Who Am I That I Should Go?

Scripture Lessons: Romans 12: 9-21 and Exodus 3: 1-15 Sermon Title: Who Am I That I Should Go? Preached on August 30, 2020 Lately I’ve really been wanting to take a trip to the beach, so I can dig a hole in the sand and stick my head in it. Not for long. Just for a couple hours. Maybe one afternoon with my head in the sand, because I’m ready for a break from all of it. Now, on top of a viral pandemic, for some people there’s a hurricane. On top of having kids home from school, last Monday morning there was a big Zoom outage. Not only are we stuck at home, but it rained all day Tuesday, so we were even more confined to the house than usual. Our hospital is still full, and according to the Marietta Daily Journal, in desperation some COVID-19 sufferers are resorting to drinking bleach. Plus, this past week another black man was shot by police officers. Only, our national conversation concerning race doesn’t seem to be going anywhere because we can’t agree on enough to form anything more than an argument, so I’d really just like to go stick my head in the sand at the beach. I’d like to escape everything for just a minute. Concerning the headlines of the past week, certainly I’m thankful that our own Keli Gambrill, county commissioner, came up with a plan to distribute $4.8 million dollars in grants to struggling homeowners, but before I get too hopeful about such a loving response and such courageous leadership in a leadership vacuum, first I’d just like a little bit of time to put my head in the sand. Do you know what I mean? Moses did. Moses must have known exactly what I’m feeling, which might be how you’re feeling right now. He found himself in a complex situation he didn’t know how to deal with and so he just ran off to watch a flock of sheep for a while. The Bible says: “Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; [and] he led his flock beyond the wilderness.” What that means is that he had made it to the beach, but not just to the beach, beyond the beach. It means he didn’t just go on a vacation but built for himself a great big hole in the sand that he could live down in forever. It’s not a bad idea. He left, and that worked just fine for Moses until one of his sheep ran off and he stumbled upon a bush that burned a bright flame without being consumed. Can you imagine it? Curiosity can be dangerous this way: it might lead you out of your hole in the sand and to a place where you could get hurt. That’s why you have to be careful about curiosity. Once my mother and father-in-law brought a new puppy home and she was curious, poking her nose around rocks and into holes on the ground. Before long a snake bit her right on the nose. Along those same lines I remember a drive through Whitlock Heights. Several cars were stopped, and a group of people were standing around looking at something in the middle of the street. Naturally I got out of my car to see what all the excitement was about and next thing I knew, I was elected to try and remove an alligator snapping turtle from the middle of the road. It came out of the creek nearby the street where the Callaway’s and the Tuckers live. I hope they lock their doors at night, because that thing was a monster. But back to the point, curiosity is a dangerous thing. You go looking around corners, get out of your car to see what everyone else is so interested in, or just go sniffing around some new place and anything can happen. The same kind of thing can happen at a church. A curious person sticks her nose in the door of a church and who know what might happen next. This is a true story. The Rev. Sarah Hayden, a seminary classmate of mine, once told the story of how her family came to join their first Presbyterian Church. A new church building had been under construction near their neighborhood and when the construction was finished and the opening worship service was scheduled, her father suggested that they go and check it out. The family walked in and approached a man holding a stack of bulletins by the door into the sanctuary, but instead of handing each member of the family a bulletin, this man handed Sarah’s father the whole stack saying, “You must be the one who supposed to hand out the bulletins.” “Actually, no I’m not,” her father said, “We’ve never been here before and we just wanted to check it out.” “Well,” the man said, “you hand out the bulletins.” That was years ago. Sarah’s now a Presbyterian minister and I think her family is still a member of that very church, and that’s how curiosity is. You see something interesting and decide to see what it’s all about and next thing you know your life goes in a direction you never could have expected. Maybe you find your way home. That’s how it was for Moses. He was as far away from Pharaoh as he could get. Not just in the wilderness, but beyond the wilderness. He wanted not to think about the Israelite family of his birth nor the family who adopted him. He couldn’t stand the thought of that day when his worlds collided: his Hebrew birth family and his Egyptian adopted family. He wanted to escape the day when he lost his temper and killed the Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew slave. He tried to leave all that behind just as he left behind the body of that Egyptian taskmaster, hiding his corpse in the sand. There he was. He was beyond the wilderness trying to forget or escape, but curiosity brought him right back to the place he didn’t want to remember. At the sight of the burning bush Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up,” but this curiosity like all curiosity has the potential to be, led Moses into the presence of God. Once we find ourselves in the presence of God it’s best to be prepared for life to move in directions we never could have expected. That how it was with me. We just went to this church when I was kid. It was nice. On the way here on Sunday mornings I’d read the funny paper in the back seat of our minivan. When we got here, I’d sometimes have donuts and would sing in Sunday School. In the service we’d stand up and turn to the right hymns in the hymnals. I’d bow my head and close my eyes when I was supposed to, and I knew the service was almost over when Dr. Jim Speed stood in front of us with his arms up saying the words of our 1st Scripture Lesson as his benediction. “Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good,” he’d say, and he’d say it as though we were actually supposed to do it. Go poking your nose in a hole and you might get bit by a snake. Walk over to a group of people looking at something in the street and end up responsible for a snapping turtle. Get out of bed, turn on your computer, and join a church service. After being a part of this virtual service it’s possible to to on with your day no different from how you were when you woke up this morning, but if you’re open to hearing God’s voice you better be careful or you’ll wind up going places and saying things that will dredge up the past and re-chart your future. That’s how it was with me and that’s how it was with Moses. Moses just wanted a closer look, and next thing he knew the God of his ancestors was telling him, “The cry of the Israelites has come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” The Lord had heard their cry, and I am confident that the Lord hears the cry of the oppressed today. The Lord hears the unspoken worries of mothers who are depending on free food distributions so they can save their money and stave off eviction. The Lord listens to the prayers of the sick who long for a vaccine and turns toward the school child who wants to go back to class, but never will, unless the grownups get their act together and stop spreading the virus all over the place. He bears the quite weeping of the ones who mourn but can’t have a funeral and knows the frustration of those who want a world without racism but lack a clear path to move toward it as well as the would-be voter who isn’t sure whether or not her vote will even be counted. We all want to know when someone is going to do something about all of it. When it’s going to get better and where is the one who is going to get us out of this? In a time like this one it’s easy to wonder where God is or if God knows. Where has God been? I think I know. God’s been calling, waiting on you and me to get our head out of the sand to answer. We are all living in this terrifying time, but we don’t need to hide from it. Even if it’s just to have a conversation we’ve been putting off, we must be bold to believe that God will go with us to do the impossible. Last Sunday I was invited to join with the members of our church who make up our northern campus. The Big Canoe Neighborhood Group have started calling themselves FPC North. They invited me up for a cocktail in the driveway and there we were talking about how hard it is to simply have a conversation. One member of the group has adopted a great phrase for use in these divisive times, “Well, I couldn’t disagree more, but we can still be friends.” How hard it is to make such bold statements. How much easier it is to stick our heads in the sand, but my friends, the Lord is doing a new thing, and if we are to be a part of us we must find a way not to run away from the uncomfortable conversations nor keep our true opinions to ourselves. Be curious enough to ask yourself: What might God do through us if we’re brave enough to answer the call? What might God do through us if we’re bold enough to stand and say what we believe? What might God do through us if we’re just curious enough to follow where He leads? Amen.

Say Her Name

Scripture Lessons: Romans 12: 1-8 and Exodus 1: 8 – 2: 10 Sermon Title: Say Her Name Preached on August 23, 2020 This Second Scripture Lesson I’ve just read begins a series of sermons based on the book of Exodus. From this well-known account which begins in the first chapter we remember that from the time Joseph saved his brothers and their families from famine, Jacob and his descendants lived in Egypt. They prospered there, living and dying, probably without thinking too much about what would have been their homeland, the land promised by God to Abraham said to be flowing with milk and honey. In Egypt, Hebrew children were born with no memory of any other land besides the fields and riverbanks nourished by the Nile River. Grandchildren forgot the stories of Jacob and Esau to learn stories about Ra and Ramses the Great. Like the immigrants of any time or place, surely they felt the pressure to lose their accents and just fit in. You can imagine that Joseph’s young descendants didn’t want to invite their Egyptian school friends over for dinner, afraid that grandma would cook some strange food from a far-away place. Life as newcomers to a foreign land is like that. Among the Hebrew people who settled there in Goshen you can hear grandparents interrupt their grandchildren’s conversations concerning the fastest chariots or the best places to swim in the Nile with old stories about a homeland and a promise from God. Maybe the grandparents wanted them to remember and to prepare themselves to go back one day, but the grandchildren just wanted to fit in because that’s what grandchildren want to do. However, if a cat crawls into an oven to deliver her litter they’re still kittens, not muffins. In the same way just being born in Egypt doesn’t make one Egyptian any more than being born at Kennestone makes you one of the Old Marietta crowd. In fact, just as the Israelites lived in Egypt you can live somewhere for years and years never quite belonging, though we all want to belong. Whether in the place we were born or in the place we’ve adopted, we all want to fit in. So, while my father-in-law who moved from Columbia, South America to Knoxville was always planning on moving back home eventually, he did try to fit in as a college student at the University of Tennessee, but it was hard. He landed in Knoxville to study architecture while still learning the English language. Not yet grasping all the nuances, a couple nice church ladies asked him on the sidewalk if he’d been saved. He assumed they were asking him about his bank account. One of his first times through the cafeteria line at breakfast he asked for a biscuit with groovy instead of a biscuit with gravy. This was the 60’s so you can imagine how he’d make the mistake. Fortunately, the cafeteria lady on the other side of the serving line laughed and so did he because he’s the kind of guy who can laugh at himself. Even still, fitting in is a serious business. Nobody wants to feel like the new guy forever. No one wants to go in the Marietta Fruit Company without getting served. No one likes to be the person who never really fits in and always stands out. We all are trying to be a part of the group, because that’s just what human beings want to do. Sooner or later we all want to be one of them. For that reason and many others these midwives are worth remembering. Say their names with me: Shiphrah and Puah. I know you’re Presbyterians who aren’t used to talking during the sermon, so just whisper them with me, “Shiphrah and Puah.” It’s important that we know their names and that we remember them. After all, besides Moses there’s are the only names listed in this Second Scripture Lesson. Moses is named, but his father isn’t. His mother is mentioned but she isn’t named. His sister and Pharaoh’s daughter are both referred to but remain nameless. Notice that not even Pharaoh is named in our Second Scripture lesson. He’s just Pharaoh. Which one? To the Bible it doesn’t matter, because he doesn’t matter, or not nearly as much as these two midwives matter, Shiphrah and Puah. Say their names. Remember their names, because they had this chance to please the king of Egypt, but they chose instead to honor their God. Can you imagine what that must have felt like? Can you imagine how terrifying it must have been? Do you have some idea of what pleasing him could have meant? Surely, they were tempted. As the outsiders, surely, they imagined that pleasing the pharaoh could have been one small step towards acceptance into the mainstream. To these two midwives, being on his radar was momentous enough. Then they were summoned by him. That they had the chance to do something for him would have been viewed as an opportunity to capitalize on by any with thoughts of social advancement. Regardless of their aspirations, certainly they feared displeasing him. Already he had proved himself merciless by ordering the execution of babies. Either way, the pressure to do as he commanded must have been profound. Yet, to gain some sense of what they were surely feeling we need only think about the social pressure our foremothers must have felt. Last week the paper published some reflections on 100 years of women’s suffrage in Georgia. The paper published some of their names: Mary Latimer McClendon, Mary McCurdy, Helen Augusta Howard, Adella Hunt Logan, Lucy Craft Laney, and Janie Porter Barrett. Their names are unfamiliar because we haven’t been saying them enough. However, in 1974, former President Jimmy Carter, Georgia governor at the time, selected a portrait of one of them, Lucy Craft Laney, to be displayed in the Georgia State Capitol along with the Rev. Henry McNeal Turner and the Rev. Martin Luther King. They were the first African Americans to have their portraits hung in the building but remember especially her name. She founded Atlanta’s first school for Black children, as well as the first kindergarten and the first nursing training programs for Black women in Augusta. She was a leader within the National Association for Colored Women, and she helped get women everywhere the vote. What strikes me about her and all the others like her is what they risked advancing a cause they believed in. What inspires me is how they looked towards the future with hope and were willing to sacrifice to get there. What defies my ambivalence and pushes me past indifference is how, though surely some rendered them powerless they were powerful, and while surely their husbands, fathers, and brothers wanted them to keep quiet, they would not be silenced. Another suffragette, Helen Augusta Howard was sentenced to a year in prison. Her brothers claimed that she was mentally unsound. Why? Because some would call a woman willing to defy any Pharaoh completely insane. But do you know how Scripture renders such women? As faithful. As worthy of our admiration. Say their names. For just as a part of them must have been ready to do what he asked, there is a part of all of us ready to walk down the easy path towards acceptance of what is and away from who we are and who we were created to be. Just as a part of them must have wanted to just go with the flow, they could see beyond the world as it was and knew they must not settle in, for they were on their way to the Promised Land. Peer pressure in High School is so hard because while you’re in High School it feels like those four years are all that matters. Not being accepted feels like the end of the world. Only we all have to learn to deal with such pressure because it never really goes away. At work is the pressure to please the boss. Around the neighborhood pool is the pressure to look like everyone else. Then when talking politics, we’re never just talking about who we’re voting for. We’re talking about whether or not, based on who we’ve picked, we’ll be invited back again. Despite whatever Pharaoh threatened or promised, they chose to remain Shiphrah and Puah. Say their names. Remember their names and be like them, let the God who created you define who you are, not the world that surrounds you. They made the choice to save those Hebrew babies. They chose to listen to their heart rather than the voice of a sin sick world. And that same choice is ours today. The Apostle Paul’s said it this way: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Do not be conformed to this world for you don’t belong to this world any more than Moses belonged to the Pharaoh’s palace. Can’t you imagine him there? He knew what he had to do to maintain his place in those privileged halls, but how could he when Shiphrah and Puah had sacrificed their lives for him? How could any of us just sit back in indifference to the evil around us when so many mothers, daughters, and sisters sacrificed themselves to get us where we are today. Think for just a moment about them. Who loved you into existence? Who was she? What did she do? What did she sacrifice for you? Say her name. And live in such a way that you might deserve the sacrifice she made. Ours is a culture where it’s hard just to put on a mask unless everyone else is doing it. How would our mother’s feel if despite all her labor we risked our lives just because we didn’t want to be the only one with a mask on at a pool party? In our culture of conformity, do not be conformed to this world, but honor the God who created you, the one who gave his very life that you would be saved just as Moses was. Amen.

They Didn't Get What They Deserved

Scripture Lessons: Romans 11: 1-2a, 29-32 and Genesis 45: 1-15 Sermon Title: They Didn’t Get What They Deserved Preached on August 16, 2020 I want to begin this sermon by telling you about a young woman, a friend of a friend, who had just moved to New York City. She was living in her very first apartment, which was just large enough to sleep in, working her very first job that paid her just enough to get by. You might remember what that was like, so you’ll understand why, when her boss asked her to stay in her apartment for a couple weeks to care for her cat while she went on vacation, this young woman jumped at the chance. The apartment was wonderful. Unlike hers it was air conditioned. It had, not just a microwave, but a full kitchen. There was no roommate. Plus, it had wireless internet that actually worked and a great big TV. Such luxury and all she had to do was keep the cat. The only problem was that on the second or third day the cat died. She felt horrible, as you can imagine, and rehearsed the phone call a few dozen times before finally calling her boss, the cat’s owner, to deliver the bad news. Fortunately for the young woman, her boss understood completely as the cat was 16 years old. Her boss’ only request was that she go ahead and deliver the cat’s body to the vet’s office where they would handle the remains. Relieved to be done with such a sensitive phone call she hung up before thinking through one big important detail. The vet was across town and she didn’t have a car. How would she transport the cat there? She couldn’t walk, because it was too far. She didn’t have enough money for a taxi, and even if she did, she couldn’t just hold a dead cat in her arms, so she looked around the apartment and finally found an old briefcase. She put the cat in it and went down to the subway, got on the train and sat down. The briefcase was on the floor between her feet, and she tried hard not to act like anything at all was the matter. As the train rolled along a nice-looking young man sat down next to her. After a little while he nudged her and looking down at the briefcase asked her if she was on her way to work. “Yes, I am as a matter of fact,” she replied with a little too much confidence, “just going into the office with my trusty laptop,” she said looking down at the briefcase. Then she asked what he was on the way to. He was headed to the Met to enjoy some artwork since it was his day off, or something like that. Well, she loved the Met too and it turned out that’s not the only thing that they had in common, so at some point in the conversation this young woman began to wonder if she was about to be asked out on her first date in New York City with a dead cat between her feet. But before that could happen, the train came to a stop, the young man snatched that briefcase and ran off the train never to be seen again. Now I tell you this story because it’s not every day that the thief gets what he deserves. It’s not in every story that justice, precious justice, is served. So, I tell you this story today because we have been wronged, a faceless enemy assails us. More than 160,000 Americans are dead, parents are trying to work, kids are home from school, and I’ve thought of worse things that I wish would happen to some of the people responsible than opening up a briefcase to find a dead cat. That’s why I love the story I just told you. I’ve told it so many times that Sara never wants to hear it again, though I keep telling it because I love it when the bad guy doesn’t get away. Can you imagine what Joseph was hoping would happen to his brothers? As you know well, his story begins when he was the little brother who didn’t know when to stop talking about himself, so his brothers helped him find his way into a pit with no water in it. You can imagine how he looked up from the bottom waiting for the joke to be over and saw his brothers looking down on him, glad to have put him in his place. It turns out they weren’t just joking. They meant to get rid of him, so there were chains next as they sold him for silver coins, then a long journey to a world he’d never seen surrounded by words he couldn’t understand, and he was helpless to do anything about it. He went from the chains of a slave to the cell of a prisoner wrongly accused, though neither the rats nor the guards cared that he was innocent. Each day passed slowly. Each day he was hungry. Each day he was alone with only the memories of the brothers who got him there in the first place, and the thought of what he would do to them if he ever had the chance to keep him going. You can imagine that he was ready for the moment when he would finally see them again. Probably he had rehearsed his words and actions through a million times before. You know what vengeance is like. Remember from the Princess Bride, “Hello, my name is Domingo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die”? How many times had Joseph thought it through? How many times had he rehearsed the words? How sweet was the thought of his revenge? Only from his seat of power, having risen through the ranks of the Egyptian hierarchy, he not only has the faces of his brothers looking down on him from the edge of that pit in his mind’s eye, he sees also the hand of God leading him, sustaining and preserving him, lifting him up for just such a time as this. With his brothers before him and at his mercy, he threw out his prepared speech for something else: “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life… God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God.” If our daughter Lily had been there she would have said, “Wait, what?” Such perspective. Such maturity. Such faith. Truly, his example is a timely one for us today, because I know what some people would like to do to our school superintendents. I know what others would like to do to the governor. I know how some of you all feel about people who don’t wear facemasks in the grocery store. Now is a time when we find ourselves at the bottom of a pit. Without a clear way out what is there to do but locate a target for our frustration and plot our revenge? I can think of plenty of people who I hope open their brief case tomorrow to find a dead cat, but blame won’t get us as far as mercy because blame points a finger at the failure of humans and mercy opens our eyes to the power of God. And God is at work among us. The story I told about the cat and the briefcase, the first time I remember telling it was at Buck and Cindy Buchanan’s house just before they moved to California. That was 15 or 16 years ago. That I’ve been telling the same story for 15 or 16 years is one thing. Another is that after 15 or 16 years, they’re back her in Marietta and so am I. I don’t know who you are blaming for this nightmare we’re stuck in, but I urge you to think like Joseph today, and the way the hand of God is moving all of us according to his purpose. Stop blaming. Stop plotting revenge. Stop harping on human power, for God is at work, and in this moment of true powerlessness, when we cannot climb our way out, we can still choose to be faithful. I just learned this morning that when John Lewis walked across the Edmond Pettus Bridge, he expected to spend the night and jail, so he carried with him two books: one was political, the other was The Seven Story Mountain by a monk named Thomas Merton. In that book Merton wrote: “People have no idea what one saint can do: for sanctity is stronger than the whole of hell.” My friends, we are standing at the edge of it, and it may seem as though we are powerless to do much about it, but we are not without a choice in what we do. Choose today to be more holy, more merciful, more kind, and more faithful. When you watch the world and those who scurry across your TV screen, don’t look for humans to disappoint you, because they always will. Instead, look for the hand at work in all of this, for he never will disappoint you, nor does he slumber, nor does he sleep. Someday we’ll hear about how all this could have been avoided and we’ll have the chance to point our finger at those who are to blame, but until we know how to forgive, we’ll never deserve the grace that’s been provided. Joseph’s brothers deserved punishment, but they did not get what they deserved. Neither have we. We have been forgiven, and we must learn to forgive. We have been redeemed, and we must trust God to redeem us again. For Joseph was led by the hand of God to save his people, and by the hand of God we will be saved. So, choose faith this day. Choose faith. Amen.

The Dreamer Had it Right

Scripture Lessons: Romans 10: 5-15 and Genesis 37: 1-5 and 12-28 Sermon Title: The Dreamer Had It Right Preached on August 9, 2020 There’s an expression I remember from Tennessee that reminds me of Joseph. Based on what we’ve just read, he seems to have possessed that mix of ignorance or arrogance which rightfully earned him the spite of his brothers and would have inspired the use of that Tennessee expression: “Don’t ever be a small-town guy with a big city haircut.” Have you ever heard someone say that? It may be that no one uses that expression outside of Middle-Tennessee, but we all should because it’s important to warn people that not everything that comes with a fancy haircut, a nice new car, or a special robe, is good. We need more ways to express the sentiment that if you have champagne tastes but PBR brothers, they’re likely to make fun of you. It’s important to warn people like Joseph, that while anyone of us may have a dream of being bigger and better than our families, we must be careful about how we tell them all about it. Best case scenario, this Joseph from a small town with a big city, long sleeved, extra special robe will inspire the people who love him to kindly, patronizingly smile while he tells them his grandiose dreams, however, our Second Scripture Lesson warns that in the worst-case scenario they may try to kill him. I don’t know exactly why human society holds back the dreamers this way. Is it because the dreamers make the rest feel small? Whatever it is about them or us, I know that it was merciful that his brothers only threw Joseph down into an empty pit until a band of traveling Ishmaelite salesmen wandered by. That doesn’t sound merciful, selling someone into slavery, but they were planning to kill him, because no one likes a small-town guy with a big city haircut, and everyone resents the youngest child who announces: “One day you’ll all be bowing down before me.” You can’t say that. You just can’t. So, I don’t really feel sorry for Joseph. You could make the argument that I should, but I don’t. However, certainly, his father did. Reading this Second Scripture Lesson from his perspective or from the brother’s perspective tells two different versions of the same story, and there are a few ways to read this passage of Scripture from the book of Genesis. On reading this first chapter of the beautiful rollercoaster ride that is Joseph’s story in the book of Genesis, we’re likely to either resonate with him, the young, long-sleeved, dreamer; his jealous brothers; or his elderly, doting father, who couldn’t help but spoil the child of his old age a little bit. I truly and easily understand where the brothers are coming from, but to get to the fullness of this Scripture Lesson we must also consider the perspective of Jacob, Joseph’s father. At this point in the book of Genesis he’s called Israel, for from his sons will come the 12 tribes of this Chosen Nation. When those brother’s rise up against one of their own, they show their father Jacob or Israel, Joseph’s cloak dipped in goat’s blood, but notice: they don’t have to explain anything. Did you pick-up on that? Jacob, as he called earlier, or Israel as he is renamed by God, reaches his own conclusions about his young son’s fate based on the evidence at hand. He takes one look at a bloody cloak, and quickly considers it in light of the harsh realities of the merciless world he lived in. Maybe you can understand how his mind was working. Bloody cloak plus rumors of a wild beast which lurked around the outskirts of the land of Canaan equals the conclusion that his son has been eaten. Just as CORONA-19 plus protests, unemployment plus quarantine, or homeschooling plus a failed wireless connection can have any one of us feeling like the world is ending. Has it ever been the case with you that you took in the information at hand and reached a logical conclusion, only to find out later that it was exactly the wrong one? That’s the story of Joseph really, because Joseph wasn’t dead, but before we get to that, fully consider what was going on in his father’s mind that made it so easy for him to believe that he was. Jacob or Israel knew the world to be a harsh place. We think back on the stories we already know about him and it makes sense that a man willing to trick his own brother and manipulate his own father, who was himself fooled by his father-in-law and then wrestled with God by the bank of a river, would surely come to the conclusion that the world doesn’t liberally hand out blessings. No, if you want something you had better get it and if you quit fighting you should expect the worst. Turn your back on this world and expect to be stabbed. That was Jacob’s philosophy, and while he had begun to believe in forgiveness when his brother Esau chose mercy, just after that his daughter Dinah was abused and then his father died. Life taught him that 2 plus 2 is 4 and bloody cloak of favorite son equals tragedy. Surely some would call that way of thinking logic or knowledge based in experience. Whatever it was and no matter how much sense it made Jacob was wrong because Joseph wasn’t dead. So, on the one hand we have Jacob’s logic but on the other hand we have Joseph’s dream. You know what’s wonderful about dreams? Sometimes dreams look at the exact same evidence but come back with an exactly opposite conclusion. Joseph, despite his brother’s, never stopped dreaming. As the Ishmaelite caravan carried him to some unknown place, he never gave up hope. Then as he was sold to Potiphar, was wrongly accused by his wife, and then dragged off to prison, did this young man give up on his future? Did he give up on the dream? I feel like I do all the time. There a plenty of images in Scripture which make me profoundly hopeful, but, which I give up on as soon as the tide turns against me. Christ speaks of loving your neighbor as yourself, but I receive the wrong email at the wrong moment, and it seems nearly impossible. Likewise, I read about the coming Kingdom. How our God is bringing fullness and restoration to each corner of creation, but then I think about virtual learning and see a future of zombie kids addicted to computer screens, or I think about in-person learning and all I can see are outbreaks of a virus we can’t seem to get a hold of. There’s a fair amount of Jacob in me, for some days I look at the evidence at hand and I assume the worst, but Jacob was wrong you see. Jacob was wrong and I must be willing to consider that I might be wrong too. It has happened before. Once I got home from church and standing in the driveway, I bent over to pick up something from the ground and split my pants. There’s at least two ways to explain something like that: either the suit was cheap or the guy wearing it, me, had expanded. As it turns out in this case, both parties were guilty as charged, but I hope you’re getting my point. Sometimes we make assumptions, and sometimes our assumptions are wrong. So, acknowledge this with me: the way we view the world we live in colors the way we understand the information we receive. What we believe already changes the way we see the future. And the truth, sometimes the truth, while Scripture says it will set us free, often it also demands that we rethink all kinds of things. Sometimes the truth demands that we change the way we see the whole world. Thinking of the truth: can you imagine if back in February someone had said that your kids won’t be going back to school in their classrooms next year. Many of you will start working from home. You might get together with people, but you won’t want to shake their hands, and facemasks are going to become commonplace in grocery stores. Can you imagine if someone from the future visited us five months ago to report that everyone you know, even your grandmother, is going to learn how to use a program on their computer called Zoom? You know that list of projects around your house? You’re going to do all of them out of sheer boredom. And by the way, Netflix doesn’t have enough content to provide for what’s about to happen. Lies are sometimes easier to believe than the truth. Especially if there’s enough evidence pushing your assumptions, especially if there are enough dots to connect, especially if all you have to do just accept what’s right in front of you rather than lift up your eyes to the heavens. That’s maybe the difference between Jacob or Israel and his young son Joseph in this passage from Genesis. Jacob is willing and ready to believe what’s right in front of him. While Joseph refuses to give up on a dream despite what’s right in front of him. Do you know anyone like that? Sure, you do. She’s maybe 5 years old, and she would be going off to start Kindergarten if she could. Regardless, she’s still off to conquer the world. Ask her what she wants to be when she grows up and she’ll tell you, “I want to be a doctor and a nurse and a teacher and a babysitter.” If you could ask a whole group of them, “Who here plays a musical instrument?” every one of them would raise their hand. And who here has a friend in their class? And who feels loved by their teacher? And who here knows that tomorrow will be even better than today? School didn’t start this year like it always does, and I feel sure that means the children of this church will miss out on some of the lessons they should be learning. Regardless, let me make this suggestion: today we need to be learning a lesson from them. Because too often we grownups look at the data at hand and see the worst. Too often we cling to logic rather than hope. Too many of base our projections on numbers and not faith, so consider for just a moment a child who will look into a mud puddle and see the perfect filling for a pie or who will see a prolonged time of quarantine as a good reason to spend more time with her family. I don’t know what you’re using to understand the world out there today with all its horror and all its tragedy, but let me tell you this: these days a 5 year old may have an edge, for if nothing else this Scripture Lesson from the book of Genesis tells us that the dreamer had it right.