Calming the storm?

Genesis 37: 1-4, 12-28   Matthew 14: 22-33

As the readings today teach us to wait for the help God gives us, so the sermon is in two parts – we will look at the Genesis reading first, and wait a little while in our service to hear the Gospel reading and reflect a little on that.

 

We might think we know the story of Joseph and his technicolour dreamcoat and of Jacob - Jacob and sons  - thanks to Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Tim Rice and their musical.

But the way the book of Genesis actually tells the story is distinctly less perky and, at first, strangely less ‘religious’: God isn’t mentioned at all in this first part of the story.

 

Instead what we have is a complex family drama – which might be thousands of years old, but still resonates with us today.

This is the same Jacob who tricked his brother Esau out of his birth-right, and then acquired a new name ‘Israel’ when he met and wrestled with God.

Jacob’s 12 sons have 4 different mothers – sisters Rachel & Leah and their slave-girls Bilhah and Zilpah. Joseph is Jacob’s favourite – because he is one of Rachel’s two sons: Rachel died given birth to her second son, Benjamin.

To make complicated family dynamics worse, Joseph is a bit of a sneak and tells tales on some of his brothers to Jacob. 

Then Jospeh has dreams – about sheaves of corn and then about stars in which theses represent the other brothers and even his parents bowing down to Joseph. He reports these dreams to his family (!), and we are told his brothers’ hatred and jealousy of him grows worse.

Jacob makes no attempt to hide his favouritism of Joseph and buys him this amazing coat – not a technicolour one, but a long robe with sleeves – if that doesn’t sound very special, the only other time this kind of coat is mentioned in the Bible it is worn by a princess!

The stage is set for a crisis – and when Jacob sends Joseph to see how his brothers are getting on, herding the sheep miles from home, the brothers seize their opportunity to get rid of Joseph. 

 

The first plan is to murder him and throw his body into a cistern – a pit dug to catch and hold water. Reuben comes to his rescue by suggesting they throw him down alive – and we’re told that he plans to rescue Joseph later. They do that – stripping Joseph of his coat – and then when they see Ishmaelite traders they decide to sell him. The account gets a bit muddled – either those Ishmaelites, or some other traders who are Midianites pull Joseph out and take Joseph to Egypt, as a slave.

 

You might think Joseph has been the architect of his own downfall – describing to everyone his dreams of superiority, telling tales about his brothers, wearing his special coat even on a trip into the desert – but there can be no doubt that being attacked, imprisoned and then sold into slavery by his brothers is a huge trauma. 

He has gone from favourite son to slave in a strange land.

 

And where is God in this?

So far, silent.

Only when Joseph gets to Egypt and is bought by Potiphar are we told ‘Joseph prospered, for the Lord was with him’.

But at the moment when we stopped the story today – on the journey to Egypt as a betrayed, stripped and bruised slave – Joseph must have wondered if anyone in the world cared for him, and would be forgiven for thinking that God had forgotten him.

 

One of the teachers at the URC’s Northern College, where Kate Wolsey is training, is Meg Warner, an expert in the Hebrew Scriptures – our Old testament. Meg has written a fascinating little book about Joseph which she subtitles ‘a story of resilience’. She looks at the story of Joseph alongside her own difficult experiences in life, and asks what Joseph can teach us about resilience – the ability to bounce back from hard knocks in life.

What does the episode we have heard today teach us?

 

I think it encourages to see that when life is hard it is not our fault if we feel that God has abandoned us – in fact “where is God?” is a natural question. Joseph has to wait a long time to find that ‘the Lord was with him’ – and even then, the time as Potiphar’s slave is not the end of the story – there are more difficulties to come. Yet by the end of the story, Joseph is able to say to his brothers (ch 45) “it is not you who sent me here but God”.

Yet right here in this morning’s story, on the way to Egypt, there is no mention of God and God is silent.

 

There may be times in each of our lives when we feel bruised, abandoned, shaken to the core, bereft…when we ask the natural question ‘where is God?’. Joseph’s story teaches us that we might have to wait, and even go through more difficulties, for God’s presence and God’s care to become apparent to us. 

 

But the witness of the Bible is that we are not left without hope – we can be honest with ourselves and honest with God in our lowest point and wait for God’s saving help to be revealed.

 

 🤔

(Part 2)

 

The Joseph story is spread over fourteen chapters of Genesis – tracing the peaks and troughs of his life in and out of favour, slavery and jail. Here in just twelve chapters of Matthew’s gospel we encounter the disciples and their dealing with life-threatening ups and downs.

 

This story comes straight after the feeding of the 5,000. Jesus sends the disciples off in the boat, while he dismisses the crowds. The boat is battered by the waves and the wind is against them and they are far from the shore. As dawn breaks after a perilous night, Jesus walks towards them on the water – and they are terrified until he calls out to them not be afraid.

Peter, in a moment of great fervour, starts to walk towards Jesus on the water – but when he notices the strong wind he becomes frightened and starts to sink. Jesus saves him and together they get back in the boat. Then the wind ceased – and those in the boat worship Jesus “Truly you are the Son of God”.

 

In this short story we see the disciples struggling with the elements when Jesus is not with them; doubting their own eyes when they see Jesus at first; overwhelmed with enthusiasm to be with Jesus; doubting again because the storm around them is so great; and finally worshipping the Jesus who is with them and who can calm the storm.

 

Here is another story that shows that the presence of Jesus can bring calm in the end – but that there are times when people need to hold on and wait for the storm to pass.

 

Jesus is with us, for us, ready to save us, but there are times when it doesn’t seem that way. Times when we can be honest about the state we are in, times when we need to look for the presence of Jesus in the storm, times when we need to trust that in the end all will be well.

 

The disciples’ perception might be that when their trouble is at its height – they are battered by the waves and battling against the wind – they are alone in their troubles. But Jesus shows that he always has them in his sights and that he is always ready to be alongside them, to join them in the boat, and finally to bring peace and to bring them to a point where they recognise ‘truly this is the son of God’.

 

I pray that the living Jesus keep us in his sights, walk beside us in the storm, and bring us from our waiting and lament to a time of peace and calm. 

 

I’d like to close with a prayer of Thomas Merton, the Roman Catholic contemplative monk, who died in 1968:

 

My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,

though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though
I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.

I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Amen.