GENESIS SERMON
SERIES
But God…
Genesis 50: 15-26
Pastor
There is an ancient Chinese
story of an old farmer who had an old horse to work his fields. One day the
horse escaped into the hills and when all the farmer’s neighbors sympathized
with the old man over his bad luck, the farmer replied, “Bad luck? Good luck?
Who knows?”
A week later the horse returned with a herd of
wild horses from the hills and this time the neighbors congratulated the farmer
on his good luck. His reply was, “Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?”
Then, when the farmer’s son was attempting to
tame one of the wild horses, he fell off its back and broke his leg. Everyone
thought this very bad luck. Not the farmer, whose only reaction was, “Bad luck?
Good luck? Who knows?”
Some weeks later the army marched into the
village and conscripted every able-bodied youth they found there. When they saw
the farmer’s son with his broken leg they let him off. Now was that good luck?
Bad luck? Who knows?
Christian therapist Wayne Oates wrote in his
book entitled Luck, A Secular Faith that
the majority of modern people across the world no longer believe in a
purposeful, intervening, directing God. Instead, luck has become the way of
explaining what comes our way.
Most people of faith are not willing to go quite
so far, but they will go along for a bit of the ride. Do I dare ask for a show
of hands on how many people here this morning have bought lottery tickets? We
hear about lottery prizes that reach astonishing figures for one winner. And despite
the ridiculous odds against winning (something on the order of getting struck
by lightning...5,000 times in a row), millions play them, all hoping for luck
to smile on them this time. Week after week intelligent Washingtonians play
numbers based on their birthdays or the ages of their dogs when they died. All
very “scientific,” don’t you think?
Speaking of science, Blaise Pascal observed while
science shows there is “probability,” there is nothing in nature that could be
called “chance.” No doubt this is part of what was behind Einstein’s statement,
“I don’t believe that God plays dice with the universe.”
God and luck? Did you know that the word “luck”
never appears anywhere in the scriptures? Odd, in a way, since it was a popular
concept in the ancient world. Pagans were always ascribing things to the Fates,
those celestial women who sat at their spinning wheel in the heavens and, when
their thread broke, so did the lives of some poor mortal on earth. Our lives,
said Homer, are mere playthings of the gods. It is all a matter of luck, fate,
chance. And what can anyone do?
Sometime back, the National Safety Council urged
news organizations to stop speaking of “accidents” on our highways. Rather,
they thought it more accurate to speak of “crashes.” If you are doing ninety on
I90 outside of Ellensburg and have a wreck, is this really an “accident?”
Perhaps that is one of the reasons why luck has
become so popular – if we can say, “It was just bad luck,” we are absolved of
responsibility for our lives. If it’s all up to good or bad luck, well, don’t
blame me. Roll the dice and take your chances.
There are several stories in scripture that
sound like they fit right in with this mindset. God’s people cast lots
(something very much like throwing dice or drawing straws) to make decisions.
But even though they sound very much like a reliance on luck, in each case, it
was just the opposite—the “gamblers” were counting on God making the divine known
through the way the lot would fall. These were not gambles but a demonstration
of supreme faith, faith that God would intervene.
The brief passage from Genesis 50 is the climax
of one of those stories. Joseph says to his brothers, “Am I in the place of
God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.” (verses 19-20)
If you were to count all
the places in scripture where the phrase “but God…” appears and use them to
teach divine providence, even in the face of monstrous malevolence, you would
discover that the phrase “but God…” appears 43 times. Over and over it comes as
God responds to some failure or folly and instead works a blessed
outcome.
By the time we encounter “but God…” in the
Genesis narrative Joseph is nearing the end of a most fascinating life. As we
recall, young Joseph was his father’s favorite son, a bitter enough pill for
his brothers to swallow, but the boy did everything he could to rub their faces
in it, and the result was that his fed-up siblings took matters into their own
hands and sold him into slavery. (And you thought you had a dysfunctional family!) To make a long story short,
the Pharaoh had an eye for talent and made our Hebrew hero the Prime Minister
of Egypt - from the jail house to the penthouse. Not bad for a bratty kid who
had been sold into slavery by his brothers!
As a famine settles on the Near East Jacob tells
his sons to go to Egypt to buy some grain. They do and in the process meet
Joseph, only they do not know it is Joseph. It happens twice. Finally, Joseph
reveals his true identity. The brothers are shocked and rightly scared. It is
payback time! But Joseph does not do that. In fact, he stuns them with these
words:
“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. For two years now there has been famine in the
land, and for the next five years there will not be plowing and reaping. But
God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save
your lives by a great deliverance. So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God.” (Genesis 45: 5-8)
The story goes on. The brothers go back home
and tell their aged father that Joseph is still alive. He cannot believe it,
but eventually they convince him to come to Egypt with them. He makes the trip
and is reunited with the son he had given up for dead so many years ago. Then
he meets the Pharaoh who offers to let Joseph’s family settle in for as long as
they like. The family moves to Egypt and lives in peace there for many years.
Finally Jacob dies at the old age of 147.
As we enter the scene today it is just Joseph
and his brothers. Again they fear retribution. With Father Jacob gone, brother
Joseph will be free to take his revenge. So they tell Joseph, “Oh, by the way,
before Dad died he told us to tell you to treat us kindly.” Uh huh.
Listen again to Joseph’s gracious response.
These are the words of a man who understands the provision of God: “Don’t be
afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done,
the saving of many lives.” (Genesis 50:19-20) All the while his brothers
thought they were doing Joseph in. But theirs’ was not the only doing. God was
working behind the scenes weaving even their evil into good purposes.
Can you think of other stories from scripture
that demonstrate the same thing? Of course, you can. The most famous of all is
the one we celebrate in Christian churches over and over and over again. We
gather on the first day of the week for worship because we recall another first
day of the week, another “BUT GOD…” event. Listen to the way Peter describes it
in his sermon in Jerusalem on Pentecost:
“[People] of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of
Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs,
which God did among you through Him, as you yourselves know. This man was
handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the
help of wicked men, put Him to death by nailing Him to the cross. BUT GOD
raised Him from the dead, freeing Him from the agony of death, because it was
impossible for death to keep its hold on Him. (Acts 1)
To be sure, the story of Jesus, the cross and
the tomb, say very loudly, despite our belief in God’s providence, that
everything that happens is not good. Not at all. Horrible things happen but our
faith has the rest of the story. In
the words of the apostle Paul: “We know God is working for good in all things
[...even the terrible things…like the cross].”(Romans 8:28)
There is no such thing as luck. What there is,
is “providence,” the providing care and guidance of God over God’s creatures.
We can see providence in our lives, but usually only in the rearview mirror. It
is difficult to speak of God’s guidance in terms of what happens to us in the
moment or what will happen to us tomorrow, but, with the benefit of hindsight,
we are more able to discern the loving hand of the Lord in that which has
happened to us in the past.
Augustine described it this way: when you first
consider your life, it looks like nothing but a bunch of chicken tracks in the
mud of a barnyard, going this way and that. But through the eyes of faith, we
begin to observe pattern, meaning, and direction.
As we leave here from week to week, you know I
do not wish you “Good luck!” Rather, I try to remind you of God’s providence,
God’s provision and presence in your life. We say goodbye, which is simple shorthand for “God be with you,” or adieu
in French or adios in Spanish, which
as you language scholars well know are both “God be with you.” Remember this if you remember nothing else about
this day: as we go out into the world, we do not go alone; we go with each
other, and our God goes with us to work God’s ways for good.