Sunday, August 16, 2020

Genesis 45:1-15 - Where is God?

 

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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