SCRIPTURE: Genesis 45:1-15
TEXT:15And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him. THEME: God works through our circumstance to bring about God’s good. INTRODUCTION In the ‘good’ Garden of Eden, the fruit had been picked, bites have been taken and the dynamics of our relationship with God, the dynamics of our relationship with each other and the dynamics of our relationship with creation had been changed. The devastation happened so quickly and now, in our humanity, we are looking for someone to blame. Just like in the garden, “I wasn’t me, it was my partner,” “it wasn’t me it was the serpent.” No one fessed up and took responsibility for how they might have contributed towards the destruction. Blame will not stop the hurt, blame will not stop the displacement, the sorrow, or bring the dead back to life. Why do we think that if we can blame someone (other than ourselves) that we will feel better? To absolve ourselves from guilt. To find an enemy to bring down and destroy. To funnel our energy and focus away from our sorrow, grief, and the feelings we harbor. We do this over and over again, we look for blame, then move towards efforts of revenge. We fail to do the contemplative work of grieving, or figuring out what we are feeling, or admit responsibility of how we may have contributed to this situation. Relationships are destroyed in the process. SCRIPTURE When last we saw Joseph, his dreams were shattered. Sold by his brothers into slavery, an Egyptian official, Potiphar, buys him. Joseph is successful in the house of his master, a Captain of the guard, head of Pharaoh’s ‘secret service.’ Joseph is a system thinker. When he sees things, he immediately is able to see systems of how things work in relationship with each other. He is an organizer and knows how to get along with others. When he communicates his ideas, others appreciate his insights and values his observations. He lacks wisdom and is a bit naive, but he will learn with experience and God’s help. His dad Jacob saw this in him and favored him over his brothers. Potiphar’s wife saw this in Joseph, and found this attractive in this handsome young man. This landed Joseph in jail, being falsely accused. Isn’t it interesting when the perpetrator accuses someone else, of the exact crime they should be accused of, as a deflection? Our focus is diverted away from what we really should be paying attention to and this diversion has Joseph end up in jail. While in Jail, he organizes things there, interprets a few dreams and has developed quite a few trusted relationships. Long story short, Joseph ends up second to Pharaoh and manages Egypt through a terrible drought and famine. This famine is also affecting his family as they have traveled to Egypt to see if they can buy food here. This brings us up to speed with the passage for today, where after toying with his brothers, Joseph finally takes off his Egyptian mask to reveal who he really is. 3b “I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?” There is dismay, distress, and the hand of God, that preserves, persists, and calls us to participate in God’s mission of salvation. We can use who we are, our position, what resources we available to us, in a time such as this. But this is only this part of the story, the next part is to get his father Jacob to Egypt, and reconcile the brothers with kisses, weeping and talking. APPLICATION When we look back with eyes of faith, we can see the hand of God. That although we think we were on our own, God helped us navigate where we are. This is important because the story is not finished yet. This is for assurances so we can call and depend upon God in the situation we are currently in and benefit from God’s help and guidance as we move along the journey into the future. We don’t have to wait until later to appreciate God’s guidance, leading, wisdom, protection, provision as we activity live our lives. How does God help us to reconcile and reunite with those we have been estranged from? God is all about relationships. We must always move towards reconciliation and never revenge because how we treat each other is important to God. We are protecting ourselves from feeling grief and lost right now because there is so much to do. Navigating through the maze of paperwork and services takes persistent vigilance, but when we feel safe enough to let our guard down, we may find space enough to feel our sorrow and cry. Who is to blame for the fire in Lahaina? Is the electric company to blame for the freakishly strong winds? Is the homeless encampment to blame for power lines that swayed in the force of those winds and broke off. Is an arson to blame for the brush that grew in the place of groomed fields of sugar cane or pineapple? Who do we sue and for what? Higher electricity bills for everyone? We need to move away from a culture that punishes and move towards a culture that takes responsibility for our part for how we got to where we are, and build relationships, forgive offenses, and create productive solutions and communities. Joseph gave up his right to hurt his brothers as they hurt them and was able to see the works of God continuing the promise of Abraham, through Isaac, His dad Jacob and now through him. The community and the preservation of family was more important than getting even or destroying those who have hurt him in the past. CONCLUSION God is more about relationships than about righteousness. As humans we will always be in relationships of hurt, anger, discontent, frustration, and jealousy. If we can admit how we have contributed to this situation, then we can take responsibility for our actions and change what we did, our responses, our perception and apologize for that, to bring about some peace to our relations. Our Abrahamic family carried a lot of distress and dismay, because of how they treated each other. Sometimes even running for their lives from each other. But when they have the courage to have those uncomfortable conversations, they were able to talk and move on towards reconciliation, companionship, support, affection and caring in their relationship. Last week I went walking in the park. Around the field and the parking lot were 4 angry looking guys. We had to walk pass them to continue on our walk. One of the guys approached me about my walking sticks. I asked about the Lacrosse sticks the other guy had. Later he told me they had a run in because they wanted to exercise on the field but they did not have permission and was asked to leave. They were disappointed, angry, but were really nice guys. My first impression, just by how they were postering was “abunai!” Dangerous, as I watched one of our groups leave early through the parking lot. But after talking with them I understood why they were angry and my reaction towards them changed. We have to be willing to discover the hurt in people’s live so we can respond to them with understanding. And as people of faith, we will be able to help them see how God was a part of their story all along the way.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Pastor robbSermons Archives
May 2024
|