Sermon for March 21, 2021 Lent 5 B House of Prayer Lutheran Church

Genesis 50:14-21; John 12:20-33 Rev. Karl-John N. Stone

Sermon Series: The Blessing of Adversity

Today’s Theme: Benefit from Brokenness

Joseph had it all--wealth, power, respect, influence, wisdom, faith. What’s more, he didn’t use his gifts selfishly, but instead to help lots of people, and even save many lives. Through his wisdom and foresight Egypt had stored enough grain to survive seven years of famine. They even had enough left over to sell some to a clan from the land of Canaan who would have starved to death otherwise. Joseph led a charmed life--or so it seemed to those who didn’t really know him. What really lay behind all of his success and generosity of spirit? It was from making his way through lots of suffering and brokenness.

Joseph began his life as his father’s favorite son--and he was so obnoxious about it that his brothers could not stand him. They threw him into a pit and almost killed him in the desert, but instead decided to take “mercy” upon him (if you could call it that) by selling him into slavery to some travelling traders.

While enslaved in Egypt, he ended up in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. For 13 years he suffered one humiliation after another, until he was able to gain the respect of Pharaoh due to his ability to interpret dreams. But during his years of adversity, Joseph learned that when everything in life is taken from you, you’ve got a choice to make. You can allow your brokenness to make you bitter and vengeful. Or you can turn your brokenness over to God in prayer, and ask God to heal you and transform you.

We see in Joseph a man who chose to turn his brokenness over to God, at least most of the time--except when it came to his brothers. Those ten scoundrels from a clan in the land of Canaan, who had so callously disposed of him to the slave traders? They never thought they’d see him again. So of course they didn’t recognize this man who had grown in size and stature, and who was now second in command to Pharaoh in Egypt. How deliciously ironic for Joseph that his brothers should come begging him for grain so they wouldn’t starve to death.

It’s one of the longest and most powerful stories in the Bible--the story of Joseph in Genesis 37-50--and we catch the very end of it in our first reading for today. In these eight verses, we get to hear the end result of God’s grace at work over many years in a man who spent a lifetime learning how to benefit from his brokenness. We get to see the fruits of the spiritual maturity of a man who had plenty of opportunities to take revenge, yet who learned that the ultimate blessing is to be reconciled with those who have wronged you. Joseph’s brothers were afraid that Joseph would “pay us back for all the wrong we did to him.” Joseph replied, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people. No, don’t be afraid. I will continue to take care of you and your children.” So he reassured them by speaking kindly to them.

It’s like if you’ve ever seen the movie “The Princess Bride”, there’s this great character named Indigo Montoya. When he was a boy his father was killed by the sword of a man with six fingers. So Indigo spends his life becoming a master swordsman and searching for the six-fingered man so that when he finds him he can say “My name is Indigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!” When he finally fulfills his mission he says, "I have been in the revenge business so long, now that's over, I do not know what to do with the rest of my life". Revenge might be satisfying for a moment, but it is incapable of providing ultimate meaning or purpose or blessing. Only by putting his desire for revenge to death will Indigo Montoya truly be able to live.

This kind of thing is part of what Jesus was talking about in today’s gospel. Jesus tells us “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” This is the pattern of the gospel that God has written and encoded into Creation. There is no new life without first a death of some kind, because God is in the business of transforming death into new life. We even call that day of Jesus’ crucifixion “Good Friday”, not because torturing Jesus to death on a cross was good, but because God is able to take even the worst, most sinful, most cruel and death-dealing practices of humankind, and somehow make a way for something good to grow from it.

In Jesus’ case it was the best thing imaginable to grow--resurrection from the dead, forgiveness of sins, new life, opening the way to eternal salvation. Jesus on the cross is “the grain that dies”, and because he died with complete trust in the promises of his Heavenly Father, the Holy Spirit transformed this affliction of evil upon the cross into the wonderful fruit of resurrection. And going back to the life of Joseph, that story is just one example from Old Testament times that was preparing us to understand the cross of Christ.

But it is not only actual, physical death where we see God’s power to grow fruit from the dying grain. The brokenness we’ve each experienced in our own lives is also the soil that can prepare us for God to grow the fruit of transformation and new life within us--when we release our bitterness and vengefulness; when we ask God for his slow and steady work of healing and transformation in our lives.

In chapter 5 of the book “The Blessing of Adversity”, Barry Black describes several ways that--like Joseph or like Jesus--we, too, might benefit from brokenness. Our own brokenness, when handed over in faith as an offering to God, can lead to great blessings.

Let me touch on a couple lessons from the life of Joseph that tie in with Barry Black’s examples. Joseph was humbled by his brothers’ treatment of him; he was knocked down from his perch as favorite son and became a slave and a prisoner. Yet through his trust in God, this humbling led Joseph to emerge as a new person, less judgemental of others, more able to recognize his own faults. He became better able to have empathy for others who are also flawed and in need of grace and mercy.

Joseph suffered much adversity for many years because of his humbling. When he ended up in prison, all he had left to hold onto was the presence of the Lord who was right there with him in his troubles. And when you are not able to see the way out of your predicament, you still have the presence of the Lord right there with you, in your troubles. Times like these often end up to be times that strengthen your prayer life.

This was the case for Joseph, because his prayer life manifested itself in the ability to listen for God in his dreams; and it made him able to interpret other people’s dreams--including the Pharaoh, who came to trust and respect him. Barry Black shares the example of his mother in Baltimore. He wrote: “I once asked her, ‘How did you develop such a powerful prayer life?’ ‘Praying for your daddy for thirty years,’ she responded. Her prayer life was strengthened by her diligent intercession for an alcoholic husband, which improved her ability to communicate with heaven.”

We’ve all felt broken at one time or another. A health scare, a relationship ending, a job loss, a betrayal or disillusionment, a struggle to deal with discrimination or racism. None of these are good experiences, but when we hand them to Christ on the cross, he can plant them in the soil of God’s grace, where the grain of wheat can die and then bear much fruit. Amen.