Are you hungry for more? I am. If you are hungry for Jesus like me, let’s prepare our hearts and minds to receive his blessing. Let’s mind our Table Manners one more time and pray: Open the eyes of our heart, Lord, we want to see Jesus in the bread and wine.
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Thank you, Last Church of Lubbock, for giving me a chance to share some important thoughts again this Sunday. I’ve had the pleasure of sharing the last two Sundays. We are exploring Jesus via Genesis in this, now the third of something like a sermon series. A SERMON SERIES! I never thought I’d preach a sermon series. Wow! That’s just so NOT ME to me. But here we are.
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Genesis and Jesus. Jesus in Genesis. It takes eyes of faith to see, but he is there.
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St. Paul calls Jesus “the Last Adam.” And while there is clearly an obvious contrast between Jesus and Adam, it is surprising to find Jesus in Adam. This observation is all the more mysterious the way John’s Gospel presents it. At his trial Pilate presents Jesus to those beastly Jews saying, “Behold, the Adam” (Adam means “man” in Hebrew, so this translates), or on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene comes to the empty tomb, bumps into Jesus, yet in her tears she doesn’t recognize him and mistakes him for “the gardener.”
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But really, she sees more clearly than she realizes.
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Yeah. St Paul, St John, Pilate and the whore, Mary, all find Jesus in Adam! I went to school to study the Bible, yet they didn’t show me this! That’s Jesus in Genesis! Even a hooker finds him there. Why didn’t I? What took me so long?
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So much for Adam. I am sure I could go on finding Jesus in this one man, but we see Abel play the Jesus card as Cain murders him out of jealous rage. I can’t help thinking how Pilate knows the Jews hand Jesus over to him out of envy, which plucks the Cain and Abel string in the Bible song. What about Isaac on the altar as Abe all but kills his own son? What about Jacob, the unlikely brother getting the father’s blessing? The ladder into heaven? And more…
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These are the bits of Genesis where Jesus simply jumps off the page for anyone who ever devoted a few hours to reading the gospels and Genesis. Right? You don’t need any hifalutin exegesis to see him in THESE bits. Even a whore can see him there! Through her tears, of course, but that is a privileged sight given to the lowly and humble.
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So, when you find Jesus in the bread and wine of Eucharist and then listen, really listen carefully, as Moses tells us Joseph is joined by the royal baker and cupbearer in the dungeon, you see Jesus in the baker who dies along with his bread; you see Jesus in the cupbearer and his cup as he is raised to life beyond that dungeon! AND THEN, you can begin asking questions about what dream Joe is REALLY interpreting when he predicts their stories.
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If Jesus can be detected in those royal servants at Pharaoh’s table and the symbols of their lives, then Joe’s dream interpretations about them deal in Egyptian jurisprudence at one level, of course, but also, and far more, they deal with God’s salvation meal. And if this bit of Joe’s story leads to his being raised up as a Christ-like figure (playing the Jesus card more than all the rest combined!), then the salvation meal Joe feeds to the world illuminates the Eucharist Jesus brings to us out of Passover!
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And if, (Why bother saying “if” at this point?) … if Moses’s book of Genesis opens with a meal (and its problems with poor table manners (eating forbidden fruit)), thus framing the whole story of Genesis (and its theology) between Adam’s sin meal and Joe’s salvation meal, then we can begin confidently exploring world order and eating at God’s Table.
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We did that last Sunday, especially unpacking implications in our second sermon in the series.
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This is world order provided by God through his church and no one else.
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But that is world order. As important as it is, that’s still not the whole story. My own exploration uncovers at least one other important aspect of finding Jesus in Genesis, especially in the bread and wine of Genesis, with its implications for Eucharist. Jesus comes into his temple, your heart. What are the implications for our hearts?
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Jesus In Your Heart
Heart business. God wants to live in our hearts, to move into the sanctified, purified, love and devotion of Christian hearts. This means flipping tables in the House of God (just read any gospel). Yes, you get everything in the House of God ordered just the way you like it – JUST THE WAY GOD SAID HE WANTED IT (according to your best and sincerest interpretations), and then when he comes in, the tables get flipped!
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If the tables at your church aren’t flipped, how can you say Jesus is in there?
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(Think about it.)
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It’s a little scary just to contemplate it. Just imagine all the Christians in Lubbock who don’t – who won’t, and will resist the notion if they hear me mention it.
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Yeah. It’s a little scary.
And that produces anger.
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It’s a sign God is coming into your heart. He’s purifying you, and that means he won’t leave things the way you had them. It means the light is coming on, and the hidden things you had languishing in the dark will come to light. It means you aren’t in control. But that’s a good thing since you were living a lie.
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Oh? Think not?
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What kind of life is Pharaoh living? The truth or a lie? Is Pharaoh living the Egyptian Dream? Is Pharaoh ordering God’s creation the way God intends, or does the Son of Re consult the gods of the sun, the Nile, and the crocodile? Egypt brings order to God’s creation, but not God’s order. His heart is not true to God but full of lies.
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Egyptian world order is a lie. Pharaoh’s life is a lie. So is ours. We humans are world orderers by design, and our order comes from the heart. We are always ordering our own business, and sometimes that of others. Everyone from brickmakers and elementary school teachers to policy makers and naval commanders. Yet with all that order out there, I keep finding lies and darkness. Don’t you?
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We humans are liars ordering God’s world. Every last one of us is guilty of this! As we read Genesis, we see the humans ordering this world a little more intricately and forcefully all through the story of creation.
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Lamech orders the world with vengeance! Man, just injure him, and he wants to kill you! Right?
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Seth replaces Abel, and through him comes Noah, but by the time Noah comes along, the human race is so wayward and evil that God regrets he made creation! Wow! And Noah is a good guy, but even though God destroys creation and starts it all over through him, Noah is barely off the boat before signs of trouble appear again!
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Abe and Sarah seem to be good people; they want to answer and follow God’s call, but as their story unfolds, some lies surface. What’s all this “she is my sister” stuff? Well… it turns out that is true, to an extent (which begs other questions too), but like the most potent lies I’ve ever known, those mixed with truth are generally the most devastating.
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Then look at their kids and grandkids! Isaac and Rebekah go so far as to name Jacob “Liar”! But he seems pretty tame compared with Uncle Laban. I don’t know about you, but I feel a bit of sympathy for Laban. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I chafe at the way he mistreats Jacob’s pure love for Rachel, but Laban has a Leah problem, and that’s legit. The oldest daughter should be married first. Just think if she’s passed up, they will never get her married off! Yet, he lies and tricks Jacob so that he can order his life and Leah’s. Laban’s treachery, coupled with Jacob’s drinking problem, make it so this family of God’s chosen people live a lie, the lie of Laban. And wow! That bears fruit in a whole crop of lies!
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What about Joe’s dreams of grandeur? Is there anything wrong with dreaming big? Is there any indication his dreams are not given him by God? Yet, for whatever reason, Joe isn’t content merely to dream he’d grow up to be a big shot; his brothers and all his family must bow down to him. And this arrogant little brother, the favorite among all of his daddy’s sons, likes to bring this dream up for family discussion (perhaps at dinner time?). Even I’m mad at him!
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In the big picture, Joe comes very close to appearing as the protagonist in this story. It’s his dreams in the lurch that eventually come true. The plot thickens and follows him. And like any story, I, the reader/hearer, naturally gravitate to the protagonist and yearn for his plot to find resolution. (Of course, in reality, there is a deeper level of narrative here where God is the hero of the story, not Joe.) So, I must confess that as I identify with Joe, as any good reader/hearer does, I nonetheless find his behavior atrocious at the beginning. Therefore, I sympathize with the brothers! Joe starts off rather villainous for a protagonist!
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I’m never able to completely surrender that sympathy. I see myself in those brothers even as I see Jesus in Joe! And I think that is by design. In fact, if I didn’t see Jesus in Joe, then I’d treat Joe’s story as a fable, the moral of which is to never give up. No matter how bad things may look at the moment, they can change, and eventually dreams will be vindicated. So, stay strong. If I didn’t see Jesus in Joe, this story would simply be a self-help coach.
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And that sounds like a lot of stories I know.
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But seeing Jesus in Joe and in the bread and wine, I instead find God’s sovereignty as the point, not my grit. Yet even then, it’s not simply that God is sovereign, though that surely is enough. No, I also see God coming to Joe, and through him to Joe’s brothers (and thus to me too). God comes into our hearts, his temple, and makes his home there.
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Joseph doesn’t lie per se, but his brothers do. Yet Joe, early on, is grasping at greatness, the very thing St. Paul describes, for the Philippians, Jesus NOT doing. So, it would seem if Joe was living a lie, that was it – grasping at greatness. Jesus is the truth, and he does not grasp at greatness. Yet at point after point through the rest of Joe’s story, Joe plays the Jesus card. This is simply not lost on anyone who reads Genesis and the gospels.
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Do I make sense?
Stop me the moment I stray from the Bible or its implications.
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The brothers, though, start out with murderous intent and relent only insofar as selling Joe as a slave. Their life becomes a lie. They dip his fancy sportcoat in blood, show it to their father, and claim he is dead, contenting themselves that this is somehow a lesser evil. Thus, they commit their lives to this lie. And then they live with this lie. Day after day, year after year, they live this lie. Assuming that can be called living.
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So much grief. Jacob descends into morbid, lifelong grief. And no matter how much you thought Joe had it coming, no one wanted to see their dear old dad suffer this. Yet birthdays come and birthdays go, holidays come and holidays go. “He would have graduated school this year,” they all hear Daddy say one night at supper, and these lying brothers have to swallow what they’ve done all over again. “He might’ve got married this year,” Daddy says another time. And every brother’s wedding, the birth of every new grandchild, every other celebration and milestone of life is tinged with this lie they all live with now.
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Joe’s blood cries to Jacob from the ground. These sins of the brothers grieve their father just like mine grieve the Father.
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That’s what ungodly world order is like. There are all these little tradeoffs with sin and darkness. This doesn’t deny there is goodness in the world, but it’s always spoiled, at least a little, and eventually a lot, by the lies we live with and maintain. We will make bricks to build up our lies, to support our lies, to hide our lies every day of our lives, assuming we can really call it living. And our lies quietly disorder the world and banish Jesus from our hearts.
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Do you ever feel like you are living a lie? What is truth? What is the truth of your sex life? Are you faithful to your spouse? What impact does your marital faithfulness have on your kids? Your parents? Your friends? Got jealousy? Ever been divorced?
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How about your finances? Ever lie about your taxes or loan applications? When your brother gets a new car, do you feel the urge to upgrade too? Keeping up with the Jones’s isn’t always about the Jones’s, you know. Jealousy can have you living a lie and strapped to the payments!
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Got dreams of grandeur? Joe did, and I am convinced they were God-given, no less. But he grasped at greatness, and in so doing, depicted the one place he failed to play the Jesus card in his life. Such a costly grasp! The same grasp Adam takes at the fruit of the wrong tree!
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There are other lies too. Ever lie about your drinking or drug use? Yes. Ever lie on a job application? Ever lie about pooping on the front step at the library? (Hmmm? Homeless brothers???) There are other lies too. Too many to talk about in a simple sermon, but some of you here at Last Church today are burdened with some really dark stuff. Joe’s brothers definitely are. We will get to them shortly.
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So, Joe goes off into slavery in a foreign land. He does pretty well as a slave, actually, but I don’t know anyone who thinks that justifies his servitude. Yes, he is set over everything in Potiphar’s house, and that is kinda prestigious for a slave. It shows he can rise through the ranks if given a chance, but as a slave, those chances are severely limited, and anyway, in Joe’s particular circumstance, he can’t share any of that with his Daddy or brothers. He is all alone, except that “God was with Joe” (Gen. 39:21-40:23).
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I don’t know about you, but I don’t get the idea that God’s presence is a lot of comfort for Joe. I get the idea that God is with him, but Joe doesn’t much perceive him there. I know if I were Joe, I’d take greater comfort nursing my crushed dreams. And ironically, if God is with Joe in any palpable sense, that seems to be what God is doing – crushing Joe’s dreams.
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Ouch!
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Forget the glass ceiling of gender and sexism, Joe is hitting the glass ceiling of slavery! It’s a low ceiling for a dreamer of bowing stars and hay bales! He’s not free to rise up and anyone bow to him!
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But, sure… he does rise to the position of top slave. Yes, that has some perks. But I don’t know a single American worth their salt who wants to trade their American freedom for slavery whether it serves God or not! Do you? Please give me a list of names! Give me just one!
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It doesn’t matter. False accusation is about to turn slavery into jailhouse conviction. He hasn’t hit bottom yet. Joe, despite his rise as a steward/slave is now demoted at no fault of his own to prisoner. He now lives in a dungeon. God is with him in prison, the Bible clearly says, but I get no sense Joe palpably feels that as comfort. He suddenly makes a name for himself down in that hole now too, but seriously… WHO CARES??? I once heard a brother say he’d rather have the worst seat in heaven than the best seat in hell, and while I find so many things wrong with that statement, I understand the sentiment quite clearly. What’s the difference between Joe’s good reputation in prison and the best seat in hell?
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Joe is a broken man. Let’s get that straight. He is completely broken. He could hardly be in worse shape than Jesus on a Roman cross. At no fault of his own, Joe suffers terribly, yet God is with him in prison – crushing his dreams and burying them under the weight of empire. Joe is not living the Egyptian Dream!
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And that’s when he is joined by the baker and the cupbearer. Hmmm… God with him in prison! That’s when we as readers of Genesis finally begin to feel the presence of God with Joe, and down in that dark hole, God has Joe interpreting dreams. This dreamer is now interpreting dreams! It’s a twist in the plot, a tiny twist so far down in that dark hole no one in their right mind would care. But God is there doing God’s amazing thang!
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If God’s people were truly attuned to God’s movement in his creation, they would load up all the camels and donkeys and go visit the dungeon in Egypt, because THAT, of all places in the whole world, is where God is doing his special thang. Matthew and Luke put the Baby Jesus in a feed trough in a barn in Bethlehem, a shepherd village in the backwater part of the Roman empire, but the magi from the east and the smelly shepherd’s in the field have the sense to drop what they are doing and go check out what God is doing! The magi are smart enough to bring gifts! But no one visits Joe when God comes to that dungeon except God, and he wants Joe to interpret dreams of bread and wine!
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All these eons removed, the vast distance between us and Joe which we must cross in time, language, culture, and space, and we are unqualified to understand all of that, yet if you want to go there with me now, God invites you. Come. Come to Joe’s pit with me and see what God is doing there! God is taking this broken dreamer with his shattered dreams, and calls him to interpret dreams of bread and wine! God is preparing Joe’s heart for the big move he is about to make!
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Can you feel that in your heart today, Church?
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It’s a tremendous mystery! But God wants you to witness it. Put yourself in Joe’s shoes for a minute. He can’t see the implications yet, but you can. In fact, you can see far more implications reaching out through Passover to Eucharist that Joe will not live to see. You can see the power of the world born in dreams of bread and wine. You can see Jesus, King Jesus, in those dreams and in that dreamer, and you can already sense the hope welling up in that pit, hope for the whole world placed in earthen vessels! Because you have read this story before, and you know where it is going.
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The lies will be broken and the dreams fulfilled, and you and I can see it already, though Joe cannot. To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, Last Church, but those outside get everything in puzzles and gimmicks!
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Is your heart starting to burn within you as Jesus opens up the Bible, beginning with Moses and the prophets and showing himself to you while you eat the bread and drink the wine?
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I really wish they’d teach THIS STUFF in Sunday school! It would help!
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Joe is still struggling. God is still working on him. Those broken dreams are already coming to a healing you and I can see and feel, taste and smell, but not Joe. God is with Joe in prison, but there’s no sense of that for Joe, not yet. The interpretations are true. The baker dies and the cupbearer gets out! And this gives Joe one more small dream that maybe, maybe, just maybe, the cupbearer will remember him when he gets out. Maybe the cupbearer can find a good lawyer or will put in a good word for Joe at the court. Right?
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I’ve met a lot of convicts in my time, and that is the dream right there. I’ve seen it time and again. Please, remember me when you get out, bro! DO THIS IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME.
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But that old cupbearer gets out, goes back to work, and doesn’t look back. No lawyers come to save Joe. No court rulings are overturned. The cupbearer doesn’t so much as send a hallmark card to comfort Joe who is left behind. And so this last-ditch dream rots and crumbles too. Joe is a lifer! (If you can call that living.)
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But God isn’t confined to that dungeon. Joe is, but not God. And God isn’t betting on that cupbearer either. No. God is visiting Pharaoh’s dreams! Oh, yeah!
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This is truly sinister!
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Pharaoh has a well guarded bed, but this doesn’t stop God being with Pharaoh in dreamland. God gives Joe dreams, and now he gives Pharaoh dreams. God came into Egyptian empire via the slave trade and took up residence in the dungeon, yet Pharaoh, for all his power and intel, could not detect him in the slightest. And then God comes stealthily like a thief in the night right into his bedchamber, and no one can stop him!
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You and I, Last Church, can see this plainly, but neither Pharaoh nor Joe can. Not the cupbearer either. To us has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but they get everything in parables and puzzles. And Pharaoh dreams up a doozy of a puzzle. The dream simply haunts him. He asks for help. All his wisemen come to ponder the mystery of God, but they have no idea who God is. You and I are coming to some fresh understanding of that ourselves right about now, but they are simply mystified.
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Pharaoh consults with his consultants, and they consult with their consultants. These are the greatest consultants in Egypt, the greatest empire in the world. These are the best consultants money can buy, yet everyone is utterly baffled. Meanwhile, the king continues to be disturbed. And amid all this frenzy of consulting that gets nowhere, the cupbearer finally, finally, finally gets up the gumption to speak to the great king.
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It’s quite a humbling moment.
(Such is the way of heart business when God moves in.)
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The cupbearer must rehearse his own criminal record to make this suggestion, and if (for surely this is a risky suggestion for someone so proud as Pharaoh) but if the king will entertain the idea, it will require him to seek help from a convict buried in the dungeon. The prison is not where he normally consults wisemen, and neither do you or me, Last Church. No one does.
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But you know what? Things have got that desperate. Pharaoh is willing, and so this is a humble move on his part too. So, they call Joe up out of his grave – ahem – prison.
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At no point, Last Church, have we stopped talking about world order in this story, but in today’s sermon we are emphasizing our heart-to-heart connection to God as we meet him in the bread and wine. I hope you are FEELING this drama as we discuss it this time, because the eyes of our heart are being opened now as we see Jesus, and that is heart business too. Not just world order but heart business! Hope is starting to move in this story and really heat a burning in our hearts!
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Joe, the kid whose grasp at greatness was his one contribution to his own downfall, is called up out of that dungeon, cleaned up, and presented to the king. What do you think Joe FEELS right about now?
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I’m thinking he is utterly surprised. Totally shocked. He didn’t plan this! He didn’t engineer this! He is along for the ride! Suddenly hope becomes this great palace full of treasures in every room, and his heart runs breathlessly through the corridors finding more and more possibility at every turn. All these years of pulverized, broken dreams have worked out all his arrogance and pride. He has none of that left. No. His big arrogant mouth drew the scorn of his brothers the last time he dreamed, but this time he is giving all the glory to God. He is seeing his own dreams far more clearly in his tears now than ever before.
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Pharaoh thinks Joe can interpret the dream? No. Says Joe. Only God can do that. And at a stroke, Joe has effectively shown Pharaoh that God came into the land long ago via the slave trade and took up residence in the dungeon, and then crept into his bedchamber giving him disturbing dreams. God is a force Egypt cannot comprehend! Pharaoh cannot cope with this! God’s Egyptian Dream is a nightmare for Pharaoh that humbles him.
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And so, with God’s help, Joe interprets the dream, and the dream picks up deep structure themes and theology running all through creation and Genesis. There will be seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. But God has positioned Joe and Pharaoh, like he once positioned Adam and Eve in the garden, to cultivate and feed the world the salvation meal. The destruction of the creation is at hand no less than in the days of Noah, but a way through is provided given these men humble themselves in the presence of God. And so God raises Joe up so that at the name of Joe every knee will bend and ask for food.
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Just think what it feels like to be Joe in THAT story right about there.
Can you FEEL that?
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The moment you do, you know what Jesus feels at the Lord’s Table too. All the surprise, hope, and possibility of life and redemption come rushing into his heart as you come to his Table today, Last Church. And you, as a reader of Genesis, can feel it with him. Do so, as you dine on bread and wine. You have an intimate glimpse into the very heart of God here.
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But it doesn’t end there. There is more. A whole palace full of these treasures.
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For even though the world is being saved outside, there is now the interior business of the heart, and Jacob, feeling his tummy growling with hunger, sends his sons to Egypt to buy food. Yes, that man who had dreams of a ladder reaching into heaven, whose name means “Liar” and who married into a lie, whose sons have lied to him about Joe all these years will live to see his son raised from the dead. That’s heart business! That’s church business!
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What do you think Jake FEELS? What business is God doing in Jake’s heart? I mean with world-saving food being distributed to every man, woman, and child on earth in the background of this scene, what do you think Jacob feels and reveals to us? The lies, so many lies, hemorrhage with truth as Jacob finds his son alive again, as Jacob bows low to this great man feeding the world only to find his long-lost boy in him! What an astonishing thing? The healing goes further than the wound ever dared!
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Last Church, when you read this story today, you automatically smell a whiff of resurrection wafting on the Spirit’s wind all the way back in Genesis, not a book of the Bible we normally think of when we talk about resurrection, but now we find it in the foundation of the world!
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And the brothers… all fearful and respectful… show up not recognizing Joe, but they bow to him. They bow and they beg. Please! They say, we beg of you, master, give us food too. We are hungry.
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There is so much packed up in that which they do not see. And you know what, Last Church? That’s just how I have observed Eucharist all my life! There is so… SO… SO… much packed up in this bread and wine I have eaten all my life that I haven’t yet seen or understood. My lies! My life is a lie!! And I come to this Table of Apocalypse and ask for God’s love, and I receive it not hardly contemplating what has just happened or the hope it holds for me, much more the world!
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There is power here in this meal beyond the telling which can only be seen in Genesis!
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And Joe – ahem – Jesus – sees me. He recognizes me. I don’t see him, but he sees me, and he withdraws to the next room to weep. I’m sitting there eating in my stupid lie of a life, as if I am somebody, and he is weeping because I showed up, and he sees me! He is FEELING it, and I am begging without understanding what it is I ask. If I had recognized him, he would have given me living water, and I would never thirst again!
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But I come to this Table thinking I will retreat back into my life – ahem – lie – having been fed, and I can take some to my family back home too. Does that mean the Table is in vain or that I eat judgment on myself?
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Not exactly, though I clearly should take this more seriously than I have before.
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No. It means God is working on me. Joe sends the brothers home promising to bring back with them next time… their other brother. This command will cause them much consternation. It will begin unraveling their lie. And they talk about their lie at the Table before Joe with confession seething beneath the surface, though they don’t recognize him as they do it. The Table of Apocalypse is overwhelming their lie already, but Joe sends them home with their packs full of food AND with the money they had planned to spend on it. This gives the appearance of theft and pierces their hearts! But of course, it is the free grace of God! Their money is worthless to God and to Joe. They have no leverage on God! But sometimes a free gift like that convicts your heart making you freshly aware of how undeserved it is. Sometimes that conviction purges your heart of its lies!
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Is Jesus doing that with us at the Table of Apocalypse prepared in the presence of Last Church?
Can you FEEL it?
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You come again, and the burden of your lies weighs you down all the more. Jesus keeps giving you his love, and your lie keeps making it look like theft. This is not who you really are! It’s the lie you’ve been living. This is not who you were made to be!! Your heart is pierced, and you want to come clean!!! That little part of your heart you guard from everyone else in the universe wants so intensely to come out and fall before the Master and confess the whole truth! That’s what Jesus does at the Table of Apocalypse with that lie you’ve been calling a life. That’s what it feels like when Jesus gets to the bottom of you with you. The tables in the House of God get flipped when Jesus comes in.
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Those feelings of fear and anger, of jealousy and envy, that originally prompted Cain to kill Abel, Esau to dread Jacob and seek his vengeance, and Joe’s brothers to sell him into slavery and cover it up with a lie that just keeps corroding the image of God in them, gives way to panic, sorrow, empathy, and wonder and amazement. By the time Jesus is ready to reveal himself to you at the Table of Apocalypse in the bread and wine, you too are broken down, all your lies broken down, and you are humbled. Yet right there, at that place, God raises you up and gives you the good gifts of empire, of creation, of redemption and salvation. You live a new life as a new creature fit for God’s new world. All things are made new.
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Last Church, Jesus welcomes you to his Table today. Come and eat. It’s dinner time!