The "Not-Me" gremlin
Commentary
One of the tasks that I always squeeze somewhere into my day is to read the newspaper. Some days I slowly peruse not only the articles but the ads. Other days it seems I hastily scan headlines and lead paragraphs in only two, maybe three, of its sections. Yet it seems a waste to consign a complete paper to the recycling bin without it ever having been opened, and so no matter how hectic the day I find some time to "read the paper."
The one section of the paper that I unfailingly read every day is the "Educational" section. What? You mean you didn't know that the newspapers have a daily educational section? Oh, I admit that truth-in-labeling laws notwithstanding that they don't call it an "educational" section, but every day you will find it in the under the heading "Comics."
One of the classics is of course Family Circus. Every day it provides keen insights into family dynamics and important reminders of how the world is experienced and perceived by children. A fixture of its microcosmic world is the "Not-Me" gremlin who is responsible for so much mischief and minor destruction around the house. Whenever there is any accidental breakage in that home, there is uncommon unanimity among the children that "Not-Me" is responsible.
Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28
The decision of the lectionary committee to omit the recounting of Joseph's dreams from the reading for this Sunday underscores the preacher's fundamental problem in addressing this text. The Joseph cycle really must be held in one's mind as a whole. Yet a preacher can neither count on those in the pews to be sufficiently familiar with the story to fill in the gaps from memory or to be sufficiently patient to sit through both the telling of the whole story and its explication. Breaking it up into little bits, however, causes one to miss essential points while only highlighting pesky inconsistencies.
By leaving aside the dreams in 37:5-11, the committee has set the agenda with the priorities of establishing the animosity between Joseph and his brothers and getting him to Egypt to set up the story for the following Sunday. It is precisely in these issues, however, that the traditional seams in the story are the most obvious.
First there is the problem of which of the brothers wants to create a buffer between Joseph and the murderous intentions of the others. Initially we are told that Reuben devises the plan of placing him in the pit in the secret hope of rescuing him later (vv. 21-22). But only a few sentences later, it is Judah who suggests there is a profit to be made as slave traders rather than murderers (vv. 26-27). There is no indication that Reuben is absent from the deliberations to amend the plan in this way -- until in verse 29 he "returned to the pit" and is dismayed to find that Joseph is not there.
If this confusion were not enough, there is the added uncertainty about just who it is that sells Joseph into slavery. Judah hatches his plan when he sees a caravan of Ishmaelites (a strange designation given that Ishmael is his great-uncle!) coming up the road (v. 25). But with the words barely out of Judah's mouth, we read that some Midianites discover Joseph in the pit and beat the brothers to the punch in selling him to the Ishmaelites (v. 28). Not infrequently commentators try to gloss over some of this confusion by asserting that "Midianites" and "Ishmaelites" are different names for the same group. But how would that resolve the difficulty? A single group sells Joseph to themselves? Yet the Midianites stealing Joseph right out from underneath his brothers' noses and so making off with their hoped for profit from the Ishmaelites would explain why Reuben still expected to find Joseph in the pit.
The reason for all this confusion, of course, is that we have conflicting versions of the story from different sources used in writing Genesis. But a sermon already pressed for time is hardly the place for a discourse on the Documentary Hypothesis of JEDP. Nor will it do to simply ignore the confusion and hope that no one notices. Better to acknowledge the contradictions, admit there are different versions of what happened, and suggest that the brothers just couldn't get their stories straight. (Admittedly a simplistic, but not altogether inaccurate, description of the traditioning process in the competing sources.) Whenever people are busy pointing the accusing finger at others, the truth of what actually happened is often lost.
Romans 10:5-15
The readings from Romans continue with a portion of Paul's discussion of the relationship of both Jews and Gentiles to God with the coming of Christ. The reading from the previous week (9:1-5) expressed Paul's view that although all the blessings of the old covenant ("the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises," etc.) continue to belong to the Jews, they have failed to avail themselves of the new covenant that God has made in Christ (see especially 9:30--10:4).
The reason for this failure, in Paul's view, is that the Jews had reduced the "law" to a dependence on works rather than "striv[ing] for [righteousness] on the basis of faith" (9:32). Ultimately this meant that they attempted to make themselves righteous rather than relying upon God to make them righteous (10:3). The new covenant in Christ marks "the end of the law" -- not as the instruction in God's will and thus as a wonderful gift, but as an inappropriate means by which some have tried to establish their own righteousness (10:4).
The bulk of the reading for this Sunday (through v. 13) is Paul's proof texts in support of his argument. His methods for interpreting these texts is typical of the Rabbinic exegesis of this period, and thus at points is difficult to follow for modern readers accustomed to reading scripture in a quite different manner. The most significant difference between Paul's approach then and our typical approaches now is that Paul does not feel constrained to limit the meaning of his citations to what they could have meant in their original literary and historical contexts. God speaks in the words of scripture "now," and so one need not limit the meanings to what was understood "then."
So it is that in citing Leviticus 18:5, Paul construes what was originally a promise as a warning: "The person who does these things [i.e., all the requirements of the "law" (Hebrew torah, better thought of as "instruction")] will live by them." For Paul, this statement is hardly a tautology, as the nearly synonymous expressions to us of "does" and "live by" might suggest. Rather, the one who "does" everything that God requires without failing will "live by" them in the sense of "be made alive by" this perfect obedience. The rub as far as Paul is concerned is that of course no person is ever able to fulfill this requirement (see Romans 3:9, 23). In this way Moses' promise has been transformed into Paul's warning.
In similar fashion, Paul concludes that the "word" that "is near you" according to the citation from Deuteronomy 30:12-14 is not the word of Torah but rather Christ himself. By this type of allegorical interpretation such as was common at the time, Paul is able to transform a text that, again, might have been seen as a promise held out about the possibility of gaining righteousness through Torah observance into instead a text demonstrating the necessity of believing in Christ in order to be justified (Romans 10:10).
The end result of making justification dependent upon one's belief in Christ rather than on one's full obedience to Torah is that "there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him" (10:12). Neither Jew nor Gentile stands at any disadvantage, and neither has any inherent advantage. "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved" (10:13, citing Joel 2:32).
The lectionary reading concludes with a series of rhetorical questions that draws out one necessary conclusion from Paul's argument. If justification and salvation are now only available through belief in Christ, then it is absolutely incumbent upon those who have come to know this truth to share it with others.
Matthew 14:22-33
Does it take more faith to stay in the boat, or to walk on water? That is the strange question that lies at the heart of Matthew's account of Jesus' stroll across the Sea of Galilee. Although Mark (6:45-52) and John (6:16-21) have almost identical accounts of Jesus walking across the stormy waters of the lake to meet his frightened disciples in a boat, only Matthew includes the report that Peter attempted the same feat.
The question is: Why did Peter do it? At first glance it would appear to be a tremendous accomplishment of faith to step out of a boat with the expectation that one could walk atop the water. Yet from the very beginning, Matthew offers subtle clues that perhaps Peter was motivated by something other than tremendous faith.
Jesus calls to his disciples in the midst of the storm saying, "Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid." In response, Matthew tells us, Peter answered, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water" (vv. 27-28). Notice that Peter's response is rooted in doubt ("if it is you"). Try, then, to imagine the tone in Jesus' voice as he offers his one word response, "Come." Does Jesus issue the summons in reassuring and supportive tones, or do you suppose there was a note of exasperation in his voice. "Just once, Peter, couldn't you be less impetuous and simply do what you were asked?"
However Jesus said it, Peter quickly "got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus" (v. 29). One might have expected that this accomplishment would have established one's faith for several lifetimes. Yet rather than focus on the fact that his feet were not sinking into the water, Matthew reports that Peter paid more attention to the strong wind. Peter became once again frightened by the storm, and began sinking into the lake. In desperation he cried out, "Lord, save me!"
As Jesus reached out and grabbed Peter, he said, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?" Once again there is more than a little ambiguity in Jesus' statement. Was Jesus asking, "Why did you doubt your ability to continue walking on the water despite the wind?" (Which, with even a moment's reflection, really should have been way down the list of concerns at that particular point, no matter how severe the storm.) Or was Jesus asking, "Why, Peter, of all the people in the boat, were you the only one who doubted that it was me coming to aid you in the storm?" Wasn't Jesus' presence enough of a sign of God's concern? Did Peter really need to see the miracle of two men walking on water to believe that God was watching over them?
In one of the first and most influential essays in the field of redaction criticism, Günther Bornkamm suggested that Matthew's addition to this story was crafted as an allegory directed at Christians in periods of intense persecution. The issue was whether it required more faith (or perhaps better, more faithfulness) to remain in the church (the "boat") during such storms of persecution or to strike off on one's own, trusting in one's personal ability to believe. For Matthew the answer was clear: true faith was to stay with the boat of the church and not to put God to the test (cf. Matthew 4:5-7).
Application
Jacob, of course, was deprived of the education provided by a daily reading of the comics. Nevertheless, with so many children in his household, I am certain he would have recognized the antics of the "Not-Me" gremlin -- even once his children were grown. Although they conspired to keep the truth of what they had done to Joseph a secret from their father (deceptively insinuating he had accidentally fallen prey to some marauding wild animal), you can bet the brothers were quick to offer explanations to one another for why they were not personally responsible for what had happened to Joseph.
Reuben, the oldest, probably castigated his brothers. "What do you mean Joseph was sold to some traders bound for Egypt? We had an agreement, remember? Throw him in the pit; scare some humility into him; show him who is really boss! But sold into slavery ... now what are we going to tell our father?" Yet as Queen Gertrude observed of the player queen in Hamlet (Act 3, Scene 2) one can't help but have the impression that Reuben "protests too much, methinks." I can just hear the bulk of the brothers quickly diverting the responsibility from themselves in a rousing chorus of, "Hey, it was Judah's idea!" And as the evasions of responsibility mounted and the recriminations flew, the "Not-Me" gremlin giggled and ran off.
The need for Joseph's brothers to take responsibility for their actions against him is one of the threads that runs through the length of the Joseph Cycle. When they thought they were "paying the penalty for what [they] did to [their] brother" because of the accusations from the Pharaoh's vizier that they were spies (42:21), when Judah offered himself lest Benjamin be enslaved to the vizier and his loss bring about their father's death from grief (44:18-34), perhaps they had finally owned up to what they had done.
Clearly, however, the brothers' rejection of the "Not-Me" gremlin did not come easily. At the very moment when they think of Joseph as they are accused of being spies, Reuben continues to point the finger at his brothers (42:22). Even as Judah relates to his as-yet unrecognized brother the long story of why they cannot return to Jacob without Benjamin, he continues to hide the truth behind the deceit they had offered their father (44:28). Even when they fear that Joseph will exact his revenge following Jacob's death, they still prefer to concoct yet another lie rather than count on Joseph to forgive them (50:15-17).
But in the end they finally accept the responsibility and the consequences for their actions. They tell the brother whom they had plotted to sell into slavery, "We are here as your slaves" (50:18). And although Joseph rejects the divine prerogative of retribution by his rhetorical question, "Am I in the place of God?" (50:19b), he nevertheless acts in accord with God's truest nature and forgives his brothers. Receiving forgiveness requires that we stop hiding behind the "Not-Me" gremlin.
From Paul's letter to the Romans we can add one other thing that is required to receive forgiveness: a willingness to rely on grace rather than one's own accomplishments. Just as there was nothing that the brothers could have done that would have removed their murderous intention, so there is no way for those who have violated God's instruction to be made alive by such complete obedience. That option is forever passed. But our failings are never the end of the matter. As Joseph told to his brothers, God's intention in the midst of human sinfulness is to nevertheless bring about good (Genesis 50:20; cf. Romans 8 28). But to live in that good requires that we accept our responsibility for the bad, give up the idea that we can yet make things right on our own, and believe in God's gracious act of forgiveness.
An Alternate Application
Matthew 14:22-33. The story of Peter's ill-fated attempt to walk on water calls to mind a joke about a man stranded on a rooftop as the floodwaters rose around his house. He prayed and asked God to keep him safe from the rising waters. A neighbor came by in a boat and encouraged the man to climb down from the roof into his boat and so escape the danger. But the man replied that he had prayed and had complete faith that God would protect him.
By the time the sheriff's deputy came by several hours later, the floodwaters were lapping at the eves of the roof. Still the man refused to leave his home, insisting that God would not allow any harm to come to him. When at last the National Guard arrived in a helicopter, the man had been pushed to a perch atop the chimney since most of the roof was now covered by water. But still the man would not take the rescue line lowered to him, screaming to the rescue crew that God would keep him safe. Soon after the helicopter left, the house collapsed and the man drowned.
The man found himself in heaven, standing before God. Even so, he was quite exasperated. "God, how could you have failed me? I put my faith in you, and I bore testimony to that faith again and again! Why didn't you save me?" To which God answered, "I sent two boats and a helicopter. What more did you want me to do?"
How often do we as Christians hold out for or demand the grand demonstration of divine power -- and feel disillusioned when it doesn't come -- only because we lack the faith to recognize that God is already present with us? This is not to say that we should consider every provision in our lives a divine intervention on par with the miracle of walking on water. But it is to say that genuine faith is most often the faithfulness to avail ourselves of the blessings we have already received rather than demanding something additional and far more dramatic.
First Lesson Focus
Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28
We come now to the long story of Joseph, chapters 37 through 50. While some of your parishioners will know the story from the Bible, others will be familiar with parts of it from seeing the musical, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat. That musical follows the biblical story of Joseph rather closely, although it omits the theological framework of the story and, most importantly, the theological climax of it, with which we will deal next week. Our text serves to introduce the characters and the tensions in the tale.
We learn of the family troubles that infect Jacob's family. Jacob-Israel has 11 children, and the children do not get along with one another very well. Why? Because Jacob makes the terrible mistake of favoring his youngest son, Joseph, who was born to his beloved Rachel (Genesis 32:22-24). Moreover, teenager Joseph is a 17-year-old brat. He criticizes his brothers to his father. And when he dreams, he has the audacity to tell his whole family that his dreams have portrayed both his brothers and his parents bowing down in obeisance to him (Genesis 37:5-11). Even Jacob is angered by that, so it is no wonder that Joseph's brothers hate him (v. 4). The crowning blow, however, is that Joseph does very little work, while his brothers spend their days toiling. That's the significance of Joseph's coat. Tradition has always said it was a coat of many colors, but actually what the Hebrew text says is that it was a coat with long sleeves. In other words, it was a coat to lie around in. You can't work in long sleeves, and Joseph did very little work.
One day Jacob sends Joseph after the brothers, who are pasturing the flock, to see how they are getting along. Supposedly the brothers are near Shechem, in the central hill country, but when Joseph goes to find them, they have moved. Finally, a passing stranger informs Joseph that the brothers and the flocks are near Dothan.
When the brothers see Joseph, they decide to take their revenge on the brat. "Here comes this dreamer," they say. "Let's kill him and throw him into one of the pits ... then we shall see what becomes of his dreams." The difficulty is, however, that Joseph's dreams were given him by God, and God's dreams always come true. But the brothers of Joseph do not know that. They know only that they hate their brother.
Nevertheless, there is some brotherly feeling left in one of the brothers. Reuben argues that they should not kill Joseph, and he plans to rescue Joseph later out of the pit. Those pits were bottle-shaped cavities used for storing water, and Reuben knows that they are empty at the moment. So the brothers strip Joseph of his leisure-robe and throw him down the empty cavity.
As the brothers are eating, a caravan of Ishmaelite traders, who are sometimes called Midianites, pass by. And Judah, too, does not want Joseph to die in the water-pit. So he suggests that they sell Joseph as a slave to the Ishmaelites. That way they will have no blood-guilt on their heads. The sale is therefore made for 20 shekels of silver, which was the price paid when a young person made a vow to the Lord (cf. Leviticus 27:5). Joseph trudges off, bound, behind the Midianite caravan.
In the story that follows, Reuben is distraught when he finds Joseph gone. But the brothers dip Joseph's coat in goat's blood and take that to their father Jacob as evidence that Joseph has been killed by a wild beast. Meanwhile Joseph is sold to a man named Potiphar, a captain of the guard in the Egyptian Pharaoh's service (Genesis 37:29-36).
It's all a very secular story, quite explainable in psychological, human terms. Many a family in our day has known such jealousy and hatred, and many a father has unwisely favored one child over another. But of course that's not the end of the story. God's work seems quite hidden in the tale, and we have had no mention of any divine will and working. But we human beings often serve the purposes of God without knowing it, and we shall find when we proceed with the story next week that even the father's unwise love and the brothers' jealousy and hatred are used by the Lord to work out his purpose for his people Israel. Human folly and evil never defeat God's work.
Lutheran Option -- 1 Kings 19:9-18
The northern kingdom of Israel was ruled by a king named Ahab between about 869 and 850 B.C., and in secular terms, Ahab was a rather successful king. He erected magnificent buildings and defeated many of Israel's foes in battle. But Ahab made the mistake of marrying a woman named Jezebel, the daughter of the king of Tyre. And Jezebel was a devotee of the pagan god Baal, introducing widespread idolatry into the life of God's people and supporting 450 prophets of Baal. The prophet Elijah fought with all his might against Jezebel and the nation's idolatry, however, even making fools of the Baal prophets in a contest with them on Mount Carmel and subsequently slaughtering them (1 Kings 18:17-46).
Elijah's deed did not sit well with Jezebel, and she vowed vengeance on the prophet. So Elijah fled for his life to Mount Horeb, that is Mount Sinai, in the Arabian peninsula, where Israel had first met its God (cf. Exodus 19). There Elijah took fearful refuge in a cave, supposedly a defeated prophet of the Lord.
God does not heed the fearfulness of his prophets, however, and he certainly does not pay attention to the wrath of the Jezebels of this world. Nor does he leave his servants alone when he has a job for them to do. God confronts Elijah on the mountain and asks him what he thinks he is doing, hiding in a cave. Elijah explains his plight, pleading that he, he only, is left faithful in Israel, and that his life is in danger. (The explanation is given twice, and verse 14 is probably an unintended duplicate in the text). In short, Elijah fears the power of an earthly queen.
There follows, therefore, a demonstration of the power of Almighty God. A great and strong wind tears at the mountain and even splits some of its rocks. An earthquake occurs, and a mysterious fire breaks out. But, emphasizes our text, God is not present in any of those phenomenon. In short, he is no Baal god, who is revealed through the manifestations of nature. Instead he comes to Elijah in a voice -- a mysterious voice of "thin silence," like no human voice. And he commands Elijah to get to work. "Return to the nation of northern Israel," God tells the prophet, "topple the Omri dynasty to which Ahab belongs, and put Jehu on the throne." In other words, Elijah, go down from this mountain and start a revolution. "As your prophetic successor, anoint the man named Elisha, who will finish the revolution that you start (cf. 2 Kings 9-10). And incidentally, Elijah, there are 7,000 faithful people left in Israel who have not bowed the knee to Baal."
Jezebels, kings, queens, the principalities and powers of this earth? They are no match for the one King of kings who is Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And his is the final victory. We can count on it.
Preaching The Psalms
Psalm 105:1-6, 16-22, 45b
We have already encountered this Psalm once this season (see July 28) but we get a different cut of verses this time. The new material includes verses 16-22, which recounts a major incident in Israel's salvation history -- the "sending" of Joseph ahead of his family into Egypt (v. 17, cf. Genesis 45:7), so that later, when famine struck, he was in a position to keep his family alive. Obviously this psalm can be used in support of the First Lesson.
This section of the psalm lends itself to a discussion of what the painful, "bottom of the pit" experiences mean to us from the perspective of later developments. There is no denying the hardness of hard times, but what God helps us make of them over the long run is often the better way to view them.
For example, when Joseph first landed in Egypt, he might have described his brothers' treachery this way: "I am a perfectly innocent victim of my own brothers' scheming. I never did anything to deserve what they did to me." Later though, he saw it differently and said to his brothers: "Do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life" (Genesis 45:5).
James S. Thomas is a bishop, now retired, of the United Methodist Church. He is also a black man. In speaking one time to a ministers' group about some events that had molded his character and his faith, Bishop Thomas told of what it was like to grow up in the South as a black person. He mentioned, for example, being pushed off the sidewalk by whites. He also spoke about his home life. His father was a stern disciplinarian, and at times, it seemed to young James that the discipline was overly harsh. But as an adult looking back, Bishop Thomas said that he was grateful for the morality he had been taught at home. He also said that he is now able to view even the incidents of racial prejudice as experiences that have helped him be more understanding and tolerant of others.
In the long view, things often have a different meaning than the one they had at the time they occurred.
The one section of the paper that I unfailingly read every day is the "Educational" section. What? You mean you didn't know that the newspapers have a daily educational section? Oh, I admit that truth-in-labeling laws notwithstanding that they don't call it an "educational" section, but every day you will find it in the under the heading "Comics."
One of the classics is of course Family Circus. Every day it provides keen insights into family dynamics and important reminders of how the world is experienced and perceived by children. A fixture of its microcosmic world is the "Not-Me" gremlin who is responsible for so much mischief and minor destruction around the house. Whenever there is any accidental breakage in that home, there is uncommon unanimity among the children that "Not-Me" is responsible.
Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28
The decision of the lectionary committee to omit the recounting of Joseph's dreams from the reading for this Sunday underscores the preacher's fundamental problem in addressing this text. The Joseph cycle really must be held in one's mind as a whole. Yet a preacher can neither count on those in the pews to be sufficiently familiar with the story to fill in the gaps from memory or to be sufficiently patient to sit through both the telling of the whole story and its explication. Breaking it up into little bits, however, causes one to miss essential points while only highlighting pesky inconsistencies.
By leaving aside the dreams in 37:5-11, the committee has set the agenda with the priorities of establishing the animosity between Joseph and his brothers and getting him to Egypt to set up the story for the following Sunday. It is precisely in these issues, however, that the traditional seams in the story are the most obvious.
First there is the problem of which of the brothers wants to create a buffer between Joseph and the murderous intentions of the others. Initially we are told that Reuben devises the plan of placing him in the pit in the secret hope of rescuing him later (vv. 21-22). But only a few sentences later, it is Judah who suggests there is a profit to be made as slave traders rather than murderers (vv. 26-27). There is no indication that Reuben is absent from the deliberations to amend the plan in this way -- until in verse 29 he "returned to the pit" and is dismayed to find that Joseph is not there.
If this confusion were not enough, there is the added uncertainty about just who it is that sells Joseph into slavery. Judah hatches his plan when he sees a caravan of Ishmaelites (a strange designation given that Ishmael is his great-uncle!) coming up the road (v. 25). But with the words barely out of Judah's mouth, we read that some Midianites discover Joseph in the pit and beat the brothers to the punch in selling him to the Ishmaelites (v. 28). Not infrequently commentators try to gloss over some of this confusion by asserting that "Midianites" and "Ishmaelites" are different names for the same group. But how would that resolve the difficulty? A single group sells Joseph to themselves? Yet the Midianites stealing Joseph right out from underneath his brothers' noses and so making off with their hoped for profit from the Ishmaelites would explain why Reuben still expected to find Joseph in the pit.
The reason for all this confusion, of course, is that we have conflicting versions of the story from different sources used in writing Genesis. But a sermon already pressed for time is hardly the place for a discourse on the Documentary Hypothesis of JEDP. Nor will it do to simply ignore the confusion and hope that no one notices. Better to acknowledge the contradictions, admit there are different versions of what happened, and suggest that the brothers just couldn't get their stories straight. (Admittedly a simplistic, but not altogether inaccurate, description of the traditioning process in the competing sources.) Whenever people are busy pointing the accusing finger at others, the truth of what actually happened is often lost.
Romans 10:5-15
The readings from Romans continue with a portion of Paul's discussion of the relationship of both Jews and Gentiles to God with the coming of Christ. The reading from the previous week (9:1-5) expressed Paul's view that although all the blessings of the old covenant ("the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises," etc.) continue to belong to the Jews, they have failed to avail themselves of the new covenant that God has made in Christ (see especially 9:30--10:4).
The reason for this failure, in Paul's view, is that the Jews had reduced the "law" to a dependence on works rather than "striv[ing] for [righteousness] on the basis of faith" (9:32). Ultimately this meant that they attempted to make themselves righteous rather than relying upon God to make them righteous (10:3). The new covenant in Christ marks "the end of the law" -- not as the instruction in God's will and thus as a wonderful gift, but as an inappropriate means by which some have tried to establish their own righteousness (10:4).
The bulk of the reading for this Sunday (through v. 13) is Paul's proof texts in support of his argument. His methods for interpreting these texts is typical of the Rabbinic exegesis of this period, and thus at points is difficult to follow for modern readers accustomed to reading scripture in a quite different manner. The most significant difference between Paul's approach then and our typical approaches now is that Paul does not feel constrained to limit the meaning of his citations to what they could have meant in their original literary and historical contexts. God speaks in the words of scripture "now," and so one need not limit the meanings to what was understood "then."
So it is that in citing Leviticus 18:5, Paul construes what was originally a promise as a warning: "The person who does these things [i.e., all the requirements of the "law" (Hebrew torah, better thought of as "instruction")] will live by them." For Paul, this statement is hardly a tautology, as the nearly synonymous expressions to us of "does" and "live by" might suggest. Rather, the one who "does" everything that God requires without failing will "live by" them in the sense of "be made alive by" this perfect obedience. The rub as far as Paul is concerned is that of course no person is ever able to fulfill this requirement (see Romans 3:9, 23). In this way Moses' promise has been transformed into Paul's warning.
In similar fashion, Paul concludes that the "word" that "is near you" according to the citation from Deuteronomy 30:12-14 is not the word of Torah but rather Christ himself. By this type of allegorical interpretation such as was common at the time, Paul is able to transform a text that, again, might have been seen as a promise held out about the possibility of gaining righteousness through Torah observance into instead a text demonstrating the necessity of believing in Christ in order to be justified (Romans 10:10).
The end result of making justification dependent upon one's belief in Christ rather than on one's full obedience to Torah is that "there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him" (10:12). Neither Jew nor Gentile stands at any disadvantage, and neither has any inherent advantage. "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved" (10:13, citing Joel 2:32).
The lectionary reading concludes with a series of rhetorical questions that draws out one necessary conclusion from Paul's argument. If justification and salvation are now only available through belief in Christ, then it is absolutely incumbent upon those who have come to know this truth to share it with others.
Matthew 14:22-33
Does it take more faith to stay in the boat, or to walk on water? That is the strange question that lies at the heart of Matthew's account of Jesus' stroll across the Sea of Galilee. Although Mark (6:45-52) and John (6:16-21) have almost identical accounts of Jesus walking across the stormy waters of the lake to meet his frightened disciples in a boat, only Matthew includes the report that Peter attempted the same feat.
The question is: Why did Peter do it? At first glance it would appear to be a tremendous accomplishment of faith to step out of a boat with the expectation that one could walk atop the water. Yet from the very beginning, Matthew offers subtle clues that perhaps Peter was motivated by something other than tremendous faith.
Jesus calls to his disciples in the midst of the storm saying, "Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid." In response, Matthew tells us, Peter answered, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water" (vv. 27-28). Notice that Peter's response is rooted in doubt ("if it is you"). Try, then, to imagine the tone in Jesus' voice as he offers his one word response, "Come." Does Jesus issue the summons in reassuring and supportive tones, or do you suppose there was a note of exasperation in his voice. "Just once, Peter, couldn't you be less impetuous and simply do what you were asked?"
However Jesus said it, Peter quickly "got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus" (v. 29). One might have expected that this accomplishment would have established one's faith for several lifetimes. Yet rather than focus on the fact that his feet were not sinking into the water, Matthew reports that Peter paid more attention to the strong wind. Peter became once again frightened by the storm, and began sinking into the lake. In desperation he cried out, "Lord, save me!"
As Jesus reached out and grabbed Peter, he said, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?" Once again there is more than a little ambiguity in Jesus' statement. Was Jesus asking, "Why did you doubt your ability to continue walking on the water despite the wind?" (Which, with even a moment's reflection, really should have been way down the list of concerns at that particular point, no matter how severe the storm.) Or was Jesus asking, "Why, Peter, of all the people in the boat, were you the only one who doubted that it was me coming to aid you in the storm?" Wasn't Jesus' presence enough of a sign of God's concern? Did Peter really need to see the miracle of two men walking on water to believe that God was watching over them?
In one of the first and most influential essays in the field of redaction criticism, Günther Bornkamm suggested that Matthew's addition to this story was crafted as an allegory directed at Christians in periods of intense persecution. The issue was whether it required more faith (or perhaps better, more faithfulness) to remain in the church (the "boat") during such storms of persecution or to strike off on one's own, trusting in one's personal ability to believe. For Matthew the answer was clear: true faith was to stay with the boat of the church and not to put God to the test (cf. Matthew 4:5-7).
Application
Jacob, of course, was deprived of the education provided by a daily reading of the comics. Nevertheless, with so many children in his household, I am certain he would have recognized the antics of the "Not-Me" gremlin -- even once his children were grown. Although they conspired to keep the truth of what they had done to Joseph a secret from their father (deceptively insinuating he had accidentally fallen prey to some marauding wild animal), you can bet the brothers were quick to offer explanations to one another for why they were not personally responsible for what had happened to Joseph.
Reuben, the oldest, probably castigated his brothers. "What do you mean Joseph was sold to some traders bound for Egypt? We had an agreement, remember? Throw him in the pit; scare some humility into him; show him who is really boss! But sold into slavery ... now what are we going to tell our father?" Yet as Queen Gertrude observed of the player queen in Hamlet (Act 3, Scene 2) one can't help but have the impression that Reuben "protests too much, methinks." I can just hear the bulk of the brothers quickly diverting the responsibility from themselves in a rousing chorus of, "Hey, it was Judah's idea!" And as the evasions of responsibility mounted and the recriminations flew, the "Not-Me" gremlin giggled and ran off.
The need for Joseph's brothers to take responsibility for their actions against him is one of the threads that runs through the length of the Joseph Cycle. When they thought they were "paying the penalty for what [they] did to [their] brother" because of the accusations from the Pharaoh's vizier that they were spies (42:21), when Judah offered himself lest Benjamin be enslaved to the vizier and his loss bring about their father's death from grief (44:18-34), perhaps they had finally owned up to what they had done.
Clearly, however, the brothers' rejection of the "Not-Me" gremlin did not come easily. At the very moment when they think of Joseph as they are accused of being spies, Reuben continues to point the finger at his brothers (42:22). Even as Judah relates to his as-yet unrecognized brother the long story of why they cannot return to Jacob without Benjamin, he continues to hide the truth behind the deceit they had offered their father (44:28). Even when they fear that Joseph will exact his revenge following Jacob's death, they still prefer to concoct yet another lie rather than count on Joseph to forgive them (50:15-17).
But in the end they finally accept the responsibility and the consequences for their actions. They tell the brother whom they had plotted to sell into slavery, "We are here as your slaves" (50:18). And although Joseph rejects the divine prerogative of retribution by his rhetorical question, "Am I in the place of God?" (50:19b), he nevertheless acts in accord with God's truest nature and forgives his brothers. Receiving forgiveness requires that we stop hiding behind the "Not-Me" gremlin.
From Paul's letter to the Romans we can add one other thing that is required to receive forgiveness: a willingness to rely on grace rather than one's own accomplishments. Just as there was nothing that the brothers could have done that would have removed their murderous intention, so there is no way for those who have violated God's instruction to be made alive by such complete obedience. That option is forever passed. But our failings are never the end of the matter. As Joseph told to his brothers, God's intention in the midst of human sinfulness is to nevertheless bring about good (Genesis 50:20; cf. Romans 8 28). But to live in that good requires that we accept our responsibility for the bad, give up the idea that we can yet make things right on our own, and believe in God's gracious act of forgiveness.
An Alternate Application
Matthew 14:22-33. The story of Peter's ill-fated attempt to walk on water calls to mind a joke about a man stranded on a rooftop as the floodwaters rose around his house. He prayed and asked God to keep him safe from the rising waters. A neighbor came by in a boat and encouraged the man to climb down from the roof into his boat and so escape the danger. But the man replied that he had prayed and had complete faith that God would protect him.
By the time the sheriff's deputy came by several hours later, the floodwaters were lapping at the eves of the roof. Still the man refused to leave his home, insisting that God would not allow any harm to come to him. When at last the National Guard arrived in a helicopter, the man had been pushed to a perch atop the chimney since most of the roof was now covered by water. But still the man would not take the rescue line lowered to him, screaming to the rescue crew that God would keep him safe. Soon after the helicopter left, the house collapsed and the man drowned.
The man found himself in heaven, standing before God. Even so, he was quite exasperated. "God, how could you have failed me? I put my faith in you, and I bore testimony to that faith again and again! Why didn't you save me?" To which God answered, "I sent two boats and a helicopter. What more did you want me to do?"
How often do we as Christians hold out for or demand the grand demonstration of divine power -- and feel disillusioned when it doesn't come -- only because we lack the faith to recognize that God is already present with us? This is not to say that we should consider every provision in our lives a divine intervention on par with the miracle of walking on water. But it is to say that genuine faith is most often the faithfulness to avail ourselves of the blessings we have already received rather than demanding something additional and far more dramatic.
First Lesson Focus
Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28
We come now to the long story of Joseph, chapters 37 through 50. While some of your parishioners will know the story from the Bible, others will be familiar with parts of it from seeing the musical, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat. That musical follows the biblical story of Joseph rather closely, although it omits the theological framework of the story and, most importantly, the theological climax of it, with which we will deal next week. Our text serves to introduce the characters and the tensions in the tale.
We learn of the family troubles that infect Jacob's family. Jacob-Israel has 11 children, and the children do not get along with one another very well. Why? Because Jacob makes the terrible mistake of favoring his youngest son, Joseph, who was born to his beloved Rachel (Genesis 32:22-24). Moreover, teenager Joseph is a 17-year-old brat. He criticizes his brothers to his father. And when he dreams, he has the audacity to tell his whole family that his dreams have portrayed both his brothers and his parents bowing down in obeisance to him (Genesis 37:5-11). Even Jacob is angered by that, so it is no wonder that Joseph's brothers hate him (v. 4). The crowning blow, however, is that Joseph does very little work, while his brothers spend their days toiling. That's the significance of Joseph's coat. Tradition has always said it was a coat of many colors, but actually what the Hebrew text says is that it was a coat with long sleeves. In other words, it was a coat to lie around in. You can't work in long sleeves, and Joseph did very little work.
One day Jacob sends Joseph after the brothers, who are pasturing the flock, to see how they are getting along. Supposedly the brothers are near Shechem, in the central hill country, but when Joseph goes to find them, they have moved. Finally, a passing stranger informs Joseph that the brothers and the flocks are near Dothan.
When the brothers see Joseph, they decide to take their revenge on the brat. "Here comes this dreamer," they say. "Let's kill him and throw him into one of the pits ... then we shall see what becomes of his dreams." The difficulty is, however, that Joseph's dreams were given him by God, and God's dreams always come true. But the brothers of Joseph do not know that. They know only that they hate their brother.
Nevertheless, there is some brotherly feeling left in one of the brothers. Reuben argues that they should not kill Joseph, and he plans to rescue Joseph later out of the pit. Those pits were bottle-shaped cavities used for storing water, and Reuben knows that they are empty at the moment. So the brothers strip Joseph of his leisure-robe and throw him down the empty cavity.
As the brothers are eating, a caravan of Ishmaelite traders, who are sometimes called Midianites, pass by. And Judah, too, does not want Joseph to die in the water-pit. So he suggests that they sell Joseph as a slave to the Ishmaelites. That way they will have no blood-guilt on their heads. The sale is therefore made for 20 shekels of silver, which was the price paid when a young person made a vow to the Lord (cf. Leviticus 27:5). Joseph trudges off, bound, behind the Midianite caravan.
In the story that follows, Reuben is distraught when he finds Joseph gone. But the brothers dip Joseph's coat in goat's blood and take that to their father Jacob as evidence that Joseph has been killed by a wild beast. Meanwhile Joseph is sold to a man named Potiphar, a captain of the guard in the Egyptian Pharaoh's service (Genesis 37:29-36).
It's all a very secular story, quite explainable in psychological, human terms. Many a family in our day has known such jealousy and hatred, and many a father has unwisely favored one child over another. But of course that's not the end of the story. God's work seems quite hidden in the tale, and we have had no mention of any divine will and working. But we human beings often serve the purposes of God without knowing it, and we shall find when we proceed with the story next week that even the father's unwise love and the brothers' jealousy and hatred are used by the Lord to work out his purpose for his people Israel. Human folly and evil never defeat God's work.
Lutheran Option -- 1 Kings 19:9-18
The northern kingdom of Israel was ruled by a king named Ahab between about 869 and 850 B.C., and in secular terms, Ahab was a rather successful king. He erected magnificent buildings and defeated many of Israel's foes in battle. But Ahab made the mistake of marrying a woman named Jezebel, the daughter of the king of Tyre. And Jezebel was a devotee of the pagan god Baal, introducing widespread idolatry into the life of God's people and supporting 450 prophets of Baal. The prophet Elijah fought with all his might against Jezebel and the nation's idolatry, however, even making fools of the Baal prophets in a contest with them on Mount Carmel and subsequently slaughtering them (1 Kings 18:17-46).
Elijah's deed did not sit well with Jezebel, and she vowed vengeance on the prophet. So Elijah fled for his life to Mount Horeb, that is Mount Sinai, in the Arabian peninsula, where Israel had first met its God (cf. Exodus 19). There Elijah took fearful refuge in a cave, supposedly a defeated prophet of the Lord.
God does not heed the fearfulness of his prophets, however, and he certainly does not pay attention to the wrath of the Jezebels of this world. Nor does he leave his servants alone when he has a job for them to do. God confronts Elijah on the mountain and asks him what he thinks he is doing, hiding in a cave. Elijah explains his plight, pleading that he, he only, is left faithful in Israel, and that his life is in danger. (The explanation is given twice, and verse 14 is probably an unintended duplicate in the text). In short, Elijah fears the power of an earthly queen.
There follows, therefore, a demonstration of the power of Almighty God. A great and strong wind tears at the mountain and even splits some of its rocks. An earthquake occurs, and a mysterious fire breaks out. But, emphasizes our text, God is not present in any of those phenomenon. In short, he is no Baal god, who is revealed through the manifestations of nature. Instead he comes to Elijah in a voice -- a mysterious voice of "thin silence," like no human voice. And he commands Elijah to get to work. "Return to the nation of northern Israel," God tells the prophet, "topple the Omri dynasty to which Ahab belongs, and put Jehu on the throne." In other words, Elijah, go down from this mountain and start a revolution. "As your prophetic successor, anoint the man named Elisha, who will finish the revolution that you start (cf. 2 Kings 9-10). And incidentally, Elijah, there are 7,000 faithful people left in Israel who have not bowed the knee to Baal."
Jezebels, kings, queens, the principalities and powers of this earth? They are no match for the one King of kings who is Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And his is the final victory. We can count on it.
Preaching The Psalms
Psalm 105:1-6, 16-22, 45b
We have already encountered this Psalm once this season (see July 28) but we get a different cut of verses this time. The new material includes verses 16-22, which recounts a major incident in Israel's salvation history -- the "sending" of Joseph ahead of his family into Egypt (v. 17, cf. Genesis 45:7), so that later, when famine struck, he was in a position to keep his family alive. Obviously this psalm can be used in support of the First Lesson.
This section of the psalm lends itself to a discussion of what the painful, "bottom of the pit" experiences mean to us from the perspective of later developments. There is no denying the hardness of hard times, but what God helps us make of them over the long run is often the better way to view them.
For example, when Joseph first landed in Egypt, he might have described his brothers' treachery this way: "I am a perfectly innocent victim of my own brothers' scheming. I never did anything to deserve what they did to me." Later though, he saw it differently and said to his brothers: "Do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life" (Genesis 45:5).
James S. Thomas is a bishop, now retired, of the United Methodist Church. He is also a black man. In speaking one time to a ministers' group about some events that had molded his character and his faith, Bishop Thomas told of what it was like to grow up in the South as a black person. He mentioned, for example, being pushed off the sidewalk by whites. He also spoke about his home life. His father was a stern disciplinarian, and at times, it seemed to young James that the discipline was overly harsh. But as an adult looking back, Bishop Thomas said that he was grateful for the morality he had been taught at home. He also said that he is now able to view even the incidents of racial prejudice as experiences that have helped him be more understanding and tolerant of others.
In the long view, things often have a different meaning than the one they had at the time they occurred.
