In a World of Trouble

The scripture referred to are Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28 and Matthew 14:22-33.

To paraphrase humorist Robert Benchley, there are two kinds of people in this world—those who divide everything in two kinds of things and those who don't. When it comes to misfortune, it seems logical that there are two ways to find yourself in trouble: either through your own fault or through circumstances beyond your control. I think there is a third way we experience trouble: a mixture of those two. Your problems can be partially of your own making and partially not. You can either make bad decisions which put you into the path of negative outside forces, such as someone who decided to sell all he has and put all of his money into the stock market...in early 2008. Or you can find yourself in a bad situation, which you proceed to make worse by poor decisions, such a person caught in a hurricane who tries to evacuate to the mainland while the eye of the storm is over them. I think a lot of our troubles are a result of both mistakes we've made and unforeseen circumstances.

In today's lectionary we are looking at how people get into trouble as well as some helpful principles for navigating troubled times from the stories of Joseph and Peter.

Joseph's problem with his family arises from a combination of factors. He was the first son of Rachel, Jacob's favorite wife. So Jacob dotes on the boy, especially after the death of Rachel. This makes his brothers jealous. It doesn't help that Joseph brings bad reports about his brother's activities to their father. Then Jacob gives Joseph a special coat. Older translations say it was of many colors. Most modern translations think the Hebrew, which is tricky here, indicates a long-sleeved robe that went to his knees. It may also have been beautifully embroidered and colorful, as seen in Egyptian paintings of Canaanite dress at the time. The point is, this was not a robe you could or would do manual labor in. Jacob seems to be marking out Joseph as the supervisor of his brothers. You can imagine how well that went over with them.

The situation is not helped by what happens next. Our lectionary inexplicably skips over it but Joseph has two prophetic dreams. In one the family is in the field tying up sheaves of wheat. Joseph's sheaf stands up and the rest of the family's sheaves circle around it and bow to it. In the second dream, the sun, the moon and 11 stars bow down to Joseph. You don't need a dream dictionary to catch the meaning. Even Jacob scolds Joseph for the obvious symbolism of his family bowing down to him. His brothers just seethe.

So when they see Joseph approaching to check on them and the flocks, the brothers start plotting to kill him. Just 3 chapters earlier in Genesis Jacob's sons sack a Canaanite town to avenge the rape of their sister. Joseph is just a teenager. His half-brothers are men and dangerous ones at that.

Fortunately Reuben, the oldest, is able to deflect his brothers from their murderous intent. He proposes just throwing Joseph into a pit, probably a dry cistern. Reuben is thinking he can pull Joseph out later and return him home. The others agree to the plan. They strip off Joseph's fancy robe, the hated sign of his authority over them, and toss him in a hole in the ground.

Reuben must have gone off somewhere because in his absence the other brothers see a caravan of traders on their way to Egypt and get the bright idea to sell their brother into slavery. They do so and when Reuben returns, looking for Joseph, they cook up a cover up. They kill a goat and smear its blood on the coat. Then they take it to their father, who thinks some wild predator has eaten his son. Jacob is devastated and refused to be comforted. I hope his brothers were eaten up with guilt.

You really should read the story of Joseph in the Bible. It's as good as a novel. But to summarize: Joseph is sold to an Egyptian official named Potiphar, captain of the palace guard. Joseph does well and eventually is given charge of the household. Potiphar's wife makes a pass at Joseph but when he refuses her, she accuses him of attempted rape. Joseph ends up in prison, where he is such a model prisoner he becomes the chief trustee. While there, he meets 2 servants of Pharaoh who are on the outs with their boss. Joseph interprets their dreams and tells the one he knows will return to Pharaoh's good graces to put in a word for Joseph. And though it all works out as Joseph said, that guy, a wine steward, totally forgets to mention it to Pharaoh.

Two years later, Pharaoh has some disturbing dreams that none of his advisers can interpret. Only then does the wine steward remember Joseph, the Hebrew who understood dreams. To make a long story short, Joseph tells Pharaoh that the dreams foretell an upcoming famine and says that they ought to start setting aside the surplus of the years leading up to it so no one will starve. Pharaoh puts Joseph in charge of that task and Joseph indeed becomes someone powerful to whom his brothers must do obeisance in order to get food.

We're not sure how long it took Joseph to go from slave to governor of Egypt but it has to have been a decade or more. And though Joseph's superior attitude towards his brothers may have contributed a bit to the situation, his problems are largely the fault of others. Even being a tattletale doesn't merit what happened to him.

And the remarkable thing is that Joseph maintains his faith in God throughout it all. I'm not saying he never had doubts. That time in the cistern as he overheard his brothers debating his possible death, his years of slavery, and his years in prison, especially the 2 years he waited to see if the wine steward would do anything to help him, must have made him wonder: “Lord, I'm doing all the right things. Why is nothing going my way?” His hopes must have flagged a bit over the years.

And yet Joseph doesn't let the ordeal change the person he is. When propositioned by Potiphar's wife, he points out all that his master has entrusted to him and says, “So how could I do such a great evil and sin against God?” And when Pharaoh says that he has heard that Joseph can interpret dreams, Joseph, though this is his chance to get free, doesn't say, “You're right!” You'd think that Joseph, seemingly abandoned by God, would try to make his own luck. Instead he responds, “It is not within my power, but God will speak concerning the welfare of Pharaoh.” Joseph doesn't let his desperation blind him to who is really in control. It's not Pharaoh; it's not Joseph, but God. His massive run of bad luck wasn't random; God had a reason. And Joseph knew his ultimate fate was in God's hands.

Later, Joseph is able to look back and see God's hand at work even in his misfortune. After being reunited with his lost son and family in Egypt, Jacob later dies. And his sons think, with dad dead, their powerful brother Joseph might decide to get his revenge on them at last. Joseph tells them, “Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant to harm me, but God intended it for a good purpose, so he could preserve the lives of many people, as you can see this day.” Joseph was able to look back on the seemingly random path his life had taken and see how God was positioning him to be where he could do the most good. Had he stayed in Canaan, Joseph couldn't have helped stop the famine from killing lots of people, including his family. Had he not been sold to the captain of the palace guard he would never have been put in a royal prison where he would have met the disgraced wine steward. Had he not interpreted that man's dream properly, Joseph, a Hebrew slave, would never have gotten a crack at interpreting Pharaoh's dream. And so finally he and his organizational abilities, noticed by the prison warden, by his master and perhaps by his father when he put him in charge of his brothers, were now in a place where he could save a nation from starvation.

Joseph's story illustrates the fact that you can find yourself in trouble even when you are doing everything right. And yet his continuing to do the right things is what allowed him to rise in whatever circumstances he found himself. He shouldn't have been sold into slavery but finding himself there he did the best job he could. And that's probably what kept him from being executed for rape, which was a common punishment for that crime. Perhaps his master had a hard time reconciling the idea of his faithful servant with that of a rapist and decided to have him put instead in a royal prison which was probably more comfortable than an ordinary one.

Again Joseph shouldn't have been sent to prison but finding himself there he decided to be a model prisoner and he again rose to the top. Which is probably what allowed him to have contact with members of Pharaoh's staff. By making the best of a bad situation, by being helpful and reliable, rather than resentful and obstructive, Joseph was both working within God's will and simultaneously making things better for himself.

Joseph's story also illustrates the fact that the time you need to trust God the most is exactly when it is hardest to put your trust in him. When everything seems to be going from bad to worse, that's when you need to keep your hopes pinned on him. The temptation to despair and give up on God can be strong. You have to make a decision to stick with God, no matter what, and hold onto his promises.

In fact, Peter's trouble in today's gospel has to do with a crisis in faith. Often this incident is looked at as another failure on his part but he wouldn't be in this situation had he not literally stepped out in faith. He does what none of the other disciples do and frankly what most of us wouldn't do. He asked Jesus if it is OK and Jesus gives him the go-ahead. And everything starts out well. But then Peter starts paying attention to the strong wind. He gets frightened and he starts to sink. He has to call for help and Jesus comes to his rescue.

This story is a perfect paradigm of what to do and what not to do when following Jesus. It starts when some people notice Jesus doing something extraordinary. It may be something Jesus is doing through someone else, such as a ministry that is having a real impact. But it can also be something that bothers or frightens people in the church. Perhaps it seems unsupportable, financially or in terms of the personnel required. Or maybe it goes against all the rules of how things should work. So most people say, “No one can do that.” And they just remain bystanders, amazed but also worrying.

But one or two people might see what Jesus is doing and say, “Maybe we can do that too.” And rather than just jumping in, they ask Jesus if this is his will. And that's good. We don't want to be impulsive like Peter usually is. But this time he asks first. And Jesus says, “Come.” And he takes a step out of the boat, out of his comfort zone. And he's doing it! In the same way, when we step out on faith, following Jesus, we find that we are empowered to do what he does. Often what really limits us is our expectations. We decide what can and can't be done. But if listen to what our Lord says and follow his lead, we find that we can do more than we imagined was possible.

The key is to stay focused on Jesus. It's when Peter turns his attention to the strong wind that he gets into trouble. In the same way, if we start to think more about the opposition, if we start to think about how precarious our position is rather than the power that upholds us, then we get in trouble. We shift our attention from Jesus and look to the world instead. We pay more attention to which way the wind is blowing than to the direction Jesus is leading us. We pay more attention to controversies of the day than to the clear commands of Jesus to love God and other people. When we pay attention to the instability of the world and ignore the stability of Jesus, fear replaces faith and we get engulfed by the chaos around us and we start to go under.

All is not lost. If we call upon Jesus he will come to our aid. He is faithful that way.

But you know what I wish? I wish Peter had said, “Let me try it again, Lord.” I wish he had held on to Jesus' hand and taken another stroll. Just because we fail one time, it doesn't mean that the adventure is over. We can try again. I am reminded of the time Jesus healed the blind man at Bethsaida. Jesus spits on the man's eyes, lays his hands on him and asks if he sees anything. The man says, “Yes, but people look like walking trees.” So Jesus lays hands on him again and then the man sees clearly. (Mark 8:22-26) If Jesus sometimes needs to try again, so should we. As someone once said, failure is not final; it is the courage to continue that counts.

We also need the courage to ask Jesus for help. There are times when we are sinking, we are getting in over our heads and it is stupid to think we can get out of it alone. We need to stop being afraid to admit our failure, call upon Jesus, reach out to him and let him haul us out of whatever trouble we are in.

Jesus told us we would have trouble in this world. Sometimes it is completely out of our hands, sometimes it is of our own making and most of the time it is a combination of the two. Whatever the source of the trouble, whatever the nature of it, certain principles always apply. We need to keep trusting God. We need to keep hoping. We need to keep doing our best. We need to have the courage to step out of our comfort zone and walk in faith.

And we must keep our eyes on Jesus. Night may fall, storms may rage, winds may blow, waves may crash. In the midst of all the chaos, Jesus is there for us, striding the waves, his arm outstretched, his ear attuned to our cry, to pull us out of the deep and bring us to safety once more.