Sermon: True Blessing
February 17, 2025Sermon: Doxa
March 3, 2025
The Seventh Sunday after Epiphany
I love kids. One of the things I love most about kids is they always say the neatest things, the craziest things. They speak what is in their mind. It just kind of comes out of their mouth. A number of years ago, I was with some kids, and I asked one of them to say the grace at our meal. We held hands and. And the kid said, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Toys R Us, Amen. Sounded great to me.
Joseph was just a kid. He was a kid who blurted out everything he thought and saw. And he was also a kid that had been gifted with dreams, dreams that were powerful and visionary. Joseph’s father, Jacob, played favorites, which is not a good thing to do as a parent. Jacob chose Joseph as his favorite, and he adored Joseph, and he gave him a robe. It’s funny, we talk about it as Joseph’s coat of many colors, but actually the Hebrew is that it was a robe with long sleeves. So Joseph, being an unaware child who blurts, wears his robe in the presence of all of his older brothers, that’s not going to make him very popular. And then he blurts out, I had a dream. And in my dream, you all were bowing down to me. Not so smart. Joseph’s brothers were probably adolescent boys. Moody, jealous, angry, slightly irrational young men. So they decide to throw Joseph into a pit in the desert climate of Israel, a pit without water. They strip him of his robe, cover it with the blood of a lamb, and plan to tell their father that Joseph was killed. Luckily, some slave traders come by, and the brothers decide, no, they’d make a better profit if they sold their brother into slavery. So they do that. Joseph is taken to Egypt as a slave. The narrative story of his life in Egypt is quite something. And he goes through so much. But basically, in the end, because of his dreams, Joseph is able to help Pharaoh.
He dreams that there are seven fat calves and seven thin calves. And the seven thin calves eat the seven fat calves. And then again there are seven big fat ears of grain and seven thin ears, and the seven thin ears eat the fat ones. And he goes to the Pharaoh. I’m sorry, the Pharaoh has had this dream. And Joseph goes to the Pharaoh, and because he knows dreams, he interprets Pharaoh’s dreams. And he tells Pharaoh, there are going to be seven fat years of great fertility in the land, and you’re going to have so much grain and so much abundance, but you’ve got to save that grain because you’ll be followed by seven years of famine. But if you Store up during the good years. You’ll be okay during the years of famine. So the Pharaoh believes this and trusts Joseph and basically puts Joseph in charge of his whole country. He becomes like the vicar of Egypt or the sub dean or something. But inside, Joseph is still torn up because of the trauma he endured, because he’s never to see his family again, because he was treated so cruelly, because he was so hurt. But he becomes this great figure in Egypt. And there are seven years of abundance. And then the years of famine begin. And in the second year of the famine, Joseph’s brothers come before him, begging for food. And at first, Joseph, like all of us, is so angry. He’s so angry, he reacts. He puts some silver in their grain bag and then accuses them of stealing. Terrifies them. But then something happens to Joseph. A miracle of God, because forgiveness is a miracle from God. All of a sudden, Joseph is somehow able to forgive. And he says in that beautiful reading that Owen read so, so beautifully, I am Joseph. I am your brother. And he starts to cry.
Have you ever been able to forgive someone totally and utterly and kind of cried about it and been able to restore a relationship that was broken? If you ever have. It does feel like a miracle, like a whole new chapter has started again. But in forgiving them, Joseph says some really important things. He says, I realize now that it was God that took everything that you did to me. And because of everything that happened to me, I was able to be here to save you. That I can use everything that has happened to me to do God’s work in this world. I am able to save you because you hurt me. In today’s gospel, we hear this text that we know is Jesus. It’s absolutely Jesus’ words we know, because who the heck would have ever said anything like this?
Jesus says that if someone hits you, hits you in the face, you’re supposed to turn the other cheek and offer them your other side. That if someone takes your cloak, you should offer them your shirt. That if someone steals from you, you should give to them. And he says that we’re supposed to love our enemies and pray for them. It is the hardest, most difficult, most mind numbingly hard piece of scripture there is. And it is absolutely at the heart of our faith. We are supposed to take the hardest parts of our life, the parts where you hurt the worst, and use them in service to God and give them away just. Just like Jesus did on the cross.
I have a good friend who’s in my discipleship group. Her name is Sue Carmichael. Many of you know her. She retired from being the vicar of St. Mary’s Mission as a lay woman. She ran that church in Springfield for over 30 years. And at that time, Springfield was a lot worse off than it is today. Most of her congregation was semi homeless, mentally ill, dealing with drug addiction. And sue walked with these people and loved them. There was one young man in particular. I’ll call him Joshua. She had known him since a little boy. His mom had been addicted to drugs. He had paranoid schizophrenia, trouble staying in school. She had helped him, and he thought of her as like his mom. Joshua was now a young man, 19, 18, big, strong. He comes into her office one morning carrying a can of beer. And sue says, joshua, you are not supposed to be drinking beer. That is illegal. It’s a school day. Why aren’t you going to school? She takes his beer can from him and throws it away. And Joshua, who is normally gentle, goes into a rage. He punches her in the face. Her face would swell up and get black and blue. He gets out a knife, forces her to her knees, and puts the knife to her neck. And what does sue do? Sue said, I felt this incredible peace. And all I kept saying over and over again was, joshua, I love you. Joshua, I love you. You don’t want to do this, Joshua, I love you. Put the knife away, Joshua, I love you. She kept repeating that, joshua, I love you. Finally, he started to cry, and he put the knife down. She explained she had to call the cops, but that she was going to walk with him through this process. Sure enough, they came. They arrested him. And then sue testified in court about his mental illness to make sure he was put in a hospital setting, which he was. She still visits him. He’s okay. What Jesus has called us to do is really hard, and we have to do it moment by moment and day by day.
What’s happening today in this country, no matter what your politics, is that there are people who are losing their jobs, and there are people who have come to this country who are getting lost in the shuffle. And I think that we can do something about it. We can make something good out of what is happening. We can turn the other cheek. So I want to introduce you to someone this morning. I’m coming down the stairs. I know it’s a little weird. As part of my sermon. Mama Betty, would you come forward with your children? Mama Betty is from South Sudan. I’m bringing her here. So, you know, this isn’t a media thing. And just you and your children, please. You can sit. Thank you, sir. We have a friend and translator. Would you stand with your children? Let’s turn around this way. Okay. Turn. Yeah. Face this way. Come out this way. Yeah. Okay, good. So this is Mama Betty, and she’s a single mom, and these are her three children, and they arrived here in Tampa, and they were put in a hotel in Tampa, and they were part of the refugee resettlement program. So they filled out a lot of papers. The government vetted them, and they’re good people. And they’re leaving South Sudan because she’s Christian, and it was dangerous there, as a lot of you have read about Sudan, what’s going on over there? So she came here and was in the hotel in Tampa, and then all of a sudden, no one came. The government just stopped helping her. Luckily, she knew her pastor and friend, and they knew about Lutheran Social Services, so they came and got her. And Lutheran Social Services has put families just like her in apartments, and they’ve signed leases, but their rent has been stopped all of a sudden. So we’ve just got on the computer, and I called the Dupont Foundation. We need to raise $88,000 in a couple weeks. So we have two months of re. So she can find work. We believe she can find work in two months. Very workable. Yep. Very able bodied. Yes. So we’ve already. Dupont is giving 44,000, and I think we almost have it all raised. But if you can give, please do. We’re going to get these people housed. Right. And would you join me in welcoming them to this country? Thank you. Well, let us pray together. The Lord be with you. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we give you thanks for the opportunity to serve these beautiful souls who love you and who you love so much. We give you thanks for this day and all of the challenges that lay before us. Help us to rise to the occasion just as your son rose. Help us to become better followers of Jesus because of the challenges ahead. We thank you for the gift of this life and the chance to serve you in Jesus name, Amen. Thank you.