“Messed Up” – sermon for August 10, 2014
Genesis 37: 1-4, 12-28 Jacob settled in the land of Canaan. This is the story of the family of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was shepherding the flock with his brothers; he was a helper to the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives; and Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he had made him a long robe with sleeves. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all of them, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him.
Now his brothers went to pasture their father’s flock near Shechum. And Israel said to Joseph, “Are not your brothers pasturing the flock at Shechum? Come, I will send you to them.” Joseph answered, “Here I am.” So Jacob said to him, “Go now, see if it is well with your brothers and with the flock; and bring word back to me.” So Joseph went after his brothers, and found them at Dothan. They saw him from a distance, and before he came near to them, they conspired to kill him. They said to one another, “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.” But when Reuben heard it, he delivered him out of their hands, saying, “Let us not take his life.” Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood; throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but lay no hand on him” —that he might rescue him out of their hand and restore him to his father.
So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the long robe with sleeves that he wore; and they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it. Then they sat down to eat; and looking up they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels on their way to Egypt. Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and not lay our hands on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.” And his brothers agreed. When some Midianite traders passed by, they drew Joseph up, lifting him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. And they took Joseph to Egypt.
Genesis 45: 1-28 Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, “Send everyone away from me.” So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it. Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?” But his brothers could not answer him, so dismayed were they at his presence. Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come closer to me.” And they came closer. He said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, ‘Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not delay. You shall settle in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children, as well as your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. I will provide for you there—since there are five more years of famine to come—so that you and your household, and all that you have, will not come to poverty.’ And now your eyes and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see that it is my own mouth that speaks to you. You must tell my father how greatly I am honored in Egypt, and all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here.” Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, while Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.
Matthew 15: 21-28 Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.
“Messed Up” – sermon for August 10, 2014
And the drama of the ancestors continues. These stories that have been told through the millenia, first orally and then in writing, are so fascinating to me in the way they don’t shy from the shadow sides of people. I suppose just going on personal experience I shouldn’t be surprised. My dad is a great story teller, and he told us not just of the hardships his relatives endured back in Newfoundland, their courage and grit in coming to the U.S., but their follies also – an uncle who was a rum-runner, the grandfather who had a reputation for his drinking. He regaled us with stories of the trouble he caused his own mother as well. And I loved those stories especially. They made me feel more connected to my father – he had been a kid who got in trouble too. So maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that the bad-boy behavior of Jacob’s sons is put right out there, for all the generations to know. And then we even have a story of Jesus acting not very Christ-like – calling the Canaanite woman a dog, acting from a sense of scarcity, as if by healing a foreign child there will be less of him for the children of Israel. This from a man who fed well over 5000 people with just 5 loaves and 2 fishes. That had been his divine side, but in today’s reading he is all too human.
What is it about us humans that we so often do the wrong thing and say the wrong thing? How is it that brothers could conceive of a plan first to kill then to sell a brother? How is it that a father would be so blind or foolish to set one son up for this level of hatred by openly favoring him and then asking him to tattle? How is it that the closest followers of Jesus, who have seen him bless and heal all kinds of people on the edge, who have seen him walk on water and feed thousands, could be so threatened by one Canaanite woman that they have to try to drive her away? How is it that people can justify slavery, sex trafficking, allowing people to die rather than provide medical treatment or food or protection. The bible tells us stories of all these kinds of things, as does the newspaper.
I was reading my Christian Century magazine, skimming through it quick when a highlighted sentence jumped out at me: “Is there any chance at all that humans will not sin?” The article is on the notion of original sin, and is called “Why we mess things up.” The subheading is “sin is real, but not original.” The author, Charles Hefling, dissects the story of the so-called original sin – the disobedience of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden – and the doctrine that it points to – that we all come into the world as sinners – not-so-innocent babies. He suggests we step away from the idea that we all carry the burden of guilt because of what Adam and Eve did, but face the observable fact, as he says, fairly obvious and fairly indisputable, that there is a human propensity to mess things up. He’s talking not just about the big wrongs like slavery or murder, and not just the clumsy, accidental screw ups, but about the ways we break promises, or cheat; the way we hurt our relationships through unkindness or neglect, the way we hoard or gossip. We mess things up for others, and we mess things up for ourselves. Leaving Adam and Eve out of it, don’t we still have to wonder who is responsible for this tendency, and what can be done about it?
Did God create us this way? I mean, isn’t our tendency to do the wrong thing something that distinguishes us from the divine, human nature versus divine nature? Can we be judged and/or condemned for being human? Does that seem right? I might be getting a little off track from the scripture passages but what struck me was my all-too-human propensity to judge the mistakes or sins of others, seeing them as so much larger than my own. Israel and his son’s, the disciples, even Jesus! And there is something about these stories, the movement of Jesus’ heart from closed to open, the perspective of Joseph who reframed his brothers’ evil actions as God’s chance to work good through them – they spoke to me of this theme. It really is striking how deeply flawed are the people in the bible. Adam and Eve were lightweights with their disobedience, their lousy little taste of fruit. Even Noah, the only righteous man God found worth keeping alive, was getting drunk and cursing his own son not long after the water ebbed away. I mean really!
All these stories are pointing us to something. But what? Is the point that we are all lowly sinners, worms, who should be sitting in sackcloth and ashes? Should guilt have a stronghold on us? But again, if this is the way we are made, then we really can’t help it and I don’t think guilt is appropriate. We know it doesn’t make sense to be mad at a baby for not being able to walk or talk or do the dishes. If we can’t possibly get everything right, why should we feel bad about not doing so?
Now Hefling notes that in any situation where we have to choose of one course of action over another, one right and one wrong, there has to be the possibility of choosing right. That means we do not have to mess up. However, the probability that we will always make the right choice is pretty low, really quite negligible. The thing is, our choices are never made with a clean slate, never made free of influence of the world around us, nor of our previous choices. We get in habits of thinking and behaving and speaking that may start as ignorance, maybe even an innocent mistake, but that build on themselves. The sons of Jacob couldn’t make a clean choice out in Shechum to welcome Joseph lovingly because they’d justified their anger and jealousy. Jacob was in the habit of seeing Joseph as more important than his brothers, had come to see him as a tool to be used in keeping tabs on those bad boys. Even Jesus had gotten into a habit of thinking that his mission was to tend to the covenant people. And as all the former smokers know, changing habits is really, really difficult. And we have not only our own habits to contend with, but the habits of our communities, our cultures, our world, past and present. The forces of sin are powerful within and around us.
For me, this is one of the reasons church is so important. This is why I think it is important to be both spiritual and religious. I worry that those who are spiritual but not religious rely too much on their own feelings and thoughts and experiences without understanding the deep influence of these forces. Now certainly churches, and religion in general, are not immune from these forces. They also absorb the habits of sin. There have been many, many sins committed in the name of religion. And yet we have this scriptural witness of our broken condition, and this incredible witness to the potential and possibility of God working good not only in spite of it, but through it. We have Joseph comforting his brothers, telling them not to feel badly about the evil they did to him because look at what God wrought out of that! We have a foreign woman – unclean in the eyes of the law – open up for Jesus a chance to experience the joy of a change of heart, an opening into greater love. It is just such a gift.
Because along with this propensity to mess things up, there is still, somehow, also some human propensity to get things right. I mean look at human progress, not just technological and material, but morally. No one needs to be persuaded any more about the evil of slavery. We have a clearer understanding of our role of stewards of the planet instead of exploiters. We don’t condone barbaric treatment even of convicted criminals. These habits of thought and behavior were broken.
In his book The Road Less Traveled, M. Scott Peck suggested that the original sin is human laziness. He noted the principle of atrophy and decay. We see it in nature. Once the bloom passes, things go down hill. We see it in machines and buildings. Things don’t get better over time, they get worse. The shingles fall off the roof, the floors in the halls chip and crack. So to him, the reality that many people do grow morally and spiritually over time has to point to a different kind of force, a force of goodness and love. A force we might call God. And we have this God who not only works through our brokenness, but who came to us as one of us to show us a different way of being, to challenge our habits of thought and behavior, and to model forgiveness and mercy. And to me, that is the message from all those stories in the bible of people who mess things up so royally. God loves them, God saves them and wants to save us through them. Mercy is ours as it was theirs, and that is reason to fall on the necks of our sisters and brothers, weeping in joy and gratitude. May it be so.
