First Sunday in Lent - C

Object: Two small containers or boxes and several pieces of paper. I used two shoe boxes with lids and about fifty pieces of used printer paper. Label one box “Judge” and the other box “Not Judge.”

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I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. (v. 4)

Spoiler alert!

Those two words warn us not to read, listen, or watch any further. Something crucial about a book, show, film, or fact is about to be revealed, and we’re being told if we want to be surprised when we finally get around to reading or watching we’d better stop listening right now.

Genesis 45:3-11, 15
Christal Berns wrote, in a May 23, 2023, article for Christian Learning, about Jacksonville, FL police officer Ike Brown. On May 27, 2002, Brown received heartbreaking news from his colleagues. His sergeant, lieutenant, chief, and chaplain came to his home and told him his son had lost his life in a shooting incident.

We all believe in justice; we all cry out to have our rights protected. Yet the power of revenge eventually takes us beyond where any of us truly want to go, for two reasons.

First of all, because of sin, we tend to be more zealous in our vindictiveness than we are in our love. I am much quicker to strike out at someone else and seek revenge against him for what he’s done to me, than I am to be that righteous myself.

Some years back, there was a best-selling book that got a lot of attention in the church, one written by a rabbi, Harold Kushner. The book was called When Bad Things Happen to Good People (HarperCollins, 1982). It is an honest attempt to grapple with the problem of evil. Why is it, Rabbi Kushner wants to know, that good and faithful people sometimes have to suffer?

The honored dead from our fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq have created a problem for Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. So many have rightly claimed burial in Arlington National Cemetery that the cemetery is running out of space. Rightful burials may soon have to be denied because there is no place for them.

Sibling rivalry. It's the pits. It has been around as long as there have been siblings around. Beginning with Cain and Abel, we see one brother disgruntled because God likes the other brother's sacrificial offering better. We remember, too, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Rachel and Leah, the prodigal son and his older brother. Life is not fair.

When a person enters into any society or any fellowship, he takes upon himself the obligations to live a certain way, by certain standards. If the person fails to live the kind of life necessary, he hinders the purpose of the society.

Once we make the claim that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true then a claim is put on our lives. In today's Scripture lesson, Jesus sets down behavior patterns for kingdom people.