My sermon today was not about a highway bridge, but about Biblical bridges — one between two great narratives of the Hebrew Scriptures, and one between two ancient cultures.

Bridges

Genesis 45:1-15 Matthew 15:21-28

Joseph was generous. Joseph was forgiving. Still, Joseph wasn’t a particularly nice guy.

Even when he was being generous and forgiving, he was full of himself, arrogant, convinced of his own importance.

And yet Joseph’s story is a key part of the Hebrew Scriptures. His story forms the link between the story of the Patriarchs – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – and the story of Moses and the great Exodus which is to follow.

You would think that someone whose story was that important would be a virtuous person, a person worth emulating, a person who would be – in modern terms – a role model for us all.

But the first story about Joseph in the book of Genesis is the story of a brash, bragging, insufferable young man who lords it over ten of his brothers. His father gave him a fancy garment (variously know as a “coat of many colors” or “a coat with long sleeves”) that infuriated his siblings. Joseph himself made a point of telling them dreams in which they bowed down to him. It got so bad that when an opportunity arose, the brothers schemed to kill him, then got greedy themselves and decided to sell him into slavery instead.

When Joseph got to Egypt, his good looks and talents helped him to move up from ordinary slave to the trusted personal assistant to Potiphar, the captain of the Pharaoh’s guard. Those good looks got him into trouble when he tried to avoid the sexual advances of Potiphar’s wife. Spurned, she spitefully accused him of the worst, and he was thrown into prison. But he rose to the top right away there, too, and the jailer put him in charge of the other prisoners. When two members of Pharaoh’s household were thrown in prison, Joseph was kind enough to interpret their dreams for them. One of them, the “cup bearer” was released from prison, and would remember the fellow who predicted his pardon.

Next thing you know, the Pharaoh has a pair of dreams that need interpreting, and his servant (the cup bearer) remembers Joseph. Summoned to the royal presence, Joseph predicts a coming seven-year famine. He is so persuasive that the Pharaoh makes him Governor over all of Egypt.

The famine comes, just as Joseph had predicted, and with it come his brothers to Egypt to try to buy grain to feed their families and their flocks. Joseph doesn’t disclose his identity, and after questioning them rather harshly, he demands that they promise to bring their youngest brother Benjamin to him, or he won’t sell them the grain they have come for. Reluctantly they agree. When they do come back, and buy more grain, Joseph orders his servants to hide a valuable cup in Benjamin’s sack, to falsely incriminate them for theft.

That brings us to the touching story we heard this morning about Joseph revealing himself to his brothers. Taken by itself, it is a wonderful story of reconciliation and forgiveness, albeit with an undertone of Joseph’s bragging and one-up-manship. It is a little less wonderful when you realize that Joseph set up the whole thing and played his brothers along for many months. It is even less wonderful when you hear the continuation of the story: Joseph gets all the money in Egypt, and all the land in Egypt, and all the animals in Egypt, in payment for the grain which he has stored up for Pharaoh. In one way of thinking, he has saved the Egyptians from a terrible famine; in other way of thinking, he has used the famine to steal everything they have.

I am telling the story of Joseph in considerable detail. It is, after all, a complex and fascinating story. The characters are full of human foibles; the plot includes intrigue, crisis, and a great confrontation. More than all of that, though, this is a story that reminds us in dramatic fashion that God uses ordinary people to accomplish divine ends. We noticed two weeks ago that Joseph’s father Jacob was a scoundrel; the son has found his own ways to avoid humility and accumulate wealth.

If you doubt the importance of this story in the biblical history of Israel, consider the words that virtually begin the book of Exodus: “Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.” [Exodus 1:8] The next great narrative of salvation history, the story of Moses and the escape from slavery and the long march to freedom and the promised land, is about to begin.

This divine reliance on ordinary people – flawed people, selfish people, arrogant people, dishonest scheming people – will be told again and again in scripture. I have always been amused by the idea in popular culture that faithful people try to copy the perfect models they find in the Bible. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The reason we are drawn to the characters in the Bible is precisely because they are so much like us: flawed, inconsistent, self-centered, and cowardly. Yet it is their stories, their actions and choices, from which we glean the outline of divine love, of divine intention for reconciliation and forgiveness, of divine intervention into the events of the world, of the divine nature overall.

Joseph, whether we like him or not, is one of these ordinary, flawed people. And his story is one of the major bridges linking the chapters of God’s extraordinary story.

Matthew’s gospel brings us stories of more ordinary, flawed people, and in today’s text one of those people may be Jesus. There are few other passages in the New Testament in which the humanity of Jesus is put so clearly before us.

This story of Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman is curious in many ways. It is the only place in the gospels that I can think of where Jesus makes a comment that is rude (at the least) and probably racist – there is nothing cute, endearing, or teasing about calling someone in a Middle Eastern culture a dog.

It is also the only place in the gospels where he is challenged theologically– by a woman no less – and changes his mind because of that challenge.

The bridge that is built in this story does not connect two stories as much as it does two cultures. On the one hand is the Jewish culture in which Jesus was born and raised, and in which he lives. The woman who comes to him, on the other hand, is identified as a Canaanite. The Canaanites, you will remember, were the people who lived in the “promised land” before the Israelites arrived. She is, then, by definition, an outsider and a historical enemy. For her to ask Jesus to heal her daughter is no small thing. She has walked across a bridge of desperation to bring her request to a Jew.

At first, Jesus does not even acknowledge her appeal; the disciples want her to be sent away – her shouting is disturbing them. Jesus reacts to all of this much as we would with a first-century version of “not my job—” “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” [Matthew 15:24] The woman does not give up. Sounding even more like us, Jesus shifts to the fairness argument: “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” [Matthew 15:26] She still does not give up. “Yes Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” [Matthew 15:27]

Hearing that, Jesus crosses the cultural bridge, acknowledges his responsibility for gentiles as well as Jews, and heals her daughter. He was not especially graceful in this crossing; this healing happened at a distance, with no touch but his words.

We, of course, are also not usually very graceful when we face the divide between cultures. We stutter and sputter; we embarrass ourselves and those we are meeting and perhaps welcoming. We may say something clumsy or rude; we may try to wiggle out of our hospitable obligations.

The question for us, as disciples of Jesus, is whether we will, in fact, cross the bridge. Will we accept God’s call to listen when we would rather ignore, to include when we would rather exclude, to respect when we would rather dismiss, to act when we might rather refrain?

I have always imagined that the Canaanite woman (the gospel of Mark calls her a Syrophoenician) was loud, pushy, and annoying – though all the text says is that she was shouting. Whether I am correct about her or not, she is surely another one of the ordinary people whom God has used for an extraordinary purpose.

And that brings us to the “spiritual impact statement” for today. No matter who you are, or where you are on life’s journey, you are not only welcome here – God may have something in mind that will use your gifts and your shortcomings for a holy purpose. God is all the time building bridges, and what God builds them out of, is us.

Amen.

Prayer for August 17, 2008

Almighty and everlasting God, creator of all things seen and unseen, hear now our silent prayers, as we open our hearts to you in the sacred quietness.

God of faith and hope, we bring before you our prayers for those we have named this morning – we especially remember … Bring to each of them the gifts of mercy and grace that are most needed, according to your wisdom and love.

God of all times and places, we offer our prayers today for our own congregation as we near the anniversary of its founding..

We thank you for the pioneers who came before us and established a church here in your name and in the Congregational tradition. We remember their faithfulness, their determination, and their generosity, and we pray that we may be their spiritual heirs in all of these virtues.

We thank you, too, for the women and men who carried forward these ideals through the years, who invested their talents and energies in the congregation and the community. We are grateful for the bonds they formed with other churches, and for the worship, education, and outreach we have shared with our sisters and brothers. Let our continuing work and support for the church, the community, and the world be a living prayer of thanksgiving for their legacy to us.

And we thank you for calling us, in this century, to be part of the Body of Christ in this place. Inspire us, we pray, to honor the traditions of the past while moving boldly into your future. Help us to speak your word in today’s words, and to follow your way in today’s ways.

But we remember too, O Holy One, that being your church is easy on days of celebration; grant us the courage and stamina to be your church on the ordinary days, the days of challenge and crisis, the days of sorrow and blessing, the days of abundance and of need.

We confess to you our temptation to allow our congregation to be a theological debating club, or a community betterment society, or a social service agency. These are worthy activities, but they are not enough to make us your church. When we are tempted to be less than you call us to be, shake us back into clarity about our vocation as your hands, your voice, your feet, your heart. Interrupt our preoccupation with meetings and events, startle us out of our tired habits of worship, and scuttle our careful plans for the future. Ignite us, instead, with the power of your spirit, that it may fill us with the fire of our love for you and of our longing for the promised world of your Shalom.

All this we pray in the name of the one who lived among us as our brother, and lives among us still as our Risen Savior, even Jesus the Christ, and we pray together now in the words that he taught us ….