Who does not want to be
in control of their life? Who does not
want to have a confident sense of who they are and what their purpose is in
this life? Who does not want to see a
clear path into the future?
In spiritual terms, who
does not want to who God is and what God wants for us? Is that not why we come to church in order to
be clear about the ways of God with our life?
The truth is that we
can do all these things, and, in fact, we must do all these things. We must make decisions, and hopefully wise
ones. We must plan for our futures. We must take responsibility for our
lives. And we must seek God.
But. There is always a but, isn’t there. There is something larger in play. Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann puts
it this way:
There is something hidden, inscrutable,
playful, and unresolved about our lives that warns us not to be too sure.[1]
Something beyond us is
also always at work in our lives, outside our total control, with purposes that
are mysterious. Sometimes we get a
glimpse of this purpose and sometimes it is difficult to knoe and understand.
A false choice is
sometimes presented to us that life works one way or the other. Either I am in complete control of my life,
have complete responsibility, because there is nothing but me trying to live my
daily life.
Or, the something
outside of myself is in total control.
God determines the direction of my life, knows ahead of time what will
happen to me and why. That sounds as if
it is the only way for religious people.
The Bible, however,
does not tell us that it is simple. Oh,
it does sometimes. Sometimes it is clear
that if you do this you will be blessed, and if you do that you will be
cursed. All the choices we make are
simply choices for good or for evil.
But the Bible also
knows that God remains uncontrollable and unpredictable, shrouded in mystery,
and that sometimes we human beings do not understand what is going on in our
lives, that sometimes it is OK, even necessary, to shake a fist at heaven.
If both these things
are true—that we are in charge of our lives, but there is also this mysterious
presence with mysterious purposes—than perhaps the best way to say how these
two ways work together is to say that we are co-creators with God of our
lives. Although even then we must not
assume that makes everything clear and simple.
One of the test cases
in the Bible for how God works in our lives is the story of Joseph. Joseph the Dreamer, eleventh son of Jacob,
but first son of Jacob’s true love, Rachel.
He has a special place in his father’s heart, and his brothers know
that. And Joseph exacerbates their
resentment by telling them of his dreams, all of which put him on top of them.
Their resentment boils
over at one point, and they determine to be rid of their brother. Some want to kill him, but the eldest of them
convinces the rest to sell Joseph to some Egyptian traders and report him dead
to their father.
Joseph is taken to
Egypt, and he ends up in prison. But the
gift of his dreams not only gets him out of jail, but eventually brings him
into great power. He becomes Pharaoh’s viceroy, in charge of getting the
Egyptians through days of famine.
The famine brings
Joseph’s brothers to Egypt to buy grain.
They do not recognize him because he has taken on the trappings of an
Egyptian. Joseph certainly recognizes
them and he wrestles with what to do. He
has every right to his own resentment and he has the power to do anything he
wants to do to them. He can choose to ge
even with him, and, at first, it looks like that is what he is going to do.
But in the end he
chooses not to play out his resentments.
Why not? Because he realizes life
is bigger than his own private concerns.
In essence, he takes a second look at his life. It is no doubt a painful one. It is hard—and all of us know this—to give up
old hurts and to act in trust where there is no trust.
So he tells them the
simple truth. “I am Joseph.” They are
terrified. Who would not be? The chickens have come home to roost.
But Joseph’s second,
painful look at his life has led him to forgiveness. Why?
Because something else has been going on. Joseph says, “God has sent me before
you.” He says it three times, as if he
is trying to convince himself as well as them.
“God has sent me before you.”
It may seem in that
statement that Joseph is absolving his brothers from responsibility. It sounds like he is saying that God was
really pulling the strings all along, that somehow it was God’s idea to sell
Joseph into slavery in the first place.
I think we have to be
careful about going that far. Joseph
certainly knew the role that his brothers played, and he knew the role that he
himself had played once he was in Egypt.
But Joseph is also saying that what could have been disaster, and what
could now be resentment and the need for payback, doesn’t matter anymore because
God used this situation for good.
And this is primarily
the God of the Bible. The God who can
bring good out of anything, even what appears to be disaster.
And Jesus teaches us
this is how we are to operate, to bring good out of evil. He gives us some very difficult imperatives
for our lives:
·
Love your enemies
·
Do good to those
who hate you.
·
Bless those who
curse you.
·
Pray for those
who abuse you.
All summed up in the
simple statement: Be merciful just as
your Father is merciful.
Brueggemann says
Jesus teaching [here] is not a scolding.
And it is not a little romantic lesson in feeling good about everybody and
acting silly. It is rather a rich, evangelical statement that there is more to
life than our capacity to contain it all in our little moral categories,
whereby life is reduced to a simple set of black/white, yes/no moral choices.[2]
If you want to spend
your life keeping score, well, anybody can do that. You, he is saying, know more than that. You know there is more to life—vastly more—than
being afraid and judging others. You know God has much larger purposes in mind
for you and for the world.
If we settle for our
sense of being wronged or being right, and love nothing more than to hang onto
our resentments, we are denying the power of God in our lives. To know this power of God you have to, like
Joseph, take a second look,
·
Take a second
look and consider that God is a player in your life.
·
Take another look
and see that God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.
·
Take another look
and see that your Father is merciful, and then choose to be merciful yourself.
I’ll give the last word to Brueggemann:
I’m sure that it occurred to Joseph that
if he was large-spirited his brothers would take advantage of him. But then, he
reasoned, it does not matter, because God gives and intends more than the
brothers can either give or withhold. In his trust, Joseph decided not to let
the smallness of his brothers dictate the terms of his future.
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