Covenant
United Methodist Church
Sunday School 9:45 Worship 8:30 & 10:45 am
Pentecost 6 Genesis 5-18-25 Just an Ordinary Man
You know when I was a kid growing up my favorite TV show is one many of you never saw. It was Superman! You know the one with George Reaves... The one that started out “Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Look, up in the sky, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, no its Superman! Mom would put this towel around my kneck and I would run around the house and out in the backyard with my arms outstretched, making that noise that Superman made when he flew… the one that went SHHHHHHHHH. As a child I know I had visions of grandeur, because I really believed at one point that I would be able to fly, and have super powers like Superman… I even dreamed of flying!!!
One day while playing outside I noticed dad had left a ladder up against the house. I decided to test out my super flying skills. I climbed up to the top of the ladder. I got on the roof of the house… I looked over the edge… I lifted my arms out like Superman did when he flew… and I jumped! Rather than fly I went directly to the ground, landed hard and rolled. With scrapes on my knees and hands I got up otherwise unscathed and began to cry. Now I wasn’t crying from the scrapes. I was crying because I had just learned that I was an ordinary kid…. No special powers, no great gifts, I was like everyone else… I guess I was a slow learner cause a few years later I knew I was going to be the next Sandy Koufax in baseball. After I hit my best friend in the head when I tried to pitch like him, plus several other people in my little league debut I realized I might not be the next Sandy Koufax… and when I started out in ministry, I knew I was going to be the next Billy Graham… It has never been easy for me to be just an ordinary person… until the first time I read our scripture lesson, and read about Enoch..
Our scripture lesson today says very little about Enoch except that he walked with God and one day God took him… We also know that he is the great great grandfather of Noah… but besides that nothing else is spoken of him. I have always surmised that we don’t hear more about Enoch because he was just an ordinary man. He wasn’t handsome and charismatic like David. He wasn’t a world conqueror like Moses. He didn’t spend his life taking care of the poor like Mother Theresa and Albert Sweitzer, he was just a normal every day guy. He went to work every day, raised a family, was a good father and trustworthy husband… but even that we don’t know for sure. The only thing that was special about him is that he walked with God… If he had had a funeral which it doesn’t seem he did, very little would have been said about him that was new or different. I don’t think Enoch’s funeral would have been that much different from yours or mine. I am often taken aback when I go to the home of someone who died and those grieving over him can tell me what a wonderful person the person was. They can tell me they were a great inspiration to them, and the way they live their life. A spouse will say the dead spouse was faithful, loving, a spiritual leader in the home, and not have a single story that they can think of that makes the person special… they are a little like all of us, they are just ordinary people…
Enoch was just an ordinary person…except he walked with God…
I can only surmise what walking with God must be like from my own life. I imagine it has to do with being close enough to God that you simply treat God like your buddy, your friend. As I have mentioned to you I have to long time friends that I see periodically. When we get together we talk and laugh and share all the misery we are going through. I don’t see them as often as we’d like, but if I am in need I know they are there to help if I call on them. I have their back and they have mine… I assume that was the relationship that Enoch had with God. As Enoch walked down the road, he talked and laughed and told all his misery to God… Enoch had God’s back and God had his… if ordinary Enoch could be that close to God maybe us other ordinary people can too.
The brief story we see here of Enoch gives all us ordinary folk hope…
Have you heard the story of the man who got up every morning and went walking? He would walk for about an hour. Then he would come back home and be with his family. When asked what he did on his long walks he would say that he talked with God. As he grew older his walks grew even longer. Some days he would go for a walk and get in 5-6 hours later. One day in the late years of his life the old man went for a walk… and never came back…he walked right in the hands of God who took him up with him…
Maybe that can be our story too…us ordinary folk can walk with God and when we die we walk right into the arms of God!