August 20, 2017 – Genesis 45:1-15
Genesis 45:1-15
God’s Intentions for Good
Lectionary 20A – August 20, 2017
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
While on holiday recently I was reminded of The Wizard of Oz,
which I read many years ago with my son Theo.
In the book, a schoolgirl from Kansas finds herself unwillingly placed in a land far from home
by a terrible cyclone.
There, she makes some new friends – a scarecrow, a tin woodman, and a lion.
She comes to care for them, has plenty of adventures, destroys not one but two wicked witches,
and ensures the safety of the land of Oz under a new just ruler: the scarecrow.
It is not all fun and games, though: Dorothy undergoes real hardship and experiences real fear,
and most of all she experiences real sadness at being separated from her Aunt Em and
Uncle Henry.
All she really wants is to get back home – and finally she does,
though not until she has undergone much mishap and disappointment.
The thing is: you know those shoes she’s been wearing from the beginning?
The shoes of the wicked witch of the East whose house Dorothy crushed?
It turns out those shoes are magic and could have transported her home at any point!
Really! But she didn’t know!
You and I might have been disappointed on learning such a thing and
realizing that a lot of difficulty could have been avoided.
Like: what a waste of time!
But – and here’s the thing – it turns out it hasn’t been quite such a waste of time.
When her friends learn that
the shoes could have taken Dorothy home at any point in the last 200 pages,
the Scarecrow exclaims: but then I should not have had my wonderful brains.
I might have passed my whole life in the farmer’s cornfield.
And the Tin Woodman says, And I should not have had my lovely heart.
I might have stood and rusted in the forest till the end of the world.
And the Lion says, And I should have lived a coward forever and no beast in
all the forest would have had a good word to say to me.
And so Dorothy responds: That is all true and I am glad that I was of use to these good friends.
(L. Frank Baum, The Wizard of Oz [London: Puffin, 2008], 185)
Part of the charm of the Wizard of Oz is that we realize that some good things have come out of
this terrible cyclone that has whisked Dorothy to Oz.
We readers are glad because we have been entertained.
Her friends are glad because they have received – or discovered that they already had –
the gifts of intelligence, and love, and courage.
The land of Oz is glad because they are now rid of two evil tyrants.
None of which would have happened had not a sinister cyclone carried Dorothy to Oz.
Joseph comes to a very similar conclusion today in his encounter with his brothers.
Years ago his brothers had sold him into slavery and told his father he was dead,
for they were jealous of Joseph’s status as their father Jacob’s favourite.
From his home in Canaan, Joseph is forcibly taken to Egypt,
like Dorothy who is forcibly whisked from home by a cyclone.
In Egypt, though, Joseph eventually rises to a position of prominence as
the captain of the guard’s household overseer.
Alas, he is accused of rape by the captain’s wife since he will not sleep with her and
so he is sent to prison.
There he continues to do what he can and eventually rises again,
this time in the service of the Pharaoh of all Egypt as the Prime Minister.
In this position he ensures that the Egyptians store up enough food during
seven years of plenty so they can withstand seven years of drought.
It is during this drought – which also effects his homeland of Canaan –
that Joseph’s brothers decide to make the trip to Egypt to see if someone will be
kind enough to sell them some food there so they will not starve.
And so they are brought before Joseph, their brother whom they sold, although –
and here is the catch – they do not know it is him, although he knows them at once!
After much conniving on Joseph’s part, he finally has his innocent brother Benjamin framed
for stealing Joseph’s silver cup.
Joseph tells his brothers that he will let them all go for this crime if they leave Benjamin behind
as a slave in Egypt.
And it is at this point we realize: Joseph is testing his brothers to see if they have changed!
Have they learned from and repented of what they did to him all those years ago?
Will they do it again?
Have they learned from and repented of all the anguish they have caused their father?
Well, it turns out: they have indeed changed in the intervening years.
Remember how it was Judah whose idea it was to sell Joseph in the first place?
Judah is now the one who steps forward and offers himself in place of his brother Benjamin,
for he realizes it would kill his father to lose another favourite son.
At this point, Joseph can no longer contain himself and reveals himself to be their brother.
It is a moment of reconciliation, and forgiveness, and pure grace that everything in the story
has been leading to.
And with great emotion, the brothers are reconciled.
It is then that Joseph gives us a theological lens through which we can view all that’s happened.
He says to his brothers: Do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold
me here: for God sent me before you to preserve life. . . , to preserve a remnant on earth,
and to keep alive for you many survivors.
God, it turns out, does not necessarily prevent bad things from happening.
But God at every point seek to redeem the evil that human beings do.
God seeks to turn the bad things we do and
the bad things that happen to us to a good Godly purpose.
Take a look at Joseph’s brothers: they do a terrible thing, but from that they eventually come to
discern the destructiveness of envy and hatred and instead come to
value repentance and compassion.
And what about Joseph himself? Despite the hardship he endures,
he himself rises to a position of prominence and trust in his new country.
From that position he is ultimately able to provide food and land for his family.
Even more: through his position and his gifts, he preserves Egypt itself from famine and death.
And because Joseph preserves Egypt so well, and there is such a store of food there,
the “whole world” ultimately benefits, for that is who comes to Egypt for food:
the whole world! (41:57)
In some ways, the moral of the whole story is that God turns the sinful actions of a few brothers into something that ultimately feeds the whole world.
It is easy to lose heart and lose our trust in a good and gracious and loving God when so many
difficult and hard things happen to us and to those around us.
The unexpected cyclones of life can be very hard on us,
and the actions of those around us can be cruel.
But here’s the thing: none of us can see the end results of the things that happen to us.
Dorothy could not have predicted what a blessing she would be when the cyclone lifted her up.
Joseph could not have predicted the benefits that would accrue from being sold into slavery.
None of us know how God will bring benefit to those around us from the things we undergo.
We only know that God can, and will.
Not that God causes the evil in the first place: in Genesis, it is clear that
it is the brothers who sell Joseph into slavery, not God.
But God can turn the evil to a good purpose –
that sums up the Gospel, the good news, in a nutshell pretty well.
As Joseph will say years later to his brothers: Even though you intended to harm me,
God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people. (50:20)
Honestly, I often don’t know why I end up in the situations I do – I often don’t see them coming.
Sometimes it is the unintended consequence of a decision and
sometimes it is the things people around me do that have profound consequences for me.
I usually can’t see how they will end.
But we have to trust that God can and will work through us to preserve life and to keep alive,
to be a ray of light in the darkness.
The places we find ourselves in that we’d rather not be can be places where we can bring life.
The sufferings we undergo that we’d rather not can be experiences that give us
deep compassion for and understanding of others who suffer.
The injustices we experience can give us a heart for all who experience injustice.
The challenges we face can be opportunities for growth and the disruptions we
experience in our relationships with others can be opportunities for reconciliation.
Like Dorothy’s friends, the struggles we endure can help us discover within ourselves the
intelligence, the love, and the courage we need to be participants in
God’s mission to love, bless, and save this whole world and every person in it.
God, it turns out, is a good steward of our experiences: no experience is wasted!
And that is a very heartening thought!
So: like the cowardly lion: be of good courage, and do not be afraid.
For God is working, through good and through ill, for good.
So together, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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