Howling Good News For Some
Stories
Contents
“Howling Good News For Some” by David O. Bales
“Unity” by David O. Bales
Howling Good News For Some
by David O. Bales
Genesis 45:1-15
“Calm down. Calm down. I know what’s going on,” the chief steward said. Beside him a handful of Joseph’s Egyptian servants stood outside the royal complex looking around nervously. Joseph, already acting strange this morning, without explanation had swept his arms toward his servants and shouted, “Everyone out. Everyone out.”
Because his whim was the same as Pharaoh’s command, each man fled as quickly as possible so he wouldn’t be the last to exit the audience room. The chief steward’s nine fellow servants wondered—by all the gods of Egypt—what was going on between this returning group of Hebrews and Egypt’s number two leader. Now a weeping sound emanated from Joseph’s home. Some of the servants, confused and fearful that they’d somehow displeased their master when he interrogated the Hebrews, wept also. Royals with a flick of the jeweled wrist tossed servants into prison or whacked off their heads with little provocation. The royal palace grounds echoed with sobs howling like a windstorm across the desert sands. One servant spied around the corner to see how the palace guards were responding. The youngest servant let out a whine, almost like a baby.
“It’s going to be a while,” the chief steward said, chuckling. “Zaphenath-paneah has a lot to get off his chest.” He stood before the other servants as enigmatic as the face of a sphinx. His fellow servants gaped at him as though he’d lost his mind and might be the first among them to lose his head. For a few moments more he enjoyed the power he held to terrify them. Then, smiling broadly, he said, “Don’t worry. I’ve been translator and mediator between him and these Hebrews from the first time they came to buy food. They don’t know he also speaks Hebrew. I’m standing there leaning one way and then the other transferring their information to him, and he’s listening to their every mumble, translated through me or not.”
He waved his hand reassuringly towards them, “No reason to be apprehensive. Our master Zaphenath-paneah’s original name is Hebrew: ‘Joseph.’ These Hebrews huddling together in his audience room are all one family. They’ve trekked from Canaan again to purchase supplies and I’ve dealt with them every time. I’ve listened to their conversations. I know their names.
“If you think Joseph’s toying with them, baiting them, testing them, it’s because they’re the ones who kidnapped him in Canaan and sold him as a slave so that he wound up here.”
“What?” A servant jerked his chin up in surprise, “You’re saying our lord Zaphenath-paneah, Joseph, came to Egypt as a slave?”
“I thought everyone knew. Captured by these very men over twenty years ago. They don’t even recognize him. When I supervised their provisioning and pulled Joseph’s little tricks on them, I heard them conclude that their problem with the Egyptian vice regent is because their God is punishing them for selling the boy years ago. I deliver meals to them; so, I hear them all in a funk, bickering and aiming I-told-you-so’s across the table. They remind each other how they faked the boy’s death by stripping his ornamental tunic, covering it with goat blood, and taking it to his father. They’d thrown him into a dry pit, sat down to have a meal, then hefted him up to sell to traveling slave traders.
“There were rumors he was a Hebrew. His strange accent,” the servant said. “But a slave? How …?”
“Pharaoh and his dreams,” the chief steward answered. “You know how superstitious he is and flighty with snap decisions. One night he had a couple of dreams. Assumed it was a message straight from the gods. So, he’s all flustered and foraging for anybody who can make sense of them. After the magicians and wise men tried their hand, word comes that this fellow Joseph, innocent although held in prison, is good with dreams. Dreams got him into hot water with this group of Hebrews in the first place.”
Joseph’s weeping rose and continued, and the chief steward’s fellow servants bunched closer around him. “You don’t need to know all that,” he said. “But it led to Egypt’s seven years of our amazing crops. Now, we’re years into the drought and selling the surplus. That’s what drew these Hebrews here, and Joseph has surely put them through their paces. Accusing them as spies. Joseph’s got them right where he wants them.
“I stepped into the antechamber as you all hustled out and I waited to hear what I knew was coming next.” He paused to relish the eagerness of his fellow servants to hear what only he knew. “These men are shepherds.”
“Ewwhh,” the servants all said together. One turned aside and spit on the ground.
The chief steward raised his hands in front of them as though he held another surprise. He said, “Joseph’s telling them to come with their families and settle in Egypt.”
“Oohh!” the servants said in unison, shook their heads and stamped the ground.
“No way,” one said. “Not more Hebrews. And shepherds!”
“Can’t be,” another said. “And you’ve been with them while they’re eating?”
“Now,” the chief steward said, preparing them for the biggest shock. “Hold onto your souls. Don’t let them flee your bodies…. These men are Joseph’s brothers.”
They stood unmoving. Finally one said, “May the gods protect us. I’d rather Egypt fought an army of ghosts.”
Another, shaking his head slowly said, “Better for us to eat fire. How can the gods allow it? What’s to become of Egypt, when the highest authority allows a bunch of Hebrew shepherds royal privileges to settle among us?”
Preaching point: Good news for Israel can be bad news for Egypt.
(“The Egyptians could not eat with the Hebrews, for that is an abomination to the Egyptians,” Genesis 43:32. “All shepherds are abhorrent to the Egyptians,” Genesis 46:34.)
* * *
Unity
by David O. Bales
Psalm 133
Pastor Drew was sitting beside Howie when Howie leaped up, pounded his fist in the air and screamed “Yeah!” A couple of the other fellows also yelled their excitement toward the theater’s giant screen. There Matt Damon dramatized the South African national rugby team’s defeat of New Zealand in the 1995 Rugby World Cup final in South Africa. None in Pastor Drew’s young men’s group had played rugby; but, they all were engrossed in the movie.
Pastor Drew had read John Carlin’s book Playing The Enemy, about Nelson Mandela’s using rugby in South Africa to bring unity to the country. He suggested that the young men’s group attend the movie about it: Invictus. Most had heard of it, one had already seen it. They’d agreed upon the Saturday matinee. Afterwards they drove to the church for donuts and discussion.
As the fellows clamored into chairs around the table Eric spoke up first, “I think I’ll join a rugby club,” which brought a roar from everyone. He weighed 105 pounds.
“Let’s see your skill,” Howie said. “Be a good sport. Throw me a donut.”
Eric tossed Howie a donut, spraying powdered sugar on him as he caught it. “Settles it,” Howie said. “You can be the team manager tossing guys a beer as they stumble into the clubhouse.”
The fellows slapped and pounded the table as they laughed. Howie raised his hands like a winner. After a few more jokes and comments, they were ready to turn their attention to Pastor Drew. “I wasn’t aware of South Africa 25 years ago.”
“No class on that in kindergarten?” Howie said, bringing another uproar.
“Yeah, yeah,” Drew said, patting down the laughter with his raised hand, “but I learned from Carlin’s book. The world and the Christian church basically shut down South Africa for its racism: 90 percent of the population dominated by the other tenth until finally no world athletes attending competition in South Africa or their athletes allowed to compete in other nations. The mills of human history were grinding towards freedom. After Mandela was released from 27 years of imprisonment, in a few years he was president of South Africa.” He paused and asked, “what scenes were most memorable for you?”
One young man answered with emotion in his voice, “The prison tour and Damon standing in Mandela’s tiny cell. Damon did well in that scene. I just shuddered.”
“I was glad the team took the tour there,” Wendell said. “And I was pleased we saw their trip to the countryside to teach rugby to the black kids.”
“Nothing like we’ve ever known,” Eric said.
“And,” Drew said, “all the time Mandela’s maintaining the white government workers who’d served in the previous white administration, integrating even his bodyguard with whites and blacks. He’s dealing with whites who want to keep their privileges and blacks who want revenge.”
The group mumbled agreement. One said, “That Mandela. I’d never thought a person could do what he did. A little like Martin Luther King, Jr.”
Drew tipped his head to the side to bring up a different dimension. “Easy to unite people around athletic victories. You see it with the Super Bowl, World Series and NBA champions. You get trophies, speeches, parades and a visit to the White House. We like athletic winners. Brings out the ticker tape. But consider that Hitler set out to use athletics to unite his people with the belief that Germans were the best athletes. What differences do you see between him and Mandela?”
“Hitler united people with arrogance and hate,” Wendell said. “Mandela with forgiveness and love.”
“Pretty basic, isn’t it?” Drew said. “But so much easier to get people to fear and hate than to forgive and love. Mandela, this person of the great soul, didn’t merely tell others to forgive. I was overwhelmed reading about it, let alone seeing it. He was concerned for the men who held him in prison. He knew his jailors’ names and the names of their children. The overpowering strength of goodwill flowed from him.”
“I was thinking of Jesus through the whole thing,” Howie said. “His kind of loving strength finally sets the world right.”
Eric made a broad gesture over the table, grabbing an air microphone and speaking with the voice of a sports announcer, drawing out: “Give me Jesus!”
The fellows all yelled their agreement.
Wendell pointed to Drew as he said, “You can tell that Mandela had done his work of unifying—at least the team—when the field announcer asked what it felt like to ‘have 62,000 fans supporting you here in the stadium?’ And the captain answered, ‘We didn’t have 62,000 fans behind us. We had 43 million South Africans.’”
“I’m glad I got to watch the movie with you guys,” Drew said. “Every once in a while, even beyond the church, people understand that the deepest kind of unity in human life is generated through forgiveness.” He paused, then spoke with a broad smile. “You guys are about the best group I’ve ever been around.” He raised his voice, “Eric, hand me, just hand me, a donut please,” which Eric did. Then Drew said, “The test of unity is how people get along when they disagree with one another; you know, on opposite sides. So, another donut each and we’ll cross the street to the middle school playground and have that basketball game we’ve been threatening each other with.”
“Yeah,” they yelled. Drew stepped back as Eric started tossing a donut at each one.
Preaching point: Unity through the strong forgiveness of love.
(John Carlin, Playing The Enemy: Nelson Mandela And The Game That Made A Nation.)
*****************************************
StoryShare, August 16, 2020 issue.
Copyright 2020 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
“Howling Good News For Some” by David O. Bales
“Unity” by David O. Bales
Howling Good News For Some
by David O. Bales
Genesis 45:1-15
“Calm down. Calm down. I know what’s going on,” the chief steward said. Beside him a handful of Joseph’s Egyptian servants stood outside the royal complex looking around nervously. Joseph, already acting strange this morning, without explanation had swept his arms toward his servants and shouted, “Everyone out. Everyone out.”
Because his whim was the same as Pharaoh’s command, each man fled as quickly as possible so he wouldn’t be the last to exit the audience room. The chief steward’s nine fellow servants wondered—by all the gods of Egypt—what was going on between this returning group of Hebrews and Egypt’s number two leader. Now a weeping sound emanated from Joseph’s home. Some of the servants, confused and fearful that they’d somehow displeased their master when he interrogated the Hebrews, wept also. Royals with a flick of the jeweled wrist tossed servants into prison or whacked off their heads with little provocation. The royal palace grounds echoed with sobs howling like a windstorm across the desert sands. One servant spied around the corner to see how the palace guards were responding. The youngest servant let out a whine, almost like a baby.
“It’s going to be a while,” the chief steward said, chuckling. “Zaphenath-paneah has a lot to get off his chest.” He stood before the other servants as enigmatic as the face of a sphinx. His fellow servants gaped at him as though he’d lost his mind and might be the first among them to lose his head. For a few moments more he enjoyed the power he held to terrify them. Then, smiling broadly, he said, “Don’t worry. I’ve been translator and mediator between him and these Hebrews from the first time they came to buy food. They don’t know he also speaks Hebrew. I’m standing there leaning one way and then the other transferring their information to him, and he’s listening to their every mumble, translated through me or not.”
He waved his hand reassuringly towards them, “No reason to be apprehensive. Our master Zaphenath-paneah’s original name is Hebrew: ‘Joseph.’ These Hebrews huddling together in his audience room are all one family. They’ve trekked from Canaan again to purchase supplies and I’ve dealt with them every time. I’ve listened to their conversations. I know their names.
“If you think Joseph’s toying with them, baiting them, testing them, it’s because they’re the ones who kidnapped him in Canaan and sold him as a slave so that he wound up here.”
“What?” A servant jerked his chin up in surprise, “You’re saying our lord Zaphenath-paneah, Joseph, came to Egypt as a slave?”
“I thought everyone knew. Captured by these very men over twenty years ago. They don’t even recognize him. When I supervised their provisioning and pulled Joseph’s little tricks on them, I heard them conclude that their problem with the Egyptian vice regent is because their God is punishing them for selling the boy years ago. I deliver meals to them; so, I hear them all in a funk, bickering and aiming I-told-you-so’s across the table. They remind each other how they faked the boy’s death by stripping his ornamental tunic, covering it with goat blood, and taking it to his father. They’d thrown him into a dry pit, sat down to have a meal, then hefted him up to sell to traveling slave traders.
“There were rumors he was a Hebrew. His strange accent,” the servant said. “But a slave? How …?”
“Pharaoh and his dreams,” the chief steward answered. “You know how superstitious he is and flighty with snap decisions. One night he had a couple of dreams. Assumed it was a message straight from the gods. So, he’s all flustered and foraging for anybody who can make sense of them. After the magicians and wise men tried their hand, word comes that this fellow Joseph, innocent although held in prison, is good with dreams. Dreams got him into hot water with this group of Hebrews in the first place.”
Joseph’s weeping rose and continued, and the chief steward’s fellow servants bunched closer around him. “You don’t need to know all that,” he said. “But it led to Egypt’s seven years of our amazing crops. Now, we’re years into the drought and selling the surplus. That’s what drew these Hebrews here, and Joseph has surely put them through their paces. Accusing them as spies. Joseph’s got them right where he wants them.
“I stepped into the antechamber as you all hustled out and I waited to hear what I knew was coming next.” He paused to relish the eagerness of his fellow servants to hear what only he knew. “These men are shepherds.”
“Ewwhh,” the servants all said together. One turned aside and spit on the ground.
The chief steward raised his hands in front of them as though he held another surprise. He said, “Joseph’s telling them to come with their families and settle in Egypt.”
“Oohh!” the servants said in unison, shook their heads and stamped the ground.
“No way,” one said. “Not more Hebrews. And shepherds!”
“Can’t be,” another said. “And you’ve been with them while they’re eating?”
“Now,” the chief steward said, preparing them for the biggest shock. “Hold onto your souls. Don’t let them flee your bodies…. These men are Joseph’s brothers.”
They stood unmoving. Finally one said, “May the gods protect us. I’d rather Egypt fought an army of ghosts.”
Another, shaking his head slowly said, “Better for us to eat fire. How can the gods allow it? What’s to become of Egypt, when the highest authority allows a bunch of Hebrew shepherds royal privileges to settle among us?”
Preaching point: Good news for Israel can be bad news for Egypt.
(“The Egyptians could not eat with the Hebrews, for that is an abomination to the Egyptians,” Genesis 43:32. “All shepherds are abhorrent to the Egyptians,” Genesis 46:34.)
* * *
Unity
by David O. Bales
Psalm 133
Pastor Drew was sitting beside Howie when Howie leaped up, pounded his fist in the air and screamed “Yeah!” A couple of the other fellows also yelled their excitement toward the theater’s giant screen. There Matt Damon dramatized the South African national rugby team’s defeat of New Zealand in the 1995 Rugby World Cup final in South Africa. None in Pastor Drew’s young men’s group had played rugby; but, they all were engrossed in the movie.
Pastor Drew had read John Carlin’s book Playing The Enemy, about Nelson Mandela’s using rugby in South Africa to bring unity to the country. He suggested that the young men’s group attend the movie about it: Invictus. Most had heard of it, one had already seen it. They’d agreed upon the Saturday matinee. Afterwards they drove to the church for donuts and discussion.
As the fellows clamored into chairs around the table Eric spoke up first, “I think I’ll join a rugby club,” which brought a roar from everyone. He weighed 105 pounds.
“Let’s see your skill,” Howie said. “Be a good sport. Throw me a donut.”
Eric tossed Howie a donut, spraying powdered sugar on him as he caught it. “Settles it,” Howie said. “You can be the team manager tossing guys a beer as they stumble into the clubhouse.”
The fellows slapped and pounded the table as they laughed. Howie raised his hands like a winner. After a few more jokes and comments, they were ready to turn their attention to Pastor Drew. “I wasn’t aware of South Africa 25 years ago.”
“No class on that in kindergarten?” Howie said, bringing another uproar.
“Yeah, yeah,” Drew said, patting down the laughter with his raised hand, “but I learned from Carlin’s book. The world and the Christian church basically shut down South Africa for its racism: 90 percent of the population dominated by the other tenth until finally no world athletes attending competition in South Africa or their athletes allowed to compete in other nations. The mills of human history were grinding towards freedom. After Mandela was released from 27 years of imprisonment, in a few years he was president of South Africa.” He paused and asked, “what scenes were most memorable for you?”
One young man answered with emotion in his voice, “The prison tour and Damon standing in Mandela’s tiny cell. Damon did well in that scene. I just shuddered.”
“I was glad the team took the tour there,” Wendell said. “And I was pleased we saw their trip to the countryside to teach rugby to the black kids.”
“Nothing like we’ve ever known,” Eric said.
“And,” Drew said, “all the time Mandela’s maintaining the white government workers who’d served in the previous white administration, integrating even his bodyguard with whites and blacks. He’s dealing with whites who want to keep their privileges and blacks who want revenge.”
The group mumbled agreement. One said, “That Mandela. I’d never thought a person could do what he did. A little like Martin Luther King, Jr.”
Drew tipped his head to the side to bring up a different dimension. “Easy to unite people around athletic victories. You see it with the Super Bowl, World Series and NBA champions. You get trophies, speeches, parades and a visit to the White House. We like athletic winners. Brings out the ticker tape. But consider that Hitler set out to use athletics to unite his people with the belief that Germans were the best athletes. What differences do you see between him and Mandela?”
“Hitler united people with arrogance and hate,” Wendell said. “Mandela with forgiveness and love.”
“Pretty basic, isn’t it?” Drew said. “But so much easier to get people to fear and hate than to forgive and love. Mandela, this person of the great soul, didn’t merely tell others to forgive. I was overwhelmed reading about it, let alone seeing it. He was concerned for the men who held him in prison. He knew his jailors’ names and the names of their children. The overpowering strength of goodwill flowed from him.”
“I was thinking of Jesus through the whole thing,” Howie said. “His kind of loving strength finally sets the world right.”
Eric made a broad gesture over the table, grabbing an air microphone and speaking with the voice of a sports announcer, drawing out: “Give me Jesus!”
The fellows all yelled their agreement.
Wendell pointed to Drew as he said, “You can tell that Mandela had done his work of unifying—at least the team—when the field announcer asked what it felt like to ‘have 62,000 fans supporting you here in the stadium?’ And the captain answered, ‘We didn’t have 62,000 fans behind us. We had 43 million South Africans.’”
“I’m glad I got to watch the movie with you guys,” Drew said. “Every once in a while, even beyond the church, people understand that the deepest kind of unity in human life is generated through forgiveness.” He paused, then spoke with a broad smile. “You guys are about the best group I’ve ever been around.” He raised his voice, “Eric, hand me, just hand me, a donut please,” which Eric did. Then Drew said, “The test of unity is how people get along when they disagree with one another; you know, on opposite sides. So, another donut each and we’ll cross the street to the middle school playground and have that basketball game we’ve been threatening each other with.”
“Yeah,” they yelled. Drew stepped back as Eric started tossing a donut at each one.
Preaching point: Unity through the strong forgiveness of love.
(John Carlin, Playing The Enemy: Nelson Mandela And The Game That Made A Nation.)
*****************************************
StoryShare, August 16, 2020 issue.
Copyright 2020 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
