11th Sunday after Pentecost - Proper 15A August 16, 2020
Genesis 45:1-15, Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28 Panzer Liturgical Service, Stuttgart
Where is God When It Hurts? -- Philip YanceyWhen Bad Things Happen to Good People – Harold Kushner.
Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I’ve Loved – Kate Bowler.
These are some of my favorite books on the question of theodicy, which asks why God allows for evil and suffering to exist in the world. I can’t tell you the number of times this question comes up. On 9/11, my phone rang off the hook with people asking, “Where was God?” and “what do I say to my kids about how this kind of thing could happen” With people sitting in hospital waiting rooms, or in funeral homes, or living rooms, folks asking if the cancer, or miscarriage, or rebellious family member was a penalty from some past sin or mistake.
Does God have a plan for our lives? Isn’t that the question we ask?
We live in a world that sees cause and effect. If this… then that. It’s easy to be on board with God’s plan when life is going well. But when it’s not, many people will give up, wondering why we would love or trust a God who allows bad things to happen, often catapulting us on to a very different course. That’s the story we’ve been following in Genesis.
Last week we heard the beginning of the Joseph saga, about his brothers’ jealousy, and this week we work our way to the conclusion of the story. The power of today’s lesson builds on what happened in between last week and this week’s readings. Joseph becomes a slave in the house of Pharaoh, is accused of unspeakable things with Potiphar’s wife, ends up in prison, and redeems himself by correctly interpreting Pharaoh’s dream, predicting a famine of seven years. With Joseph’s help, Pharaoh is able to store up enough food for Egypt to survive. Meanwhile, Joseph’s family is suffering and when they reach the end of their rope, they go to Egypt to beg for assistance to keep their people from starving to death.
When they arrive in Egypt and see the governor who would make the decision on whether to help them or not, they do not recognize him, and before we think Joseph too saintly, he does mess with them a little, accusing them of spying and theft, sending them home with a small payload of wheat, and having them return with the youngest brother before revealing his true identity.
Make no mistake, the brothers were at their wit’s end – Joseph set up an elaborate scheme which feels a little like payback when you read the story in one sitting. But ultimately, Joseph can no longer keep who he is a secret, and he reveals himself as the brother they threw into the pit. Verse 3 tells us, ‘And the brothers were dismayed…’
That doesn’t mean that there isn’t justice. While Joseph does not cast blame upon his brothers, eliminating the possibility of a grudge, he is also quick to give credit elsewhere. In the end, God is the hero of the story.
This takes us back to our beginning questions. If it was God who brought Joseph to Egypt, does that automatically pardon the brothers for their terrible misdeeds? Does this story show that everything really does happen for a reason, that God has some sort of master plan? Some might read Joseph’s statement that way, but I see him pointing in a different direction.
First, he reminds his brothers (and the readers) that while they are forgiven, they don’t get to claim credit for where Joseph is today – no opportunity for the brothers to say, “aren’t you glad we pushed you in that pit?” No, Joseph in no way thanks his brother. But he does forgive them, putting their treacherous behavior in the past.
Second, Joseph’s answer does indicate that God does have a plan – but it’s not a plan that charts every breath or step. No, God’s plan from the beginning is a plan of redemption, of partnership with God. The bible is a record of that plan, of how God’s people mess it up, and how God adapts and adjusts, fulfilling the plan of redemption in new and different ways. From the beginning, Joseph knew that God had a plan. And that plan came to pass even when people worked hard to interrupt it at many points along the way.
This story shows, as most of them do, that God is more powerful than our sins. God is able to overcome them and redeem them, in spite of the choices we make. But if we trust God, and like Joseph, are willing to forgive and see God’s presence, even in our difficulties, God gets what God wants, despite our interference along the way. We should never be so bold as to claim that our actions were part of the plan, or that our sins were necessary evils along the way. Rather, they were just something that God redeemed while healing the world.
The book of Genesis is not a story about how God set a plan in motion and saw it through on God’s timeline. The book starts out with God’s original plan, where the people walk side-by-side with God in the Garden of Eden. God didn’t close the garden because there was something better outside – no, we did that to ourselves, letting sin corrupt our lives and our relationship with God.
The good news is that in Genesis and throughout the biblical story, we see how God takes those mistakes and sinful actions and redeem them, in spite of all the roadblocks we throw up along the way. God is not a master puppeteer, controlling all of our movements and moments to make a specific outcome a reality. If anything, the scripture and history show how God is able to roll with the punches – to say, ‘Ok, there are consequences to that bad choice, but I’m not going to abandon you.’ If we say that everything happens for a reason or that the bad stuff is all a part of God’s plan, then we excuse the part we play in our own failures and our own successes.
Instead of saying that everything happens for a reason, we might instead say that God redeems everything in spite of us. Who knows what would have happened if the brothers had not sold Joseph into slavery? They thought the worst thing in the world would be to kneel before Joseph and they compounded their mistakes to make sure that didn’t happen. They tried to prevent Joseph’s dream from coming true, but in the end, God took the sins of the brothers, the lies of Potiphar’s wife, Joseph’s time in prison, and redeemed them so that God’s ultimate will – for salvation and reconciliation – could be achieved.
I think a lot of people are worried that it lessens the sovereignty of God if we say that things don’t always happen for a reason. In reality, Joseph proves to us how persistent and powerful God really is. Sin may be a temporary roadblock, but ultimately it cannot upend God’s real plan to bring us all back into relationship with God’s own self. The sins of the brothers should have separated them from God’s blessing for their egregious behavior. Instead, we see an amazing display of mercy that God pours out on the family, allowing them a prominent place in the eventual formation of the Kingdom of Israel. If nothing else, this story reminds us that whenever sin tries to intervene, all it succeeds in doing is amplifying how mighty God really is.
I worked really hard not to preach on the Canaanite woman from Matthew, but I think that she does teach us an important lesson. We often focus on the negatives in that passage. When I asked if there were any changes people wanted to make in our liturgy this summer, many people, including me, were happy to see the prayer of humble access go – for time considerations, of course.
Seriously, this prayer echoes a theology of Last Supper rather than Holy Eucharist, of sacrifice over thanksgiving. People were told to come to the table with fear and trembling. The liturgy instructed them to not come to the table unless they believed and understood and fully contemplated the severe nature of Christ’s sacrifice for us. It was as if the liturgy were saying, “Jesus died for us and coming to this table is a somber and sacred business. Only come if your serious and a little bit scared. Or you’ll be in big trouble.”
Too many times we behave as if we deserve everything… better jobs, bigger cars and houses, more important reputations. The Canaanite woman’s story reminds us that we deserve nothing but God’s condemnation. But God has given us what we don’t deserve; life, choices, and God’s presence even when things are hard. And he gave us a Savior who was willing to die so that we could live… a Savior who didn’t expect anything in return, except our belief in God’s goodness and our faith that Jesus was the most faithful conduit to God’s grace. God had a plan.
The Gentile woman provides a sharp contrast to the Pharisees and scribes who seemed determined to cause problems for Jesus, as well as the many Jews who rejected Him as the Messiah. This woman, a representative of all people who believe, recognizes Jesus as the Lord who has mercy, who exorcises the demons of our lives and who, through His actions, invites all people to God's table.
With love as the motivator of our actions, we are brought closer to God’s presence, even at the risk of being rejected. This woman realized that a day spent under Jesus’ table was infinitely preferable to a lifetime spent in the courts of an earthly king to trying to measure up to the status quo. That kind of love is precious, and usually born of pain and need so deep that it can be felt at a glance.
Love God. Love others. Love redeems. That’s the plan.
As we close, hear the words from the Prayer of Humble Access… hear them from beginning to end, and receive with joy the message of hope they bring.
Let us pray:
We do not presume to come to this your table, O merciful Lord,
trusting in our own righteousness,
but in your abundant and great mercies.
We are not worthy so much as to gather up
the crumbs under your table;
but you are the same Lord
whose character is always to have mercy.
Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord,
so to eat the flesh of your dear Son Jesus Christ,
and to drink his blood,
that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body,
and our souls washed through his most precious blood,
and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.
Roger Nam, August 16, 2020
https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=4547
Beth Tanner, August 20, 2017
https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3368
Alan Stanton, Pulpit Resource, Volume 48, No. 3, Year A
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