Sunday Sermon Manuscript for September 13

Genesis 50:15–21

What Should We Fix Our Eyes On?

Sojourners in a Strange Land

1. Dramas about family conflict are a recurring theme. Stories among siblings, between mothers- and daughters-in-law, sisters-in-law, and in-laws are the most familiar experiences of the lives we live — clichéd, perhaps, and yet stories that keep drawing our interest all the same.

2. In this respect, Genesis holds many bundles of stories. If we were to erase "God!" and "faith!" and simply read the Bible, we would find it filled with tales that can genuinely fascinate us with their many story-bundles.

3. In fact, John Steinbeck's East of Eden and Yi Mun-yol's Son of Man could both be called novels that draw on biblical stories and reinterpret them in a modern key.

4. Personally, I think Joseph's story in today's passage is the most fascinating, the one able to branch into the most varied stories. In particular, as we read Joseph's story, the sudden turn to the account of Judah and Tamar is shocking — and it makes us ask: why would God reveal such a story within the history of salvation?

5. In this way, the Bible is not read peacefully; and it is within that uneven reading of Scripture that we examine which stories and lessons we are still re-enacting in our own lives. That the Bible — read by countless generations over thousands of years — still speaks to us today in so many ways fills me with wonder.

6. If, through today's passage, we confirm that this complicated Genesis story is brought to its close in reconciliation and forgiveness, then I believe that the end of our own lives will likewise be drawn into such reconciliation and forgiveness — and that our lives, each and every one of yours, are being built up within this world of God's providence.

7. Today's passage is the final part of Joseph's story. Because of a severe famine in the land of Canaan, Joseph's brothers come down to Egypt to obtain food. And it does not stop at simply getting food; through the text we see that Joseph's family migrated to Egypt.

8. Since the story shows only Joseph and his family, we might understand it as one family's story; but in fact the famine in Canaan can serve as evidence that whole peoples made a great migration for the sake of survival — and such things did happen often in the ancient Near East.

9. Joseph's story also leads us to gather unexpected archaeological evidence. The dress and system of Egyptian soldiers, the ranks, and the responsibilities of officials help us understand the state system of Egypt at that time. The story of the chief cupbearer and the chief baker, who appear as such dramatic figures, reflects the reality that in every ancient Near Eastern nation these were the closest confidants the kings kept at hand; and Nehemiah — whom we know well, who returned from exile to rebuild the temple and the walls — was in fact the cupbearer of the Persian king.

10. The story of Joseph's brothers, who left for Egypt to make a living, or to live out another kind of life, overlaps strikingly with our own image as immigrants living in a strange land. And it makes me wonder: was the Yeolin Church community, built within that same reality, not established here as God's sturdy fence around such a vulnerable migrant community?

Fear Invents Things (The Brothers, 50:15–18)

11. The story in which the rest of the brothers and the family assumed they would settle smoothly in Egypt, following the son who had risen to high office, takes a turn when their father Jacob dies, and in Joseph's brothers the old guilt revives as fear. "What if Joseph still hates us…" (50:15). This reaction of the brothers is a very real fear.

12. Just as Esau, too, only after his father Isaac's death, laid plans to kill Jacob, they experience the sturdy fence their father had maintained vanishing in an instant, and through "death" and "memory" they are driven into the greatest fear one can imagine.

13. There are things that commonly happen to people gripped by fear. First they invent something false; then they try to manipulate; and then they prostrate themselves. In verse 16, in their fear, the brothers appear to have fabricated their father's dying wish — that is, to escape their fear, there is a strong possibility that they invented a final instruction their father never left. And then, in verse 18, they fall down saying, "We are your slaves" (50:18).

14. When anxiety and fear take hold of our lives, we fall into a similar pattern. Rather than trusting God and holding fast to his word, we try to control every situation through our own calculations, our justifications, and our inventions. Fear, in other words, makes us look at people instead of at God.

15. It means that the eyes of Joseph's brothers were fixed not on God, but on Joseph.

When We Lift Our Eyes, We See Providence (Joseph, 50:19–20)

16. Looking at the story as a whole, Joseph certainly had every right to rage against his brothers. From being sold into slavery at seventeen to becoming prime minister at thirty, the suffering and pain Joseph endured over those thirty years were beyond words, and within it he must have burned with anger at the deceit and betrayal he had felt.

17. And yet, Joseph decisively hands the seat of judgment over to God. In verse 19 he says, "Am I in the place of God?" (50:19). In truth, Joseph's anger toward his brothers had not been resolved easily. When we watch the scene where Joseph — whose brothers did not know he was Egypt's prime minister — conceals his identity and tests them, we glimpse his most human anger, and a loss and wound so deep he did not know what to do with it.

18. And yet, in spite of it all, Joseph seems to have come to see the larger plan God had prepared, beyond his personal grievance. The Hebrew verb for forgiveness in today's passage is nasa, a verb that carries the meaning "to lift up and take away" sin.

19. So although we usually think of forgiveness as an emotional matter, forgiveness in fact carries the meaning of a decision to lift up a burden. Here we can clearly see the difference between the brothers and Joseph. The brothers saw Joseph, whom they thought held their fate in his hands; but Joseph was looking at God.

20. At the same moment, we can see two different gazes. In verse 20 comes Joseph's confession of the providence of God that he beheld: "You intended to harm me, but God turned it into good."

Providence Is Not Received but Lived Out

21. God's providence is not revealed through success and prosperity. Does it, then, show up clearly in suffering, or in a life that simply will not come together? Not that either. Far from sensing that God is with us in the hours we face each day, we are flooded with times when we strongly suspect he is not there at all. But when time passes and the moment comes, we become able to confess that all of it was within God's providence.

22. Looking at Joseph's life — he was thrown into a pit by his brothers, and the life he barely survived led to prison, and finally led to the palace. Moment by moment, it must have been hard to discover God's providence. Resentment and a sense of betrayal gripped his life, and he was barely living it out at all.

23. But after time had passed, and when the moment came to understand that time, Joseph confesses this: "God sent me ahead of you to save lives" (cf. 45:5).

24. God's providence is not something manufactured to offer cheap comfort; it is a confession that only one who has passed through suffering can make, when a deep understanding of life has been born in them. God's providence is not something grasped with the head; it is something experienced as it is lived out with one's whole life.

25. As we read the book of Job, we come upon Job's friends invoking God's providence in order to rebuke him. To Job, who faced real suffering and hardship, his friends were beating him with the club of a mistaken lecture called "God's providence."

26. We must remember that a confession is not something someone else can make on our behalf; it is something we can make only when we ourselves have lived out that life. Then are we simply to sit still? No. Here Joseph shows us the best model. In a process grueling enough to wear anyone down — one that seemed relentlessly to say "just give up and die" — what Joseph never let go of was that he always revered God.

27. Joseph shows us that we can meet God's providence not by sitting and waiting for it, but by living out the life given to us with all our might. He interpreted dreams, managed the grain, tested his brothers, and finally brought about reconciliation and fed his whole family.

28. Even forgiveness can be called a decision he himself made — and a labor. That all of this was possible for Joseph was not because Joseph was special, but because at every moment he devoted his strength to living out his own life to the fullest and to revering God.

29. Just as we infer the historical facts of that era from within biblical stories, we too must learn to read God's hand within the events of our lives — to honor it, and to expect it. And we must carry an expectation and a confession about where and how he will lead us. That is the posture toward providence that Joseph teaches us. Joseph is telling us that what his brothers meant for harm, God turned into good. Let us hold firmly to the weight of this confession, and learn to expect what God will turn to good for us as well.

Is Yeolin Church Being Built Up Within God's Providence Right Now?

30. Lately you have probably noticed me whining because of the reality we are facing together. Since I am busy and rushed, experiencing and laboring to solve things that others don't even have to deal with, of course such thoughts come. Why do I have to do what others don't?

31. It feels unfair, unequal — as though I alone am struggling. The Oakland building sale had been so frustrating for so long, and then it was resolved in a single stroke. In the end, an Annual Conference staff member who hadn't been doing the work solved it with one phone call, under a bit of pressure from here and there.

32. On one hand, this too makes me angry. If it could be done this easily, why wasn't it done? But looking back, everything came to light clearly. We did this work with all our might, and that best effort is what ultimately moved people and got them to act.

33. I do think that if we had simply sat still, hoping it would somehow work out, perhaps it still would have; but that effort, and that anxious urgency, are what caused the work that needed doing to be done more clearly.

34. When I think about Trinity Chapel, which broke down before the semester began, it too feels frustrating, as though the flow of ministry is being blocked. This year, for the first time, we did not do tabling at the school — and yet I am not that anxious. Rather than fearing that we failed to do what we ought to have done, our efforts to worship even so, to recover once again, seem to carry more meaning and to bring our vision into sharper focus.

35. Because conversations and responses are still slow, it is frustrating; but even so, the work moves forward, and we are able to worship there. This alone is great grace.

36. The matter of bringing in a minister, too, held an anxiety in one corner of my heart, because of the realistic bleakness and the difficulties we have been experiencing. I had told you I was angry at someone's stubbornness, or at how slowly things were being handled; but in the end the visa was approved, an interview date is being set, and it seems he will soon be here.

37. Experiences like this will surely fill the days ahead — for me, for you, for the whole Yeolin Church community. Will we receive them as anxiety? Or will we strive to discern the providence of God at work in their midst? This is what we must be able to discern.

38. Through this experience, I long for Yeolin Church to be built up as an even more mature community of faith. We may still, in our anxiety, be all too human — bound by the order and rationality that people have set up — but our church community must, in spite of it all, be able to confess the hand of God at work, the providence of God.

39. The brothers saw Joseph; Joseph saw God. On what, and on whom, will we set our eyes today? Let us move from the place of inventing and controlling out of fear, to the place of lifting our eyes to honor providence, to expect it, and to live it out. And if, in your life, you feel wronged, afraid, or overwhelmed by loss, may you and I be people who live on this earth in the assurance that God turns even those very things into good.

40. The Lord is still at work, and he has given us the calling to bear that fruit. May you and I firmly build up Yeolin Church as a community that worships with all its might, that fellowships, breaks bread, shares the word, and prays.