“God’s Vision: Reconciliation” Gen 45: 1-15

For the last several weeks together we have been discussing what it looks like to seek after the vision God has for us as the body of Christ, in this particular place and at this particular time. 

I think we’ve come to realize that while visioning is certainly what God calls us to in scripture, that doesn’t mean that its easy. In fact, we often enter into visioning wondering why we can’t just do things the way we have in the past - it worked before so it can work again, right? 

Perhaps. But can we first agree that the world around is changing? How things are today aren’t the way they were fifty or even ten years ago. Some of the things that we may deeply crave for our own religious experience, may not be what connects best with the people around us today. 

A few months ago I was blessed to attend a training day with a pastor who planted a church in Missouri. When he planted this particular church they had one purpose, one call - to raise up disciples. Not just folks who believe in Jesus, but folks who would follow after Jesus with abandon. Folks who were sold out for Christ and were walking with Jesus for a lifetime. But this leadership team quickly realized that even when the church was planted in 1999, folks were having a hard time connecting with worship. So they had to rethink what church means.

Now a lot has changed even since 1999. Even as close as last year, research put out by the Barna group found that spirituality is increasing for folks, but that doesn’t mean that they are coming into churches. And when people do come to churches, overwhelming folks say that they are looking for two things - to learn and grow and for community. Based on this research, and others that has come before it, Morningstar Fellowship sought to give people opportunities to learn about Jesus and grow. So much so, that their vision is of one - leaving the 99 to find the one. Going the distance to help connect one more person to the saving love of Jesus Christ, and structured their path of discipleship accordingly. 

I can hear it now - that’s all well and good, Pastor Michelle, but what is the world does God’s vision for us have to do with Genesis 45. Genesis is one of my favorite books of the Bible, because it tells the story of broken people being used by good in tremendously powerful ways. One of those broken people was Joseph. 

We often don’t talk about Joseph using that term, right? We talk about Joseph and his amazing coat of many colors. We talk about how Joesph was the most beloved son of his father, Jacob. But if you jump back to Genesis, chapter 37, where we pick up with Jospeh’s story in earnest, we find that he was a little arrogant around the edges. In fact, Joseph gathers his brothers around him one day and says, “Listen. I’ve just had this amazing dream. When we were binding stalks of grain in the field, my stalk got up and stood upright, while your stalks gathered around it and bowed down to my stalk.” And incase the brothers missed the not so subtle meaning of that particular dream, he gathers them together a second time and says “I’ve just dreamed again, and this time the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”

Oh Joseph. Not your finest moment. No wonder the brothers got mad at him. Now by no means does their anger justify what happens next, but his brothers think about killing him. But decided, ultimately, that they could make more money if they sold him into slavery, so that’s what they did. They sold Jospeh off to Egyptians, and then lied to their father, Jacob, saying that Joseph had been killed by a wild animal. 

Jospeh seemed to be fairing okay, all things considered at first in Egypt. He was taken in by Potiphar, a chief official of the Pharaoh. Until one day Potiphar’s wife tried to suduce Joseph, and when she couldn’t, she had him thrown in jail. While in prison, it became known that Jospeh could interpret dreams, only this time they weren’t about his brothers bowing down to him, but instead were about the fate of other people. After a long time in jail, one of the folks who had his dreams interpreted by Joseph, the cup bearer for the Pharaoh, told the Pharaoh all about Jospeh when he himself was having dreams that terrified him. Joseph was able to interpret those dreams to help preserve Egypt during a famine that was on the horizon. 

Which brings us to today’s story in Genesis 45. Jospeh’s brothers didn’t weather the famine as well as he did in Egypt. They traveled there to beg someone to have mercy on them and let them buy food - and who should they run into but Joseph. Only they didn’t recognize him. He finally cried out to them “It’s me! It’s Joseph” and started immediately asking about their family. 

Now if anyone had a right to be angry at his brothers, Joseph did. In fact, I’m sure during those countless years in jail he thought about them from time to time with anger and disdain. Only when the time came, he didn’t seek their harm, but forgave them and sought their prosperity - inviting them to move to Egypt and be part of what God was doing in and through his life. Jospeh showed so much love and charity as he told his brothers - “Now, don’t be upset and don’t be angry with yourselves that you sold me here. Actually, God sent me before you to save lives.” In other translations it says “What you intended for harm, God intended for good”. Joseph was brought to tears by the reunion with his brothers. 

Here’s the thing about God’s vision, brothers and sisters. Sometimes we screw up. Sometimes we don’t get it right. Sometimes we don’t have the right attitude wondering why we should change for “those people” - the people who are not yet here amongst us. We begin to have doubts and can get so caught up in ourselves, that we can be like Joesph’s brothers, missing what is right in front of us. 

Other times, we miss out on God’s vision, because we are so caught up in our own emotions - guilt, anger, shame, that we can’t take a risk to join in what God is doing for the Kingdom. Joseph could have spent a lot of time, friends, thinking about how things should have been or once where, instead of living into the circumstances he found himself in. Then what? An entire generation would have wasted away in starvation. We need to look to God’s vision, not of how we want things to be based on the past, but firmly rooted in who God is calling us to be today for the future. 

God’s vision for the Church involves reconciliation. But, body of Christ, reconciliation and forgiveness, along with acts of compassion and mercy - guess what, that isn’t the starting place for discipleship - thats the fruit of growing discipleship. 

So Church, I ask us today, what do we need to let go of in order to be reconciled to the vision God is giving us? What do we need to focus on in order to be the church for the next generation? What inklings do we have of God’s movement amongst us? Who are we being called to be for such a time as this? Amen.