Beginnings

Beginnings -- Genesis 37:1-35----------

My brothers threw me down there.

My brothers ripped the clothes off my back and threw me down a hole.

And I could tell from the way they were talking with each other, that I came within "That Much" of being murdered.

I'm glad Reuben chickened out at the last minute - I'm not sure I would have.

So there I was, on my back, looking up at that circle of sky,

and for the first time in my life I realized what a mess my family relationships were.

Well . . . . I always knew that my brothers were lazy, mean and conniving

but throwing me down this hole and then selling me into slavery . . .

While I was down there it occurred to me for the first time that maybe the scheming and conniving that got my father his brother's inheritance . . . . wasn't the only way to get ahead.

But God was on our side! That's why Dad was so successful. What else could it be?

I'd known the stories of how father and grandmother had outsmarted uncle Esau and grandfather Isaac and how their success proved that they were only doing what God wanted. . . even if it was what they happened to want too.

And yes, maybe Dad did treat Benjy and me a little better and I didn't have to work in the fields or clean the barn . . . . and maybe I did "Lord it over them" . . . . but, you know, for the first time I am wondering if maybe I pushed them too far.

Like them and Dad, I've mostly concentrated on getting my own way.

I got pretty good at manipulating Dad, getting him to think I was just the finest person in the world and that my brothers did everything wrong. It really was easy winding that old man around my finger. That's why he made me that beautiful cloak with the long sleeves.

But I really didn't do anything to even come close to what he had done to Esau!

Well, maybe I was a bit of a twit.

I had those dreams.

But they all interpreted them to mean that I, the youngest, would be the head of the family.

Maybe I shouldn't have told them about that dream.

Sure I had the them - sleeping and waking, but they were the ones who decided what they meant.

Of course I never disagreed, . . . . well, why should I - their interpretation was the same as mine - and why would I disagree - it's clear to me that God intended me to Lord it over all of the tribes someday.

The whole family used to get mad at me - even Benjy. [SIGH]

Well, there I was at the bottom of the hole --- I'd been praying for God to rescue me. I wanted God to come and help me out of that pit, to take me home to my Dad, and kill my brothers.

So when I heard the caravan approaching I thought God had sent rescuers!

Well I got rescued all right, but it wasn't quite what I had in mind. I got hauled out of that pit and sold as a slave to a passing caravan.

So . . . . I'm wondering, did God rescue me from that pit?

Did God make my brothers do this?

Did God "send" those dreams?

Did God "send" that caravan?

(chuckle) Now that's a good, God the Camel Driver! God the Ishmaelite!

Ooops - Sorry YAHWEH -

Oh, Who knows.

I used to think that God loved me better than most

But now . . .

Where are the lightning thunder? Where are the angels?

Where is God?

A few months ago one of the morning wake-up shows featured the story of an Air Force Academy cadet who desperately needed a bone marrow transplant was featured.

Having been brought to the United States for adoption as a baby, neither the cadet nor the parents knew how to get in touch with any biological relatives, so they found it very difficult to find a donor. Complicating their search was a set of Korean cultural taboos against sharing human organs or tissues.

A South Korean girl watched a television documentary that mentioned this young man's plight and decided to defy the taboo and offer herself as a donor. Her unselfish courage in itself was remarkable; the compatibility of her bone marrow was a cause for gratitude; but even more amazing was the discovery that she is the half-sister of the cadet.

The interviewer said to the cadet's father, "Sir, I don't know if you're a religious person, but doesn't this event at least make you a spiritual person?"

The cadet's father replied, "I'm sure there's a master plan at work. It's exciting to be part of it and to see how it works out."

How does a potentially life ending or lifesaving event affect our assumptions about God?

This week, NASA scientists announced that they had found - in a small piece of meteorite that PROBABLY came from the fourth planet orbiting a G-type sun in an backwater arm of the Milky Way galaxy, which is located in an obscure section of the observable universe - These scientists found sub-microscopic material that supported the possibility that life had existed on Mars.

NPR analyst Daniel Schorr - pointed out that this discovery of new possibilities posed a theological challenge for those who treated their scriptural heritage as literally true.

It took a while for me to understand that. But then I thought it was wonderful, confirming that God and God's life giving love is a lot bigger than this one planet.

Then I also thought that there was a connection between these three stories.

Jospeh, the cadet's parent, the nervous fundamentalists (some of whom are once again reduced to claiming God made it look like that to fool us). All of them make assumptions about God.

They put God in a personal, self-centered, winner oriented, big deal miracle kind of box. But these "things" in the rock, they were so small - there was almost nothing there. How could God be evidenced by such small things.

We are so used to being taught and thinking of God as only in the big, life changing events - and maybe God is - or maybe those are just the times when we are able to see and hear differently

What does it mean if Jacob really was just a scoundrel whose duplicity and conniving offended a God of righteousness?

Then, I thought, where is God in the Joseph story?

What does it mean if Joseph really was a snotty, obsequious, manipulative brat that deserved to be thrown down a hole? Now where's God?

What if we've looked on our biblical stories and history itself with self-justifying eyes?

Scarry questions? They sure unsettled me.

What if . . .

What if we look for God in the little things instead of the BIG things, What if God's in the moment of choice in which the young Korean girl had the chance to choose between life restricting and life affirming choices, to see the possibility that the world could be different than she had been taught and that she could change it.

Maybe God is to be found in the courage of the brother who spoke out.