Don’t Put the Turkey In Yet
Commentary
I love Thanksgiving. I cherish the traditions, I love the quality of family reunion, and I enjoy the food. I have hundreds of fond memories of Thanksgiving holidays past, and I look forward to the Thanksgiving that is a few months away.
But it is a few months away. I may be looking forward to it, but that doesn’t mean that I am doing any grocery shopping for it yet. We all recognize that it would be premature for us to put the turkey in the oven this weekend in preparation for November’s Thanksgiving celebration.
In the ordinary stuff of life, you see, we understand the importance of timing. Wanting something in the future -- indeed, even planning on something for the future -- doesn’t necessarily mean that any action is required today. And in some cases, like the turkey in the oven, it would actually be counterproductive to take certain actions today.
For as common sense as this is, however, still we struggle with the issue of timing when it comes to the providence of God. Perhaps it’s a control thing for us: we are more willing to be patient with timing when we are in control of that timing. Or perhaps, with God, we are like little children in the backseat, clamoring to know, “How much longer?” In any event, we may frequently be praying for God to put the turkey in the oven months before Thanksgiving.
The passages assigned to us for this Sunday invite us to consider two broad themes. The Matthew and Romans passages certainly provoke some consideration of the theme of Jews and Gentiles in the plan of God. But even that crucial theme can be taken as a subset of this larger issue: the timing of God’s providence.
Genesis 45:1-15
The story of Joseph is one of the longest single narratives in the Old Testament. And it is also one of the best. Not only is it an important story theologically, bearing witness to the faithfulness of an individual and the providence of God; it’s also just great story-telling. The conflicts, the relationships, the plot twists, the drama -- the story of Joseph is a genuine page-turner.
One could say that Joseph’s story has three different climaxes. It reminds me of certain pieces of classical music where one is tempted to applaud what feels like the big finish, only to discover that there is more. This episode from Genesis 45 is the first “big finish.”
Our Old Testament lection for this week captures the moment when disguises are removed and true identities are revealed. For chapters, Joseph has been the puppeteer, playfully pulling the strings on his once-malevolent brothers. He causes them great trouble and grief, although the reader is able to recognize that their troubles are not as great as the brothers think they are. They think they are living through tragedies. In fact, they are living through something more like practical jokes.
But then comes the moment when all joking is set aside. Joseph can no longer contain himself. He breaks down in tears, he sets aside the look and the language that has kept his brothers in the dark, and he stuns them with the revelation that he is their long-lost brother.
What follows are the lyrics and music of reconciliation and forgiveness. How easy it would have been for Joseph to make this his moment of triumphant vengeance? How much would a bitter person have savored the opportunity to take out years of frustration and injustice on those who were responsible?
In order for us to appreciate what Joseph does in this moment, you see, we need to give a little candid thought to what he didn’t do. What he didn’t do, but so easily could have done, was exact revenge. He had all the power. He could have done so much worse to them than they had done to him.
Against the backdrop of what Joseph might have done, then, we see more clearly the beauty of what he did do. He invited them closer. He reassured them. He embraced them. And he invited them into a new and generous future with him.
While the particulars of Joseph’s story are distinctive -- perhaps unique -- the basic contours are familiar to all of us. We all know what it is to see certain dysfunctions in our families and homes. We know what it is to be mistreated by other people. And we know what it feels like to have brokenness, perhaps even enmity, in some of our personal relationships. The sort of reconciliation achieved by Joseph here, therefore, is an exciting model for us all. He shows us a way to the kind of relational healing that many of us crave.
First, we observe that he does not try to sweep under the rug past misdeeds. Sometimes that is a more comfortable approach for us to take. We find it easier just to pretend the thing never happened rather than to do the hard work of acknowledging and processing what happened. But Joseph names his brothers’ mistreatment of him.
Meanwhile, a common alternative that is barely one step up from sweeping things under the rug is to minimize them. We may brush this or that offense aside by saying, “Forget about it; it’s no big deal.” We may not really mean or believe what we’re saying, but the faux-grace again feels like an easier way to deal with the past hurt than to be honest about it.
Joseph was honest about the past hurt and injustice done to him by his brothers, but he is able to give voice to it because he is not speaking from a place of bitterness. He knows his brothers did wrong, but he is not seething about it. Did he at one time? We don’t know. But at this moment in time, Joseph is clearly at peace. And that peace comes from his confidence in the providential plan and care of God. In other words, Joseph’s thesis is not, “I forgive you because things worked out pretty well for me in the end.” No, the heart of Joseph’s affirmation is not his status but God’s plan.
We may think that Joseph was in a pretty easy place from which to forgive his brothers. When we are still smarting from the pain someone caused us, we may not be impressed by Joseph’s graciousness from his lofty perch as second-in-command in Egypt. We wonder if he would have been so magnanimous if he had crossed paths with his offenders in prison.
But we must remember two things about Joseph’s model for forgiveness. First, his status was not just an easy place from which to forgive; it was also an easy place from which to avenge. Indeed, it would have been easier to forgive than to avenge when he was still in prison. But now, on the vice-Pharaoh’s throne, forgiveness was arguably harder because vengeance was a more realistic alternative.
Second, most of us will not experience the complete turning-of-the-tables that Joseph enjoyed. We are not likely to have past transgressors bowing before our sovereignty. Yet we can be as magnanimous as Joseph with whatever power we do have. And the starting place for that, in my own experience, is in our words. I may not be able to do the sort of ultimate harm to those who have hurt me that Joseph could have done, but I find that I can harm their reputations and relationship with the words I speak about them, and I can harm their hearts and souls by the words I speak to them. Whether on a throne or on the phone, then, I have some power over those who have done me wrong. And I would do well to follow Joseph’s lead.
Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32
We are jumping in on the end of a dialogue. By the time we come to our assigned passages from Romans 11, Paul has been exploring these issues for two chapters already. And while it may not be a dialogue in the traditional sense -- that is, two or more people in a back-and-forth exchange of ideas -- Paul still has a knack for making his monologues sound like dialogues. He anticipates questions and answers them. He raises objections and responds. He is in dialogue with his audience, who is necessarily mute. He is in dialogue with the issues. And he is in dialogue with himself.
Broadly speaking, the issue at hand is the relationship of the Jews to the gospel. The prevailing understanding of the New Testament is that the Jews were the chosen people of God under the old covenant. But now, through Christ, God has established a new covenant. And what, then, are we to make of those old-covenant people?
Very early in the church’s history, the theological paradigm perhaps favored the Jews over the Gentiles. The first believers were all Jewish. And when Gentiles began coming to Christ, they were viewed with some skepticism. Indeed, there was an instinct, within some factions of the early church, at least, that assumed a Gentile effectively had to become a Jew in order to become a Christian. The Jewish law was understood as the airport through which a Gentile made their connecting flight to Christ.
We gather that Paul and his ministry were strong influences in the other direction. We read in Romans and Galatians, for example, his extended arguments about the fact that, with or without the law, human beings need the Savior. The law does not justify; it only condemns. And so Jew and Gentile alike are dependent upon the grace of God, received by faith.
By the time he writes to the Romans, however, Paul has experienced a strange, perhaps surprising, and certainly painful change in circumstance. While the earliest church in Jerusalem was entirely Jewish and Gentiles were the rarity, Paul’s experience out in the Mediterranean world was heartbreakingly different. The Gentiles were responding enthusiastically to the preaching of the gospel, while the Jews were mostly rejecting and opposing the work and the message.
On the one hand, of course, this should not have been any surprise to Paul personally. He began as a devout Jew, after all, who vigorously opposed the followers of Christ. On the other hand, having come to see the light for himself, he is mystified by the blindness of his fellows. The gospel message of Christ is spoken in their native language -- the language of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the language of the covenants; the language of the Psalms and the prophets; the language of the Messiah. Since they recognize the theological vocabulary, how do they not hear and understand the message?
And so Paul wrestles with the bigger question of God’s timing and purpose in all of this. Could it be that the Jews’ rejection of the gospel is actually God’s doing? He does make assertions along those lines outside the parameters of our passage, understanding that “by their (the Jews’) transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles” (Romans 11:11 NASB). Yet that does not mean that God has rejected the Jews themselves.
This, then, is the great affirmation of the present passage. That God’s people have largely, for the present, rejected him does not mean that he has rejected them. Our sin is an opportunity for his mercy. And, as such, his sovereign act is to use even human disobedience to his purposes, ultimately reconciling both Gentile and Jew to himself, as he graciously endeavors to redeem all humankind.
Matthew 15:(10-20), 21-28
Our assigned gospel lection is, in my experience, frequently misunderstood. I have seen folks in my churches through the years be deeply troubled by this episode. They are bothered by what Jesus seems to say and do. And so, it’s possible that the people in your pews may need a sort of chiropractic adjustment on how they read the passage in order to appreciate it more fully.
So, in order to make the adjustment, let us consider a few questions.
A woman comes to Jesus, hoping that he will heal her daughter. Does he heal her daughter?
The woman causes quite a commotion along the way. It was such a disturbance, in fact, that the disciples prevailed upon Jesus to send her away. “Send her away,” they said, “for she keeps shouting after us.” Did Jesus send her away?
Ultimately, the woman knelt before Jesus and asked him to help her. Did he say no to her? Did he help her in the end?
We are troubled by some of the things that are said and done between the first and last verses of the passage, but we must see those against the larger backdrop of the story as a whole. The fact is that the woman got what she came for, and there was never a point where Jesus actually declined or dismissed her.
Given that larger context, the middle part of the story takes on a peculiar beauty, it seems to me. You and I, after all, may recognize this woman’s experience more fully and personally than we do so many of the other healing stories in the gospels. We know what it is to have to ask again and again. We know what it is to wonder whether he is listening and whether he is going to act on our behalf. This woman’s story may seem like an anomaly within the gospel narratives, but hers is not at all an extraordinary experience. We all know it. We’ve all had it.
What I am left with, therefore, is not questions about Jesus but questions about myself. The issue is not how much he is like or unlike the portraits we have of him in other episodes. Rather, the issue is how much I am like or unlike that heroic woman. She perseveres, she fights through discouragement, she answers back, and she receives what she needed.
And not only did she receive the healing for her daughter that she needed, she also received commendation from Jesus. “Woman, great is your faith!” he exclaimed. It is a startling contrast to the disciples standing there, who on more than one occasion were chided by Jesus for their little faith.
Peter, Andrew, James, and John all left their nets and their boats in order to follow Jesus. But Jesus did not remark on their great faith. Matthew left his tax table. Peter walked on water. Andrew brought forward the boy with the loaves and fish. Thomas called Jesus “Lord” and “God.” Yet none of these did Jesus commend for their faith.
Jesus’ admiration for the woman should not surprise us. She is, after all, the embodiment of the very sort of perseverance in prayer that Jesus had taught about in the stories of the knocking neighbor (Luke 11:5-8) and the nagging widow (Luke 18:1-8). This is the bold tenacity that Jesus encouraged, and he called it great faith.
If I am bothered by this story from Matthew 15, Jesus is not the character in the story that bothers me. I am.
Application
Sports fans in our day are accustomed to the benefits of multiple cameras. We would think ourselves deprived if we could see a play from only one angle. Instead, we count on it that the broadcasters will be able to show us several different views of the same action.
The sports fans in our pews, therefore, should have a natural appreciation for a lectionary-based approach to preaching this week. For we have these three different readings assigned to us, and we may take them as three different camera angles on the same action -- or, in this case, the same theme. And the theme is the providence of God and his timing.
The passage from Genesis gives us an anecdotal view of the subject. The excerpt from Romans offers a more theoretical view. And the story from Matthew provides a personal-experience sort of a view.
In Genesis, we hear Joseph reflecting on the providence of God in his rear-view mirror. This is not what he is thinking and feeling while he is in the well, while he is being manhandled by his brothers as they sell him to merchants, while he is serving in Potiphar’s house, or while he is sitting in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. No, this is Joseph able to look back on all the events and circumstances in his life and see in them the providential hand of God. Consequently, he is not bitter over mistreatment, injustice, and lost years. He is at peace since he is in the center of God’s will. He sees clearly now the timing of God in orchestrating and using events.
In Romans, meanwhile, we hear Paul near the conclusion of his theological struggle with the issue of the Jews’ and Gentiles’ responses to the gospel of Christ. And while that seems, at first blush, to be a purely human issue, Paul comes to recognize it as a matter of divine providence. God employs both human obedience and disobedience, both responsiveness and unresponsiveness, to accomplish his good and saving purpose. Yet we sense that the issue of timing must be a matter of trust for Paul. He is not looking back on events in the same way that Joseph was. This situation has not worked its way to resolution yet.
Finally, the story of the woman who sought from Jesus healing for her child is a real-life, in-the-moment perspective on the providence and timing of God. Here is a woman with an urgent, desperate need. Yet Jesus’ response seems ponderous, at best. Why doesn’t the ambulance turn on its sirens when she called 9-1-1? Why was help not dispatched with the immediacy demanded by the situation? That answer is not given in the narrative -- though, in the end, the help that is needed is provided, and it is provided in time.
I imagine that the woman, Paul, and Joseph all wanted the Lord to act faster than he did. So, too, the Israelite slaves in Egypt, Daniel as he was being thrown to the lions, Shadrach and company as they were being sentenced to the fiery furnace, and the psalmist who cried out, “How long, O LORD? Wilt Thou forget me forever? How long wilt Thou hide Thy face from me?” (Psalm 13:1 NASB) But we affirm with the poet, “Sing, pray, and keep God’s ways unswerving; so do thine own part faithfully, and trust God’s word; though undeserving, thou yet shalt find it true for thee. God never yet forsook at need the soul that trusted God indeed.”1
Alternative Application(s)
Genesis 45:1-15 -- “They Will Look On Him”
We explored above the dramatic scene in which Joseph reveals his true identity to his brothers. It’s a touching moment, filled with poignancy and irony. And it may also be filled with gospel.
Take a snapshot of the moment that is depicted in our Old Testament lection. Paint a picture of the scene in your own mind’s eye. And then see that moment in its larger context.
Here are Joseph’s brothers suddenly seeing Joseph. Well, they had been seeing him all along, but they didn’t realize who they were seeing. Now their eyes have been opened.
No doubt they had written him off years ago. Surely, they never expected to see him again. He was as good as dead as far as they were concerned. And yet, now, they are standing face-to-face with him.
If it were just a long-lost brother who had been separated from them by circumstances beyond their control, the mood would be different. It could all be rejoicing. But this reunion is more complicated because of how the separation had occurred. The brothers are face-to-face with the one they had treated so unjustly, they one they had tortured years before.
And then add this layer into the scene: Joseph is the one in the position of power now. Long ago, he had cried out to them for help, but they ignored him. They sat down to eat. But now they are the ones needing help, and they must come to Joseph to get it.
The Apostle John foresaw a climactic moment and described it this way: “Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him” (Revelation 1:7 NASB).
It’s an image that goes back to the Old Testament prophet Zechariah and echoes through John’s account of Good Friday. It is the image of people looking on the one they had pierced. And that “one” is the Lord.
What will that moment be like? They will be face-to-face with the one that they treated so unjustly -- the one they tortured and left for dead. But it turns out that he is alive.
More than that, they will find that now he is the one in the position of power. As Joseph had gone from the pit to the palace, so Jesus has gone from the cross to the throne. And those who had rejected and abused him will be the ones crying out for help, and the only one who can help them is him.
From the story of Joseph to the story of Jesus, the trajectory is the same. From Genesis to Revelation, the portrait is the same. The one who had been their victim now turns out to be their Savior.
1 Georg Neumark, “If Thou But Suffer God to Guide Thee,” translated by Catherine Winkworth, UMH #142
But it is a few months away. I may be looking forward to it, but that doesn’t mean that I am doing any grocery shopping for it yet. We all recognize that it would be premature for us to put the turkey in the oven this weekend in preparation for November’s Thanksgiving celebration.
In the ordinary stuff of life, you see, we understand the importance of timing. Wanting something in the future -- indeed, even planning on something for the future -- doesn’t necessarily mean that any action is required today. And in some cases, like the turkey in the oven, it would actually be counterproductive to take certain actions today.
For as common sense as this is, however, still we struggle with the issue of timing when it comes to the providence of God. Perhaps it’s a control thing for us: we are more willing to be patient with timing when we are in control of that timing. Or perhaps, with God, we are like little children in the backseat, clamoring to know, “How much longer?” In any event, we may frequently be praying for God to put the turkey in the oven months before Thanksgiving.
The passages assigned to us for this Sunday invite us to consider two broad themes. The Matthew and Romans passages certainly provoke some consideration of the theme of Jews and Gentiles in the plan of God. But even that crucial theme can be taken as a subset of this larger issue: the timing of God’s providence.
Genesis 45:1-15
The story of Joseph is one of the longest single narratives in the Old Testament. And it is also one of the best. Not only is it an important story theologically, bearing witness to the faithfulness of an individual and the providence of God; it’s also just great story-telling. The conflicts, the relationships, the plot twists, the drama -- the story of Joseph is a genuine page-turner.
One could say that Joseph’s story has three different climaxes. It reminds me of certain pieces of classical music where one is tempted to applaud what feels like the big finish, only to discover that there is more. This episode from Genesis 45 is the first “big finish.”
Our Old Testament lection for this week captures the moment when disguises are removed and true identities are revealed. For chapters, Joseph has been the puppeteer, playfully pulling the strings on his once-malevolent brothers. He causes them great trouble and grief, although the reader is able to recognize that their troubles are not as great as the brothers think they are. They think they are living through tragedies. In fact, they are living through something more like practical jokes.
But then comes the moment when all joking is set aside. Joseph can no longer contain himself. He breaks down in tears, he sets aside the look and the language that has kept his brothers in the dark, and he stuns them with the revelation that he is their long-lost brother.
What follows are the lyrics and music of reconciliation and forgiveness. How easy it would have been for Joseph to make this his moment of triumphant vengeance? How much would a bitter person have savored the opportunity to take out years of frustration and injustice on those who were responsible?
In order for us to appreciate what Joseph does in this moment, you see, we need to give a little candid thought to what he didn’t do. What he didn’t do, but so easily could have done, was exact revenge. He had all the power. He could have done so much worse to them than they had done to him.
Against the backdrop of what Joseph might have done, then, we see more clearly the beauty of what he did do. He invited them closer. He reassured them. He embraced them. And he invited them into a new and generous future with him.
While the particulars of Joseph’s story are distinctive -- perhaps unique -- the basic contours are familiar to all of us. We all know what it is to see certain dysfunctions in our families and homes. We know what it is to be mistreated by other people. And we know what it feels like to have brokenness, perhaps even enmity, in some of our personal relationships. The sort of reconciliation achieved by Joseph here, therefore, is an exciting model for us all. He shows us a way to the kind of relational healing that many of us crave.
First, we observe that he does not try to sweep under the rug past misdeeds. Sometimes that is a more comfortable approach for us to take. We find it easier just to pretend the thing never happened rather than to do the hard work of acknowledging and processing what happened. But Joseph names his brothers’ mistreatment of him.
Meanwhile, a common alternative that is barely one step up from sweeping things under the rug is to minimize them. We may brush this or that offense aside by saying, “Forget about it; it’s no big deal.” We may not really mean or believe what we’re saying, but the faux-grace again feels like an easier way to deal with the past hurt than to be honest about it.
Joseph was honest about the past hurt and injustice done to him by his brothers, but he is able to give voice to it because he is not speaking from a place of bitterness. He knows his brothers did wrong, but he is not seething about it. Did he at one time? We don’t know. But at this moment in time, Joseph is clearly at peace. And that peace comes from his confidence in the providential plan and care of God. In other words, Joseph’s thesis is not, “I forgive you because things worked out pretty well for me in the end.” No, the heart of Joseph’s affirmation is not his status but God’s plan.
We may think that Joseph was in a pretty easy place from which to forgive his brothers. When we are still smarting from the pain someone caused us, we may not be impressed by Joseph’s graciousness from his lofty perch as second-in-command in Egypt. We wonder if he would have been so magnanimous if he had crossed paths with his offenders in prison.
But we must remember two things about Joseph’s model for forgiveness. First, his status was not just an easy place from which to forgive; it was also an easy place from which to avenge. Indeed, it would have been easier to forgive than to avenge when he was still in prison. But now, on the vice-Pharaoh’s throne, forgiveness was arguably harder because vengeance was a more realistic alternative.
Second, most of us will not experience the complete turning-of-the-tables that Joseph enjoyed. We are not likely to have past transgressors bowing before our sovereignty. Yet we can be as magnanimous as Joseph with whatever power we do have. And the starting place for that, in my own experience, is in our words. I may not be able to do the sort of ultimate harm to those who have hurt me that Joseph could have done, but I find that I can harm their reputations and relationship with the words I speak about them, and I can harm their hearts and souls by the words I speak to them. Whether on a throne or on the phone, then, I have some power over those who have done me wrong. And I would do well to follow Joseph’s lead.
Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32
We are jumping in on the end of a dialogue. By the time we come to our assigned passages from Romans 11, Paul has been exploring these issues for two chapters already. And while it may not be a dialogue in the traditional sense -- that is, two or more people in a back-and-forth exchange of ideas -- Paul still has a knack for making his monologues sound like dialogues. He anticipates questions and answers them. He raises objections and responds. He is in dialogue with his audience, who is necessarily mute. He is in dialogue with the issues. And he is in dialogue with himself.
Broadly speaking, the issue at hand is the relationship of the Jews to the gospel. The prevailing understanding of the New Testament is that the Jews were the chosen people of God under the old covenant. But now, through Christ, God has established a new covenant. And what, then, are we to make of those old-covenant people?
Very early in the church’s history, the theological paradigm perhaps favored the Jews over the Gentiles. The first believers were all Jewish. And when Gentiles began coming to Christ, they were viewed with some skepticism. Indeed, there was an instinct, within some factions of the early church, at least, that assumed a Gentile effectively had to become a Jew in order to become a Christian. The Jewish law was understood as the airport through which a Gentile made their connecting flight to Christ.
We gather that Paul and his ministry were strong influences in the other direction. We read in Romans and Galatians, for example, his extended arguments about the fact that, with or without the law, human beings need the Savior. The law does not justify; it only condemns. And so Jew and Gentile alike are dependent upon the grace of God, received by faith.
By the time he writes to the Romans, however, Paul has experienced a strange, perhaps surprising, and certainly painful change in circumstance. While the earliest church in Jerusalem was entirely Jewish and Gentiles were the rarity, Paul’s experience out in the Mediterranean world was heartbreakingly different. The Gentiles were responding enthusiastically to the preaching of the gospel, while the Jews were mostly rejecting and opposing the work and the message.
On the one hand, of course, this should not have been any surprise to Paul personally. He began as a devout Jew, after all, who vigorously opposed the followers of Christ. On the other hand, having come to see the light for himself, he is mystified by the blindness of his fellows. The gospel message of Christ is spoken in their native language -- the language of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the language of the covenants; the language of the Psalms and the prophets; the language of the Messiah. Since they recognize the theological vocabulary, how do they not hear and understand the message?
And so Paul wrestles with the bigger question of God’s timing and purpose in all of this. Could it be that the Jews’ rejection of the gospel is actually God’s doing? He does make assertions along those lines outside the parameters of our passage, understanding that “by their (the Jews’) transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles” (Romans 11:11 NASB). Yet that does not mean that God has rejected the Jews themselves.
This, then, is the great affirmation of the present passage. That God’s people have largely, for the present, rejected him does not mean that he has rejected them. Our sin is an opportunity for his mercy. And, as such, his sovereign act is to use even human disobedience to his purposes, ultimately reconciling both Gentile and Jew to himself, as he graciously endeavors to redeem all humankind.
Matthew 15:(10-20), 21-28
Our assigned gospel lection is, in my experience, frequently misunderstood. I have seen folks in my churches through the years be deeply troubled by this episode. They are bothered by what Jesus seems to say and do. And so, it’s possible that the people in your pews may need a sort of chiropractic adjustment on how they read the passage in order to appreciate it more fully.
So, in order to make the adjustment, let us consider a few questions.
A woman comes to Jesus, hoping that he will heal her daughter. Does he heal her daughter?
The woman causes quite a commotion along the way. It was such a disturbance, in fact, that the disciples prevailed upon Jesus to send her away. “Send her away,” they said, “for she keeps shouting after us.” Did Jesus send her away?
Ultimately, the woman knelt before Jesus and asked him to help her. Did he say no to her? Did he help her in the end?
We are troubled by some of the things that are said and done between the first and last verses of the passage, but we must see those against the larger backdrop of the story as a whole. The fact is that the woman got what she came for, and there was never a point where Jesus actually declined or dismissed her.
Given that larger context, the middle part of the story takes on a peculiar beauty, it seems to me. You and I, after all, may recognize this woman’s experience more fully and personally than we do so many of the other healing stories in the gospels. We know what it is to have to ask again and again. We know what it is to wonder whether he is listening and whether he is going to act on our behalf. This woman’s story may seem like an anomaly within the gospel narratives, but hers is not at all an extraordinary experience. We all know it. We’ve all had it.
What I am left with, therefore, is not questions about Jesus but questions about myself. The issue is not how much he is like or unlike the portraits we have of him in other episodes. Rather, the issue is how much I am like or unlike that heroic woman. She perseveres, she fights through discouragement, she answers back, and she receives what she needed.
And not only did she receive the healing for her daughter that she needed, she also received commendation from Jesus. “Woman, great is your faith!” he exclaimed. It is a startling contrast to the disciples standing there, who on more than one occasion were chided by Jesus for their little faith.
Peter, Andrew, James, and John all left their nets and their boats in order to follow Jesus. But Jesus did not remark on their great faith. Matthew left his tax table. Peter walked on water. Andrew brought forward the boy with the loaves and fish. Thomas called Jesus “Lord” and “God.” Yet none of these did Jesus commend for their faith.
Jesus’ admiration for the woman should not surprise us. She is, after all, the embodiment of the very sort of perseverance in prayer that Jesus had taught about in the stories of the knocking neighbor (Luke 11:5-8) and the nagging widow (Luke 18:1-8). This is the bold tenacity that Jesus encouraged, and he called it great faith.
If I am bothered by this story from Matthew 15, Jesus is not the character in the story that bothers me. I am.
Application
Sports fans in our day are accustomed to the benefits of multiple cameras. We would think ourselves deprived if we could see a play from only one angle. Instead, we count on it that the broadcasters will be able to show us several different views of the same action.
The sports fans in our pews, therefore, should have a natural appreciation for a lectionary-based approach to preaching this week. For we have these three different readings assigned to us, and we may take them as three different camera angles on the same action -- or, in this case, the same theme. And the theme is the providence of God and his timing.
The passage from Genesis gives us an anecdotal view of the subject. The excerpt from Romans offers a more theoretical view. And the story from Matthew provides a personal-experience sort of a view.
In Genesis, we hear Joseph reflecting on the providence of God in his rear-view mirror. This is not what he is thinking and feeling while he is in the well, while he is being manhandled by his brothers as they sell him to merchants, while he is serving in Potiphar’s house, or while he is sitting in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. No, this is Joseph able to look back on all the events and circumstances in his life and see in them the providential hand of God. Consequently, he is not bitter over mistreatment, injustice, and lost years. He is at peace since he is in the center of God’s will. He sees clearly now the timing of God in orchestrating and using events.
In Romans, meanwhile, we hear Paul near the conclusion of his theological struggle with the issue of the Jews’ and Gentiles’ responses to the gospel of Christ. And while that seems, at first blush, to be a purely human issue, Paul comes to recognize it as a matter of divine providence. God employs both human obedience and disobedience, both responsiveness and unresponsiveness, to accomplish his good and saving purpose. Yet we sense that the issue of timing must be a matter of trust for Paul. He is not looking back on events in the same way that Joseph was. This situation has not worked its way to resolution yet.
Finally, the story of the woman who sought from Jesus healing for her child is a real-life, in-the-moment perspective on the providence and timing of God. Here is a woman with an urgent, desperate need. Yet Jesus’ response seems ponderous, at best. Why doesn’t the ambulance turn on its sirens when she called 9-1-1? Why was help not dispatched with the immediacy demanded by the situation? That answer is not given in the narrative -- though, in the end, the help that is needed is provided, and it is provided in time.
I imagine that the woman, Paul, and Joseph all wanted the Lord to act faster than he did. So, too, the Israelite slaves in Egypt, Daniel as he was being thrown to the lions, Shadrach and company as they were being sentenced to the fiery furnace, and the psalmist who cried out, “How long, O LORD? Wilt Thou forget me forever? How long wilt Thou hide Thy face from me?” (Psalm 13:1 NASB) But we affirm with the poet, “Sing, pray, and keep God’s ways unswerving; so do thine own part faithfully, and trust God’s word; though undeserving, thou yet shalt find it true for thee. God never yet forsook at need the soul that trusted God indeed.”1
Alternative Application(s)
Genesis 45:1-15 -- “They Will Look On Him”
We explored above the dramatic scene in which Joseph reveals his true identity to his brothers. It’s a touching moment, filled with poignancy and irony. And it may also be filled with gospel.
Take a snapshot of the moment that is depicted in our Old Testament lection. Paint a picture of the scene in your own mind’s eye. And then see that moment in its larger context.
Here are Joseph’s brothers suddenly seeing Joseph. Well, they had been seeing him all along, but they didn’t realize who they were seeing. Now their eyes have been opened.
No doubt they had written him off years ago. Surely, they never expected to see him again. He was as good as dead as far as they were concerned. And yet, now, they are standing face-to-face with him.
If it were just a long-lost brother who had been separated from them by circumstances beyond their control, the mood would be different. It could all be rejoicing. But this reunion is more complicated because of how the separation had occurred. The brothers are face-to-face with the one they had treated so unjustly, they one they had tortured years before.
And then add this layer into the scene: Joseph is the one in the position of power now. Long ago, he had cried out to them for help, but they ignored him. They sat down to eat. But now they are the ones needing help, and they must come to Joseph to get it.
The Apostle John foresaw a climactic moment and described it this way: “Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him” (Revelation 1:7 NASB).
It’s an image that goes back to the Old Testament prophet Zechariah and echoes through John’s account of Good Friday. It is the image of people looking on the one they had pierced. And that “one” is the Lord.
What will that moment be like? They will be face-to-face with the one that they treated so unjustly -- the one they tortured and left for dead. But it turns out that he is alive.
More than that, they will find that now he is the one in the position of power. As Joseph had gone from the pit to the palace, so Jesus has gone from the cross to the throne. And those who had rejected and abused him will be the ones crying out for help, and the only one who can help them is him.
From the story of Joseph to the story of Jesus, the trajectory is the same. From Genesis to Revelation, the portrait is the same. The one who had been their victim now turns out to be their Savior.
1 Georg Neumark, “If Thou But Suffer God to Guide Thee,” translated by Catherine Winkworth, UMH #142
