Ordinary

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

September 3, 2017

17 Proper A

          Don and I have friends who always take their shoes off when they enter our home.  If the weather is cold, they bring comfortable indoor shoes to slip on.  The same friends request, but do not require, that anyone entering their home remove their shoes as well.  I have always thought that the practice of removing one’s shoes when entering a home was about not tracking dirt into the house, which makes a lot of sense.  But I wonder if this custom is also about something deeper that has more to do with receiving hospitality.   When I take off my shoes in someone’s home, I indicate that I intend to stay a while and be focused on the occasion at hand.  To leave will require some effort.

          This morning, Moses is out beyond the wilderness tending his father-in-law’s flock when God calls to Moses from a burning bush and tells Moses to take off his shoes.  The ground on which Moses is standing is holy ground, which means that Moses is on ground where God is present.  I wonder if God is offering Moses a certain kind of hospitality.  Perhaps God  wants Moses to stop and be fully present to God, rather than having one foot out the door while he worries about the flock.

          When we last saw Moses, he was a baby.  Last Sunday, we heard the story of his birth and how he was hidden from Pharaoh until he was three months old, because Pharaoh wanted to kill all the Israelite male babies.  When his mother put him in a basket in the river, one of Pharaoh’s daughters found him, took him as her own, and hired Moses’ own mother to nurse him.  Now, Moses is grown, married, and working for his father-in-law. That’s a lot of growing up in a week!  And between last Sunday and today, Moses has killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew and fled for his life. 

          So, let’s get this straight: This morning, God is asking Moses, a fugitive on the run, to return to the scene of the crime and ask the person who most wants his life, Pharaoh, if he can please release the Israelite people, who we know Pharaoh fears losing because that is why he enslaved and oppressed the Israelites to begin with.  No wonder Moses protests “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”  God’s plan makes no sense whatsoever. 

          Jesus’ plan makes no sense whatsoever to Peter this morning.  Last week we heard Jesus ask the disciples “Who do you say that I am?”  And we heard Peter reply “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”  This week, Jesus predicts his own suffering, death, and resurrection.  Jesus’ words do not fit with Peter’s plan for Jesus at all.  When Peter responds “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you!”, Jesus’ rebuke cuts to the bone.  “Get behind me Satan.  You are a stumbling block to me, for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”  Peter, who last week was given the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, is now being called Satan.

          Moses and Peter have two things in common.  Both are flawed people who are asked to do big things by God.  Moses killed someone and Peter is so totally wrong about who Jesus is that Jesus calls him Satan. Yet God still intends for Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, and Peter still holds the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.  Secondly, both are setting their minds on human things rather than divine ones.  Moses cannot wrap his head around the idea that he should be the one to lead the people out of Egypt, not understanding the power of God to work through him.  Peter cannot imagine that the Son of the Living God would suffer and die, not understanding what God will accomplish through Jesus’ suffering and death.  Both are focused on human limitations rather than divine possibility.

          God asks us to set our minds on divine things, not human things.  We can easily think of Moses and Peter as the superheroes of the faith with some super faith power we don’t have.  But that is setting our minds on human things.  Moses and Peter are examples of the way God uses ordinary flawed people to accomplish extraordinary things.  On this Labor Day Sunday, we stop and stand on this holy ground, figuratively barefoot if not literally, fully present to God as we ask God to bless the labor of our lives, so that God can use our ordinary work to accomplish extraordinary things.   Sometimes those extraordinary things are things that look extraordinary to human eyes.  We have certainly seen examples of extraordinary work this week as people risked their own lives to rescue others from flood waters, opened their homes to strangers, and gave generously to help others rebuild their lives. Sometimes those extraordinary things are extraordinary only to the divine eyes.  Paul calls us to let love be genuine, hate what is evil, and love one another with mutual affection.  Mother Teresa of Calcutta said “Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love.”  When we do small things with great love, God’s love, things that seem small become extraordinary.  God calls us to offer our ordinary lives to become extraordinary.

                                                                                      Amen.