I know, I know, it's been a while. <blush>

But I need somewhere to record my sermons, so I'll just have to get back into it!

This week I spoke about the Joseph cycle in Genesis and the wonderful story of the Cannanite woman in Matthew. This followed on from the beginning of the Joseph story last week, so I may as well post both. Observe.

Sermon 10-8-14

Joseph part one

No one I know comes from a perfect family. And while no family I know is exactly like Joseph’s, which is probably just as well seeing as we tend to frown on polygamy these days, every family is weakened by the things that weakened Joseph’s: generational dysfunction, parents working out their unresolved issues in the lives of their children, and by love unevenly—even unfairly—apportioned.

In Genesis 37 we are introduced to Joseph as the favourite son of his father Jacob (or Israel). This is in no minor issue because Joseph is the son of Rachel, his father’s favourite wife. Thus the story opens with a theme that is already familiar to us – family division and dissention. It is not long before tension arises between Joseph and his brothers. He gives an ill report of them to their father. His father in turn is said to love him more than the others and favours him with a special coat (one with long sleeves, not multi-coloured as tradition has it). This leads to hatred between the siblings. There are of course similarities with earlier stories in Genesis, especially the divisions between Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau (Genesis 25 and 27), all of which are traced back to parental favouritism. The brothers are further enraged when Joseph has dreams in which the whole family bows down to him. So the stage is set for the dramatic events to follow.

When Joseph speaks about his dreams to his family, they are threatened by his words. Certainly Joseph was not exactly thoughtful in his presentation – to me it sounds as if he is deliberately rubbing his brother’s faces in his ultimate power. Perhaps this is how he has been taught to relate through his father. Perhaps their reaction, of anger and fear, is only to be expected under the circumstances of their family and upbringing.

Regardless of why it happens, when these sons of Israel are given the opportunity to rid the world of these dreams, they seize the opportunity, saying “, ‘Here comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; then we shall say that a wild animal has devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams.’”

Let us see what will become of his dreams.

I think we all have dreams. We all have an idea, a plan, a vision of what our lives are going to be like. It is a sad state when our dreams disappear. Sometimes they do. Because we know there is evil, and there is disaster, and things happen that shouldn’t. This has been true since the fall. And at those times it is so hard to find God at work, so hard to find our dreams in the ruins of our lives and our hopes.

This evil seems far too easy to find. We are living in a country which is turning away people who have come to us in need – men, women and children whose only crime is to have a dream of a better life. We hear every day of the hundreds of innocent lives taken every day on the gaza strip – of bombs blowing away places of safety, of families ripped apart forever. As a society, where do we see God? How can we possibly reconcile the pain and destruction of the world with a loving, creative father, with a God who is tormented by our anguish and hurt by our cries?

This is where the easy answers fail. This is where we find out in whom our faith really lies. Because if we give in too easily to our desire for a neat and ordered world, then we see God as either cruel or indifferent. Cruel enough to punish God’s people with bombs and fire and destruction, or indifferent enough to stand aside and watch as we destroy ourselves.

There is another way. It is not as safe as a God who has predestined everything, a puppet master pulling our strings. It doesn’t allow us to rest assured in the knowledge that if there IS a God, he doesn’t care enough about his creation to intercede.

We worship a God who works good in and through the evil of the world.

We may ask why God allowed Joseph’s brothers to plan to have him killed? Why did he allow a family situation that was so clearly dysfunctional?  Why does God does not stop the bombs in their tracks – stop the cancer from taking the one we love – stop brother’s and sister’s from turning against each other with violence and hate. That is not the way God directs events. He does not prevent people from going astray or making their mistakes. This is true, whether we are speaking of misreading a road map, or trying to murder your brother. God does not interfere with your decisions. He will not make you smarter or more virtuous than you are. That is entirely your own business, and you have to take the responsibility for your actions.

But here is the gospel, the good news found in the Joseph cycle: the dream of God prevails over the plans of human beings. Maybe not always in the forms God intended at first, and there may be long and trying times before it comes about, and it may come about in ways that we never expect, but the dream of God, God’s desire for the world and God’s people is still being achieved.  God is still at work in the lives of God’s people in order that the world might be restored.  We might unexpectedly find ourselves in Egypt along the way, but that’s all right.  God can work with that.

This is in no way to allow us to be relieved of responsibility for our own behaviour and decision. It is not enough to act in selfish and inhumane ways with the excuse of “the end justifies the means’, no matter what our political leaders may say. There is no room in God’s world for cruelty disguised as necessity. 

When we are in the pit, when we have been betrayed and left for dead by those who should love us the most, we can rest assured that throughout it all, God’s dream for us can not and will not be contained. 

We can continue to dream.