Sermon: Ordinariness and greatness Sunday 20th. November, 2005
What an ordinary background Albert Einstein had, there was no sign of
the greatness and fame, that would later mark his
life. He was born in March 1879 in Ulm in Baden-Württemberg, Germany,
about 100 km east of Stuttgart. His father Hermann Einstein, was a featherbed
salesman at the time. Albert attended the local Catholic primary school and, at
the insistence of his mother, was given violin lessons.
Like many other little boys, he built models and mechanical
devices for fun, but he was considered to be a slow learner,
possibly due to dyslexia,
simple shyness,
He began to learn mathematics around age twelve. Some say, that
he wasn’t very good at mathematics, but this may be due to the way that results
were calculated at his school. When the family moved away after his father’s
business collapsed, Albert stayed behind
to finish school. However, he only managed one term before leaving secondary
school in spring 1895 to rejoin his family. He left school without telling his
parents and a year and a half before the final examinations. This meant he had
no secondary-school certificate. In
1896, he failed the exam for Swiss Institute of Technology in Zurich, so he
was sent to Aarau,
Switzerland,
to finish secondary school, where he received his diploma in September 1896.. The father of a
friend got him a job as a technical assistant in the Swiss Patent Office in 1902. There was no real clue that by 1905, he would
have written 4 scientific papers which would revolutionise science in the 20th.
century. No real clue in Einstein’s
early, and very ordinary life, of the greatness that would mark his future.
I wonder, is that ordinariness and greatness not just what we see in Moses ? This was a different age, of course, and different circumstances, but Moses’ life unfolds from ordinariness into greatness……… But there the similarity ends – for Moses’ greatness is of a quite different kind.
Moses beginnings are less than promising…….
When we read of him in Exodus
chapter 3, Moses
is a shepherd, working for his father in law. He was brought up in far away
So, here he is, out in the silences on the desert edge, a shepherd…. the life he leads is
the ordinary life of a shepherd.
And when we read of him, here he is, looking for decent pasture for his father in law’s flock.
Who could have told that guided by
the living God, this man would lead an army of oppressed Hebrew slaves out of
Who could possibly have known that
this flawed man, would meet with the living God – would encounter the living
God on the summit of
Who could possible have known that under his guidance a place of worship - the Tent of Meeting – would be created where the people could approach the living God ?
Who could have known ?
Well, no –one.
For Moses’ greatness lies not in what he made of himself, or great talents he developed, but what God made of him.
For Moses’ greatness lies not in what he made of himself, or great talents he developed .but how God used Moses to guide His people, to lead and protect His people.
The moment when all this begins is there in Exodus 3.
When we meet Moses there, this man, this shepherd is minutes away from a life shaping, life filling, life changing encounter with the living God.
At dawn this had been an ordinary day, a same-old-ordinary-day for Moses.
But at this moment, he has gone to look for new pastureland for the flock when he sees a bush burning. And he goes to look, filled with wonder and awe.
Joel Gregory, a Christian writer
says:
I remember several summers ago standing in the massive cathedral of
Notre Dame, in the heart of
What Moses hears is not music,
but from the midst of the flames, in awe, he hears The Voice, The Word of the living God speaking to him. And for Moses, the old shepherding life has come to an end.
How striking, how typical, how thoroughly human, however
that Moses is not at all enthusiastic ! – quite the opposite –
he is reluctant and makes excuses…….. Moses, remains a man, a flawed man, a frail human being through this whole experience, and through the years to come………
For you see, the greatness, the fullness, the life that will mark Moses is the greatness, the fullness, the life of the living God…………. holding, shaping, guiding this man.
So, in and through God’s guidance, and strength and grace,
Moses calls God’s chosen people out of slavery,
leads them on a journey, to the promised land.
through
Moses, God gives the Law to the people of
to guide them, to protect them, to bless them.
So when we look at Moses,
we see what God can do with ordinary human life,
how the living Lord in patience, and grace, and love,
redeems and shapes, and creates, ordinary flawed human life.
We see, how in patience and grace and love the Lord can
redeem and shape and create our ordinary flawed human lives
But……….
Of all the things God gave to Moses, surely the most intriguing and wonderful is this Word
The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet…….. You must listen
to Him
The promise, the Word, that one day a prophet would come.
and with that Word, there was
set
running, set loose, a searching and longing in the hearts of the people of
a looking for the One. Who would come.
And in the fullness of time, according to God’s promise
the One Who would come
came. In
Jesus of
Now think on this – look at all that God did through Moses, that flawed man,
and ponder all that God has done, then, through the greatness, through the perfect fullness of
the Eternal Son, born among us in the ordinariness of human life in Jesus of Nazareth !
We catch a glimpse of this in John 6.
where Jesus says,
I am The Bread of Life…………..
Don’t you see ? the glory of Jesus here ?
when the
people of
God gave them manna, food each day, through Moses.
Moses, guided by God, showed the people where to find food for each day in that desperate time
but Jesus is the bread of life Himself, the very bread of life.
And when he speaks of Himself as the Bread of Life,
Jesus is speaking of the relationship, His relationship with the believer.
That deepest of relationships between the Christian and the Lord.
When Jesus speaks of Himself as the Bread of Life,
He reveals to us a relationship with Him that is not on the surface of life………..we are not followers of Jesus simply by following his commands and thinking of him as a wonderful person.
More than this………..He is the very bread of life.
He is food for our very souls, for
Jesus gives us Himself.
that His life may be ours, working in enrichening power in us.
This Bread, opening our hearts, and deepening our minds, enlivening our faith, making us holy, filling us, answering all our longings, and cares,
Bringing us closer to God. Making us new.
He is the bread of life.
AMEN