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April 19, 2009
First Friends
Genesis 45:1-9
‘God Meant It for Good’
Doug Gwyn
I recently watched the DVD
‘Slumdog Millionaire’. It won so many Oscars and
Golden Globes this year, I thought it must be pretty good. And
it’s a remarkable film. It tells a powerful story of
redemption. It’s set in Mumbai, the financial center of the
new India. It’s the story of an orphan, a street-urchin, a
so-called ‘slumdog’ named Jamal. He’s a
teenager who becomes a contestant on the Indian version of ‘Who
Wants to be a Millionaire?’ He’s had no formal
education and he’s suffered a long string of horrific experiences
since his mother was killed in a Hindu riot against Muslims. But
somehow he gets on the show.
Surprisingly, he’s able to answer each question he’s asked
on the show. It turns out that he knows the answer to each
question because it happens to relate to some experience in his
childhood. All the experiences are disasters, as we see in
flashbacks. Heart-rending incidents – terrible things that
happen to children every day in slums all over the world –
including our own country. Jamal and his brother and a girl named
Latika had been captured and pressed into service as beggars and
thieves. Their manager is an Indian version of Charles
Dickens’ Fagan. Jamal and his brother escape and continue
living by their wits on the streets, but Latika is recaptured and sold
into child prostitution. The rest of the story turns on
Jamal’s quest to be reunited with Latika, his soul-mate.
Well, on one level, it’s just another Hollywood-style fairy-tale
– fame and fortune, romantic comedy. It’s a
big-budget movie looking for a vast, global audience. But on
another level, the more I thought about it, I realized it’s a
powerful story of redemption.
With each answer on the show, Jamal keeps getting richer and
richer. And he keeps staking it all on one more question.
And each time, as he realizes he knows the answer to the question, it
redeems one more terrible experience of his childhood. Finally,
he cashes in after winning 20 million rupees. But it’s not
really about the money for Jamal..It all has been for the sake of
reconnecting with Latika. He hopes she will see him on
television, escape her captivity, and join him. He believes
it’s their destiny to be together. And in the end,
they’re reunited. It’s a Hollywood ending, for
sure. But it’s more than that. By remaining
stubbornly faithful to their love for each other, they are able to
redeem each other, to render each other innocent again, after so much
trauma of violence, betrayals, exploitation, and desperation.
In the final shot, they are finally in each other’s arms.
Jamal says, “It’s our destiny.” He’s
reaffirming the relentless drive that has led him back to her.
But Latika, simply answers, “Kiss me.” I think
she’s saying, I don’t know about this destiny stuff, but
this kiss will wash me clean of so much I want to put behind me.
The camera freeze-frames just before their lips meet – because in
Indian film, you never show a kiss.
Well, this morning we’re starting a new series. We’ve
just finished the Lenten-Easter season. The gospel story contains
much that is new and unprecedented. But we can also recognize
some themes that were already well developed centuries before in the
stories and prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures. I want to look
at some Old Testament passages where we can hear hints of the gospel
story. Jean has just read one of my favorites. Joseph
reunited with his brothers. The Joseph saga is a ‘Slumdog
Millionaire’ kind of story, set in imperial Egypt. Many of
you know it. Joseph is the youngest of Jacob’s twelve sons
– Jacob’s favorite, in fact. And Joseph is very
gifted and charismatic, but also very full of himself. He lords
his favorite son status over his brothers. His brothers get fed
up and sell the spoiled brat into slavery. They cover that coat
of many colors with blood and tell Jacob that Joseph has been eaten by
lions. Jacob grieves this loss for many years.
Joseph ends up a slave in Egypt. Egypt can always use more
slaves. But through an outrageous series of events, Joseph
becomes Prime Minister of Egypt, right-hand man to the Pharoah.
Well, a drought comes over all that part of the world, Canaan and
Egypt. Jacob and his 11 sons finally migrate down to Egypt.
The irrigation system of the Nile produces the only food that’s
left. They get an audience with the Prime Minister, seeking
permission to sojourn in Egypt. They have no clue that this is
their brother Joseph. Joseph toys with them a bit, but as our
reading takes up, he’s eventually overwhelmed by his emotions and
he reveals himself to his brothers. Of course, they fear for
their lives. He says to them, “I am your brother, Joseph,
whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed or angry
with yourselves, because you sold me here, for God sent me before you
to preserve life.” So there’s no glossing over the
sinister intentions and actions of his brothers. But Joseph sees
their betrayal in a larger framework. God took hold of their
betrayal and turned it into a series of developments that will now
preserve their family from starvation. As he puts it, you sold me
here, but God was sending me before you, to prepare the way for our
family.
It’s an emotional reunion that follows, between Joseph, his
brothers, and then their father, Jacob. Joseph redeems his
brothers from their wrong and gives them a good place to live in
Egypt. For his part, Joseph gets his family. He’s had
outrageous success in Egypt, but now his life also has meaning and
joy. It’s a powerful story of redemption.
A few years later, Jacob dies. Again the brothers fear for their
lives. They suspect that Joseph has spared them only for their
father’s sake, and how surely he will kill them. But Joseph
restates his forgiveness and reconciliation. Here, he states it
even more succinctly. Recalling their betrayal so many years ago,
he says, “You meant it for ill, but God meant it for good.”
That is one of the greatest statements of the whole Bible.
It’s poses paradoxical tension we can never completely
resolve. Yes, Joseph’s brothers are guilty of a terrible
act against him. They had no illusions what they were
doing. They meant it for ill. But God meant it for
good. Ah, but what does that mean? Did God inspire the
brothers to do this terrible thing? Or did God take the terrible
thing they did and turn it into something good? Does God inspire
evil designs in people? Or does God draw even our worst actions
toward some redemptive future? I prefer the latter
interpretation. But I don’t know. It’s a mystery.
This story prefigures something about the Passion of Jesus. Did
God send Jesus, the child of promise, into the world to be betrayed,
rejected, and killed? Or did God turn those terrible human acts,
freely chosen, into a larger design? It’s an age-old debate
among Christians. What is clearly stated in the Passion story is
that Jesus forgave those who betrayed him, who denied him, even those
who rejected and crucified him. Jesus kept the door open for
God’s purposes to work with all that human failure, hatred, and
violence. Was Jesus being the dutiful son sent to the
slaughter? Or was he the model of faith, who could rise above all
this tragedy, who even on the cross could broker a new covenant between
God and humanity? Again, I prefer to believe the latter.
But it’s not for me to say.
But I do know that every time we hold that door open for others, every
time we open up our own painful history to God’s redeeming love,
good things can happen. Of course, we may feel perfectly
justified in holding grudges, even giving back as bad as we got from
others. As humans, we are mired down together in bad histories of
every kind. But when we open up our stories to the gospel story,
new possibilities also open up.
The story of Joseph and his brothers is a story of sibling rivalry, a
conflict between equals. Equality is a very important
thing. We need to keep struggling for equality today, to be sure
that everyone is treated equally. Everyone deserves to have their
basic needs met and their fundamental rights are respected. But
that’s only the beginning, really. That only levels the
playing field. Now the real play can begin. Now we can move
beyond equality to destiny, beyond circumstance to providence. We
open our minds to see what God may be doing here. And we free one
another to go to the next level.
So we move from the story of Joseph, right-hand man to the Pharoah, to
Jesus, risen from the dead, to sit at the right hand of God.
Whether you like the royal symbolism or not, the point is, this is
someone in a position to help us. Like the brothers embracing
Joseph, when we embrace our brother Jesus, we can finally ‘fess
up’ to our own betrayals and misdeeds. We can finally
forgive ourselves and each other. This is someone ready and
willing to help us.
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