Village Shepherd

It's now well known although hardly comprehensible to me, that a single beat of a butterfly's wing can start a chain of events that can cause or prevent the formation of hurricanes half way around the world. There is fairly universal agreement in the meteorological community that this statement about the nature of causes and effects is true and not an exaggeration.

If a single beat of a butterfly's wing can cause or prevent something as huge as a hurricane, what effects do our human actions cause? Perhaps it's just as well that we generally remain blithely unaware of the effects of any of our actions, although sometimes it's possible to trace a chain of cause and effect through history. The first World War, for instance, is generally accepted to have been triggered by the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28th 1914. But there were many other events leading up to the assassination which were undoubtedly part of the chain of causes which resulted in World War 1.

Similarly, we can all look back in our own lives and regret some action which we have taken and which has resulted in some sort of pain or disaster either for ourselves or for other people, although we may still remain unaware of the complete chain of causes resulting in that particular effect. And we may also be totally unaware of actions of ours which have resulted in spectacularly wonderful effects for other people. The occasional word tossed out casually, a smile at the right time, a telephone call when it was needed, support for those who have no support; any of these might result in a terrific effect for someone else.

The dreams of young Joseph, the favourite son of his father Jacob, had a disastrous effect upon Joseph's life, for his brothers were so enraged by Joseph's arrogance and his favoured position in the family that they tore off his special robe and sold him to a passing band of slave traders. And yet the dreams were not the only cause of this terrible act, for favouritism ran through the family history like a running sore, causing mayhem wherever it was encountered.

Jacob's mother Rebekah had favoured him over his twin brother Esau and that favouritism had led to the theft by Jacob of Esau's inheritance and the subsequent enmity between the twins. And that enmity was probably fuelled by Jacob's father Isaac's declared favouritism of Esau.

Favouritism of one family member over another, especially favouritism shown so blatantly by parents, sets the scene for future disasters and starts chains of events which very often result in tragedy.

But even acts which can give rise to terrible disaster are not beyond God's reach, for it was through the actions of his brothers that Joseph ended up in Egypt, slave to the Pharaoh himself. Clearly Joseph was a clever lad, for he rose through the ranks to become the Pharaohs most trusted advisor, although Joseph had many adventures on the way and some painful years in an Egyptian prison to endure before he reached the heights of his career.

It may not have seemed like it when he was suffering in prison, not knowing whether or not he would be summarily executed, but God was with Joseph throughout his life, protecting him, guiding him and using him for God's purposes in the world. Joseph grew to maturity in Egypt and became a very different person indeed from the callow youth who was so full of himself and his own self-importance. Through God's help, Joseph was able to reach his own full potential, despite his terrifying early experience and his years of slavery.

Yet for all his astuteness, Joseph was by no means a perfect person. When he met his brothers again after many years, he deceived them, he threatened them, he kept one of them hostage and he set them up for a very nasty fall indeed, by hiding a silver goblet from the palace in his youngest brother Benjamin's sack. Joseph played cat and mouse with his brothers in a rather unsavoury way, although it has to be said that he could have had them all executed had he desired to really take revenge.

The story of Joseph ends in the time-honoured way of all romances, by everyone forgiving each other, falling on each other's necks with cries of undying love and living happily ever after. Well, almost. It was after Joseph brought the whole clan to live in Egypt because of the famine in Palestine, that the Israelites became slaves to the Egyptians and in the following centuries as they multiplied, suffered terrible deprivation and privation. After several hundred years, God called Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt and back into Palestine, into the Promised Land.

Like Joseph, many of us human beings have a far from perfect start in life. We too may suffer terror and just as Joseph found himself in slavery, so we too may end up in jobs which we do not like. Conditions and situations are rarely perfect for us. But we don't know how other people's actions affect our lives, or how we affect other people's lives through our actions. What we do know is that God is with us too throughout our lives, working to help us to grow to maturity and to reach our own full potential.

Joseph reached his full potential because he made time to listen to God, identified God's voice and then acted upon it, no matter how risky that action was. If we want to reach our full potential no matter how imperfect our lives presently are, we simply need to do the same.