This Sunday, December 13, is the Sunday of the Forefathers. This is the day on which in all Orthodox churches throughout the world that we honour those men and women in the Old Testament who prepared the way for Christ and for us, because of their search for God. The dictionary defines a forefather as an ancestor, a particular kind of ancestor—“a person who is from an earlier time and has originated or contributed to a common tradition shared by a particular group.” Therefore, today we are looking at those people in the Old Testament who built up a tradition that we share today as Christians. I have selected three families—Abraham and Sarah, Moses and Zipporah and Ruth and Boaz—in order to consider briefly their lives and the meaning of those lives for us today.

Abraham was the person who responded first to the initiative of God, to God’s desire to reach out to all human beings. God called Abram, as he was originally known, along with his wife Sarai, as she was originally known, to travel to the land of Canaan and told Abram that He would bless him, as set out in the book of Genesis, chapter 12, verse 3. Then God changed his name to Abraham, which means “father of many,” because Abraham was to become “the father of a multitude of nations,” as explained in Genesis chapter 17, verse 5.Today Abraham is often called the father of Jews, Christians and Muslims—all of whom continue to respect him.

Abraham is perhaps the first of our forefathers, but Sarah also deserves to be remembered as the first our foremothers. We know less about Sarah than about Abraham, but we know from Genesis chapter 12, verse 1, that she was beautiful We know also from Genesis chapter 17, verses 15 to 16, that God changed her name to Sarah, which means “princess” to stress that she was to be “a mother of [many] nations.” Both Abraham and Sarah were human beings who made mistakes. For example, as explained in Genesis chapter 20, in their travels Abraham consistently told those outside of his own tribe that Sarah was his sister; and Sarah supporting this lie by saying openly that she was Abraham’s sister. Furthermore, Sarah did not have any children; and she was very sad about her failure to become a mother. Neither Sarah nor Abraham fully understood why they did not have any children, but as one Biblical commentator phrased the situation, “God was bringing a new humanity into being of whom Abraham was the father [and Sarah was the mother].” That’s us—the new humanity that God brought into being. When we are baptised in the Holy Spirit and receive faith in Christ, we too are blessed to love and to be loved—to be loved by God and to receive His love, to love other people and to be loved by them.

Another Biblical commentator has written: “The call of Abraham is one of Scripture’s theological turning points. Prior to that time, God dealt with the human race as a whole. From that point on, God’s plan was carried out through the family of Abraham. Through that family, God gave his Biblical revelation to humanity; and from that family the Saviour of all [people—Jesus Christ] has come” [end of quote]. Just as God dealt with Abraham and Sarah as a family, so he deals with each of us as families. The revelation of Jesus Christ often comes to each of us through our families; and then, as we grow older, we each decide how to deal with that revelation in our own lives.

Unlike Abraham who came from a privileged family, Moses started at the bottom of his society as the baby of a Hebrew slave about to be killed by Pharaoh, because Pharaoh feared that the Hebrews living in Egypt were multiplying too quickly. The story is told in the book of Exodus, chapter 2. It is unusual, but it really did happen. Children, do you know what the mother of Moses did to her baby to save his life? . . .That’s right. She placed him in a wicker basket—a basket made of sticks and reeds—floated him down the Nile River, and had her daughter, Miriam, the sister of Moses, watch as Pharaoh’s daughter found the child Moses in the basket. She named him Moses, which is of Egyptian origin and means “is born.” So Moses grew up as an Egyptian prince with an excellent education and many privileges and much wealth, but Moses still knew that he was a Hebrew, not an Egyptian. When, as a young man, Moses saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, Moses killed the Egyptian and then fled out of Egypt to the desert of Midian. It was in Midian at a well that Moses helped seven daughters water their flock of sheep. He then went to live with their father Jethro and later married one of Jethro’s daughters, Zipporah.

Life changed many times for Moses—from being a baby about to be killed, to being a prince in the house of Pharaoh’s daughter, to running away from Egypt, to marrying Zipporah who gave birth to a son, who they named Gershom which means “a stranger there,” because Moses said he was “a sojourner [that is, someone who stays somewhere for a short time] in a foreign land.” Moses was living the life of shepherd looking after his father-in-law Jethro’s flock when, according to Exodus, chapter 3, he saw a bush “burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed.”

When Moses saw that burning bush, he made an important decision which changed his life again. Moses said, “I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burning up.” When Moses made that decision, the Lord “saw that [Moses had] turned aside to look;” and the Lord called out to him, “Moses, Moses;” and Moses replied, “Here I am.” The Lord said to him, “Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” So Moses took off his sandals. There is a beautiful icon of Moses taking off his sandals. Then the Lord told Moses to return to Egypt and to lead the Hebrew slaves to freedom in the land of ancient Israel. Here are some pictures of key events in the life of Moses—being found in the water by the Egyptian princess (as the sister of Moses, Miriam, watches), growing up, killing the Egyptian, taking off his sandals at the burning bush—pictures taken from Zoe Kanavas and Christos Gousides, The Bible for Young People, published by Narthex Press. Moses was then called by the Lord to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt to the land that God had promised to Abraham so many hundreds of years earlier.

Whenever we are listening to the Lord’s guidance for our lives—whenever we have a calmness about what we are doing or should be doing—we, like Moses, are standing on holy ground. We are doing what the Lord intends for us to do—growing up as children, raising a family as parents, working, finding a job, praying, coming to communion at the Divine Liturgy. The Lord calls each of us to His purposes in His time.

Ruth, who lived in ancient Israel at the time of the Judges, is not as well-known as either Abraham or Moses. Her story is told in four chapters in the book of Ruth. She was a Moabite widow, not Jewish when her story begins. After her husband died, her Jewish mother-in-law Naomi urged her to return to her own people. However, Ruth replied: “Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.” Like Abraham and Moses, Ruth chose to be part of God’s people. It is important to see that of these famous forefathers and foremothers, some were Jewish—like Moses and the man who married Ruth, Boaz, while others were not initially believers in God—like Abram and Sarai, Zipporah and Ruth. Each person, whatever their background and previous beliefs, each person made the same decision, to follow the Lord God. Each of us, whatever our family ties to the Orthodox Christian faith, can make that same decision to follow the Lord.

There we are—three quite different families, Abraham and Sarah, Moses and Zipporah, and Ruth and Boaz—in three quite different cultures. What did they have in common? God blessed each of those families. He drew them into His purposes and established covenants with them—the Abrahamic Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant and the New Covenant with Jesus Christ, of whom both Ruth Boaz were ancestors as St. Matthew states in his Gospel, chapter 1, verse 5. 

To conclude, if I were to choose a single example in the Bible which sums up the challenge that the forefathers and foremothers of our faith pose to us today, what would that example be? I would choose the conversation between the Lord and Moses, as given in Exodus, chapter 3, verses 4 and 5: “When the Lord saw that [Moses] turned aside to look [at the burning bush], God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, ‘Moses, Moses!’ and [Moses] said, ‘Here I am.’ Then [the Lord] said, ‘Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.’”

Like Moses, when Boaz acquired the land of the widow Ruth’s former husband and accepted Ruth as his future wife, Boaz removed his sandal as a pledge that he would act on his word. That was a custom in ancient Israel—to remove your scandal as a pledge that you would be honest in your relationships with others and in your relationship with the Lord—that you would do what you said you would do. Moses and Boaz both heard the Lord and pledged to listen to Him. When we come to Holy Communion, we too are being called by the Lord to turn aside from the concerns of our daily lives. As the Divine Liturgy urges us—we “lay aside all worldly cares.” In a sense, we take off our shoes; we stand near, but not on, holy ground; we pledge that like Moses and Boaz, we will listen to the Lord and follow Him.   

And so we ascribe as is justly due all might, majesty, dominion, power and praise to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, always now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen

Father Emmanuel Kahn