“It Was an Ordinary Working Day”
Exodus 3:1-12; 4:10-12
Ann left her dorm and took the subway to her medical school.
It was just another ordinary day.
She was meeting up with another medical student with whom she would be sharing a dead body.
They would be dissecting the dead body before finally being let loose on live ones.
The other student’s name was John.
As they looked over the corpse, John asked Ann whether she went to church.
Ann replied that she used to go as a child but hasn’t been in a long time.
Then John surprised Ann with this question: “Do you know God?” he asked.
This question rattled her.
She didn’t know how to think about it.
John invited Ann to go to a United Methodist Church near campus with him.
And the rest is history.
On this ordinary working day, Ann suddenly found herself on the threshold of meeting with God.
Michael was sitting in the break room at the restaurant where he was a waiter.
Other restaurant employees were talking about and making fun of the new dishwasher—Hector.
Hector was Mexican and spoke very little English.
He was a hard worker, and always gave Michael a big smile when he dropped off a dirty plate or glass.
Michael had met Hector’s family.
He had two very well-behaved young children and a lovely wife.
Hector was doing all he could to provide for his family, and yet, he was only making minimum wage as a dishwasher.
On several occasions, Michael had seen Hector and his family enter a church right around the corner from where Michael lived.
That next Sunday, Michael went to Hector’s Church.
Hector’s family greeted him warmly.
Hector’s children sat as close to Michael as they could.
After worship, Hector invited Michael over to his small apartment for a lunch of black beans and rice.
Little did Michael know that he was on the threshold of meeting with God.
His life would never be the same again.
Our Scripture Lesson for this morning opens on an ordinary working day.
“Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law.”
And as a shepherd, Moses was on the move with his flock.
He was on his own and wouldn’t get home for dinner, or even bedtime.
Moses had come a long way since his time in Pharaoh’s court as a “prince” in Egypt.
After defending an Israelite and killing an Egyptian Moses fled to Midian where he ended up marrying one of Jethro’s daughters.
They had a son and then settled down.
And Moses became a shepherd keeping Jethro’s flocks.
It’s wasn’t exciting work, but it kept food on the table.
It wasn’t glamorous work, but then, Moses had fallen a long way.
He had pretty much settled in his mind that this would be his lot in life.
He wasn’t expecting much.
And so the years went by, and before he knew it, Moses had been tending his father-in-law’s sheep for 40 years.
All the bright promise of his youth had come to this.
Then God just shows up.
Entirely on His own initiative.
All Moses saw at first was a blazing bush, but a very funny one, one that wasn't getting burnt up.
The spectacle surprised him, of course; and he went over to get a closer look.
Only then did a Voice come from the bush, and what it spoke was Moses' name: "Moses, Moses."
Something—Somebody?—knew him by name, called him by name.
That must have been at least as disconcerting as an incombustible talking bush.
I mean, what do you say to a talking bush that calls you by name?
All Moses could think of to say was: “Here I am.”
Kind of like saying, “Yeah. That’s me.”
Or, “Uh Huh.”
Moses didn’t even know Who God was at this point.
The warning from the flaming bush not to come closer might, under the circumstances, seem like a kind of “no duh” moment; but the command to take off his shoes and the word about the ground being holy began to shed a little light on Who the speaker might be.
And so, Moses found himself on the threshold of meeting God.
And his initial reaction was to hide his face in fear.
Then the Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt.
I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.”
God is always concerned about the suffering of people.
God hears our cries when we are oppressed—whether by other people, economic realities, addictions, or our own fears.
God’s concern for justice is a reoccurring theme in the Old Testament.
The Psalms sing about it.
The prophets denounce it.
The greatest salvation act in the Old Testament, after all, is God’s freeing of the Hebrews from bondage.
Finally God hones in on what He is doing—God gives Moses his call.
“So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”
And Moses doesn’t like this idea one bit!!!
“Who am I?” asks Moses.
In other words Moses is saying: “I am a nobody.
Certainly there are many other people who are much more qualified than I.”
Have you ever felt that way?
Perhaps you feel like that today.
Maybe, you suffer from a lack of self-esteem.
Perhaps you feel like your mailing address only reads: “Occupant.”
You feel unimportant, like a wallflower at a dance.
I think a lot of people miss out on what their lives “could be” simply because they don’t believe in themselves.
They don’t feel they measure up to others.
Listen.
That is a lie.
We are all equal in God’s sight.
None of us are any more, nor any less than anyone else.
As the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians Chapter 1: “Think of what you were when you were called.
Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.
But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not…
…It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.”
As Moses was called, we are called as well.
We are called by God to follow Jesus Christ…
… “to preach good news to the poor…
…to proclaim freedom for the captives and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed—to make disciples of Jesus Christ” for the transformation of the world!!!
But we are not expected to do this on our own.
As Jesus promises: “And surely I am with you always…”
And this is the same thing that God promises Moses: “I will be with you.”
“Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”
God said all of the things He said to Moses from the middle of a bush that was burning but not burning up.
It was a fairly impressive demonstration that God is the God of the seemingly impossible.
God is the God of the fire that burns without destroying and this is how God works in us as well.
God’s flame burns within us without harming us.
Your call, my call, almost certainly has to do with something more than just ourselves.
It has something to do with justice and love, something to do with care for the suffering of others and most especially powerless others, something to do with clinging to God's promises for others as well as for us, since that is the kind of God Who calls us.
If the task is incompatible with God's character, we should strongly doubt that it's God's task at all.
Our call is probably, in our own strength, something that is quite impossible.
Especially if we think everything rests on us and that we must be perfect.
Remember Jesus said, "Apart from me you can do nothing."
Just think of how impossibly flawed every last hero of the faith was.
David is the textbook case.
He seemed to go out of his way to break every last one of the commandments.
And remember the scoundrel Jacob, or the impulse-control deficient Peter?
Make your own list; add your own name.
Oddly enough, God's power really is made perfect in weakness.
What counts is that God comes to us in the ordinariness of our lives, and calls us to do things we would never even dream of on our own.
Moses made a lot of excuses why he couldn’t carry out God’s important call on his life.
I’d imagine we make a lot of excuses as well.
But remember, nothing is impossible with God.
What is God calling you to do?
Whatever it is, remember that the most important thing is that God will be with you.
It may not always seem like it.
It may sometimes feel as if we are wasting our time and energy, and certainly it was often that way for Moses.
But just as Moses finally did, we too, if we are going to fulfill God’s call on our lives—we too, must go through the challenges of our calls on the basis of trust in God’s trustworthiness.
It was only when Moses finally got back to Mount Horeb, along with the people, that he was able to look back and say: “God said ‘I am going to do this,’ and it happened.”
Whatever it is God is calling us to do, may it be the same for us.
