Sermon: “God Works For Good”
September 27, 2020 Rev. Betsy Perkins
Scripture passage: Genesis 37, 50:15-21; Romans 8:28-39 First Baptist Church, Delavan WI
What a crazy, dysfunctional family! It doesn’t just start with Jacob’s family; he is a part of a generational pattern of dysfunction. Family discord has been the rule rather than the exception! The father’s favoritism for the youngest started back with Abraham, who favored his second son Isaac over Ishmael. And then Isaac had twin boys and he favored the second-born Jacob over Esau. And now we see Jacob doing the same thing, favoring young Joseph over his older brothers.
But there is more dysfunction than simply a father playing favorites. A couple weeks ago I participated in a training class offered online by the American Baptist Women’s organization. It was titled, “Love Should Never Hurt”, about supporting those affected by domestic abuse and violence, led by Tara Aday of Safe Haven Ministries in Grand Rapids, Michigan. With that presentation and discussion still on my mind, I heard Joseph’s story a little differently this time round. I heard the ways that love hurt; I heard the pain and dysfunction, and it was uncomfortable. I had to wrestle with this story, and wrestle with what to say about this story.
One of the tools we used in the training was a Power & Control Wheel, so I noticed the various kinds of abuse, of manipulation for power and control, that could be found in this one bible story. First, we have the father who loves one child more than the others and rubs it in by giving that child special gifts making his favoritism apparent to the whole family, gifts that he withholds from the other children. Jacob solicits Joseph’s participation in this disparity by sending him out to check up on the older brothers and bring back reports to Dad. Whether Jacob is being intentionally unfair and manipulative, or if he is just unaware of good parenting practices, I’ll let you decide.
Then there’s young Joseph, set up in part by his father, but behaving immaturely and arrogantly himself. I wonder, is he even aware of his privilege and power? My guess is that it is not unlike the privilege and power that we benefit from by being white in America. It’s not till you really listen to the experiences of those without that power and privilege that you become aware of the differences, of the unfair practices and the lack of benefits and access. Joseph seems to lack any empathy for how his brothers might be feeling as he runs back to daddy with bad reports, whether they were legitimate reports, or generated in fear of his brothers’ retaliation, or just spoiled whininess – again, I’ll let you decide.
Then Joseph tells them of his dreams, and his “I have a dream” speech has nothing to do with equal love and equal justice one day. It is a dream of his own rise to power and greatness over his brothers, over his father and mother. The dream may be God given, it may serve later on as an anchor for hope for Joseph, but that doesn’t mean he should have bragged. Basically, at seventeen, Joseph is a jerk.
Yet even jerks to do deserve to be thrown into a pit to die or to be sold into slavery. There’s a tendency to justify violence when we feel the other person deserves it. We explain away the horror of police shooting a man 7 times in the back or kneeling on his neck till he dies, because the victim had an outstanding warrant or a criminal record. Do we follow the justice of Judah and his brothers, or do we have a system of justice in which each person has a right to their day in court with a jury of their peers? Joseph was a jerk, at seventeen, but he did not deserve to be a victim of violence and abuse! He did not deserve to be exploited as a victim of human trafficking, sold for 20 bucks. No one deserves to be the victim of abusive siblings, parents, spouse or significant others. No one. It’s evil. It’s wrong.
If you have been hurt by someone, if you have experienced abuse or domestic violence by someone seeking to gain power and control over you, if you have been exploited for someone else’s gain, then hear this again: no one deserves to be abused! No one. It is evil. It is wrong.
Unfortunately, the Christian community and Christian leaders have not always given a clear message that abuse and domestic violence is unacceptable, that it is evil. It’s uncomfortable to deal with and we have the tendency to try to rush to resolve the pain and sadness by justifying it in some way. As I’ve already mentioned some justify it by pointing fingers. The brothers justify their violence against Joseph because their father has been unfair, because Joseph is irritating, because they stand to lose their father’s affection and inheritance. The eldest brother, Rueben, seems to have good intentions, but rather than stopping the abuse he caves to what is easiest and best for him. Did you notice what he said when he discovers Joseph is gone, “What am I going to do?” His concern is for himself, not his brother! Ruben wanted to come out looking like the hero, to swoop in, save the day and preserve his privilege as the eldest son.
We can see through the brothers’ selfish justifications of violence. But there is another way to rush to resolve the pain and sadness, to try to find justification. I see it in the way the assigned reading for today starts in Genesis 37 and then jumps to the verses from Genesis 50 that are printed on the back of the bulletin. We rush to the end of the story. We rush through Joseph’s enslavement, his years of unfair imprisonment on false charges. We rush to the final outcome as if the ends justify the means, as if evil behavior can be excused if things simply turn out good in the end.
I cannot believe that. I don’t think Joseph’s brothers believe it either, because deep down their consciences still bother them. Despite the way Joseph has transcended the abuse and imprisonment, despite the fact that many people have been saved from starvation in a time of famine, despite the good that has come, the brothers still carry guilt about what they did. They say (vs.15), “What if Joseph bears a grudge against us, and wants to pay us back seriously for all of the terrible things we did to him?” They try to resolve it by once again resorting to lies and manipulation. We can be quite sure what they say isn’t true because 2 full chapters prior to this record long speeches by Jacob on his death bed during which, if he had wanted to urge Joseph to forgive his brothers’ sins and misdeeds, he could have. He did not. Because forgiveness cannot be demanded by the abuser or forced by the one responsible for the pain, it must be offered freely, genuinely from the heart of the victim.
When we have the opportunity to support those who have been the victims of abuse or discrimination, we must take the time to grieve with them the injustice, the pain, the wrongness of their suffering, before rushing to urge forgiveness. Just because American slavery provided the free labor to build this nation and paved the way for our prosperity today, does not excuse it. Just because a woman who endured domestic violence uses her experience to start a ministry to help other victims, does not make what she suffered okay. Evil behavior cannot be excused just because things turn out good in the end; it must be grieved and lamented first. Joseph and his brothers weep together, only then does Joseph speaks the words of reassurance.
There is one more error we can make as we rush to resolve the discomfort of injustice and suffering, to find justification for the violence, and that is to assign responsibility to God. Joseph says to his brothers (vs.20), “You planned something bad for me, but God produced something good from it.” The Apostle Paul who suffered beatings and imprisonment in his work of preaching Jesus as Savior, said a similar thing in Romans 8:28: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
I believe this is true. I believe God does work good out of all things, even out of bad things, even when others intend evil and harm. I believe this is a hope and promise we can cling to in dark times. But please notice it is not the abusers who make these statements, or poeple around counseling them, it is the victims who have come to those conclusions themselves as they look back at their lives. Joseph’s and Paul’s statements have been misused at times, and have even been used to suggest that God caused the evil actions to take place. Is that true? Did God plan for bad things to happen to Joseph, or to Paul, or to you? Is violence okay if God makes it work out for good? Does that mean a victim should endure or excuse abuse, because God is able to bring good out of a bad situation?
No! No, no and no! God did not cause Joseph’s brothers to want to kill him or to act in violence. God doesn’t plan for people to get hurt. That would be contrary to the God of love and compassion, the God of faithful promises that we know from the Bible and through Jesus. God does not plan it, but God is present and God is at work in this world that is shaped by human actions – both good and evil. Again and again throughout Joseph’s story, we are told that “the Lord was with Joseph”. And because of God’s presence with him, Joseph in the end is able to break the cycle of violence in his family, at least for a time.
It was God’s commitment to be with us in the brokenness of this world that led God to become the person of Jesus, the person of Emmanuel/God With Us, to be the target of discrimination himself, to be scorned and abused, to be betrayed by a brother and friend, to suffer the violence and brutality of armed guards, and be unjustly killed. Jesus did not avoid the discomfort, or rush to resolve it or justify it. He wept for the hatred in this world. And then Jesus Himself became the way that the cycle of violence will, one day, be broken forever. Oh, we long for that day!
In the stories of Joseph and of Jesus, we see God’s mercy to those who cause harm, we see God’s grace to those who suffer. We see God’s commitment, God’s promise, to work toward good in all things. As Paul goes on to say in Romans 8, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loves us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Closing Song: “O Love That Will Not Let Me Go”
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