The
promise was lost. God’s commitment to restore creation was denied. The
very hope of the world was gone.
Long
before God made a promise. After the creation, after humanity took life
into its own hands and turned away from God choosing to go its own way the
world, originally created as a garden of peace, justice, and love, the
very haven of God’s “shalom,” was transformed into a barren wasteland of
injustice, violence, and war. But God was not willing to abandon this
creation of love to its final destruction at the hands of the created.
God reached out and initiated again a relationship of love with a man
called Abraham and a woman called Sarah. To them God promised to restore
creation. In this family God chose to start all over again. God was not
willing to lose creation to human selfishness, arrogance, greed, and
possessiveness. God chose this family to be heirs of the promise,
promising that their descendants will number as the grains of sand beside
the sea, to lead them to a land flowing with milk and honey, and to bless
the whole world through them. No, God was not going to give up on
creation. God chose to start all over again.
The men in
this story are the sons of Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham. They are
the hope of the world. These are the heirs of the promise. In this story
we catch a glimpse of how this great enterprise of God is going. God
started all over again with their great grandparents. So how are their
great grandchildren doing? How would you describe them as you hear their
story this morning? The text says there was no “shalom” between them—no
peace. They’re jealous, selfish, arrogant, greedy, and possessive. They
take their own younger brother, almost kill him, throw him in a pit, sell
him off to slavery, and (as the story goes on to relate) lie to their
father about it bringing false evidence that he is dead. These are heirs
of the promise? These are they through whom all the nations of the world
will be blessed? In this family God restores “shalom?” God started all
over again with them?
There is
simply no other way to understand or interpret this story at this point in
its telling. The promise is lost. God’s commitment to restore creation
is stopped in its tracks. The world has indeed lost all hope. It’s all
over and you are left to wonder what in the world God can possibly do now.
Remember
this chapter in the story. Remember it because this is the part of the
story with which you and I are probably most familiar. I say that because
there are so many times in our lives when we feel exactly like this. Our
dreams become disillusioned. Parents don’t understand. Children
disappoint us. Concerns for health worry us. Violence and death are
fostered in the name of religion. Our nation goes to war. From time to
time we look around in our world, in our community, in our church, in our
homes and wonder, “Where’s the peace? Where is the ‘shalom’? This is not
at all what I was promised.”
But there
is the rest of the story. This is the part of the story we may remember
but it is the part of the story with which you and I are not really very
familiar. That’s why the church insists that this story be told again and
again. The story we know but its truth is still so elusive to us.
What
happens to Joseph after they took him to
Egypt
? He is sold into slavery in Pharoah’s
court. As an interpreter of dreams he gets Pharoah’s attention. Pharoah
has been having nightmares and desperately wants to understand what they
mean. Two dreams particularly haunted him. In one dream he saw seven
healthy, sleek, fat cows come up out of the
Nile
river and graze on the bank. Then seven
ugly, sickly, thin cows came up out of the
Nile
after them and ate up the seven healthy
cows. This dream was followed by the dream of seven plump ears of grain
followed by seven blighted ears that swallowed up the healthy ones.
Pharoah sent to Joseph for an interpretation. Joseph identified the seven
healthy cows and grain as seven years of fabulous harvest followed by
seven years of famine represented by the seven sickly cows and blighted
grain. Joseph further interpreted that Pharoah should choose someone to
take charge of the kingdom’s storehouse to collect enough harvest during
the good seven years so that they may survive the coming seven years of
famine. Taking Joseph’s advice, Pharoah took his signet ring and put it
on Joseph’s finger, dressed him in fine linen, put a gold chain around his
neck, and had him ride in the chariot of the nation’s second-in-command to
take charge of the kingdom’s storehouse. By Joseph’s planning the world
is saved from the famine by the plenty stored in
Egypt
under his authority.
Unless you
remember the rest of the story you are left with the image of divided and
jealous greed. It appeared that all was lost. The promise is ended.
God’s commitment was broken. The hope of restoration of creation was
denied. But God never gives up. By the grace of God this lowly peasant
son of a goat herder rises to the heights of authority in the most
powerful nation of the time. By his hand the world is saved. By his hand
his family is delivered from certain death, for they, too, come to
Egypt
and he finds them a place in the kingdom.
You may well remember
the rest of the story but do you hear its truth? In their one act of
treachery the grandsons of Abraham had put an end to the promise. There
is absolutely no way God can use these pitiful people, one sold as a slave
and the rest conniving conspirators, to save the world. With them God had
started all over again. With them it appeared that God had utterly
failed.
But in the
end the world is saved. In the end the son, grandsons, and great
grandsons survive. How did it happen? The only way Joseph was ever even
in the position to save his family and the world was by the very treachery
of those in whom there was no “shalom”! If he had not been sold as a
slave Pharoah would never have even known of him. Joseph could not
understand it at first, but much later on, after the death of his father
Jacob when his brothers came to him seeking forgiveness for their crime,
Joseph interpreted it to his brothers what he had come to
understand:
Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God? Even though you
intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve
a numerous people, as he is doing today. So have no fear.
Genesis 50:19-21a
The
elusive truth of the story is this: God used the act intended to end the
promise to fulfill it. There is simply no other way to look at it: God
can even use sin to save.
On
September 11 almost 4 years ago a terrible act of evil shook this nation
to its core. This act was intended to divide, dishearthen, and destroy
community. But what happened in
New York City
that is known for its aloof, detached, and
impersonal humanity? Tragedy did not divide but united humanity in its
very shadow as persons reached out to one another in love and concern.
That act did not succeed in its intention to shatter the confidence and
unity of a nation but instead became the very act that brought forth
generosity, solidarity, and even hope.
Many of
you know I am a graduate of
Duke
Divinity
School
. That makes me a rabid college basketball
fan. Few experiences in my life have brought me more joy than the
national college basketball championship won by my alma mater in 2002.
One of the stars of that team was Jason Williams. He was the first round
draft pick (second overall—behind #1
Yao
Ming!) of the Chicago Bulls National
Basketball Association team. After playing one season he broke the
rules. On
June 13, 2003 , in
violation of his NBA contract, he rode his brand new Yamaha red and black
motorcycle to dinner, lost control, smashed into a utility pole, severing
a nerve in his left leg, fracturing his pelvis, and tearing three of his
four main ligaments on his left knee. He was immobilized for eight weeks
and was still on crutches six months after the accident. He has had a
half-dozen surgeries and has just lately started running full speed for
the first time in two years. He has been recently under the tutelage of
Michael Jordan’s long time personal trainer who hopes to rehabilitate him
to full playing level by this October. What has Jason Williams said about
his own selfish oversight and its subsequent consequences?
Everyone makes mistakes and that happened to me. But you
know what? I wouldn’t change it for the world. People can call
me an idiot all they want, but I’m glad it happened to me
because it’s humbled me as a person and it’s really made me
pay attention to the people who are important to me in my life.
The
Roanoke
Times,
July 22, 2005 , Sports
p. (1), 3
God can
use anything, even the very circumstances intended to deny the promise, to
keep the promise. Do you believe that? Some might say if you believe
that you might as well believe you can walk on water. Well…that’s exactly
what Jesus invited Peter to do on the
Sea of Galilee
that day. He started out but what
happened? He fell in. Why? Little faith. Little faith. Now neither I
nor the Gospel Lesson this morning will suggest to you something so
simplistic as to imply if you have enough faith you can walk on water.
But I believe the Scripture does bring an indictment against you and me
this morning that our faith is just too little. We always from time to
time find ourselves in the midst of life when it appears for all that we
can see that the promise of God is not for me, not for us. We experience
so many ways in our lives where we have made so many mistakes, or the
circumstances of life are such that there is simply no way we can possibly
see how God can ever honor the divine commitment of peace, justice, and
love when we find ourselves overwhelmed by hatred, stress, injustice,
violence, and war. This is not the shalom we were promised.
But God
never gives up. That’s the message of the cross. God never gives up.
God always finds a way. God can even use acts, circumstances, conditions,
and situations to fulfill the very promise they were intended to deny.
God can use the very things that are designed and planned to hold off and
defeat the promise in its very fulfillment.
When you
come to the table today you will partake of signs of blood and body…the
evidence of defeat and failure on a Friday that became the very signs of
fulfillment and triumph on Sunday. At this table we remember and
celebrate that God used the ultimate sin to save us. Take these gifts of
God today and remember the story. Eat this bread and drink from this cup
and know its truth. God can use sin to save! Receive today God’s shalom
that nothing can ever deny.
