Readings: Exodus 2:1-15; psalm 69; Matthew 11:20-24
As I read the First Reading of today, the message that immediately came to my mind was that “Nothing just happens.”
We may call some things “luck,” or some “accident,” we think of some events as products of chance, coincidence or fate but dear friends, there is no accident in our lives. I don’t even think I have seen the word “luck” in the Bible.
Look at the story of Moses – he was born at what we could call a wrong time, but there was God, at work behind the scenes. Moses was hidden for three months and then put in the basket at the river’s edge. It was Pharaoh’s daughter who came to have her bathe, and contrary to the expected sentiment of an Egyptian, she felt compassion for Moses. He was then given back to his mum to be taken care of, and the daughter of Pharaoh named him Moses, which means “drawn out of water.” Note, he was given a name that pointed to his future mission – the one who would lead his people out through the water. Moses became a member of the royal household of Pharaoh, where he would be trained in leadership, in anticipation of a role God had designed for him. What do you call all these events? Chance?
There is so much to say but I will stop here. Dear friends, nothing just happens. I feel like saying this three times and just ending this sermon.
Look at your life again – do you think things happened for no reason?
God is there, working behind the scenes. When a door closes, He is there when another opens. He is there when I laugh and when I cry, when everything seems meaningless, hopeless and purposeless and when everything assumes meaning and there is clarity. He is there in my delay, in my breakthrough, in my abundance and in my season of scarcity, in my days of suffering and test and in my season of testimony. We cannot fully understand His ways but He knows what He is doing.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus rebuked the towns of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum for seeing God’s work and still lacking understanding and failing to repent.
May the Lord save us from spiritual ignorance and failure to trust that God is ever at work in the small and great events of our lives.
Sermon preached by Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Baraka-Gukena Okami on July 18, 2023