It's Not Fair

Scripture Lessons: Genesis 45: 3-11 and Luke 6: 27-38 Sermon Title: It’s Not Fair Preached on February 24, 2019 You know what’s not fair? I’ll tell you what’s not fair. It’s not fair that some people never get what they deserve. And it’s not fair that Jesus tells us to keep being nice to them anyway. It’s not fair. For as long as I’ve lived such injustice has burned me up. It began with the unearned attention lavished upon my cute little sister. There are some big brothers and big sisters in the congregation this morning who know exactly what I’m talking about, and I’m just going to say it. It’s not fair. It’s just not fair, how everyone things they’re so cute. I remember when my Dad came home with a camcorder – it was the big kind, and by the time this technology was inexpensive enough for him to buy one, I was an awkward pre-teen that wanted to hide from the camera, but my sister was little and really cute, with curly red hair. So, today if you watch our family’s old home movies, it’s basically just one long tap dance routine featuring Elizabeth Evans. Everyone thinks little sisters are so cute. It’s not fair. You know what else isn’t fair – not only do little brothers and sisters get all the attention, they also get to do everything sooner. Some big sister here remembers how her little sister got her ears pierced sooner than she did. Some big brother resents how his little sister didn’t have to wait as long to get a cell phone. I remember how I wanted to go see a PG movie. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It had bad words in it, so my parents said I had to wait to see it until I was 12, but you know when my little sister got to see it? The day I turned 12 and she was 8, because my Mom couldn’t take us to two separate movies. It’s just not fair – and it would burn me up – the injustice of it all. But you know what my Mom would say? You can guess. “Life’s not fair, Joe.” That’s what she would say, and believe it or not, that didn’t make me feel any better. For generations this has been the case. The youngest gets special treatment. The consolation from Scripture for those of us who are older siblings this morning is twofold: 1. No matter how much favoritism our little brothers and sisters received, it probably wasn’t as much as the favoritism little Joseph received from his father Jacob in the book of Genesis. 2. In the book of Genesis, we get to see this favored little brother get what he deserves. That’s right. I said it. And if you never had the urge to sell your little brother into slavery, then clearly your sibling experience was not the same as mine. Little Joseph was their father’s favorite, and old Jacob didn’t even hide this fact. In fact – he broadcast it for everyone to see. You’ve heard about Joseph’s multi-colored coat that his daddy gave him. If you look that up in our new Bibles, which are the New Revised Standard Version you’ll see that scholars now believe, based on better translations of the ancient scrolls, that the special robe was not multi-colored but long sleeved. This detail may not seem so important until you think about how much work people do in short sleeves compared to long sleeves. It’s as though all the sons of Jacob were lined up as a work crew. Jacob, their father, handed all the brothers a shovel, but gave to young Joseph the clipboard. Do you know what I’m talking about? But it gets worse – much worse! Joseph dreamed, you see. Young Joseph, at the age of 17, told his brothers, “Listen to this dream that I dreamed. There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright; then your sheaves gathered around it, and bowed down to my sheaf.” How do you think his brothers responded to that? Scripture tells us that “they hated him even more because of his dreams,” and after he had another one involving eleven stars bowing down to Joseph, center of the universe, his brothers decided to get rid of him. They were all out watching the flock. Jacob sent Joseph out there to check on them (Of course, he did). When they saw him coming they decided to kill him, throw him into a pit, and tell their father that a wild animal had devoured him. Fortunately, Reuben spoke up: “Let’s just throw him in the pit and teach him a lesson.” Well, before Reuben could do all that, Judah, another brother, saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels on their way down to Egypt. So, they pulled Joseph up and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. From this point, the story gets worse of course. It all gets worse for Joseph before it gets better. Once the Ishmaelites make it to Egypt, Joseph is sold to Potiphar, whose wife tries to seduce him, then accuses him of forcing himself upon her after he refuses. Despite the baseless nature of the accusations, like many powerless people, he’s thrown into prison. Can you imagine how nasty that prison must have been? There was no TV to watch. No weights to lift. I can just imagine Joseph spending all his time drawing pictures on the cell wall of all the horrible things he would do to his brothers if he ever got back home. Vengeance gives us something to occupy our minds, but it rots our souls, so it’s a good thing his new cell mates started dreaming. At this point in the last service, while I was telling this story, I noticed that a couple men on the back row started dreaming too. This is a long story I know, but we have to know it. It will change our lives, so let me keep going. Folks began to seek Joseph out, and eventually his ability to interpret dreams reaches Pharaoh. Pharaoh keeps having these bad dreams, and he seeks out the young man locked up in prison. Pharaoh dreamed that he was standing on the bank of the Nile; and seven cows, fat and sleek, come up out of the Nile and feed in the reed grass. Then seven other cows came up after them, poor, very ugly, and thin. The thin and ugly cows ate up the first seven fat cows, but when they had eaten them no one would have known that they had done so, for they were still as ugly as before. Joseph said to Pharaoh, “This is what your dream means. There will come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt. But after them there will rise seven years of famine, and all the plenty will be forgotten in the land of Egypt; the famine will consume the land. The plenty will no longer be known.” This is a bad dream, but fortunately, Joseph also has in mind a solution. He says to Pharaoh: “So, during the years of plenty, let Pharaoh select a man who is discerning and wise and set him over the land of Egypt, that he might take one fifth of the produce of the land during the seven plenteous years. That food shall be a reserve for the land against the seven years of famine.” Pharaoh thinks this is a good idea, and so he said to Joseph: “Since God has shown you all this, I will set you over the land of Egypt to do it.” Imagine that – instantly he goes from the jail cell to the corner office. He goes from plotting revenge, to saving an empire from famine. In one moment, he’s consumed with his bad luck, but in the next – he’s amazed by his good fortune, only he’s also faced with the difficult reality that none of it ever would have happened had his brothers not sold him in the first place. What do you do with that? What do any of us do with the reality, that despite what ever unfairness we’ve faced, still we receive God’s blessing? What do we do with the truth – that even when we walk through the Valley of the Shadow of death, we will fear no evil? And how will we treat our enemies and all those who have wronged us, once we realize that in all things God has done wonderful things for us and for our salvation? Joseph is about to find out what he’ll do, for while Joseph goes from slave to prisoner, to high office in the Empire, life for his brothers has been difficult. The first two of those seven years of famine has come, and the only nation anywhere who has any food is Egypt. In desperation, the brothers make their way to Egypt, and bow their heads before Pharaoh’s right-hand man. In this moment, Joseph’s dream that his brothers would bow down before him like sheaves in the filed or stars in the sky comes true. But what will Joseph do? What will he do when his brothers, once so much bigger, now bow before him? What do any of us do to those who have hurt us, considering how God provides us, not with just punishment, but with a cup of blessing? Certainly, Joseph doesn’t kill them. How could he? That’s what they expect, but that’s not what Joseph could possibly do, for God’s love has changed things – changed the definition of fairness for evermore. So, Joseph says: “God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth. It was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt.” Do you see what happened? All our lives we’ve been demanding fairness, so we naturally want to see the bad guys punished and the bullies get a return on the abuse they’ve dished out. We might naturally say that it’s not fair that these brothers, who threw him into a pit aren’t thrown into a jail cell. We might say that it’s not fair that these brothers, who sold him into slavery, aren’t sold into slavery themselves. That it’s not fair – that these brothers deserve, exactly what they subjected Joseph to – years away from their family, forced to survive in a foreign land – that they too deserve to spend several years of long dark nights wondering if they’ll ever make it back home again or if they’ll even survive until the next day. But for Joseph, in all of that suffering some other power was at work, some other hand was making a way – placing Joseph in a seat of power that he might not only save himself, but his entire family. You see – based on human definitions of fairness, based on what they’ve done, these brothers deserve punishment, but in all those long years leading up to this moment, Joseph learned that there’s another definition of fairness at work in our lives – and God’s grace which defines us, isn’t what we call fair. My mother was right. Life isn’t fair, and we Christians know it, for instead of punishment for our sins, what do we receive from God? Forgiveness. Rather than judgement, grace. God’s fairness isn’t like our fairness – for God’s grace isn’t fair. It takes the sin of jealous brothers and saves them from themselves. It takes broken men and women and ends their suffering by putting them back together. God takes us, in all our depravity, and provides us with life and love and sunshine. You see – God’s idea of fairness is embodied in Christ up on the Cross who looked down on those who put him there and said, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” That’s why we can’t be surprised that he says, “Love your enemies,” for God hasn’t stopped loving them any more than God has stopped loving us. Our God “is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked,” and we must be merciful, just as our Father is merciful to us. That’s not fair – it’s so easy to say. Grace isn’t fair, but we’ve received it – and must not nullify it by failing to pass it on. Amen.