We’ve
all experienced bad things over the course of our lives. I am mean, as far as I can tell, you all seem
to be alive right now and I am pretty sure all of us who appear to be alive
right now, would agree that what we are all going through, as a nation, as a
world is “pretty” bad. Our lives are
being lived out in response to a global pandemic which is going on
simultaneously alongside of so many national events around racial injustice, as
well international tragedies, such as the explosion in Beirut last week. Not to mention the personal hardships many of
us are experiencing in our own lives concurrently with all these larger events. And I can’t stand up here and tell you I have
the answers to the great questions of sin and evil in this world. The fact of
the matter is bad things happen to good people, to bad people, to people. And
no matter who you are its not great.
As
we sit at this particular moment in history trying to comprehend and wrap our
minds around the tragic results of sin an evil at work in our world, as we are
experiencing them, what I do have for you this morning is a familiar
story. A story in which reminds us all
God is at work, always at work even in the darkest times, through it all bringing
wholeness, healing and redemption to even the most tragic of
circumstances.
As
we have weaved our way through the events of the book of Genesis, we have come
to point where the promise which God made to Abraham has come to rest on Jacob
and his twelve sons. Many of us here have
a sibling or two or four or more, but how would you like having ten or eleven brothers
and a handful of sisters to boot?
Especially if one if one of your youngest brothers is anything like
Joesph. How shall we describe Joseph. . . a spoiled, tattle tale, know it all,
not only believes he is better than everyone else, but has these “God given”
dreams to back up his beliefs? Yeah I think that about covers it.
One
of the first things Genesis tells us about Joseph is after going into the field
to work with his brothers he goes back to his Dad and gives a bad report about
what they are doing. So he is clearly a
tattle-tale. But it also tells us that Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his
other sons, so much so that he gives Joseph this famous/infamous coat. A long sleeved decorated, multicolored coat,
you know the kind of coat which is completely unsuitable to wear while doing
the exact kind of work his brothers were doing out in the fields which Joseph
told their father they were doing incorrectly. Yeah, the coat was a big hit
among the all the siblings.
And
then of course there were all of Joseph’s dreams, the kind of dreams which were
clearly visions from God. Dreams which seemed to indicated that Joseph would
somehow be elevated above his brothers, even his mother and his father and that
they would all bow down to him someday. And of course Joseph made sure everybody knew all
about it.
All
that brought us to the passage we had before us last week in which Jacob sent Joseph
off to check on his older brothers. So when Joseph arrived they threw him in a
hole and were about to leave him there when they saw a caravan of traders and
decided to make a bit of profit and sold him into slavery instead of leaving
him to die. They then went home and told
their Dad Joseph was eaten by a wild animal and that was that.
Here’s
Joseph. He’s seventeen years old. Never been away from home, and now he’s on
his way to Egypt. What else could
possibly go wrong? The situation he is in right now is pretty hopeless. But the cool thing is, God is there with
Joseph through it all. God is there in
the pit, there on the long journey to Egypt, and there with Joseph all through
he rest of his journey.
When
Joseph arrives in Egypt, he finds his way to a house that belongs to Pharaoh’s
captain, Potiphar. It was there in
Potiphar’s household that Joseph discovers that he as gift for organization and
administration. It wasn’t long before
Joseph climbed the ranks, scratched his way to the top, and was the chief
servant in Potiphar’s house. He was basically
in charge of everything that happened in the household. We can only assume this is the hand of God,
working to bring light into this dark chapter in Joseph’s life.
Things
go pretty well for a while. Potiphar was
a decent sort of fellow, but his wife, not so much. She noticed that Joseph was a handsome, and
she extended special invitation to him, which Joseph politely declined. But she simply would not take, “No” for an
answer. One day when Potiphar’s wife was
making her advances, and Joseph was politely declining, by trying to get far,
far away from her as fast as he could, she managed to get a hold of his jacket.
And Joseph, much like Peter Rabbit when he got the buttons of his coat caught
in Mr. MecGregor’s fence, he slipped out of the coat and left it behind. And much like
Peter Rabbit, it was leaving the coat behind which got him in a heap of
trouble, because the coat gave Potiphar’s wife a way to “get back” at him for
refusing her offer. She figured she would teach him a lesson. So, she told everyone that he came into her
room, took off his jacket, and when she called for help he ran away. So, it’s the captain’s wife and her word
against Joseph’s. And I think we all can
guess whose word is more credible.
Joseph
is brought up on charges of accosting Potiphar’s wife. I would like to think that we would all be
shocked that in a situation of she said, he said, the result is the person with
all the privilege and all the power is believed and the foreigner who has
neither, is not. I would also like to think that we would then all be further
surprised to hear that the consequences of all this life in prison.
God
is with Joseph in the midst of his family conflicts, God is with him in the
hole, God is with him in slavery, and God is with him even in prison. God knew that Joseph didn’t deserve to be
sold into slavery. Sure he deserved to
taken down a notch for his arrogance. But he did not deserve to be sold into slavery.
He was the victim some people doing some pretty evil things. Getting accused of trying to have sex with
Potiphar’s wife was also the outcome of the sins of others in and on his life. But God is there with him in and through all
of this. In the middle of the difficult things going on, God can step in and
gently, slowly work things for the good.
Joseph was sitting
in prison but even in prison God is there and a funny thing happened. The guards started to like Joseph. So, they started giving him responsibility,
and let him help out around the prison, and pretty soon, Joseph was in charge
of all the other prisoners. He’s at the
top of the totem pole again.
Let us recap,
Joseph gets sold into slavery but then he uses his mad skills to raise himself
up to the very best position he could possibly have while still being a slave.
Then he gets sent to prison on false charges. But while there he manages to
work himself up to the best possible position he can have while still being in
prison. So, yeah, things are not great, but they are just about as good as they
can possibly be.
So as the head guy
in the prison he makes some friends and his friends start to have strange
dreams. And Joseph is like, hey I am good at dreams, I use to have them all the
time. So he interprets their dreams and it turns out that he is correct. And
thus gets a reputation as a dream interpreter.
And then Pharaoh
starts having some strange dreams. He
feels like the dreams are trying to tell him something but he just can’t figure
it out. That is when he is told that there is this guy in prison who is super
good a interpreting dreams. So they
bring in Joseph. Pharaoh tells him about
the dreams and Joseph tells him exactly what they mean.
Joseph tells Pharaoh
that there’s going to be seven years of the best and most crops Egypt has ever
seen. After that, there’s going to be
seven years of famine. And then Joseph
uses the analytical and organizational skills he has acquired and honed over
the last several years and gives Pharaoh a plan. There’s only one thing to
do. Save up for seven years, put as much
food and grain away in the store houses as possible and then ride out the
famine. And Pharaoh’ is like, “Yes, that
is exactly what we are going to do.” Get his guy an office and get this guy
some staff, whatever it is he needs. Everyone help this guy make this thing
happen.” So Pharaoh promotes Joseph from
prison to be the head of all that’s going on in Egypt. And that, my friends, is how Joseph becomes Pharaoh’s
right hand man.
So now Joseph is pretty
much the vice president of Egypt, one of the strongest countries in the known
world. And funny things happen when you
find yourself on top. People come around
looking for favors.
It is the kind of
thing siblings do all the time. And you know what, that is exactly what
Joseph’s brothers do. I mean they don’t know its Joseph but they come to Egypt
looking for some food to help their family make it through the famine. It seems
this famine extends beyond the borders of Egypt.
So here Joseph is,
second only to Pharaoh and along come his brothers looking for a hand out. If I
were him, I would hate that… especially if they happened to have beat me up,
thrown me in a hole, and sold me into slavery.
Like I said, they didn’t know it was Joseph but there they are begging him
for some food.
This famine is
pretty bad and people are starving everywhere and rumor gets around that there
is food in Egypt and pharaoh has this guy in charge of distributing it. And so
Joseph’s brothers travel to Egypt in hope to get some of this food. They come
to the guy in charge, and its Joseph, except they don’t recognize him. He looks
like an Egyptian, he’s dressed like and Egyptian and he speaks Egyptian, he
walks like and Egyptian, so they assume, well of course he is Egyptian. And all
the while Joseph is over here speaking through an interpreter, pretending he
doesn’t speak plain Hebrew. He harasses his brothers for a bit, trying to
ascertain their character, to see if they have grown and changed in 13 years,
to see if they are they willing to cast off their little brother Benjamin as
quickly and easily as they were willing to sell him off. Here is where
understanding Hebrew, while pretending to only understand Egyptian pays off,
because he gets to over hear his brothers as they discuss how they can’t break
their father’s heart and how they have to take Benjamin home or the heartache
might possibly kill their father and they can’t do that after what they had
done to him because of what they had done to Joseph. It is shortly after that
that Joseph can’t stand it anymore, he sends everyone else away and breaks down
confesses to them who he is and cries on their shoulders, reconciling with them
in a very similar fashion to how Esau reconciled with their father, oh so many
years ago.
And then he tells
them how God has been at work all this time, bringing good out of the harm they
had done. In fact the goodness God is able to work in this situation benefits
all of them in the end, because not only do they get food and make it through
the famine but the whole family is raised
up and benefits from Joseph’s elevated position in Egypt. In fact if Joseph
had not been where he was at this time, they all could have died and everyone
in the whole region would have suffered.
The end of the
story is about God’s redemption. Some
people did some sinful, awful, evil things.
But God is able to work in even the most desperate situations to bring
wholeness, healing and redemption. God is
great at taking things that are broken, hurting, suffering, grieving and
lifting them up and making them whole.
God has a way of taking a life battered by sin and turning it into
something that can stand as a testament to God’s glory. Joseph suffered the effects of other people’s
sin in his life. It wasn’t his
fault. And though Joseph said that God
was at work directing him to Egypt, I don’t think that he was saying that God
made his brothers do this sinful thing, so that God could make other good
things happen. I don’t think that Joseph
believes that God made Potiphar’s wife do what she did. But God had a purpose for Joseph, and it was
a purpose that couldn’t be defeated by someone’s sins. God had it planned that Joseph would be at
the head of his household. God’s plan
was for Joseph to be a leader, and God was going to do it. The evil things that happen to us can really
throw a monkey wrench into our plans, but God is so big, so powerful and so
wonderful that God can do anything with even the most battered, bruised, and
broken situations in our lives. Whether it be our own sins, our own failings,
our own poor choices or the affects the brokenness and sinfulness of others or
the broken sinful systems under which we live, God is always at work to right
the wrongs, to set things right, to bring beauty where there otherwise might
only seem to be ugliness. This is the redemptive work of God in our lives and
in our world.
Things are not
great. Our world is a pretty a bleak place right now. People we know have been
sick, or are sick. People are literally dying. Meanwhile others are arguing
over whether or not to wear a mask, which the Drs and the Scientists keep
telling us will greatly reduce the number of people who will catch this thing
and therefore die. At the same time People in our country are struggling,
hurting, their voices have gone unheard for too long. They are crying out for
things to change. Little boys get chased by a man with a knife and when someone
calls the cops to come help them, they get cuffed and put in the back of police
cruiser because the color the of their
skin causes others to assume they are the aggressors and not the victims. And
as if things can’t get worse, there is an explosion in Beirut, people die, and
thousands of others have their lives turned upside down. And I am here today to say, God can take all
of that, and I mean all of it and infuse it with goodness, and grace. God can
mend the broken systems and bring healing to neighborhoods, to cities, to
countries and to lives. And it is not that God will do this someday. God was
not simply at work in this final scene here in Joseph’s life, God is at work,
and will continue to be at work. God is always at work. Even in the pit, even
in prison, even when you are the brothers standing asking a favor of the very
person you hurt the most and even when you are Joseph faced with those who hurt
you the most. God is at work mending relationships, bringing wholeness and
healing, righting wrongs. God’s redemption is at work right now, today bringing
about forgiveness, wholeness, healing, mending what is broken. As the people of
God we need to be like Joseph and see God at work, give glory to the God who is
at work and allow ourselves to be used by the God who is at work so that we can
be a part of the work God is doing and will continue to do in our world, right
now, today and in the future.
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