Joseph4: Trust Is An Inside Job
Genesis 50:15-21
November 9, 2008

However you may have voted this past week, I am confident that we are all in agreement in hoping and praying that Barak Obama has a succesful presidency. It’s not an idle prayer. He must! He has almost no margin for error. Wars abroad. Financial meltdown at home. Cities, towns, businesses shedding jobs like leaves off trees in an autumn storm. A nation divided and suspicious. A middle class waking up to the possibility that the perks that once defined the middle – good jobs, social security, college education, affordable health care – may soon pass beyond the reach of our children. And the poor are reminded again that there is no safety net in tough times.

Into this scenario we have voted a relatively young man, highly skilled but with gaps in his resume; in himself a snapshot of 21st century America – black and white, once Muslim now Christian, once poor now privileged, once a street advocate, now a dispenser of power and perks; a man who once tried to figure out his own racial identity now bringing his beautiful black family into the White House where we are asking him to bring America together in hope and unity.

Let’s hope Barak Obama has a prayer life! Let us pray that he knows a God in whom he trusts his very life, to lead him and guide him when he gets up in the morning to do work that will assuredly be bigger than he is. Let us pray that he grows big enough not to cater too much to those who admire him and not to worry too much about those who hate him. May President Elect Barak Obama, like Joseph of the bible, understand that even what others may mean for harm, God can turn into good. May every morning he awaken and not be afraid!

Here is a prayer we might pray —or, actually, an invitation to prayer. It is an invitation to trust that God would not lead us and then leave us. The words were written by Mary Wooley, first president of Mt. Holyoke College. I ask you to send it with me to the President Elect:

God would not send you into the forest To fell an oak tree with a pen knife. When (God) calls you to work you have never done,(God) will give you strength you have never had.

Would you also send these words to our President Elect? Then let us say them together. I invite you to repeat after me out loud……..amen.

Now, we never pray any prayer that does not also apply to ourselves. Has any one here not faced an “oak tree” with a “pen knife”? You do not have to be President Elect to know what it is to wake up in the middle of the night and see that the work is big and you are not! Yes? The bigger question is: Do you know a God who will give you strength you have never had? At the end of the Joseph story, we are left with the same characters who began the story: Joseph and his brothers. A lot has happened in the mean time. The brothers are still wandering shepherds, and Joseph has become grand and powerful in Egypt. But even more seems to have happened on the inside.

Did you notice that the brothers at the end of the story are still trying to trick and wheedle and manipulate to save their own hides? They say to Joseph, Joseph, before he died, our father Jacob – your father Jacob – said you need to forgive us for what we did to you!

It’s a lie! Jacob never said anything of the sort! What kind of God do you believe in when you have to lie to get forgiveness?

Now Joseph knows that forgiveness is like a pen knife that can fell an oak tree when it is of God. So Joseph responds: Am I in the place of God? If only you knew the God I know!

We come to the end of the Joseph story with two views of God. The God of Joseph’s brothers is distant, unavailable, unforgiving – an angry God who needs to be placated or manipulated. The God of Joseph is a God who can make good even out of harm. The brothers are afraid. Joseph is not.

So -- I cannot tell you which God you have come to believe in. Only you know that. Hear me, please. I do not criticize Joseph’s brothers. They simply cannot see beyond their own fear. Everything is an oak tree to them and their gifts are puny. There is every reason to be afraid in our world, and every reason to look at our own gifts and say, What am I thinking? Only this. Remember what Joseph’s brothers did not. At any point along the journey they could have asked for forgiveness from God. They would have been forgiven, for the God of the bible is a God who makes good out of harm. And that forgiveness would have felled the oak tree of their own fear.

You can ask! Trust is an inside job. Trust is knowing that there is a God bigger than the forest who will give you strength you have never had!

There is an old Celtic prayer that once was prescribed for Christians every morning. It comes from a time long ago when they didn’t have showers, coffee, online alerts, breaking news to get them going in the morning. It takes a bit of discipline, but it’s not hard. It goes this way. A person, a believer, first thing in the morning splashes his or her face with cold water three times and says, Let me awaken to you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Let me awaken to you, God. Let me begin with you and end with you. Let me put you in first place. Let me see what your good can do with my harm. Let me never forget to ask for your strength.

The Joseph story says that the God who guides the fate of nations begins that work inside the hearts of each one of us. Yes, Barak Obama is President Elect and we pray for him. We pray that every morning during his presidency he will awaken to what God wants to do through him that day. But he cannot do that work alone. So let us pray also for ourselves, that every morning we will awaken to the God who says to us: Do not be afraid!

Amen!