Proper 14
Preaching
Preaching and Reading the Old Testament Lessons
With an Eye to the New
Object:
Here begins the collection of Joseph stories with which the rest of Genesis will be concerned. There are some contradictions within our text because we have the two sources of the Yahwist and the Elohist woven together. In verses 21-22, it is the northern forbear Reuben, born of Leah, who would save Joseph's life. In verses 26-27, it is Judah from the South. In verse 27, Joseph is to be sold to some passing Ishmaelites, but in verse 28, Midianite traders are the ones passing by. The interweaving of the two sources now serves to involve both northern and southern forbears in the rescue of Joseph from death, as well as to highlight the indecisiveness of the brothers about what to do with their young sibling.
But let's face it. Joseph is a brat, the spoiled youngest son of Jacob's old age, who is his father's favorite and a brash braggart at that. He rashly tells his brothers and parents about his dreams of superiority over them (vv. 5-11). And he lazes about in his long-sleeved coat, while his brothers have to work to tend the flocks. (The correct text says that the coat is not many-colored, but rather it has long sleeves which are for dress and not for work.) It is little wonder that Joseph's eleven brothers hate him and just want to be rid of him. Some of the brothers despise Joseph so much that they want to kill him, but the cooler heads of Reuben and Judah forestall that vengeance. So they settle for selling Joseph as a slave to the Midianite or Ishmaelite traders who are on their way to Egypt. In Egypt, the traders then sell the young lad to Potiphar, the captain of Pharaoh's guard (39:1).
Joseph is obviously an obedient son of his adoring father. When Jacob bids Joseph seek out his shepherding brothers to inquire after their welfare, Joseph immediately obeys (37:13). But he gets lost on the way. When he cannot find his brothers at Shechem, he wanders around in the hill country until a stranger tells him that the brothers have moved their flocks to Dothan, some miles north of Shechem in the region of Samaria. There the brothers are located, but Joseph has made a long trek from Hebron in the south to Dothan in the north.
The brothers, however, have no thought of offering Joseph food and drink and rest from his long journey. Instead, some of them immediately plot Joseph's death, and the words that they speak become a prophecy of everything that follows. "Here comes this dreamer," the brothers say. "Come now, let us kill him ... and we shall see what shall become of his dreams" (vv. 19-20).
Those prophetic words are quoted on a plaque on the motel in Memphis where Martin Luther King, Jr., was staying when he was killed. There could not be a more apt use of this quotation from the Joseph story, for the saying concerns the dreams of a dreamer -- Joseph in our text, and Martin Luther King, Jr., in our time. "We shall see what shall become of his dreams."
What the brothers of Joseph did not realize and what our society has not always realized is that the dreams of Joseph and of M. L. King. Jr., were not made up by the human dreamers. No. The dreams came from God. They were the sign and the foretaste of the plan that God was working out in the Genesis story and that he is working out in our world.
God had to send Joseph ahead into Egypt in order to save his people in the time of famine, and God used the dreams of Joseph and the hatred of his brothers to accomplish that plan. And surely, God had to raise up a man with a dream to begin the destruction of the awful race prejudice that lay like a blanket over our land.
As we shall see in Genesis, Joseph's dreams came true, because they were God's dreams. Is it not possible that the dream of Martin Luther King, Jr., will come true also, because it comes from God? Our hatreds and prejudices are no match for the working of God, and we should be very cautious when we think to oppose him.
Lutheran Option: 1 Kings 19:9-18
The time in our text is toward the beginning of the reign of the northern king of Israel, Ahab (ca. 869-850 B.C.), the son and successor of the great king, Omri. Ahab is highly successful in military battles, defeating the Syrians to the north and helping to turn back the incursion of the Assyrian Empire. He built magnificent buildings and dominated the southern kingdom of Judah, marrying his daughter Athaliah to Judah's king Jehoram.
Ahab himself is married to Jezebel, a daughter of the king of Tyre, and therein lies his difficulty. Jezebel is a worshiper and promoter of the cult of Baal, the nature god of fertility. As a result, Israel is saturated with idolatry and syncretism. Altars to the Lord are torn down, some of his prophets are put to death, and covenant faithfulness has become a thing of the past.
One man dares to defy Jezebel, however -- Elijah the Tishbite. In a contest with 400 of the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, Elijah shows them to be false prophets and demonstrates the sole deity of the Lord, who alone rules over all of nature, through famine and deluge (1 Kings 17). Consequently, the 400 prophets of Baal are slain, and in revenge, Jezebel vows to kill Elijah. So in our text, Elijah is fleeing for his life to Horeb (Sinai), "the mount of God," in the Arabian peninsula. It is there on the mount that God encounters his fleeing prophet. (Probably verses 9b-11a are to be omitted from our text as duplicates of verses 11b and 14).
As is often the case with a theophany or appearance of the Lord, there are cosmic disturbances -- a great wind, an earthquake, and fire. But the text is careful to distinguish God from natural occurrences (vv. 11-12). God is not "in" any of those phenomena. The Lord of hosts is no nature deity. Instead, God comes to his prophet in his Word -- "a voice of thin silence," the most mysterious of descriptions.
When God asks Elijah why he has fled, the prophet tells of the dreadful situation in Israel and claims that he alone is still faithful to the Lord. That is almost a blasphemous statement, for it implies that God has ceased to work among his covenant people in the North. It also has about it a certain self-righteousness, as if Elijah is saying, "Everyone else is false, and I alone am true," a statement that we sometimes hear from some angry church member in our day, who decides to abandon his church membership and leave behind all of those horrible sinners and hypocrites in the congregation.
Amazingly, God does not rebuke his self-congratulatory prophet. Instead, the Lord tells Elijah to get to work and, indeed, to start a revolution. Elijah is commanded to topple the powerful Omri dynastry represented by Ahab and Jezebel, to replace Ben-Hadad on the throne of Syria with the commoner Hazael, and to anoint Elisha as his prophetic successor (vv. 15-16). That's a tall order, but it demonstrates the power of the God who not only rules all nature but also the kingdoms of the earth. It's as if the Lord is telling his prophet, "You think I'm not at work, Elijah? Think again! I not only preserve the pure faith of 7,000 people in Israel. I also will work through you and through your successor to bring down kings by my mighty Word."
The story is a powerful witness to us. There are many times when it seems to us as if God has lost all control, as if we alone are faithful in the midst of our chaotic society, and as if the rest of humanity is pursuing its rebellious way. But the testimony is: "Remember! Remember the lordship of this mighty God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Remember that he is King of kings and Lord of lords, and is working out his purpose for his world! Remember that death itself could not defeat him, and that his will be the victory over all faithlessness, all evil, all the powers that oppose him!" And then get to work, good Christians! Serve his purpose in your life! And then rejoice that his is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever!
But let's face it. Joseph is a brat, the spoiled youngest son of Jacob's old age, who is his father's favorite and a brash braggart at that. He rashly tells his brothers and parents about his dreams of superiority over them (vv. 5-11). And he lazes about in his long-sleeved coat, while his brothers have to work to tend the flocks. (The correct text says that the coat is not many-colored, but rather it has long sleeves which are for dress and not for work.) It is little wonder that Joseph's eleven brothers hate him and just want to be rid of him. Some of the brothers despise Joseph so much that they want to kill him, but the cooler heads of Reuben and Judah forestall that vengeance. So they settle for selling Joseph as a slave to the Midianite or Ishmaelite traders who are on their way to Egypt. In Egypt, the traders then sell the young lad to Potiphar, the captain of Pharaoh's guard (39:1).
Joseph is obviously an obedient son of his adoring father. When Jacob bids Joseph seek out his shepherding brothers to inquire after their welfare, Joseph immediately obeys (37:13). But he gets lost on the way. When he cannot find his brothers at Shechem, he wanders around in the hill country until a stranger tells him that the brothers have moved their flocks to Dothan, some miles north of Shechem in the region of Samaria. There the brothers are located, but Joseph has made a long trek from Hebron in the south to Dothan in the north.
The brothers, however, have no thought of offering Joseph food and drink and rest from his long journey. Instead, some of them immediately plot Joseph's death, and the words that they speak become a prophecy of everything that follows. "Here comes this dreamer," the brothers say. "Come now, let us kill him ... and we shall see what shall become of his dreams" (vv. 19-20).
Those prophetic words are quoted on a plaque on the motel in Memphis where Martin Luther King, Jr., was staying when he was killed. There could not be a more apt use of this quotation from the Joseph story, for the saying concerns the dreams of a dreamer -- Joseph in our text, and Martin Luther King, Jr., in our time. "We shall see what shall become of his dreams."
What the brothers of Joseph did not realize and what our society has not always realized is that the dreams of Joseph and of M. L. King. Jr., were not made up by the human dreamers. No. The dreams came from God. They were the sign and the foretaste of the plan that God was working out in the Genesis story and that he is working out in our world.
God had to send Joseph ahead into Egypt in order to save his people in the time of famine, and God used the dreams of Joseph and the hatred of his brothers to accomplish that plan. And surely, God had to raise up a man with a dream to begin the destruction of the awful race prejudice that lay like a blanket over our land.
As we shall see in Genesis, Joseph's dreams came true, because they were God's dreams. Is it not possible that the dream of Martin Luther King, Jr., will come true also, because it comes from God? Our hatreds and prejudices are no match for the working of God, and we should be very cautious when we think to oppose him.
Lutheran Option: 1 Kings 19:9-18
The time in our text is toward the beginning of the reign of the northern king of Israel, Ahab (ca. 869-850 B.C.), the son and successor of the great king, Omri. Ahab is highly successful in military battles, defeating the Syrians to the north and helping to turn back the incursion of the Assyrian Empire. He built magnificent buildings and dominated the southern kingdom of Judah, marrying his daughter Athaliah to Judah's king Jehoram.
Ahab himself is married to Jezebel, a daughter of the king of Tyre, and therein lies his difficulty. Jezebel is a worshiper and promoter of the cult of Baal, the nature god of fertility. As a result, Israel is saturated with idolatry and syncretism. Altars to the Lord are torn down, some of his prophets are put to death, and covenant faithfulness has become a thing of the past.
One man dares to defy Jezebel, however -- Elijah the Tishbite. In a contest with 400 of the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, Elijah shows them to be false prophets and demonstrates the sole deity of the Lord, who alone rules over all of nature, through famine and deluge (1 Kings 17). Consequently, the 400 prophets of Baal are slain, and in revenge, Jezebel vows to kill Elijah. So in our text, Elijah is fleeing for his life to Horeb (Sinai), "the mount of God," in the Arabian peninsula. It is there on the mount that God encounters his fleeing prophet. (Probably verses 9b-11a are to be omitted from our text as duplicates of verses 11b and 14).
As is often the case with a theophany or appearance of the Lord, there are cosmic disturbances -- a great wind, an earthquake, and fire. But the text is careful to distinguish God from natural occurrences (vv. 11-12). God is not "in" any of those phenomena. The Lord of hosts is no nature deity. Instead, God comes to his prophet in his Word -- "a voice of thin silence," the most mysterious of descriptions.
When God asks Elijah why he has fled, the prophet tells of the dreadful situation in Israel and claims that he alone is still faithful to the Lord. That is almost a blasphemous statement, for it implies that God has ceased to work among his covenant people in the North. It also has about it a certain self-righteousness, as if Elijah is saying, "Everyone else is false, and I alone am true," a statement that we sometimes hear from some angry church member in our day, who decides to abandon his church membership and leave behind all of those horrible sinners and hypocrites in the congregation.
Amazingly, God does not rebuke his self-congratulatory prophet. Instead, the Lord tells Elijah to get to work and, indeed, to start a revolution. Elijah is commanded to topple the powerful Omri dynastry represented by Ahab and Jezebel, to replace Ben-Hadad on the throne of Syria with the commoner Hazael, and to anoint Elisha as his prophetic successor (vv. 15-16). That's a tall order, but it demonstrates the power of the God who not only rules all nature but also the kingdoms of the earth. It's as if the Lord is telling his prophet, "You think I'm not at work, Elijah? Think again! I not only preserve the pure faith of 7,000 people in Israel. I also will work through you and through your successor to bring down kings by my mighty Word."
The story is a powerful witness to us. There are many times when it seems to us as if God has lost all control, as if we alone are faithful in the midst of our chaotic society, and as if the rest of humanity is pursuing its rebellious way. But the testimony is: "Remember! Remember the lordship of this mighty God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Remember that he is King of kings and Lord of lords, and is working out his purpose for his world! Remember that death itself could not defeat him, and that his will be the victory over all faithlessness, all evil, all the powers that oppose him!" And then get to work, good Christians! Serve his purpose in your life! And then rejoice that his is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever!
