Rebecca Sheridan
September 23, 2018
Genesis 39:1-23

One of my more vivid childhood memories is from my first week of kindergarten. I loved going to school! We were gathered around our teacher to read a book during snacktime, sitting criss-cross-applesauce on the floor. We were eating graham crackers, listening to the story, when the girl sitting next to me for whatever reason grabbed my graham cracker and started eating it. “Hey!” I said. “That’s mine!” “Rebecca, please listen to the story,” my teacher said gently. I was frustrated but tried to keep quiet and forget about my graham cracker. But then, for whatever reason, this same girl took my hand and bit it! “Ow!” I screamed. The next thing I knew, I was in time out. I still remember the other girl sticking her tongue out at me while I sat in the corner, with graham cracker still on it. I was crushed. My dad said I came home that day and said sadly, “Today wasn’t a good day. I learned that some people don’t follow the rules.”
I’m sure many of you have a story similar to that – a time when you experienced a personal injustice and learned the hard lesson that some people don’t follow the rules, that life is not always fair. Joseph is someone from the Bible who definitely learned that life wasn’t fair, throughout his life, yet it all worked out pretty well in the end. Our story from Genesis this morning is like a soap opera or this week’s headlines in the news! But we can identify with Joseph in his struggle to do what is right and “follow the rules,” only to be punished anyway. The episode with Potiphar’s wife that we heard today was not the first time that Joseph suffered an injustice, either.
Joseph was the youngest brother, the only son of his dad’s favorite wife Rachel, until Benjamin was born later. Joseph’s dad Jacob gave Joseph a beautiful coat of many colors because he was his favorite. As you can also imagine, Joseph’s other brothers didn’t think this was very fair at all. So, they decided to sell him into slavery, where he ended up as the slave to Potiphar and his wife in Egypt. Here Joseph finds himself in prison, wrongfully imprisoned, sold into slavery, living in a foreign land. Joseph knows well life isn’t fair. Yet God looks out for Joseph amid all this injustice. The end of our reading tells us that, “there in jail God was still with Joseph: He reached out in kindness to him; he put him on good terms with the head jailer. The head jailer put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners – he ended up managing the whole operation. The head jailer gave Joseph free rein, never even checked on him, because God was with him; whatever he did God made sure it worked out for the best.” Could it be possible that God is working things out for the best for us in our lives, too?
Here’s how it works out for Joseph: he ends up becoming the pharaoh’s right hand man after interpreting the pharaoh’s dreams and saving Egypt from famine. He’s a free man and more than that – wealthy, powerful, and able to in the end save his brothers who rejected him from starvation. Joseph’s story is a wonderful story about redemption, forgiveness, and God’s restoration of justice. Toward the end of his story in Genesis 50:20, Joseph tells his brothers, “You planned evil against me but God used those same plans for my good.” Joseph’s personal story is a powerful reminder for us to trust God is at work, never leaving us, using whatever evil may be happening to us for good.
Certainly at times, it can be hard to see how God uses evil for good, or that our situations could possibly ever get better. Similar to Abraham and Sarah’s story that we heard last week, we can be reassured that there are other people in scripture who go through terrible things and yet come through those events with faith in God’s goodness. If we look at the injustice of false imprisonment alone, Jeremiah, Daniel, Peter, Paul, and Silas are just a few people falsely imprisoned in the Bible, oh, and by the way, Jesus, too, right? Yet God certainly uses these people for good, in prison and out.
When we think about our own experience with personal injustice, we can ask God to help us be as forgiving, as trusting and as resilient as Joseph. But it was hard for me to read Joseph’s story this week and not also think about contemporary societal injustices taking place in the world today that are eerily like the situations Joseph finds himself in. Human trafficking, our modern-day slavery, where still people sell even family members in our own state of Nebraska. The #MeToo movement as our country wrestles with cases of sexual harassment and how men and women can trust one another in sexual relationships. Much like Joseph and Potiphar, we see political corruption and selfish motivations at work that lead us to wonder who’s actually telling the truth. And still today, false imprisonment is a huge problem in our country. We imprison the highest percentage of our citizens than in any other country. In fact, I learned that we house 25% of the world’s prisoners even though the United States makes up just 5% of the world’s population. I don’t think that’s because we have that many more lawbreakers than everyone else.
When societal issues of injustice confront us, as they do pretty much in the news every day, our faith is our guide. As free, white, middle-class Americans, we have to confess that we are not like Joseph because we are not foreign slaves. We have power and privilege to do something, to say something to prevent an injustice. Today’s reading also causes us to ask who the Josephs are in front of us, in our communities, that we may overlook or not even notice, suffering injustices like Joseph today. Perhaps God is wanting to use us like the jailer, like the Pharaoh, to lift others out of unfair oppressive systems, to combat evil with good. I know, too, that often what’s not right in the world can seem so overwhelmingly complex and frustrating that it’s easy to do nothing and retreat. But one of those baptismal promises we make again at our confirmations is to strive for justice and peace in all of the Earth, and I know that God uses people like us to do the good he wants done in the world! God takes one of the most vulnerable in Egyptian society, a Hebrew slave, the baby brother, and uses him, Joseph, to save all of Egypt and more from famine. God uses one of the most vulnerable in Bethlehem, an illegitimate baby born to peasant parents in a stable, to save the world in Jesus the Christ. In the face of so many injustices and evil today, it can be hard sometimes to trust and believe that God will use us for good. We see God’s endgame in Jesus, the savior of the world, who calls us still today to reconcile all people back to himself: men and women, rich and poor, slave and free, accuser and accused. This is the story of Joseph and his brothers: the one who was sold into slavery and assumed dead doesn’t take revenge but reverses the evil done to him by saving the very ones he was hurt by. In the face of injustice today, God can use us for good, too.
Amen.

Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, September 16, 2018
Genesis 12:1-9

I’m going to guess that the last time you used the word “blessing” it was not to talk about God’s favor or protection, as I talked about that being the Webster dictionary definition, but to say something after someone sneezed. Do you know that people have been saying “God bless you,” after someone sneezes all over the world in a variety of cultures and languages since the time of Jesus? Maybe they were even saying “God bless you,” during the time of Abraham and Sarah! According to Wikipedia, people believed that sneezing did all kinds of things to you, from stopping your heart, to the potential of falling ill with the plague! The kind, polite gesture of saying, “God bless you” after someone sneezes can be a positive reminder that even when life gives us hiccups or “sneezes,” God blesses us. It can be a very simple way to bring God into the conversation, wanting God’s favor upon that person and wanting that person to know God is with them. Often, though, like a lot of our common phrases, we don’t think about what it really means or what we’re saying.
Today we’re talking about blessings and God’s blessings for us because God talks about blessing Abram a lot in Genesis chapter 12. Five times, to be exact. And if you think about it, we don’t know why God chooses Abram and Sarai to bless in this way, with land and children to be exact. Abram is already seventy-five years old, Sarai about ten years his younger. They seem like an odd couple for God to work through in this dramatic way. There doesn’t seem to be anything particularly special about them. Abraham and Sarah, in fact, are known as the parents of all three major monotheistic world religions – Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. All three of our traditions recognize Abraham as their founder, because Abraham first recognized God as one God. But that question of WHY God would choose older folks like Abraham and Sarah, from Ur, Mesopotamians, may be something we have to wait until we get to the pearly gates to ask God.
That question could lead us to a large question of why some people appear to be blessed by God more than others. Right now, we deal with almost constant sibling rivalry in our household. If Erin has a ball, then Grace wants that ball. Not another ball, that ball. If Grace gets a cookie for dessert, then Erin needs a cookie for dessert – a bigger one, preferably. As adults, we can treat God’s blessings in the same way, leading us to covet what others have and be angry at God for why we don’t have those things. Why does my neighbor seem to have fewer health problems, or more grandchildren, or more spare time, or a better relationship with her kids, or…the list can go on and on. In fact, it could really bother us if we hear someone gloating on Facebook or to a coworker that they’re so blessed because they just got a raise, or a second home in the Hamptons. Even here at church, there’s a lot we’ve been doing together to focus on our new priorities: hiring a nursery attendant, a new accompanist, starting Wednesday children’s programming, and adult discipleship groups. We can quickly focus on what’s still not right and be angry at each other or even God for why we’re not growing faster or why our church isn’t “perfect.” I know I can get caught in that trap of seeing and thinking the worst.
It may be helpful when we’re caught in the temptation to dwell on what we lack in terms of God’s blessings to remember the rest of Abraham and Sarah’s story. God promises that they will have many descendants and land, but Abraham and Sarah never actually get to settle that Promised Land that God shows them. They are buried there, that’s it. The land is for their descendants to be a blessing to others. And Abraham is one hundred years old, Sarah ninety, before they have one son, their only son, Isaac. That means they wait twenty-five more years for God to fulfill the promise that they’ll have numerous descendants, and even when they die, they’re not sure how God’s going to make that promise happen. I’m going to guess that over those years of waiting and basically camping in the wilderness as nomads, there were times that they did not think they were particularly blessed by God at all. It was probably hard for Abraham and Sarah to take God’s long view, that God’s ultimate plan and promise would be better than they could ever imagine, not just for them, but for the whole world! And then, if you remember, God asks Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac on the mountain to prove his loyalty to God. Of course, God spares Isaac and rewards Abraham’s loyalty, but Abraham and Sarah in their lifetimes here on Earth do not get to see all of God’s blessings and promises to them completely fulfilled. They learn to trust. They learn to follow. They learn to wait with hope. They learn to bless others with the blessings they’ve been given, even if those blessings look smaller than they originally thought in the short term.
I think we can learn from Abraham and Sarah to take the focus off of what we lack and instead consider that we all ARE blessed by God, uniquely given all kinds of good things from God not because we deserve it, but because God loves us all so much. Our blessings may be small, but they’re not too small to share. God promises Abram that “All the families of the Earth will be blessed through you.” It’s fair to say without Abraham’s faith in a loving, generous and all-powerful God, we wouldn’t be here today. We are blessed because of Abraham’s faith still today. And that heritage, that legacy, is ours to share now. God continues to bless us so that we bless others, so that all the families of the Earth will be blessed through us, too. The beauty of God’s generosity is that God gives each of us different gifts to share so that together we can see how God’s amazing promises to us play out for the good of all.
Here in worship, we could take a few minutes just to recount how many of us are sharing our blessings with each other so we can enjoy today just in this hour, and that’s just one hour of this whole week that we see each other as blessings: bread bakers, coffee makers, readers, musicians, people who are good at talking to other people, pray-ers, financial gifts, handy guys and gals who have spruced up this space, computer whizzes, left-brained types to count and record our monetary offerings, story tellers, the list goes on. You know that every week we say that we are blessed to serve God and share our faith with all. This is what the story of Abraham and Sarah is about: receiving God’s blessings and trusting that what God gives us is enough, even when it doesn’t seem like much, and then turning around and serving God and sharing those blessings with all. We are blessed. That doesn’t mean we’re better or more special than others, it means we have enough to share. And what God has given us is too good not to share. Amen.

Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, August 26, 2018
Matthew 10:17-31

There are a few buzz words in Christian churches that I hear especially when I’m traveling to other congregations on behalf of the Nebraska Synod. “Welcoming,” “hospitality,” and “generosity,” I think make the top of the list. I have really never been to a church that didn’t claim to do all of these things well, but when you experience it for yourself, you discover the truth about whether that congregation is actually welcoming, hospitable, and generous. Similarly, as we talk about generosity the next two weeks, I think all of us individually would like to think of ourselves as generous people. But especially when we’re confronted with words from Jesus like this, it is hard to say that we’re THAT generous. I can think of only a few people throughout HISTORY that have given up all but their basic necessities to serve Jesus. The first people that come to mind are St. Francis of Assisi and St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta. And they’re both saints now…so it doesn’t seem like a very achievable goal for most of us. Thank God we’re not alone! When Jesus tells the disciples it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God, they say, “Then who has any chance at all?” And Jesus goes on to reassure us, “No chance at all if you think you can pull it off by yourself. Every chance in the world if you let God do it.” Or in the NRSV version we might be more familiar with, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”
That being said, Jesus is asking us as disciples who want to follow him to reflect on our relationship with money. Generosity and sacrifice ARE qualities of a disciple. When I talk with couples in premarital counseling, we talk about our attitude toward money because financial problems is the number one stressor in a marriage. In our God-given personalities and how we were raised, we have different attitudes toward money. In general, there are those of us who are savers, those of us who are spenders, and those of us who are givers. You can probably guess your money personality just by thinking about what you would do if you happened to find $50 on the floor this morning. Would you spend it, save it, or give it? Of course, as the pastor I’m going to say you all should drop that right into the offering plate, but if we’re honest, a lot of us would either spend it or take it for our personal savings. I will confess to you all right now that I am a saver. I really don’t care a lot about stuff – when I do spend money, like a stereotypical millennial I like to spend it on experiences – maybe theater show or music concert that’s coming to town, on travel opportunities, or on a nice meal out at a new restaurant. I give to church right out of my paycheck electronically and to other causes I’m passionate about because it is not easy for me to give. Generosity does not come naturally to me. I would rather like to think about how much money is accumulating in my savings account and how I can make it go farther through investing. So, I have to push myself and practice some giving habits so I don’t forget or neglect to be generous. Generosity, at least for myself, and certainly for the rich man Jesus is talking to, takes work. It’s hard!
Certainly, you hear these words from Jesus differently depending on whether you are a saver, spender, or giver. Similarly, if you have a lot of money in the bank, you hear it differently than if you’re in debt and struggling to pay all of your bills. There is a psychological phenomenon we have in our culture where we all would prefer to say we’re in the middle class. People whose incomes are in the top 1% will say they are “upper middle class,” and note that they don’t have as nice a car (or as many cars or garages) as their neighbor. Similarly, people who qualify for public assistance are reluctant to say that they are poor, rather, they are “lower middle class.” And the truth is, most of us in this country by the world’s standards are wealthy, even if we struggle to pay the bills. I have had the opportunity to stay in a two-room home with a dirt floor in Nicaragua for a family of nine people where I slept in one of two beds. And I realized that I had more possessions in the hiking backpack I was carrying with me for the two weeks than the family owned. That was generosity. That was hospitality. That was true welcome, that I was the one on the receiving end, when I arguably had more to give. And that family would not have been nearly as phased as I or the rich man if Jesus told them to give all their possessions to the poor.
Whether we’re rich or poor, whether we’re givers, spenders or savers, as Christians we remember that everything we have is not really ours, but a gift from God. Jesus confronts us with the truth that those who have more are not necessarily more blessed by God. In fact, the more we have, the more difficult it is for us to put our love for God and our neighbor above other things. The more stuff we have, the more power we have, the more status we have, the harder it is to let go of those things, just like that rich man experienced in being unable to follow Jesus.
Jesus turns the rich man’s question from what we have to do to inherit eternal life to how we can receive the gift of eternal life that God already wants to give us. You can’t earn a gift. And even if we tried, Jesus points out, we couldn’t do it. God doesn’t require anything of us except for us to let God show us the way rather than for us to bargain, use our material wealth or social status and compete with one another to somehow earn God’s favor and salvation. It’s not about money, or social status, or even how great we are at giving or not giving. It’s not about what we do at all – it’s about what God has already done for us. The good news is that the Christian faith isn’t about us earning God’s love through money, doing more, trying to be a better person, and so on.
Jesus reminds us that no one is good, only God. We know what we’re supposed to do, but we don’t always do it. That’s human nature. The hardest thing to do and also the easiest thing is to let go of all the ways we want to control God and instead simply receive what God has given us – life with him, eternally. It’s in the letting go and letting God that we are able to receive the gift that was already there for us – eternal life, a family beyond our blood and flesh relatives (family of the body of Christ, as Jesus says, multiplied many times. Rather than holding onto a lot of things tightly, lean into God to help you let go. We can only be generous when we first allow God to be generous with us, when we reflect on all that we’ve received from God. It’s amazing, really. And then, you can’t help but want to share God’s generosity with more and more people. Amen.