SERMON 20AUG2023: God's thoughts
Jesus calls us, o’er the tumult, of our life’s wild, restless sea.
In our gospel story last week, Jesus walked on water, and called Peter, who stepped out in faith; but then, losing sight of Jesus, Peter sinks, and Jesus saves him.
Salvation again in our Genesis story this morning, as we finish the story of Joseph and God’s plan of salvation for Israel.
Joseph after all these years, reuniting with jealous brothers who hated and betrayed him, Joseph in the end telling his brothers, (Genesis 50:20) “ye thought evil against me; but God meant it for good, for the salvation of many.” God's plan of salvation for Israel: does God have a plan for our lives? In spite of the worst that humans can do to ourselves and each other, in the salvation story, God finally has his way in the life of Israel, how about you, in your life?
There is a much loved Bible memory verse at Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans to prosper you, and not to harm you; to give you hope and a future.” I will never forget my son Joe telling me about the death of his friend's teenage son. On his deathbed, the boy saying aloud his life verse, Jeremiah 29:11, assuring his family and himself, then closing his eyes as he died after a struggle with cancer.
Does God have a plan for your life? Has God set your destiny? Is everything that happens the will of God?
In my Time as priest and pastor, I've participated in the lives of many people, many families, joys and sorrows, agonies and delights. I’ve celebrated baptisms and weddings. I’ve buried people who died of cancer, stroke, heart ailments, old age. I’ve baptized and then buried full-term stillborn dead babies and wept with their inconsolable parents as I personally carried a tiny pink casket down the church aisle in the infant’s funeral.
I’ve officiated funerals of people who’d despaired of life and committed suicide, and in my funeral homily assured desolate families, “this was not God’s will, not God’s will for your life or the life of your loved one.” And yet, more than once after the church service as we were loading the casket into the hearse for its final ride, to the cemetery, some “Christian fool” confronted me to tell me: “Everything that happens is God’s will, we just have to accept it.”
That’s skubalon, sewer theology, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, to stir hatred of God by saying the evil that happens in human life is the will of God. Almost nothing that happens in sinful human life is the will of God.
As is common with Christians, we like to lift Bible verses out of context and use them for our own lives, proof-texting. In fact, beautiful and assuring as it is, Jeremiah 29:11 is such a verse. The Hebrew actually says,
כִּי֩ אָנֹכִ֨י יָדַ֜עְתִּי אֶת־הַמַּחֲשָׁבֹ֗ת אֲשֶׁ֧ר אָנֹכִ֛י חֹשֵׁ֥ב עֲלֵיכֶ֖ם נְאֻם־יְהוָ֑ה מַחְשְׁב֤וֹת שָׁלוֹם֙ וְלֹ֣א לְרָעָ֔ה לָתֵ֥ת לָכֶ֖ם אַחֲרִ֥ית וְתִקְוָֽה׃
“For I know הַמַּחֲשָׁבֹ֗ת ha-MAKH-sha-vowt, the THOUGHTS that I think toward you,
says the Lord,
מַחְשְׁב֤וֹת שָׁלוֹם֙ MAKH-sha-vowt sha-LOM, thoughts of peace,
וְלֹ֣א לְרָעָ֔ה veh-LOW leh-ra-AH, and not of evil,
לָתֵ֥ת לָכֶ֖ם אַחֲרִ֥ית la-tet la-KHEM a-kha-RIT, to give you a future,
וְתִקְוָֽה va-tik-VAH, and a hope.”
God has hopes for us, thoughts of peace for us, God does not set your destiny, God does not have a plan for your life that you only have to relax and live into like some animal in a zoo. But in God’s love for you - - look up into the heavens at night: trillions* of galaxies in this one Universe, and us in our own Milky Way Galaxy, on the galaxy’s periphery in one solar system, on Earth, a fragile planet, each of us but a speck on a speck, it’s incredible to imagine that God loves each one of us, loves each one of us before we are formed in our mother’s womb, and (as a verse in Psalm 116 says) “how it grieves the Lord when one of his people dies,” - - God has MAKH-sha-vowt, THOUGHTS toward you, MAKH-sha-vowt sha-LOM, thoughts of peace, that you may have life, and have it abundantly, life, love, health, wholeness, happiness, that you may delight in God’s will, and walk in God’s ways.
God’s thoughts do not always come to pass. At every life’s decision, every step of the Way, (at every road diverging in the yellow wood, as Robert Frost’s poem has it) we can thwart God’s hope for us - - or God’s hope can be thwarted by others, by accident, by war, by nature, by chance, by poor choices, by evil; by sickness when even life itself seems to turn against us - -
the “tumult of life’s wild, restless sea”, as the hymn has it, and we sing it.
Historically, Jeremiah 29:11 was not written for us, or for individuals. Its context is an oracle, God speaking to the nation, his sinful people, whom God has sent into Exile in Babylon. The oracle, of which Jeremiah 29:11 is but one verse, is God’s assurance that he still loves them anyway and just the same (poor Yahweh, he’s such a lamb, he never gives up on us), and that God has loving thoughts toward them, thoughts of peace, hope, and a future: that after they serve their punishment in exile, they will return to ha-aretz, the land, to rebuild Jerusalem, the Temple, and the nation. That’s Jeremiah, speaking God's love for his people. And in Time they did indeed return and rebuild.
In the Genesis story today, Joseph’s life is tumultuous, but amidst all the evil, God has thoughts of peace for Israel, peace that finally comes as the Genesis story is brought to a close and Israel is saved.
Ancient stories, holy history; yet still and all, each story is for and about each one of us generations later. Life is tumult, with endless choices for evil or good, and no certainties; but we’re in God’s thoughts all the Way - -
thoughts of peace. and not evil; to give you a future, and hope.
The Christian faith is not a religion where you save yourself from hell by claiming to believe in Jesus; the Christian faith is life that you live here and now day by day, choice by choice, because Jesus calls us into God’s peace, to delight in God’s will, and walk in God’s ways. It is not a plan set in concrete, it's an offer, an invitation, a call, God's hope for you. You cannot do it alone, but there’s help: the Holy Spirit within you.
This is not my first time in this pulpit, so you know full well where I’m going. Jesus calls us. It's an invitation. God never gives up on us. Once again, if you will reaffirm your renunciation of evil, and recommit to the Way of Jesus, the Baptismal Covenant is in the Book of Common Prayer on page 304.
Page 304. You may stand if you wish, or remain seated.
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Homiletic endeavor by the Rev Tom Weller, Episcopal priest (retired), in Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, Florida, on Sunday, August 20, 2023, Proper 15A. Text, "The Joseph Novel", Genesis 45:1-15 and 50:20, and Jeremiah 29:11. Sequence hymn: "Jesus calls us, o'er the tumult, of our life's wild, restless sea."
* https://www.sciencefocus.com/space/how-many-galaxies-are-in-the-universe
The First Reading: Genesis 45:1-15
Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, “Send everyone away from me.” So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it. Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?” But his brothers could not answer him, so dismayed were they at his presence.
Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come closer to me.” And they came closer. He said, “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. For the famine has been in the land these two years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So 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. Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, ‘Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not delay. You shall settle in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children, as well as your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. I will provide for you there—since there are five more years of famine to come—so that you and your household, and all that you have, will not come to poverty.’ And now your eyes and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see that it is my own mouth that speaks to you. You must tell my father how greatly I am honored in Egypt, and all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here.” Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, while Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.