SERMON OF THE WEEK First Presbyterian Church of Honolulu at Ko olau November 6, 2011 Making Peace With Your Past - Genesis 42 The Rev. Dr. David Stoker W hen Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons, Why do you just keep looking at each other? He con>nued, I have heard that there is grain in Egypt. Go down there and buy some for us, so that we may live and not die. Then ten of Joseph s brothers went down to buy grain from Egypt. But Jacob did not send Benjamin, Joseph s brother, with the others, because he was afraid that harm might come to him. So Israel s sons were among those who went to buy grain, for there was famine in the land of Canaan also. Now Joseph was the governor of the land, the person who sold grain to all its people. So when Joseph s brothers arrived, they bowed down to him with their faces to the ground. As soon as Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he pretended to be a stranger and spoke harshly to them. Where do you come from? he asked. From the land of Canaan, they replied, to buy food. Although Joseph recognized his brothers, they did not recognize him. Then he remembered his dreams about them and said to them, You are spies! You have come to see where our land is unprotected. No, my lord, they answered. Your servants have come to buy food. We are all the sons of one man. Your servants are honest men, not spies. No! he said to them. You have come to see where our land is unprotected. But they replied, Your servants were twelve brothers, the sons of one man, who lives in the land of Canaan. The youngest is now with our father, and one is no more. Joseph said to them, It is just as I told you: You are spies! And this is how you will be tested: As surely as Pharaoh lives, you will not leave this place unless your youngest brother comes here. Send one of your number to get your brother; the rest of you will be kept in prison, so that your words may be tested to see if you are telling the truth. If you are not, then as surely as Pharaoh lives, you are spies! And he put them all in custody for three days. On the third day, Joseph said to them, Do this and you will live, for I fear God: If you are honest men, let one of your brothers stay here in prison, while the rest of you go and take grain back for your starving households. But you must bring your youngest brother to me, so that your words may be verified and that you may not die. This they proceeded to do. They said to one another, Surely we are being punished because of our brother. We saw how distressed he was when he pleaded with us for his life, but we would not listen; that s why this distress has come on us. Reuben replied, Didn t I tell you not to sin against the boy? But you wouldn t listen! Now we must give an accoun>ng for his blood. The football season is now in full swing. Huge crowds are flocking to stadiums all across America. There are marching bands, stats on passing yardage, rushing, conversa?ons about the Heisman trophy. With all of this going on, many wives have lost contact with their husbands right now. Every request around the home that a wife asks of her husband is answered in the same way: "Wait un?l this next play is over." One husband said to his wife as he turned on the television for the first game of the season, "Dear, do you have any final words before the season begins?" One wife had all she could stand of football. She turned off the television, stood in front of it, and crossed her arms, saying to her husband, "I believe you love football more than you love me." The husband thought for a moment and then said, "But I love you more than volleyball." Ouch! Mistake! But hopefully one that he recovered from. In our scripture lesson this morning from our sermon series on Genesis, we look at some serious mistakes that Joseph s brothers make. 1
J oseph s brothers are a hard bunch. Years before, under the leadership of brothers Simeon and Levi, they had deceived a village, slaughtered all the men, and taken the women and children cap?ve in retalia?on for one man s viola?ng their sister. Reuben, the oldest brother, had slept with his father s concubine. Judah had two sons so wicked that the Lord took their lives. Judah himself had a fling with his daughter in law, Tamar, thinking her to be a pros?tute. All of the brothers, except Benjamin, had sold Joseph into slavery and then crushed their father s heart by deceiving him into thinking that his son was dead. Now it s 22 years later. These brothers had tried to paper over their guilty consciences, but?me doesn t erase a guilty conscience. You can brush your sin under the rug and hope that enough years will take care of it but one day, perhaps years later, God will apply some sort of pressure in your life and your conscience will s?r. And it was the famine that did it for Joseph s brothers. For a while Jacob s family was able to live on what food they had in reserve. But the weather is not changing and the supplies are almost depleted. The situa?on is becoming serious. Jacob hears that there is grain in Egypt, so he starts talking it up with his sons. But every?me he brings up the subject, none of his sons will look him in the eye. They just stare at one another. Reuben looks at Simeon. Simeon glances at Judah, and Judah s eyes dart over to Levi. Jacob is gezng frustrated. In a crisis situa?on his sons don t seem to be doing anything. Why don t Jacob s sons want to go to Egypt? For one thing, the trip to Egypt was long (250 300 miles). A round trip would take at least six weeks. Secondly, it was dangerous. Even a`er arriving in Egypt, the brothers couldn t be certain of a friendly recep?on. As foreigners from Canaan, they would be very vulnerable and could even be arrested. But I believe there is more to it than that. I believe that the word Egypt went off like a bomb in their guilty consciences. The brothers could hear again the clink of the silver coins they received from the traders as they sold their brother into slavery. They could see him begging for his life as he was being dragged off. When a trip to Egypt was men?oned, they dreaded the possibility of passing by a gang of slaves and perhaps seeing the hollow eyes of their brother. Yes, for these ten brothers,?me didn t erase their guilty consciences. And maybe for some of us there is something from the past that haunts us. It is far beder to keep short accounts, and deal with things now instead of later. Well, a`er their father s prodding verse 5 tells us, So the sons of Israel came to buy grain among those who were coming, for the famine was in the land of Canaan also. And Psalm 105 tells us that God Himself called down a famine upon the earth. God called down famine on the land and destroyed all their supplies of food; and he sent a man before them Joseph, sold as a slave. They bruised his feet with shackles, his neck was put in irons, >ll what he foretold came to pass, >ll the word of the LORD proved him true. 2 The king sent and released him, the ruler of peoples set him free. He made him master of his household, ruler over all he possessed. It is important to see what God is doing. For years, Jacob and his sons boys lived life without having to think much about God. Life went on as normal. They got up, did their work, came home, and the next day started all over again. They were content in their rou?ne. But with this famine God gets their aden?on. It is easy to avoid God when we feel self sufficient. It is easy to feel that you have no need of God when everything is running smoothly. But some?mes God brings a crisis into our life that causes us to address ul?mate issues. It may be a financial emergency, an overwhelming situa?on, or a family crisis. In these situa?ons some?mes God is seeking to awaken us out of our spiritual slumber. God lovingly put Jacob and his family in the midst of a famine in order to draw them to Him. Verse 6 says, Now Joseph was the ruler over the land; he was the one who sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph s brothers came and bowed down to him with their faces to the ground. Remember back in chapter 37, Joseph had two dreams that predicted that one day his en?re family would bow before him. And here the predic?on begins to come to pass. Now how is Joseph going to respond? He had at least 20 years to consider what he would do if and when this moment presented itself. And now, here it was! You see the greatest test of Joseph s life occurred not when he was thrown in the pit by his brothers, or thrown in jail by Po?phar, or forgoden in prison by the baker and the butler.
J oseph s greatest test came when he was given unlimited power over his wicked brothers. Would he use his God given power to seek revenge against them? As Abraham Lincoln once said, Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man s character, give him power. How are we using the authority God has given us? We all have some posi?on of authority that God has entrusted to us. It can be as a parent, supervisor, minister. Are we using our authority for selfish ends or for the glory of God? Can you imagine this scene? Joseph looks up and sees his ten brothers. He recognizes them in an instant. They are tanned, bearded Semite shepherds, speaking with a Hebrew dialect. They have certainly goden older. They had lost some hair and gained some weight, but Joseph s?ll knows who they are. While Joseph recognizes his brothers, they don t recognize him. How is this possible? Keep in mind, the last?me the brothers had seen Joseph, he was a 17 year old boy pleading for mercy as he was carried off into slavery by the Midianites. On the other hand, the man in front of them is almost 40 years old. He is the governor of all of Egypt. He is clean shaven, wearing the royal clothing of an Egyp?an king, and he is confident, powerful, and speaking in the language of the Egyp?ans. I suspect you have been to class reunions and had a hard?me recognizing people you grew up with. The very same thing happened to Joseph s brothers. Now in verse 9 the story line gets interes?ng: Joseph remembered the dreams which he had about them, and said to them, You are spies; you have come to look at the undefended parts of our land. Then they said to him, No, my lord, your servants have come to buy food. We are all sons of one man; we are honest men, your servants are not spies. But Joseph said to them, It is as I said to you, you are spies; by this you will be tested: by the life of Pharaoh, you shall not go from this place unless your youngest brother comes here! Send one of you that he may get your brother, while you remain confined, that your words may be tested, whether there is truth in you. But if not, by the life of Pharaoh, surely you are spies. So he put them all together in prison for three days. Why did Joseph do this? I believe that Joseph replicates with his brothers the exact scene that had happened to him 22 years earlier. In chapter 37 Jacob sent Joseph on a mission to find out where his brothers were and what they were doing. When Joseph finds his brothers, they are upset because they think he s spying on them. Now in an unusual turn of events, Joseph accuses his brothers of being spies. No doubt he had protested that he wasn t spying, just as they now protest they weren t spying. And remember what they did next? The brothers threw Joseph into a pit, just as Joseph now throws them into the dungeon. The parallels between their treatment of Joseph and the treatment they are now receiving can t be an accident. Joseph s brothers probably hadn t given much thought to what it felt like to be a cap?ve in a pit un?l Joseph put them in the dungeon. He may have put them there to give them?me to think. 3 And the effect of three days in the dungeon got his brothers aden?on. They began to think about their lives from a spiritual perspec?ve. They thought about their own sin, and the fact that sin has consequences. God was using these events to awaken the conscience of his brothers. The brothers needed to feel, to understand the wickedness of what they did to their brother Joseph. Now remember the brothers don t know that Joseph speaks and understands Hebrew. So Joseph understands them when they speak to one another. We read about it in verse 21 24: Then they said to one another, Truly we are guilty concerning our brother, because we saw the distress of his soul when he pleaded with us, yet we would not listen; therefore this distress has come upon us. Reuben answered them, saying, Did I not tell you, Do not sin against the boy ; and you would not listen? Now comes the reckoning for his blood. They did not know, however, that Joseph understood, for there was an interpreter between them. He turned away from them and wept. This conversa?on shows something very significant. Twenty years had past. Their lives had gone on...but their past sin con?nued to haunt them. I suspect they had agreed to never talk about the incident. They certainly resolved to move on. But it was like a paint job on a moldy wall you can cover the problem, but you don t get rid of it. There is most likely some sin that is buried inside of us. We try to forget the people we made fun of as kids. We try to forget the people we used for our own advantage. We try to hide the lies we told.
W e try to forget the things we did in secret that we knew were wrong. But we can t forget. Slowly these things eat away at our joy. We need to face the truth. And if we are unwilling to do so, God will pursue us. He will pursue us, not because He is cruel but because He loves us. Imagine the relief when we admit our wrongs. The Bible calls this confession. It is the act of admizng our wrongs. In confession, we speak the truth about ourselves. Real forgiveness starts when we say, "I'm not who you think I am. I'm really a sinner." In an interview Philip Yancey once said, "The only essen>al difference that I can tell between Chris>ans and non Chris>ans is not necessarily morality. It's that Chris>ans have acknowledged that we're sinners and we can't make it on our own. We're failures and will con>nue to fail. And the church in the year 3000 will be just as full of problems as the church in the year 2000, as it was in the year 1000. No other ins>tu>ons that I know of recognize that that it makes mistakes. Governments don't. But that's the baseline of Chris>anity. If we deny that, and try to put on a good face, then we fall into the trap of the original Pharisees of just trying to make ourselves look good and even make God look good. But God didn't seem all that concerned with it." The writer of 1 John reminds us, "If we say that we have not sinned, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:8 9). Confession is good for the soul. But we have to be careful because this next step is difficult. We can confess to God and confess to ourselves, and s?ll our secrets are safe. But according to Scripture, we have God's promise of healing when we confess our sins and shortcomings to another person, and when that person responds by praying for us. James 5:16 says, "Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed." There is something special about confessing your sin to another person. It is very important to choose the right person, a person who will keep confidences. We must choose someone we can trust, someone who will understand, someone who will encourage and not condemn us. I have prayed about whether to share this next story with you, because it is very tender and very embarrassing. Thirty years ago I was beginning my first ministry as a youth pastor in Long Beach, California. For the first six months I lived in the home of a church family in the bedroom of the oldest son who had goden married and le` to live in another state. As parents o`en do when a child leaves home, they le` his bedroom with lots of his things s?ll there. There was a collec?on of albums that I enjoyed playing that belonged to this older son. I par?cularly enjoyed his Beach Boy albums. And when I le` that home to move into a condominium six months later I took several of these Beach Boy albums with me. And I am ashamed of that. And it bothered me. I wished to God several weeks later I had returned them and told them it was a mistake. But I didn t. And then it was a year, and then two years. And I felt so guilty. I certainly did not 4 enjoy listening to the albums. I never played them because they reminded me of my sin. Then I moved to Washington D.C. and I took the albums with me. I didn t know what to do with them. And then I took them to Jacksonville, Florida when I moved there. I thought about making a dona?on to a charity in this person s name, but I knew that s?ll will not absolve me of the guilt of the stolen albums. One day my kids saw the albums and said what are those? We didn t even play albums by then, but s?ll I had them. I didn t know what to do with them. And then when I moved to North Carolina they went with me again. I always had this nagging sense of guilt about them. But when I moved to Hawaii give years ago I did not take the albums. I finally threw them away. But even as I threw them away, I did not throw away the guilt. Years ago I had performed the wedding of the daughter, Beverly, from the family, so we had stayed in touch all these many years. Last week I saw on Facebook that Beverly was coming to Hawaii for Halloween. I texted her and asked her if I could take her to lunch while she was here. And then like a light bulb going off in my head, I knew I had to tell her my story. So a`er I show her the church, the Compassion wall, all the great stuff of being a pastor in this incredible place with you incredible people, I took her to Honey s Restaurant downstairs in the church. A`er we enjoyed a meal together I told her I had something serious and painful to tell her. And I confessed my sin to her of stealing her brother s albums.
I didn t make excuses. I told her how the guilt had bothered me for 30 years and I asked for her forgiveness. Beverly is a very mature Chris?an. She could tell this was a big deal for me. She reached out and took my hand and said, In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven. And it felt like a huge burden had been li`ed from me. I felt this incredible relief from my spirit. The next day I received a phone call from Beverly. She had called her brother and told him what had happened. She assured me that her brother also forgave me. He never missed the albums did not even know that I had taken them. And then just to let me know everything was okay, Beverly said her brother said to tell me he had some other albums if I would like to take them! I also asked Beverly s permission to share the story with you this morning. This might not seem like a big deal to you, but it has haunted me, bothered me for 30 years. And I am glad that it has finally been dealt with, forgiven. The Lord wants us free of all sinful entanglements that try and ruin our lives. And I don t know if there is a greater sweeter verse in all of the Bible than Psalm 103:12, As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. Prayer: Father in heaven, each of us if we are honest has something from the past that tries to haunt us. And we know it is so important that we learn how to make peace with our past. May we use the nudges from your Spirit that we sensed in our hearts this morning, the elements on the table before us to remind us that nothing can separate us from the love of God. And then through the work of Your Spirit help us to look to the future, for the future is bright in You. In Christ s name we pray. Amen. * * * * * * * * * * The audio version of this sermon can be downloaded from itunes or from fpc.posterous.com. It can also be sent to you by e-mail. You may request the free audio version by e-mailing: fpchkoolau@gmail.com 5