A Campfire in a Rainstorm

Genesis 45
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1 Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cried out, “Have everyone leave my presence!” So there was no one with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers. 2 And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him, and Pharaoh’s household heard about it.
3 Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph! Is my father still living?” But his brothers were not able to answer him, because they were terrified at his presence.

 

—

5 And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. 6 For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will be no plowing and reaping. 7 But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.[a]
 8 “So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt.

—

Catharsis!

So- finally some good news, here in chapter 45 of Genesis.  Joseph has removed the veil and revealed himself to his brothers.

I didn’t think that reading the bible one chapter at a time would ever be very problematic.  Wrong.  While not a terrible profound observation, it stands to be said every so often just as a reminder: the Bible wasn’t written in chapters and verses.  In fact, what we call the first five books are really just five chapters of one book.  The conventional divisions into 5 distinct books has to do more with the central theme of each section, but they are all dated at about the same time- and have their own name: Pentateuch.  Sort of a subset within the bible.

Well, this is just another lesson in hermeneutics then- sometimes breaking a story up into artificial segments can be detrimental to how we understand the whole story.  And nowhere has that been more evident in Genesis than right here, in Joseph’s story.

—

Joseph has been gone for at least 9 years.  For a decade, his brothers have been under the mantle of remorse.  Or at least some of them have.  Joseph’s father, the patriarch, Jacob, aka Israel, has been slowly deteriorating under the pain of losing his beautiful Joseph.  Joseph has been a captains right hand, and the focal point of his derision.  He’s lived in relative luxury and in a prison.  He’s known the adrenalin rush of being pursued by a woman- and the fear of standing before the most powerful man in the world, Pharaoh.  He’s been forgotten and he’s been the “father to Pharaoh.”  And now he’s at the end of his considerable emotional rope.

His trials seem to have brought him wisdom.

This is no small victory.  I’m not sure I’d be so fortunate.  Joseph, by today’s standards has every reason to have lost trust in the most sacred things.  He was betrayed and sold into slavery by his own family.  Framed and abandoned by his employer.  Left and forgotten by people he’d been charitable to in prison.  His power would have corrupted a lesser person.  A lesser person might have taken liberty with his power to acquire wealth and security- to prevent the pain and suffering he’d known up to this point from ever happening again.  He might be jaded and permanently untrusting.  He might be inclined to blame God for ten years of being abandoned by family and uncared about, forced to live in a foreign culture with no ties to home.

But no.  In all this time, Joseph’s faith in God’s purpose has caused him to pursue a sort of soterical career.  Even after his own abandonment by family and imprisonment, he is still pursuing other peoples’ peace.

He has spoken truth to the two fellow prisoners.  He gave peace to the Pharaoh about his dreams by clearly giving meaning to the dreams he’d had, and then offers sound wisdom to offset the bad news.  And now, Joseph is giving his brothers peace and forgiveness!  He is telling them that they were doing God’s work by despising him, selling him to a band of strangers, and ultimately into slavery and all that happened to him here in Egypt.  Why?

He’s giving God- this God that we have only heard about in the context of giving meaning to dreams, credit for using Joseph to save a nation’s worth of lives, as well as the lives of his own family.

This, I think, is an almost super-human ability!  Especially when you consider how much time has passed.  I can only speak for myself, but if I get a little down in the mouth for a couple months I start examining my life for places where I’ve let God down.  Maybe that’s not bad, in itself, but when I do that, I start to get blue, and a little mean.  I start thinking naughty thoughts about God- like He’s punishing me (which of course, He’s not, having fully extracted any punishment he must for me from Jesus), or that He’s changed His mind about me (which he doesn’t because nothing can take me from Jesus’ hand).  In short- I get impatient very quickly with God.

Ten years!  Ten years have passed in Joseph’s life.  Have you waited ten years, faithfully, for something?  Anything?  I don’t know that I can honestly say that I have.  At least not in obedience.

There’s plenty here about forgiveness.  There’s plenty here about how family relationships are kinda messy, and sometimes require a frequent and potent bath in the bubble-potion of forgiveness.  But God’s providence is what is on display, and Joseph’s unfailing dependence on it.

God is faithful.  As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, great comfort can come from the simple proverb: “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is God’s purpose that will prevail.”

This may seem obvious- but God has a purpose!  This may seem less obvious at times: God’s purpose is for good!  Joseph declares his joy in this when he tells his brothers not to be troubled by their evil plans, because God caused good to happen!

This is less obvious:  If Joseph had sucked his thumb and pouted while he was in jail, God would have had a much more difficult time getting everything in order.  Joseph set his pain, anger, betrayal down on the floor of his cell and “saw that they were troubled” and set himself to comforting the two fellow prisoners by interpreting their troubling dreams.  Had he never done that- had he never inserted himself as a healer and a comforter into that situation- he would never have stood before Pharaoh to warn him of the coming prosperity that would buffet that following famine!

A simple act of selflessness, on Joseph’s part was a small key in an extremely large lock.  A single act of selflessness was the spark that lit the tinder, that held the ember, that caused a campfire to turn into a forest fire.  And it happened during a rainstorm.  Heck, a monsoon.

That is God’s character.

The Last Word

 

Genesis 44
—
I must confess that the last several chapters- this story of Joseph playing cat and mouse with his siblings is rather torturous.  Is this Joseph playing a somewhat mean-spirited game with his brothers?  Why does Joseph draw this out so long?  Especially given the age of his father, who he hasn’t seen for so long?

He puts on a great show for them, heaping food up in front of them, and making a display out of Benjamin’s plate.  And then he loads them up with food and sends them back home, AGAIN.

But this time, instead of having the steward simply putting their silver back in their sacks again, ostensibly giving them the food for free- this time, he plants a piece of very damning piece of contraband- Joseph’s prized silver chalice.  Why?

—

The boys are on their journey back home to their father, bags loaded with the grain they’d come for.  They are less than a day’s journey out when their host’s steward catches up with them, all a fury and full of accusations about a missing chalice.  The men, stunned, are appalled at the accusations, reminding the steward that at great personal risk, they returned with twice the silver they needed specifically to keep the air clear between them.

So without resisting they volunteer themselves to grave punishment should they be guilty, and, it says, “quickly lowered” their sacks to be inspected.  I’m sure it was amazing to them that once again, their silver is sitting on TOP of the grain they just purchased.  More amazing to find the silver chalice in Benjamin’s sacks.  Imagine the looks on their faces?  Benjamin was probably slack-jawed and pale as the sand he stood on, while the others were probably mystified and confused.

All of this drama?  Why?

—

Honestly, I think that Joseph wasn’t terribly interested in his older brothers.  I think he was trying to kidnap Benjamin.  He’d been holding Simeon captive until the could verify their story by bringing their youngest brother, Benjamin, with them.  Now that he’d seen Benjamin, he’s released Simeon.  But he’s set Benjamin up to be brought back as a slave.

When the steward caught up with them, his terms were simple; the one caught with the chalice returns as a slave, and the rest are free to go.  The brother’s emphatic insistence on their innocence was bolstered by them upping the ante.  They said they would submit to death the guilty brother and submit the remaining brothers to a lifetime of servitude.  But the steward declined.  And Joseph did too- until Judah makes his impassioned speech.

!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!

Following this speech by Judah, Joseph cracks, and finally reveals himself.

—BACK TO CHAPTER 44—

 
This particular story leaves me with more questions than it does answers, really.  Why does Joseph insist on drawing this game out?  What is his goal in hiding the silver back in their bags, rather than simply giving it to them outright?  Why set up Benjamin as a thief?  And then, why demand only the life of Benjamin as a slave rather than accepting his death, and then the lives of the remaining brothers?

Is God behind the family reunion?  Is God the reason that Judah’s impassioned speech breaks the will of Joseph to break up the family by keeping Benjamin?

Or was there some lesson to be learned that I have missed?  Why is this story even in the biblical account anyways?  I mean, there is no outright arm-of-God moment!  No voice in the pillar of smoke, no dreams, no big miracles.  Where does this story fit into the narrative of God’s redemption?

—

Maybes.  Lots of maybes.  Maybe the full family reunion was part of the plan all along.  Maybe Joseph was just playing cat and mouse, drawing out the anxiety in an ancient case of Candid Camera.  Or maybe Joseph was only ever interested in reuniting with Benjamin.  Bringing him back as a “servant” and putting him in a position of comfort near him.  Maybe he’d just written off his family, his brothers, and accepted his new life in Egypt.

I wonder how much of the Bible is actually like this?

—

When I started reading Genesis, it was with the intention and purpose of looking for God and flashes of His character.  And it has been thoroughly rewarding!  Which is what makes this small section of Genesis troubling.  But plays into Gods hands.  I read a proverb with my oldest son today that fits rather providentially into today’s passage: “Many are the plans of a man’s heart; But it is God’s purpose that prevails.”

Maybe this is the true lesson- that God, named or unnamed, visible or invisible, invited or not, always, always, ALWAYS, gets the very last word.

Back Up a Little Bit…

Genesis 43
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11 Then their father Israel said to them, “If it must be, then do this: Put some of the best products of the land in your bags and take them down to the man as a gift—a little balm and a little honey, some spices and myrrh, some pistachio nuts and almonds. 12 Take double the amount of silver with you, for you must return the silver that was put back into the mouths of your sacks. Perhaps it was a mistake. 13 Take your brother also and go back to the man at once. 14 And may God Almighty[a] grant you mercy before the man so that he will let your other brother and Benjamin come back with you. As for me, if I am bereaved, I am bereaved.”

—

“May God Almighty grant you mercy before the man… [and] as for me, if I am bereaved, I am bereaved.”

Jacob Wrestles with an Angel

What a moment.  I wonder if this is the moment that Jacob the deceiver, now Israel who struggled with God, has finally quit struggling.

This man’s name relates directly and explicitly to his determination to wrestle with God.  His history is one of friction, terse ambition, and conflict.  Yet he is the one who is favored.  His name will be the name of a nation of people.  His name will be known for thousands of years beyond his own life.

The picture I’ve linked to- it’s called “Jacob Wrestling with an Angel” by Gustave Dore.  I love it.  I don’t know much about painting, or criticism.  I have no idea if it’s any good, or if it’s trite.  But I love it.  So I guess it’s good.  I love how Jacob is on the lower ground, and his body looks tense, like he’s really working, but the angel has his wrists in his hands.  And his face is totally … blank.  Like he’s not really exerting himself.

—

Though he struggled, fought, schemed, managed, and argued, he was the recipient of favor.  There was struggle and contention within the womb of his mother.  He “grasped” his brother’s heel, even at the moment of birth.  Rather than emulate his older brother, he actually turn away from his brother’s habits and pleasures- while Esau would hunt, and boy scout about, Jacob would stay near the house, and learned more … domestic arts.

He seemed opportunistic, taking any chance to gain something for himself.  Like a claim to birthright.  Like a blind father’s blessing.  He wanted that badly enough to stand in front of a blind man and lie right to him.

When that plan turned bad, he ran away from home, fleeing to his uncle’s home several days journey from his angry brother.  There he attempted to gain a wife, and was in contention with his uncle, turned father-in-law, when his bride turned out to be somebody other than he’d agreed to.

Then his wives were in struggle between themselves, each straining for the favor of her husband.  And then his children- they too struggled between each other, jockeying for favor.  Jockeying for position in the line of succession, the line of blessing.

In all this- the story of his life up to this point, is like holding up a mirror to the race of humanity.  Struggle.  Against.  God.

And now… there’s no more energy to fight.  No more energy to struggle.  Joseph is gone, Simeon is gone, all of their food is gone, and now he struggles to protect Benjamin from a similar fate.  But there are no more alternative routes.  No more victories.  So he finally gives in.

May God grant you mercy and if I am bereaved, then I am bereaved.

—

I think it is more than appropriate to say that Jacob/Israel, as much as anybody, can serve as an adequate representative for the race of humanity.  And the gem is less in how Israel represents us to God, but rather how God relates to him in spite of the struggle, in spite of the constant friction.

God chose Jacob to be a special kind of conduit to the people of the world.  He blessed Jacob abundantly, taking a poor man with a knap sack and a strange dream in the desert and giving him 2 wives, at least 13 children, and more goats than you could shake a stick at.  Important to distinguish between the children and the goats- though it’s an easy mistake to make.  Both climb everything, eat grass, crap where ever the spirit moves them to, and do nothing but bleat all the time.  Moving along.

God was determined to make a way.  He had made a promise to Eve that somebody would come along who would take back the life she’d given away.  He had promised Noah that he would be a blessing to the whole world.  He had promised Abram a family that rivaled the stars in the sky and the sands of the deserts.  He actually promised Abram much more- He promised that He himself would be torn and shredded if He did not keep His promise to Abram.  God promised Jacob that he would never be alone.  Ever, no matter what.  God had a stack of promises.  Promises He initiated, promises that He was bound to.  Promises that He was BOUND to keep.

All of His promises were connected to the abundance of LIFE.  And not the striving, stressed out life that was usually happening- but a LIFE that was better.  God makes promises to us that we will gain something awesome from living His LIFE.

What we learn too, is that sometimes God’s promises, as solid and true as they may be, aren’t necessarily what we expect, or when we expect.  Abram was promised a nation of families- but it took decades.  Decades of years passed before Isaac was born.  And Isaac was only one child.  But then Isaac had a child.  Two.  And they fought.  But then Isaac had a grandchild.  And another.  And another.  And then…

—

Passages like this one, and those around it, can seem baffling when taken out of the context of the whole book.  Or even out of context of the whole Pentateuch.  But what I see, having combed through everything leading up to this point, and knowing what’s coming- is a God that can be trusted even when I can’t be.

God is building his answer to the first promises and like any good builder, He’s building it carefully, using the materials He has, and the place that He has them.  And He has a plan.  The boards are warped, and full of knots.  The ground is rolling and far from flat.  The rocks are shaped in peculiar ways, and don’t stack well.  The nails are different lengths, different guages, and piled up loosely in the bottom of a cracked pail.  But this will be a mansion with many rooms when God is done.  A city of mansions.  Filled with Jacob’s who finally stopped struggling, and called on the mercy of God.  And when the struggling stopped, and the calling began, the blessings just kept coming, as they always had.  But now, all the dams were broken, all that blocked and slowed and diverted the flow of God’s word and work were cleared away, and they could finally move.  Finally run, without bends, turns, oxbows or reservoir.

—

On the surface, these stories appear to be about Joseph, or about his brothers, or about Jacob.  But really, this whole book, and every story in it, is about God the Father, the Creator, the Promiser, the LIFE lover, and Busted-Stuff-Repairer.  Sometimes, you just have to back up a little bit to see it.

Slow Hand…

Genesis 42:
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6 Now Joseph was the governor of the land, the person who sold grain to all its people. So when Joseph’s brothers arrived, they bowed down to him with their faces to the ground. 7 As soon as Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he pretended to be a stranger and spoke harshly to them. “Where do you come from?” he asked.

 8 Although Joseph recognized his brothers, they did not recognize him. 9 Then he remembered his dreams about them and said to them, “You are spies! You have come to see where our land is unprotected.”

—

21 They said to one another, “Surely we are being punished because of our brother. We saw how distressed he was when he pleaded with us for his life, but we would not listen; that’s why this distress has come on us.”
 22 Reuben replied, “Didn’t I tell you not to sin against the boy? But you wouldn’t listen! Now we must give an accounting for his blood.” 23 They did not realize that Joseph could understand them, since he was using an interpreter.

—

  He turned away from them and began to weep, but then came back and spoke to them again. He had Simeon taken from them and bound before their eyes.
 25 Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain, to put each man’s silver back in his sack, and to give them provisions for their journey. After this was done for them, 26 they loaded their grain on their donkeys and left.

—

Families are indeed curious creatures.  If you have one, you must agree.  They have these histories- they become genetic.  Part of the DNA of each person.  In this segment of Genesis a strange reunion takes place.  The conceited son who was ambushed, sold off in spite, and left for dead on the highway of their shared memory is reunited with 10 of his 11 brothers.  But rather than leap down from his place, clutching them and exclaiming, he upholds his new identity as an Egyptian governor, keeping safe distance.

In fact, he actually comes down pretty hard on his brothers, yelling at them, and accusing them of mortal crimes.  He throws them in jail for 3 days just to make them sweat.

It says in the scripture that “he remembered his dreams about them [bowing down to him].”  Yet he keeps all of that to himself.

Apparently, though time has passed, and they have collectively agreed that Joseph was killed tragically long ago, the guilt has not passed.  Though they may never talk about it openly, the sounds of their brother weeping and pleading from the bottom of the cistern still echo in the space between them.  And now, at a distance from their father, those memories are not distant.  They are right there, on the surface.  Having another moment of glory, slimy and black on their collective memory.

21 They said to one another, “Surely we are being punished because of our brother.

What a horrible moment this must have been.  Full of tension.  Full of angst.  All the way around the stage, everyone tense, everyone eager for resolution.  Nobody knowing how it might happen.

Did Joseph’s conceit return?  Was he gloating in the memory of his dream, with the sheaves of grain bowing down to his sheaf?  Is this the return of the old Joseph?  What in the world is God’s spirit doing right now?

Does God gain glory from this moment?  Brothers in conflict?

—

In the New Testament epistle called 2 Peter, the author speaks of God not being slow… as some understand slowness.  I don’t know what the Greek words are for all of this- but I have been comforted by the idea of this phrase.  

God is not subject to linear time the way that we are.  The way that Joseph and his brothers were.  God holds time within himself.  Each moment of our history is evident to him.  I believe that every moment of history exists as the present for God.  He is the creator and sustainer of every moment.  Each moment of our lives is utterly rooted in God and in his sustenance.  He is more than sunlight feeding a plant.  He is the sunlight, the soil, the ability to convert the sunlight into energy usable by the plant- he is the time it takes for the plant to convert the sunlight.

My point in saying this is that I see moments like these, where time seems to slow down, and each moment is adrenalin times 100- when each second is like fire and ice mixed together in a torturous pathology, God is still present in these moments.

In that moment when my father was dying, and me and my brothers sat around his bed- where was the glory of God in that?  Each of us experiencing our own private anxiety about losing our father.  Each of us reliving all of the moments of our lives with him, good and bad.  Between each breath.  Each of us secretly fearing the next moment.  Secretly hoping that something miraculous might happen, each knowing that it was impossible.

His glory seemed slow in coming.  But God doesn’t “do” time like we “do” time.  His kind of doing time sees the apple, the manger, the cross, and the last trumpet all at the same time.  Maybe that’s what we’re seeing here.  A sliver of the spectrum.

—

Joseph conceives of a plan.  He wants to see his littlest brother, Benjamin.  It seems, from the text, that Jacob is protecting Benjamin, desperately, almost as though that might somehow save Joseph from his past.

Joseph uses his power and swag to fill the bags of his brothers not only with grain but with the money they used to purchase it as well.  He must have known it would cause them great terror.  Maybe.  Maybe it didn’t occur to him that they might see it is as an opportunity for Egypt to take them all away for good and for ever.

In either event, he keeps one brother as collateral- a guarantee that they will return, and they will bring the little brother, Benjamin.

But when the brother’s get back to their father and tell them what happened, he is in despair at the loss of another son.  And utterly refuses to let another child go down to Egypt.  He is still mourning the loss of Joseph, and is thrown into mourning for Simeon as lost.  And he will not lose another.

But Rueben, desperate to regain his conscience, and fully lost in remorse over Joseph, offers the lives of his own children as a promise that Benjamin will return unharmed from Egypt.

—

Are you in mourning over something that is behind you?  Or frightened of something in front of you?  I have been.  I am.  At times like this it’s easy to wonder where the hell God has gone.  But we have for us many examples, in scripture, and even in the collective lives of our families and friends, stories of God’s faithfulness.  The written comfort from 2 Peter is often on my lips, and in my ears.  God is true.  He is faithful to his own character.  It sometimes drags out for us- sparks glowing into embers, into flames into a full-on all consuming fire that seems like it will go forever.  But it won’t.  It can’t.

Only God and his words can go forever.  And his words, his promise, is that He is with us.

“He is not slow in keeping his promise, as some reckon slowness.  Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”

2 Peter 3

Would You Choose the Famine?

Genesis 41:
—

1 When two full years had passed, Pharaoh had a dream:

—

57 And all the world came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe everywhere.

—

Genesis.  In the beginning.  Genesis is all about beginnings- some good, some terrible.  One of the beginnings that Genesis confronts is the beginning of evil in the creation.  The beginnings of trauma, murder, stealing, aggression.  The beginning of what I like to call “the suck.”

But there is another kind of beginning too.  There is the beginning of salvation.  The beginning of the promise.  The promise I’m referring to is found in Genesis 3, when God comes to see Adam and Eve, and discovers their infidelity to Him.  He points to the serpent, in reproach, and promises it that He (God) would have the last word in the matter.

Then there’s the promise to Adam and Eve that they will pay dearly for what they have done- that pain will increase, toil in labor will increase- and finally, that they will not be allowed to reach out to the Tree of Eternal Life, to live forever in this broken way, with no hope.

—

Now we are an unknown number of years beyond these beginnings.  Joseph, the last born son of Isaac, has been in a dungeon for two years, in an Egyptian city, far from his home.  His brothers had sold him into slavery, and he ended up in the service of a captain of the Egyptian Royal guard.  But he was framed by the captain’s wife, who was angry because Joseph would not disgrace himself by sleeping with his master’s wife.

When Joseph sees two fellow inmates looking distressed because of dreams they had each had, he listens to their dreams, interpreting them and explaining them to them.  When the dreams’ visions unfold in real-life drama, Joseph is proven true.  But the dead don’t speak, and the freed go on living, so Joseph’s ability remains in the dark of the dungeon.  Until Pharaoh has a dream that nobody can explain.

Then the freed remember their chains and the day they were broken, and Joseph is quickly brought up from his dungeon.

When Joseph is finally before the Pharaoh, and the Pharaoh has explained to Joseph why he is there, Joseph denies the abilities that have been ascribed to him, saying,

“I cannot do it, but God will give Pharaoh the answer he desires.”

He then proceeds to explain to Pharaoh what God is revealing to him in these dreams- that seven years of astonishing prosperity were coming to Egypt, but that they would be quickly forgotten during the seven years of agonizing and desperate famine that would immediately follow.

And then he begins to ad-lib a little.  Joseph takes the opportunity to advise Pharaoh on a game plan.  Tax the abundance heavily, and put it into savings for the years of want.  What government can say no to a plan like that?

Just kidding.

Anyways.

—

So God is bringing a famine to Egypt?  That’s part of the plan?  This is not congruent to how I understand mercy, grace, or love.  Why does God want to bring suffering?  What kind of God allows that?

Here’s another question: If God is bringing this suffering, why then is He warning Egypt about it, and then offering a way to mitigate the pain?  Can’t really seem to decide which way He wants to go with this.

—

Jesus faced a similar argument in his ministry too.  People objected to this notion that he might be the Son of God.  They cringed every time he told some whore or diseased bum, or a lowlife roman-sellout-”jew” that he or she was “forgiven.”  Like a man has the authority to say that.  But then they would see him cast out “demons” and healing people with illnesses and the such.  They said “He casts out demons by the power of the devil!”

Wha?  He what?

To this Jesus answered, “a house divided amongst itself will not stand,” implying that it was really kind of stupid to say that (which it was).

—

Here’s my thought: God doesn’t “bring” suffering to Egypt to entertain Himself.  Watching all the little Egyptians scramble around looking for food, and dying is not some kind of God-tube “Survivor: Divine Island” sick entertainment.

Famine is the undeniable evidence of how many ways we are broken.  It is the unstoppable evidence of how badly messed up creation is as a result of our pride and greed and selfish ambition.  It is the fruit and wage of sin.  I.e. it’s all our fault.

God steps in though- desiring to save, feeling compassion, wishing to preserve.  He sends a servant with discernment.

—

How can I say that?  How can compassion exist when a famine is happening?  One of my foundational assumptions is that God is Holy.  A Holy God cannot be divided- or conflicted.  And He is a creator.  He created everything out of an abundance of desire for community.

When Adam and Eve broke that communion, His retaliation came in the form of making better clothes for them than they could make for themselves.  His retaliation came in the form of preserving them from living eternally in that broken state.  His retaliation came in the form of cursing the tempter and promising that the curse would not be permanent.

These promises must be kept by a Holy God.

In the Biblical story, mankind is always the one who instigates evil.  He ignores the advice of God in favor of the shady promises of a serpent.  He kills out of jealousy.  He multiplies evil on top of evil until the whole of society is such an abomination that nothing good can be said about it at all.  He uses his creativity and ambition to build something for himself that he can take pride in, that he can rely on, and hope in.  To look to for strength.

In the Biblical story, God is always the one with Hope for a better future.  He’s the one that tells the tempter that the curse will be only for a time.  He resets what he has made and restarts society- giving it a second chance with a new family of his careful choosing.  He distracts humanity, causing them to cease their building (at least for awhile), and hopefully turning their eyes back to God for their strength and solace.

And today, God speaks through Joseph, warning Pharaoh that disaster is ahead.

—

Maybe you’ve been suffering for awhile.  I know that I have had seasons that felt like dungeons.  I have had seasons that felt like a trap.  Like handcuffs.  Like maybe, I was being punished.

But maybe a time is coming where you will stand before a king, and proclaim saving news to him.

Maybe a time is coming where you will share something with somebody that they have been trying desperately to see on their own, and have had no fortune to find.  Until you.

Maybe you would never have been there, not in a million years, if your brother hadn’t sold you out.  If somebody who you’d tried to serve graciously hadn’t framed you, and made you look like a horrible monster.  If you’d not simply spoken truthfully to somebody who had no intention of returning the favor.  Maybe, you had to experience the famine before the feast so that somebody else would never know the famine at all.

Waiting to Be Seen

Genesis 40:
—

8.Then Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams.”

—

Joseph is in prison.

Ambushed by his brothers, threatened with death, and ultimately sold into the hands of travelers, he was sold into the servitude of a high-ranking military figure in the Egyptian royal guard, near the palace-compound of the Pharaoh.  Undaunted by the specter of his past, and unfettered by the chains of his circumstances, Joseph has risen to prominence, even as a slave, by being a blessing to the people around him.

Joseph’s attitude and mission made him a fountain of blessing to the people closest to him, no matter his circumstances.  He was attractive to people, because he brought blessing to them.

Unfortunately, somebody desired to take advantage of that, and lustily grasped for more.  Joseph refused to be put in that situation, out of respect for his master, but ultimately, because he knew it would be displeasing to God.  So she cooked up false charges against Joseph in her bitterness, and now, he is in prison.

Framed, and unjustly imprisoned, yet his attitude and mission have not wavered.  When fellow prisoners appear disheartened, he seeks to ease their burden.  And he says something that is most intriguing to me.  They tell him they are troubled because “they have had dreams” and there is no one to interpret the them.  His response?  “Do not interpretations belong to God?  Tell me your dreams.”

What a curious phrase.  Why would Joseph think he has any ability to ease the burden of his fellow prisoners by hearing the dreams, if interpretations belong to God?  What would make him think that?

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Rob Bell, enigmatic and ire-inspiring, has written on something that strikes me as being parallel to this question:  Does God speak into and through unbelievers prophetically?  I don’t know that Bell would necessarily have phrased the question as clumsily as that- being prone to poetic prose, and being very good at phrasing questions with swagger.  But the question is still interesting.  Does truth spill from the mouth of the unbeliever?

I see Joseph making that claim, in a veiled way, in his statement.  He seems to be suggesting that the dreams have truth in them.  The truth resides in the vision-giver, not contingent on the vision-haver‘s belief or knowledge of God.

Paul says, hundreds and hundreds of years later, that God has made his invisible qualities known in Creation, and that He is made known in what He has made.  But that we have turned a blind eye to it.

All that is necessary then, is for somebody to enter the situation and see it for what it is!  And isn’t that ability itself a gift?  Isn’t it grace that removes the veil of sin and darkness from our eyes that we can peel back the curtain and see God’s Kingdom?

Joseph looks into these men, and their lives, as they are, and peels back the veil of God’s Truth spoken to them, and through them.

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God longs to be known.  Communion with what He has created is intrinsic to the plan, and design of what He has made.  He is a communicator.  He is a protagonist.  Life is qualified by the degree to which it is in communion with its maker.  Joseph knows that God desires to be seen.  And that He can be seen, present in every life- not just the life of a “believer.”  So he looks for the truth in the vision, and gives the truthfulness of the vision- the degree to which it is true- over to God, who himself claims the meaning.

God speaks into people.  He speaks through people.  He does this with the desire to be seen and known.  Maybe one of our most important jobs isn’t to bring the truth to people, but instead of bringing it to them, showing them how it’s been there all along.

God doesn’t just show up in your life all of a sudden when you realize and admit that He’s real.  That would be idiotic.  Why would you want a God like that?  Rather, it’s in recognizing how God has always been, and will always be, there, with you, ahead of you, to your left and your right, and protecting your rear flank.

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I think there is a powerful and compelling message to be found here: God doesn’t need us (i.e. “believers”) to “stick together” to the exclusion of the outside world.  We do not need to be pharaisees in our world.  He’s already out there, laying truth in people, doing truth in people, and setting them up to be called out and seen as part`of God’s plan, as part of God’s world, rather than antagonistic to it.

I think there are seasons where withdrawal is good.  We often call those seasons “sabbatical.”  Kind of like going to bed each night- sleep is more than recovery.  Sleep is health building.  But if you sleep all the time, well, you just get fat.

I will accept the challenge in this passage- God is out there, working, doing things, and waiting.  He’s waiting to be seen, waiting to be identified.  Waiting for genuine communion with everything He has made.  At the root of everything that is true, there can be but one Truth.

Wherever You Are…

 

Genesis 39:

 

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 2 The LORD was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. 3 When his master saw that the LORD was with him and that the LORD gave him success in everything he did, 4 Joseph found favor in his eyes

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But while Joseph was there in the prison, 21 the LORD was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden.

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23 The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph’s care, because the LORD was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.

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5 From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the LORD blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the LORD was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field.

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It’s an amazing day when you see something something old and familiar in a way that you never have before, in effect seeing it for the first time, again.  For six weeks, I’ve been experiencing that as I have literally crawled through the story of Genesis.  The stories are familiar to me.  I’ve read through Genesis several times on my many failed missions to power through the whole Bible.  Adam and Eve, the serpent, Cain and Abel, the tower of Babel, Noah and the Flood, Abram, Sarai, Lot, sister-wives, Sodom and Gomorrah, angels in common dress, Hagar and Ishmael, Isaac, child-sacrifice that was narrowly averted, Jacob and Esau, Laban, Rachel, Joseph and the technicolor dream coat.

But astonishingly, I failed to see God.

So I determined to see God this time.  Oh man.  Without ignoring the human characters in the story, I let God be the star in the cast.  I guess I realized that no matter how much I learn about the human race, what’s more important- or maybe, what makes all that understanding about the human race even relevant, is understanding who God is.  Seeing what God does in the stories of Genesis speaks to me about what God values.  About what is important to God.  Which is kind of a big deal, because now, on this side of the birth of Jesus, on this side of his life, and of his crucifixion, and of his amazing rebirth through death to life, we can see something that Adam couldn’t, nor Noah, nor Abraham, nor Moses after him.  We can see the way God would live through us, through me.  And my confidence in God, in God’s purpose and presence and His perseverance, His utter commitment to me, and to His plan in my existence has given me new strength.  New purpose.

Today is no different.

Joseph has been sold out by his brothers.  First he was ambushed them.  Have you ever been ambushed?  How about by your own brothers or sisters?  How about by eleven of them?  This couldn’t have been a good feeling.

While he sat in the dark bottom of the empty cistern, he must have heard them arguing.  He must have heard them debate about whether to kill him, leave him- tear up his robe, and soak it in a goat’s blood.

The betrayal.  The fear.  Would he die in this hole?  Had he been completely abandoned?

Then new voices.  Unfamiliar voices.  New ones.  Then a new plan.  Rough hands hauling him out of the cistern.

“What’s going on?!  What are you doing?  Rueben?  Where’s Rueben?  Dan?  What’s happening?”

And then he’s in the captivity of strangers.  His brothers’ forms get smaller and smaller in the dust as his new captors saunter off into the desert.

How many days did that trip take?  Did they speak a common language?

And then Joseph and his captors arrive in large city, and he’s sold like a mule, or a camel, to somebody else.  Who is this person?  Will I be treated poorly?

—

Joseph is sold into the care and captivity of a captain of the King’s army.  Four times in this passage a phrase is repeated: The Lord was with him.  It’s more than a consolation.  This was the basis and foundation of God’s promise, each time.  His promise to Abraham: I brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to go to this land.  I will be with you.  His promise to Jacob as he slept in the desert, “I will be with you.”

God is with us.  God is with us.  God is with ME.  God is with ME.

Is that enough for me?  How long do you suppose Joseph foundered in his faith before he found himself in charge of the entire estate of a Captain of Pharaoh’s army?

God is with us.  God is with us.  God is with ME.  God is with ME.

And then, after all of that success?  Jail.  Conspiracy.  Injustice.

How long might Joseph have sat in this dark prison before the prison guards began to notice his abilities?

God is with us.  God is with us.  God is with me.  God is with me.

What’s more?  God is more than with us.  He’s active and engaged.  His presence is more than a co-traveller.  He is a co-conspirator.  He isn’t working in reaction or response.

In this passage, God is establishing the outpost of His blessing- a fountain of His Kingdom, through Joseph right there in the Captain’s living room!  God is setting up camp, and he brought everything with him, including the kitchen sink.  And he is putting the power of the Kingdom of God all over that house, just because of one person.  Joseph.

Where are you?  Where am I?  Doesn’t really matter.  It doesn’t matter where I am.  Where I am is unimportant.  Who I’m with.  That matters.  And who I am with, on this side of the rebirth of Jesus from his Death to Resurrection Life is virtually the same as who I am.

I have died to myself, and am born to Jesus.  Jesus moves in me.  His spirit is MY spirit.  Because I am less and He is more.  Because I have died to myself and He lives now in me.  God is setting up an outpost, a camp, where He can himself reside with me.  And he brought everything, including the kitchen sink, for the purpose of building a fountain of his Kingdom.  He’s rebuilding the whole earth, making all things new.  Starting right here, and working out.  Wherever I am is where You are.

God is with us.  God is with us.  God is with me.  God is with me.