Sermon: "Joseph's God ~ Our God! (VBS)"

7th in the "Forgiveness: A Close Up" series.
Delivered July 18, 2010 by Rev. John Schmidt.
Sermon Text: Genesis 50:15-21

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(played a video/slideshow of VBS)

I mean, how many churches can you come to and get a tattoo during the week? You know? Yeah. I want to thank you as parents for entrusting your children to us for this week. It was a great week. I want to let you know that how important this week is to us. This is something we think about all year. As it gets closer, we start moving other things out the way so we can have the energy to do this. We gather together 150 plus volunteers to do this. People doing all kinds of things behind the scenes and things that are directly with the children.

And we do it because we love the children, and we want to offer a time that's fun for them. But also a time that they can learn, and that they can think on an appropriate level about the things of life and about the reality of God and about what their life purpose is all about. We try to focus on those sorts of things, and so we did that when we were together, and we had a great time.

And I want to let you know that I know that not just because I heard a lot of wonderful things. I was part of it as well. There was one spot in the week that they had a character called Hannu the Horrible, a guy who couldn't do anything right. And I'm a little disturbed that when they thought about casting for Hannu the Horrible, they thought about me and offered me the part. But we had a good time because Hannu learned that even though he was horrible at almost everything, there was one good thing he was good at, and that was hunting. So I got to show the kids how to do one of the games about hunting and had a great time.

And the focus of our time together was on the life of Joseph. And Joseph and his life gave us all kinds of opportunities to reflect on things that were important for kids, the fact that God gives us hope, God gives us wisdom, God gives us forgiveness, God gives us special abilities, God gives us a family. Those are all important things for children. But the life of Joseph also gives us some things to think about if we're grown up as well.

Joseph lived 4,000 years ago. He lived about 400 years before King Tut, King Tutankhamen. And he didn't live in Egypt, but he began his life in a little country near Egypt, the country we now call Israel. And these things in his life were things that happened inside of a family who was trying to live out their lives 4,000 years ago. He was part of a large family, had a number of brothers. And he was one of the younger ones. His family was shepherds. They had goats, camels, sheep. Fairly well off.

Fairly well off, large family, but we really wouldn't call them a healthy family, and I'll tell you why. One of the parents had a strong favoritism for Joseph and actually let it out. And so the other brothers grew up with some jealousy toward him, and that jealousy actually grew into hatred. Now it might not be an issue that is related to favoritism of a parent or anything, but all of us can relate to the fact that a family, even if it's fairly prosperous, even if things are going fine on one level, that inside there can be things that are going wrong.

There can be things that shouldn't have been said. We need to apologize for something. It's anger we need to put aside. There is forgiveness we need to offer other people. There is envy and resentment that we have to deal with inside of our families. So we can all relate to that. Looks good on the outside, but all kinds of turmoil on the inside.

Well I hope that your family didn't get as bad as Joseph's family got because the next thing that happens is that Joseph has a particularly bad day of letting everybody know how, you know, great his future would be. And the brothers respond to that by actually starting to think about killing him. That's a whole lot of drama for a family to hold. Ultimately they didn't decide to kill him, but they did sell him into slavery.

And so here is this family that's experienced this incredible trauma. They've done this horrible thing within their own ranks, and this guy, Joseph, is sent off to a country where he doesn't know the language, doesn't know the culture, and he has lost his freedom. It's a terrible moment. He ends up serving in a rich man's household, a guy we learn to call Potiphar.

Joseph has a lot of gifts. And so in that moment, Joseph starts to show so much quality that Potiphar allows him to manage the entire household so that even though Joseph is a slave, in that role, he becomes a very respected person and accrues a certain amount of material things in that role. Now if this were a fairy tale, maybe we'd end it here because, you know, this guy has had this terrible thing happen in his family. He has been sold as a slave. But because he is a good, solid guy, he has worked himself into the point where he is now respected and secure, and we can end the story there.

But the problem is, it's not a fairy tale. It's an account of a real life just thousands of years ago. And real life isn't that clean. Real life doesn't end that way. And so there is more to the story. What happens is is that I told you that Joseph was a very gifted man, a good manager, a guy with great business sense. But what I didn't tell you is that he is also a very handsome guy. And what happens next in Joseph's life looks like it should be in an episode of Desperate Housewives and not in the Bible because there is a lonely wife in this family. And she sees Joseph and ultimately makes a proposition to him, and Joseph has a choice.

And at that moment in Joseph's life, still a young man, he makes the choice to do what is right. And he says, "No, I'll have nothing to do with it. That's wrong before God, and that's wrong in terms of my loyalty to Potiphar." Now since this is a religious story, it's in the Bible, we'd expect that when we turn the next page, it says, "Great job, Joseph! You've passed the test. You now have your freedom. You now have riches. You now... Your life will be different forever."

And he'd get all kinds... Isn't that the way we expect life to work? You do something right, something right ought to happen to you. I mean, that's the way I want it to be. But I also want it to be when I do something wrong, something bad doesn't happen to me. But that's a personal thing.

But what really happens that would happen in a nice children's story, but this is the grown up version of Joseph. He does what is right. And we turn the page, and we find the wife accusing him of attacking her. And he is put into prison. Life isn't fair. Have you discovered that? That there isn't an immediate cause and effect that sometimes you do good things, sometimes you make the right choices, and it still doesn't work out right. And sometimes people who do the wrong thing seem to have everything going for them.

Joseph finds himself in prison. I hate that when that happens. Joseph spends time in prison, gets to know other people there. And one of the things they discover about him in one particular episode is that he has this capacity given by God to interpret dreams. In most of the world and in most of human history, people have taken certain dreams that they had very seriously. And Joseph interprets some of those dreams. Everybody understands that he has a special gift, special wisdom. And when they leave prison, and their term in prison is over, they say, "Joseph, we'll remember you." But they don't.

Life isn't fair. And Joseph languishes in prison. It wasn't until Pharaoh actually has a dream that no one else can interpret that one of the people near Pharaoh inside of the court remembers Joseph and says, "Oh yeah. I remember that guy. He could interpret dreams." And they let Pharaoh know about it, and Pharaoh calls Joseph to come before him. Pharaoh shares his dream.

Joseph gives a reply and says, "What your dream means, Pharaoh, is that there is going to be seven years of famine that come into Egypt. In fact, it will come into all the countries around us. And if you don't specifically prepare for this, people will die." Pharaoh not only understands that this is the right interpretation, but he sees the practical wisdom of Joseph and offers to Joseph, "You are clearly a wise man. I am now giving you the whole economy part of my kingdom so that you can help us prepare for this terrible tragedy."

Joseph has gone from prison to palace in almost one step. Now the story is like the story we'd expect it to be. A good guy is finally getting some recognition. But think of all the years where he couldn't see that. And certainly something like this is far beyond his own control. But this not only helps Joseph. Joseph is put into this position because by him being there, tens of thousands of people's lives are saved. There is a purpose for it.

And it's not only the people of Egypt who are saved, but ultimately Joseph is able to save the lives of his own family because his family is still living in that other country that we now call Israel. They see that Egypt is the one place where there is still food where food is running out in every other place. And so they send part of the family to go there and to petition the powers that be to give them some help. They end up meeting Joseph himself. Joseph recognizes them. They don't recognize Joseph.

And that's not that unusual of thing to happen because you have to remember that he was a young teenager, mid-years. He is now a full-grown man, and he is dressed like an Egyptian. He might have a bald head. He might actually even be wearing makeup because Egyptians wore makeup at certain times in their history. So they don't see him. He is speaking through an interpreter. And they don't even understand that he understands what they're saying to one another.

What would you do in a moment like that? Let's think for a moment if it were a movie, if it were a Schwarzenegger movie or a Stallone movie, if they were still able to stand up straight at their age now, this would be the moment when he'd be able to get back at them. All of this suffering, sold into slavery, hearing your own brothers talk about killing you, going to prison for a whole part of your life, all of this because of those brothers.

What would you do? What do you do with smaller things that happen in your family, smaller slights? What do you do when you have to make a sacrifice because of someone else's decision? What do you do when you hear a lie, when somebody gets angry to you? How do you respond to that?

What surprises us in this story is that Joseph, even though he gives them a hard time, and believe me, for a short period of time, he gives them a very hard time, makes them jump through a few hoops. But ultimately behind it all, he can't wait to show love to his family, to let them know that they are forgiven, and to protect them. Why? What motivates a person with all those hurts to handle relationships like that?

That brings us to the last episode in this story between Joseph and his family, and that's the part I'd like to read to us. It comes at the end of the book of Genesis. In the Bibles that you'll find underneath the seat in front of you, it's on page 50. But we'll also put it up on the screen today. Genesis, chapter 50, and I'm going to begin at verse 15, the last time we see them interacting together. It's the last time before the final moment when he is dying, and he asks... But that's much later in his life.

"When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, "What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?' So they sent word to Joseph, saying, 'Your father left these instructions before he died: "This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly." Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father.' When their message came to him, Joseph wept."

"His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. 'We are your slaves,' they said. But Joseph said to them, 'Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don't be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.' And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them."

Joseph's reason, his motivation, comes out in this final few moments. And the first thing that happens is when he hears this, he weeps because they still don't believe what's on his heart because it's so unusual in terms of what they did to him. And they're not entirely past manipulating things because there is no evidence that their father actually gave these instructions. They're trying to cover for themselves. They figure that maybe Joseph has just been holding back long enough for the father to die out of respect for his father, and then he was going to come back at them.

And so they figure, "Well at least let... Dad's dying wish, Joseph, was to protect us. Maybe that will protect us." What Joseph says to them is that, "You meant this for harm." He doesn't wash over it. That's the way we try to deal with problems sometimes. We try to convince ourselves, "Yes, it hurt and all, but maybe it wasn't that important." And we try to cope with it that way. Joseph doesn't whitewash the situation. He doesn't tell them, "You know, I really deserved it, you know, because I was a jerk." "What you did was wrong. You meant it for harm."

But what's in the center of Joseph's understanding is that God meant it for good. God intended it for the good that was now being accomplished in his life, the protecting of the lives of thousands and thousands of people. Something he couldn't see all along, but he could see now. Now all the threads are coming together. But what held him together before was that Joseph expected good from God because Joseph believed God was good.

Because he couldn't see that in all of his situations. When he made the right decision, when he stood for integrity, and then he gets thrown into jail, if he were just looking at his circumstances, at that point, Joseph would no longer have been a follower of God. What held him together was that despite the circumstances he saw, he believed that God would do good because God was good. And that's the message we have as a Christian community because we look at a life, Jesus, who did what was good, who believed better, who was more righteous than anyone else, a perfect Person, God in flesh. And yet he ends up life on a Cross. But God meant it for the saving of many.

God uses that life and the suffering of that life to pay for things that we deserve, to pay for things that we owe. And so when we look back at Joseph's life as Christians, we say, "We see a pattern here." God often and most particularly in Jesus has allowed the suffering of someone to be used for the good of many. And that's our message that Jesus is the reason we know that God is good because he offers a forgiveness that we don't deserve just like Joseph was able to offer his brothers a forgiveness that they did not deserve.

Now Joseph had to understand all of these things on his own. Well some of you might not be where Joseph was in terms of believing in God or trusting in God or trusting in God quite the same way. Man, there is an intensity there that convicts me. But if you have some questions, if you're seeking some answers, I want to let you know that unlike Joseph, you don't have to ask those questions alone. We're a whole community on a journey, a whole community that's experiencing things with God. And we seek to understand God better together, to experience that, to learn, and to uphold each other.

And so if you have some questions, I want to just let you know that we'd like to be a place where you can ask those questions in a safe way. We have groups that get together around life problems and support each other. We have some groups that get together around the Bible and try to understand that better. We gather for times like this where we worship, and we also learn a little bit. We try to offer things for each life stage from things for the smallest children through high school and college. But it's not because we're all in the same place. But we do all believe that there might be answers.

In fact, many of us feel like we really have some of the most important ones falling into place, even though we still have plenty of other questions. And at the core of it is the understanding that God is good. Therefore, what we experience if we entrust ourselves to God can be experienced ultimately with good at the end. We're not naive enough to believe that it always happens that way for people because we can push God away. But if we don't push God away, even the moments that we suffer can have a redemptive side. You don't have to go through it alone. Maybe we can help as we seek God together. Join us as we journey with God.

Let's pray: God, we just hold before you whatever questions, whatever needs we have. I just want to thank you for Joseph and for his capacity to believe in you and trust you despite great difficulty. And now thousands of years later, help us to learn enough, to respond enough, that we too can be gracious people as he was. For we ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.

© 2010, Rev. John Schmidt
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org