So Ordinary

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
The First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
August 28, 2005

So Ordinary
Exodus 3:1-15
Romans 12:9-21

The middle-aged man had every right to think
that life would be smooth,
comfortable, ordinary… he felt he had earned it.
After all, how many men begin life literally
under a death sentence?
No less a person than the king himself,
Ramses, the Pharaoh of Egypt, had issued the order:
all boys born to Hebrew women were to die
before they drew their first breath.
Pharaoh didn’t care how they died –
he left that to the midwives.
as long as the infants were killed.
Girls born to the Hebrews were to be spared;
but boys – not one was to live.

But Jochebed clung tightly to her son
for three months following his birth,
aided by the midwives Shiprah and Puah.
Pharaoh had not counted on their strength,
their willingness to risk their own lives to stand up to authority,
when they believed their leaders were wrong.
But it became too difficult to hide the boy,
and so Jochebed took a papyrus basket, and sealed it with pitch
and gently placed her beloved son in the basket.
She carried him to the edge of the river,
and placed him in the brackish waters of the Nile,
hidden among the rushes and reeds.

The boy’s older sister watched over her brother
and saw a woman take the basket and open it
The woman was thrilled when she peered into the basket
and saw the fussing infant.
The girl looked closely at the woman: it couldn’t be,
but it was: the woman was the daughter of Pharaoh!
The woman took the boy in and raised him as her own son.
Her own son, a Hebrew boy, a boy born to slaves.
She called him Moses, a Hebrew word
which means to draw out from water.
This boy who should have been killed
before he took his first breath,
became the grandson of Pharaoh.

But even though he was raised
as part of the household of the Pharaoh,
his mother made sure he understood his roots,
that he was a Hebrew by birth,
And the foundation was strong, so strong in fact,
that when as a young man he saw an Egyptian
beating a Hebrew slave,
he was filled with fury, anger, contempt for the bully,
so much so that he lashed out at the Egyptian and killed him.
He hid the body - buried the Egyptian
deep in the sand of the desert,
confident that no one would discover his crime.
What is it in us that makes us believe
that when we have done something wrong,
we can get away with it,
that we can hide our tracks, that we won’t be discovered?
But we are always found out eventually.
Moses had only a day before he was discovered.
So Moses did what most men and women do
when faced with the knowledge that
they had done something wrong:
he ran away, ran away from his family, his friends,
his life in Egypt.
He ran across the desert, and across the seas,
to the land known as Midian,
a place where he was sure he would be safe.
And there in Midian, he met the daughters of a shepherd
a man who is referred to as Reuel in some places of the Bible
and Jethro in others.
Moses told no one about his crime,
told no one about his past life.
To Jethro and his daughters, he was simply a shepherd,
a man wandering through the land.
In time he married Zipporah, Jethro’s oldest daughter,
and worked for his father-in-law tending his flocks.
Moses’ life at this point echoed that of his ancestor Jacob:
do you remember how Jacob fled his home in fear for his life,
fled to the land of Haran, and went to work as a shepherd,
working for his father-in-law Laban?
Moses settled down, ready for an ordinary life as a shepherd,
as a husband, a father, a brother-in-law, a son-in-law.

But how can any child of God expect life to be “ordinary”?
After all, what is ordinary about being a child of God?
About having the seed of faith planted in one’s heart?
About being filled with the Spirit of God?
Extraordinary lives –
that is what we are called to as children of God.
Abraham was, Isaac was,
Jacob was, Joseph was.
And now more than 400 years after the death of Joseph,
it was Moses’ turn to live an extraordinary life.

Just when Moses expected everything to be calm, peaceful,
profitable, comfortable,
God called to him, called from the ordinary,
called him not to a lush life, a bountiful life,
a life filled with riches and ease;
No, that is not a promise God makes to any of his children.
No, God simply called Moses from the ordinary
to the extraordinary,
from a life focused on the things of this world,
to a life focused on serving the Lord God in faith and love.

God called Moses from a bush, an ordinary bush.
a bramble bush;
An ordinary scene became extraordinary,
a scrubby little bush, but from it, God’s voice boomed,
and fire loomed,
and Moses stood there,
his mouth open wide in amazement at the sight,

And then the two of them, God and Moses,
do something so ordinary,
yet so extraordinary:
they talked!
They talked, conversation went back and forth.
Moses and God, out in the desert,
a man standing before a bush filled with fire,
yet a bush that was not on fire.

God called Moses to the extraordinary by calling him to service.
Moses’ response to God’s call was so ordinary,
so typical of what we all tend to do with God:
Moses objected; Moses protested; Moses argued;
Moses was apparently content with the ordinary,
and was all too willing to decline God’s
invitation to the extraordinary.
But God does not want any of his children,
not you, not me, not Moses to live an ordinary life.
God wants us all to leave the old and the ordinary,
to turn our minds and our hearts from the old ways
and embrace the new, embrace the extraordinary.
God wants us to live extraordinary lives,
lives filled with the knowledge of God’s grace,
lives built on the foundation of
God’s unwavering love for us and all his children.

Moses was just like you and me:
comfortable with the ordinary,
comfortable with the old ways,
unwilling to embrace the new, the unknown.
And so Moses and God went back and forth,
wrangling, tussling, arguing.
But Moses didn’t count on God saying one thing,
saying something truly extraordinary,
saying something none of the Egyptian gods
could ever have said, would have ever said:
Five simple words:
“I will be with you.”
“I will be with you.”

A declarative sentence, a promise.
A promise that sounds so ordinary, but is so extraordinary,
God with us, with Moses, with you, with me,
with all his children:
the Hebrew slaves in ancient Egypt,
and our church here today, right this very moment.
When we sing “ O Come, O Come Emmanuel” in Advent,
the words are redundant, for the Hebrew word Emmanuel
means “God with us”
and that has already happened:
God is with us in good times,
God is with us in the most difficult of times,
God is with us in health,
God is with us in sickness.
God is with us at the beginning of our lives,
God is with us at the end of our lives.
God with us at every moment throughout all our lives.

God made the promise in that voice that came from the bush
in the land of Midian so long ago,
and then reinforced the promise in the Word made flesh
that is our Lord Jesus Christ.
The promise in Christ and through Christ:
made in such an ordinary way: a baby born in a stable,
a baby who also began his life under a death sentence,
when, more than 1200 years after Pharaoh’s order
to kill the baby boys,
Herod repeated history.

God the Father,
God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit,
The one who is and always will be,
The one who said to Moses, “I am.”
Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer:
talking to us, calling us
encouraging us to turn from the ordinary
and embrace the extraordinary.
“Take up your cross and follow me;
Those who lose their life for my sake will find it;
set your mind on divine things not on human things”
(Matthew 16:23ff)

Calling us, reminding us, teaching us,
chastising us, in words that are so ordinary,
yet words if we followed them would make our lives so extraordinary:
“let love be genuine
hold fast to what is good;
love one another with mutual affection;
outdo one another in showing honor;
Serve the Lord,
rejoice in hope,
be patient in suffering
persevere in prayer,
contribute to the needs of others
extend hospitality to strangers.
Do not be overcome by evil,
but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:9ff)

Feed your enemy, quench the thirst of your enemy:
love your enemy. That’s the extraordinary teaching of our Lord!
Our enemies – the ones we fight with,
the one with whom we go to war.
But don’t you see how ordinary it is when we go to war?
The extraordinary path tells us not to be overcome by evil,
but work for reconciliation, work for peace,
and overcome evil with good
in our homes, our towns, our nation,
and yes, in our world.

Jesus spoke and wrote such ordinary words,
Paul spoke and wrote such ordinary words.
so ordinary that we pick and choose from them,
rationalizing our way out of those we don’t like
time and time again.
But if we followed our Lord’s teachings,
faithfully, dutifully, automatically,
followed them without thinking about them,
what extraordinary lives we would live!

What extraordinary lives we would live
if we stopped focusing on the things of this world,
if we stopped focusing on the things we buy,
the things we wear, the things we eat,
the things we have.
Who’s right, and who’s wrong,
who’s a friend and who’s an enemy.

Our lives might not be easier,
in fact they might be more difficult;
our banks accounts might not be larger,
in fact, they might even be smaller.
God’s promise isn’t comfort and ease;
it is only that that life will be extraordinary.

The ordinary leads to envy, worry,
argument, violence, war.
The extraordinary leads to contentment, acceptance,
reconciliation, healing, peace.
hope, mercy, and love.

God calls and calls and calls to each of us,
not through burning bushes,
but through a dozen different voices that speak to us each day,
voices we ignore because we are too focused on the ordinary.
God calls, and doesn’t stop calling,
because the God who is, the God will will be,
is with us, within us, guiding us, nurturing us,
lifting us and loving us.

Will tomorrow be just another August day for you?
Will you be more concerned about work, weather,
your well-being?
Will you be more concerned about getting back at someone
punishing your enemies near and far,
Will you be filled with anger, worry,
self-righteousness, judgment?
That would be so ordinary!

But if tomorrow and the next day and the next,
you focused instead on sharing, caring,
forgiving, loving, reconciliation, peace, mercy,
healing, feeding,
that would be so extraordinary!

“For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world?”
asks our Lord (Matthew 16:26)
And the answer is, nothing out of the ordinary.
AMEN

More Than Success

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
The First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
August 7, 2005

More Than Success
Genesis 37:1-11
Genesis 46:1-7

Are you ready?
Here’s the answer:
“It was through him that the children of Israel went into Egypt,
where they remained for the next 400 years
until Moses led them back to the promised land.”
Now, do you know the correct question to my answer?
This wasn’t something I pulled off of Jeopardy;
my guess is that it would stump most people.
The person provides the link between the first two books
of the Bible, between the book of Genesis
and the book of Exodus.
He is the link between Abraham’s descendants and Moses.

If you are thinking, “who was Joseph?” you would be right.
Do you remember Joseph?
He was one of Jacob’s sons.
In fact, he was son number 11,
one of the two sons he had by his beloved wife Rachel.
Joseph was the one who wore the famous robe
that has been described as the robe of many colors,
the robe his father made for him.
Joseph was his father’s favorite son,
and that fact alone made him extremely unpopular
with his older brothers.
And then as if he was not unpopular enough,
he went and made matters worse
when told his brothers and his father
of the dreams he had had which suggested that someday
they would all bow down to him.

The ten older brothers all had had enough of
their pesky younger brother,
and they talked about getting rid of him.
The talk quickly turned violent and murderous.
But Reuben, the oldest brother suggested that they not kill Joseph,
but simply throw him into a pit and leave him to die.
The other brothers all liked that idea,
even though Reuben’s intention was honorable:
he figured he could pull his brother out later
when the others were gone.

So the angry, bullying brothers grabbed Joseph,
stripped him of his robe, and threw him into a pit in the wilderness.
No sooner had they walked back to their campsite
when the practical and economical Judah spoke up and said,
“What profit is there in killing him?
Let’s sell him to the slave traders.”
The rest of the brothers jumped on that idea with enthusiasm:
They’d get rid of their brother, they’d have no blood on their hands,
and they’d make a little money in the bargain!
How could they beat that?!

They pulled their brother from the pit,
and sold him to a band of Midianite traders
who were traveling through the region,
part of a caravan headed south down into Egypt.
The brothers put goat’s blood on Joseph’s precious robe
and laughed gleefully.
But when Jacob saw the torn, tattered, blood-stained robe,
he cried out in agony over the loss of his beloved son.

The slave traders took Joseph down to Egypt
and there he was sold as a household servant,
sold to the house of Potiphar, the captain of Pharaoh’s guards.
God was with Joseph even in Egypt,
and Joseph flourished in Potiphar’s house.
His responsibilities grew and eventually Potiphar entrusted Joseph
to run the entire household.
Life is never without its problems, however,
and the problem in Joseph’s life was Potiphar’s wife.
She took a little too strong an interest in Joseph.
In fact, way too strong, and Joseph found himself constantly
fending off her efforts to seduce him.
Each rebuff made her angrier and angrier
and finally, in a fit of rage she ran to her husband crying
that Joseph had tried to attack her.

Joseph spent the next two years in jail,
but even there God watched over him.
And then one day Pharaoh summoned Joseph,
summoned him to have him interpret a strange dream
that Pharaoh had had.
The dream was odd:
first seven thin ugly cows ate seven fat healthy cows;
and then seven ears of corn thin and blighted
swallowed up seven plump, healthy ears of corn.
No one could make sense of such a strange dream.
No one except Joseph, with the help of God.
And no sooner did Joseph hear Pharaoh recount the dream
than Joseph knew exactly what it meant:
the seven fat cows and the seven healthy ears of corn
meant that there were to be seven years of plenty.
The seven lean cows and seven blighted ears of corn
meant that the prosperous years
would be followed by seven years of disastrous famine,
famine throughout the land.

Joseph told Pharaoh that the Egyptians
should store one-fifth of all their crops
each year over the next seven years
to assure that they would have enough to last
for the seven years of famine.
Pharaoh was so pleased with Joseph’s wisdom and discernment
that he made him Governor over all Egypt,
second in authority only to Pharaoh himself.
And Joseph was put in charge of building up the foodbanks,
setting food aside during the years of plenty
in preparation for the years of famine.

And the famine came just as Joseph said it would.
There was famine not only in Egypt, but also throughout the world.
The people in Egypt did not starve; Joseph’s preparations
assured that there would be bread for all.
In fact, there was so much
that the hungry came from other nations to buy grain.
And the day came when ten Hebrew men traveled down to Egypt
from Canaan to stand before Joseph the Governor
as they sought to purchase grain to take back to their families.
It had been 20 years since the ten had last set their eyes on
their brother Joseph. The boy had become a man
and the ten did not recognize him, but Joseph knew them instantly.

As he stood literally over them,
his brothers all bowing low before him,
Joseph could have sought his revenge.
He had had years to nurse his grudge
years to think about the day when he would pay back
his brothers for the evil done to him.
Joseph had the power of the military might
of all Egypt at his fingertips.
He had only to give the order,
and his brothers would have been taken away to face
a punishment they surely deserved.

But Joseph followed the path taken by his uncle Esau,
the path not of grudges, but of forgiveness.
True, he played with his brothers at first:
shook them up, tried to frighten them.
But then he, like his uncle, wept with joy
when he revealed himself to his brothers.

Pharaoh then invited all of Joseph’s family to move to Egypt
to live in the land called Goshen,
an area in the very northeast corner of Egypt.
a land where they could graze their livestock and live in peace.
And the brothers went back and brought their wives and children
and their livestock and their servants and all their possessions
to live in the land of Egypt.
And one other person came to Egypt: the father of the twelve:
Jacob.
Jacob, now an old man,
Jacob who had begun life as a liar, a cheat, a thief,
Jacob who then went on to build wealth for himself
with his herds of goats, cattle, camel, and sheep.
Jacob, who was the picture of success,
came to spend his few remaining years with his son Joseph
who was even more successful – a man of power and riches.

Yet both Jacob and Joseph had learned in their lives
that success was not money, not things,
but family, brothers, love,
forgiveness, mercy, kindness,
contentment, peace.

As you come to the Lord’s Table this morning,
as you share in the meal our Lord has prepared for you,
the meal our Lord invites you to,
I invite you to consider your definition of success:
what is success for you – how do you define it.
Do you define success by what you have
or what you give?
Do you define success by who you know,
or who you love?
Do you define success by your lifestyle,
or how you live?
Come to this table and let our Lord Jesus Christ
show you what matters.
Come to this table forgiven and loved.
Come to this table to be transformed
through the power of the Holy Spirit
and the love of God that comes to us
through our Lord Jesus the Christ.
Amen