Sermons

Seventh Sunday after Trinity
Sunday 18 July 2010 at 6.30pm

Diane Flynn

Readings: Genesis 41:1-16, 25-37 : 1 Corinthians 4:8-13

Its not often I have had the opportunity to preach on the Old Testament, so I was appreciative of having Genesis to use for my sermon tonight.

What does this OT and the 1Corinthians passage try and say to the people they written for and for us today?

OT reading:
Just before our reading, we see Joseph is in prison, wrongly accused by Potiphar, the Pharaoh's official of sleeping with his wife. Whilst in prison, he interprets another prisoner's dreams. This prisoner, the Pharaoh's wine steward, promises to tell the Pharaoh about the injustice done to Joseph, when he is released. However, he doesn't and Joseph sits in jail for a long time. Only later, when the Pharaoh himself has a dream that he can't understand, does the released wine steward tell the Pharaoh about Joseph's ability to interpret dreams. So we see Joseph released and we read of the pharaoh's dreams being explained.

Now two things here: 1. The Pharaoh has firstly tried to rely on the wisdom of 'magicians and wise men of Egypt' - to no avail. 2. He ends up been so desperate that he uses an outsider to society - a Hebrew- someone he didn't know, someone who is in jail, the lowliest of the low probably in his view, to eventually understand his dreams.

We see here the Dependence on someone/something outside his normal framework, his normal way of thinking.

Now Joseph is a bit of a bragger isn't he - I'm not sure how well I like his character really, the way he boasted about being his father's favourite and how his dreams meant he was better than his brothers - you can understand how he must have wound them up. I think he could have dealt with his brothers a little bit better. A lot of the time, he doesn't seem a very humble person at all, But actually in this text, we do see his humility because he actually points the interpretation of the Pharaoh's dream back to God. He doesn't say it is he that will interpret them, he says it is God.

He gives the credit to God 'I cannot (interpret dreams) but God will give a favourable interpretation' i.e. God will use me to connect with this person and make his message known. 'It is just as I told you - God has shown you what he is going to do' (Gen 41:28)
Joseph had a gift from God, interpreting dreams. He knew this gift was from God and he used his gift!!!!!

To the Jewish hearer of this text way back in time, the whole of Genesis is the Big Narrative, the big Story about their History, their origins, their Fore Fathers. One of the threads that runs through out the Book is that being obedient to God brings blessings and wealth. Trusting everything to God meant blessings for you as a person and then blessings on the nation.

Joseph trusts God throughout all of this, he waits, uses the gift that God has given him as the opportunity arises, points it all back to God and the blessings come - his promotion and eventual move of his people. He used his gift because it was from God. Being obedient to God brought blessings.

Zoom forward to us today and we need to also keep this Big Story in the fore front of our lives as Christians. The New Covenant that came with Jesus meant trusting in God, knowing God is with us. Trusting him, not through obedience but through his love for us. With his love come gifts as well, on his church and his people. We just need to become aware of them. We all have them, we all have gifts from God - sometimes we just need to have them pointed out to us and be given opportunities to use them. When the opportunities come, though, we need to take them and see Gods blessings in our lives.

We need to use them when society comes looking for us. Because in a way, we are a bit like Joseph, not really there for society, a bit forgotten to the wider world. A lot of people rely on wanting to find out the future, what their dreams and imaginations tell them and believe in astrology and superstition readings etc - an attempt to try and find an answer to what's going on in life. What would happen if they suddenly turned to us and asked us about the meaning of life? If we are known by our gifts as knowing God, then maybe there may come a time when we are asked about Him, when we are asked to use those gifts to try and explain our knowledge about God to others who are searching. Would we be able to help them? And I don't mean just us as a church body but us as individuals as well.

How does this story link with Paul and his First Letter to the Corinthians? This text seems very harsh. He is basically writing to the Church at Corinth to tell them off. He has heard that they are slightly going astray and not been the humble Christians that he feels they should be. There have been divisions, immorality and he is trying to point these out to them.

He speaks in this text about being the lowest of the low as an apostle, but still being blessed. He compares himself as the 'scum of the earth' - not the sort of thing we regularly hear at Choral Evensong!

The comparison to the Joseph story is the blessings from God. Paul, even though cursed, persecuted, insulted, answers with blessings, endurance and kind words.

Paul is urging the church at Corinth to remember their gifts, remember their blessings have all come from God and not to forget how blessed they are. Being an apostle has been very hard for him and he compares his hardships and humility to their pride in what they have and how they are behaving. To the Corinthians, the Christian life meant flaunting their privileges and reckoning up their achievement - to Paul it meant humble service and a readiness to die for Christ'

He is trying to shame them into becoming humble once more and reminding them that all they have comes form God, through their faith in Jesus. Even their faith is a gift from God and he is reminding them that they need to be thankful - he is even thankful, in his severe hardships - he is still blessed, not materially, but feels blessed by knowing the Risen Lord, so that actually nothing else matters.

So maybe these two texts remind us to always point our blessings back to God. To understand that the things we have been blessed with in our lives all come from Him. He has given each one of us gifts, blessings, which he wants us to use. As witnesses to the world of his blessings and gifts, we need to thank him with humble hearts, using those gifts, to His Glory, within the Christian community and especially outside it. - always pointing everything back to Him and not ourselves.

The main gift he has given us, forgetting anything else, is the gift of faith - the knowledge of God through knowing Jesus. So lets be thankful for the gift of faith in knowing God, having our faith - and always showing HIS Glory and not ours.

Pointing it all back to God. Our Faith SHOULD point it all back to God!.

© St Edmund's Church, Roundhay