SCRIPTURE: Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28
TEXT: 27Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and not lay our hands on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh. THEME: Slavery is wrong. The removal of personal freedoms. INTRODUCTION Remembering the Blessing that Jacob stole from his brother, we have to ask, “How is that blessing working for him now?” Fleeing from his brother’s murderous anger, he arrived at Uncle Laban’s house, 400 miles away. After a bait and switch he ends up marring both of his cousins and acquired their maids too. Jacob has become very wealthy and fathers many children. Deciding to return to Canaan, he escapes from his Uncle/father in law Laban, with herds, wives and children and hijacked family gods. At the Jabbok he wrestles with God just before he reconciles with his brother and now is settled in the land of his birth, the land his grandfather was promised. Jacob’s life has been a struggle to get everything he has ever wanted, but he now seems to have it all. How is that blessing working out for him? SCRIPTURE Then in verse 2, this passage makes an interesting statement, “This is the story of the family of Jacob” and in the next breathe, the focus of the rest of Genesis is upon Joseph. All of this with; Abraham and Sarah, Ishmael, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob, Rachel, Leah, Zilpah, Bilhah and 12 boys and 1 daughter, leads to this event where the story of this family is told through what happens to Joseph. In this family where one child is played against the other and favoritism disrupts the balance. We shouldn’t be surprised that Jacob favors Joseph over rest of his children, because Joseph is most like him in dreaming dreams. Joseph is a sign of Jacob’s virility being sired in his old age like his grandpa Abraham did. His dad gave him a long robe with sleeves, that made his siblings hate him even more, like how Esau hated Jacob, speaking murderous threats. To make matters worse, Joseph became his father’s snitch against his brothers, like in the same way Isaac favored Esau or Rebekah favored Jacob. This holy family exhibit all of our flaws and triumphs. Human, broken, conniving, sensitive, gracious, passionate, good and loved by God. Connected through God’s DNA and called into relationship with God to be participants in God’s activities in the world. This family represents our potential for doing good and bad, for temptation and creative faithfulness, for struggling with sin’s consequences and excelling in imaginative possibilities of good. God values our relationship and sees good in us even when we think we are bad. There was an incident that happened in Shechem as Jacob and his family passed through from Paddan-aram to Canaan. Jacob’s daughter was accosted and raped. The perpetrator’s family was trying to make amends, but there is nothing you can do to erase defilement. So, two of her brothers took matters into their own hands and slaughtered all of the males at Shechem and plundered and enslaved the rest of the people. Jacob was rightly concerned when his boys took sheep out there to pastor so he sends Joseph out to tell him, how they are doing. But they didn’t stay in Shechem and moved on to Dothan, where Joseph finally caught up with them. They saw him coming in his bright, long sleeved Aloha shirt. “Here comes the ‘Dreamer’”. Name calling strips a person of their dignity. Labeling, stereotyping, racism and sexism means we don’t have treat a person how we would want to be treated or that we don’t have to take this person seriously. We use name calling to justify our unequal, inhuman treatment of others. We shoot the ‘enemy’, capital punishment is for the ‘murderers', we need protection from the ‘immigrant rapist’, there are boundaries to keep the ‘low life’s’ on their side, a disproportion number of criminals of ‘color’ are imprisoned, beware of the ‘gypsy’, we don’t have to listen the ‘stupid head’, the ‘foreigner’ just doesn’t understand how things are done here and the ‘different’ should go back from where they are from. Then they stripped him, incarcerated him with no water or food and sold him into slavery to fend on his own. They left him to his own faith. (pun intended) This is the story of how the people of God end up as slaves in Egypt. APPLICATION My gosh, what happened? Things seemed to be going along so well for Joseph and then all of this hidden animosity and fear rears its ugly head in jealousy, anger, retribution, incarceration and slavery. This is the family of blessing, promise, dreams and hope for the people of God. Where is our Sovereign God in all of this? How is God a part of this Telenovela? There is a little inkling of the movement of the Holy Spirit in Reuben and Judah as Joseph’s life is spared to be sold in slavery. Greed over murder was a better idea. The blessing upon this family is to be a blessing to all nations. We wonder how the Ishmaelites and the Edomites are being blessed by this family? The people of Shechem paid dearly. And still God has us dreaming God’s dreams for us. God can create through chaos, with us, and in us. Our primal feelings of fear, jealousy, insecurity, injustice, and selfishness, gives fire to our anger, fight, revenge, protest, and prejudice. But once we settle down and find some quiet, we can begin to think, to pray, to be calm, and not react to our feelings of outrage, but respond, strategize, gain a different perspective and listen to how God is leading. Our values of honesty, preservation of life, truth telling, love, forgiveness, healing, generous stewardship and sharing become our guides. We move from being a victim of circumstances, of evil, and of other people’s power, to becoming empowered to take matters into God’s hands. Although the world may bind us into its slavery, by its bigotry, into its stereotypes and classes, our spirits are free, our minds are free, and our hearts pump for God. Don’t act like a victim. When we encounter hardship, our actions can ensure that it will not last forever. At time we stop because we fear the pain we are going to experience. But in God’s embrace we have help in those painful situations. So, risk the pain and our hope in God can empower us to keep on going. Let us not forget that mixed race is the majority race in the United States and our Government must represent the majority’s interest and not just the interest of the privileged. So, fill out the 2020 Census. We did a good job voting in the Primary, vote in the General Election. CONCLUSION We like stories with happy endings. Next week our text will be the dramatic reconciliation of Joseph with his brothers. But this is by no means the end of the story. Our lives are like waves with ebbs and flows, the blessing in our lives is journeying with God, just as the Holy family shows us, that by journeying with God, their relationship with God grows. This is the blessing that Abraham and Sara’s family shares with all people, that you don’t have to be perfect to have God love you. God just does. You don’t have to have the perfect family for God to have promises for you, God wants to bless us. If we had to be perfect then nobody would get any promises. You don’t have to have your act together because while we were yet sinners God is working behind the scenes. God may not be mentions in this passage but God gets the credit for how things work out in the end. When our stories reach those peaks and valleys, our shepherd God walks with us, sustaining, protecting and leading to cool waters and green pastures. Joseph’s brothers sell him into slavery and leave him to his faith, his dreams, his hopes. Joseph's life has taken a drastic turn for the worst. But by no means is it absent of God or God’s help. Just as, when our lives have seemed to have taken a drastic turn for the worst, God is there as we are left to faith.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Pastor robbSermons Archives
May 2024
|