shakespeare concluded Sonnet 121 with these words:
Unless this general evil they maintain:
All men are bad and in their badness reign.
In other words, ‘Why should I judge myself by their belief all people are as bad as them?” And why should God give a name that would create limits for our understanding? We don’t need to equate the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with those Olympian gods whose actions with humanity were every bit as fallible and even contemptable, as humanity.
And conversely, all of us should be known not by a label, but by who we discover when we have a relationship with each other.
What’s in a name? Sometimes very little. There’s often an interesting history behind various names but many of us won’t know ours. Nowadays, however expectant parents pick a name just because of the way it sounds, or because it is associated with a celebrity, or a favorite author or actor. But it’s hard to imagine that someone would attach to themselves the mysterious name God uses after Moses asks God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” (Exodus 3:13) And that name was, “I Am that I Am.”
But that’s what author, actor, and celebrity, William Shakespeare, did in “Sonnet 121”. He was grousing about the way that people were speaking about him, then said, with alarming audacity that borders on blasphemy, “I am that I am.” Yet he’s not crazy. There’s method in his madness, which is not surprising a surprising thing to say about Shakespeare, seeing that, like so many phrases we use in modern English, it was Shakespeare who invented it. (In the play “Hamlet” the character Polonius says, "Though this be madness, yet there is method in't." Act II, Scene II).
In Shakespeare’s day, he was not known as the greatest writer who ever lived. After all, he was best known for writing plays, which is the same as writing television scripts in our day. How many times have you waited for the credits at the end of your favorite TV show to find out who wrote that episode? Not only that, but people looked down on actors, and they were legally classified as vagabonds, since they did not work for an honorable profession. They had to seek sponsors among the nobility so they could avoid being arrested.
Shakespeare never seems to have paid attention to the publication of his plays. He did write poetry, however and his two long poems, “Venus and Adonis,” and “The Rape of Lucrece,” were the only published items of his that he gave his attention to.
His sonnets, however, were written in the 1890s and meant to be circulated in hand-written copies. When they were published in 1609 in an unauthorized edition, sonnet writing was long out of fashion.
In Sonnet 121 Shakespeare starts by saying,
Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed
When not to be receives reproach of being,
And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed
Not by our feeling but by others' seeing.
In other words, “You’re better off acting in a contemptible fashion and have nobody notice than to act virtuously when everything already thinks you’re contemptible.”
For why should others’ false adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
Which in their wills count bad that I think good?
Which means: People seem to think my faults are worth praising, and those parts of me that are praiseworthy are taken as faults. What’s the use?”
And then he says:
No, I am that I am; and they that level
At my abuses reckon up their own:
I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;
By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown….
I am that I am. Or, as Popeye put it, I yam what I yam. Therefore, when people say I’m bad, they’re really talking about themselves. They’re the ones whose bubble is off the level. I’m not going to be judged by their standards.
I am that I am, Shakespeare says, and if you want to know who that is, you must get to know, walk with me, step on the stage and act with me. Otherwise you’re just projecting yourself on me.
Which is what God seems to be saying to Moses. The nations that surrounded them gave their gods names and human attributes, as well as all sorts of human facilities. But God is suggesting that a name is not as important as the relationship,. And God invites the people to rely less on a name and more on the history they shared: “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob….”
Call to mind Abraham’s walk with God, Isaac’s life with God, Jacob’s struggles wrestling with God. Now you know something about God.
Shakespeare concluded Sonnet 121 with these words:
Unless this general evil they maintain:
All men are bad and in their badness reign.
In other words, ‘Why should I judge myself by their belief all people are as bad as them?” And why should God give a name that would create limits for our understanding? We don’t need to equate the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with those Olympian gods whose actions with humanity were every bit as fallible and even contemptable, as humanity.
And conversely, all of us should be known not by a label, but by who we discover when we have a relationship with each other.
