August 14, 2011, "Shifting Paradigms"

Genesis 45:1-12
Matthew 15:10-31
Our Scriptures this week, demonstrate the difference between understanding what you have known and believing what you hope will be, a shift from knowing the Promise through what has been to Dreaming of a new and different future yet to be revealed. The difficulty of Israel was how to connect from Ancient Stories of our Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to the reality that for generations we have been slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt. The Passover, the Red Sea, the Ten Commandments, the Wandering in the Wilderness and coming into the land as a new Nation, Freedom and the Law, all this only make sense against the context that our ancestors were slaves. So how does a people, a culture, shift from the beloved histories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to Moses?

Joseph is different from the Patriarchs before him. The last many weeks we have shared the stories of Abram, who left home and family to follow God, believing in a Covenant Promise of a Land and Name and as many children as there are stars in the heavens. We shared the Promise of Isaac, whose name means laughter, and the joy that was brought to this family long after they imagined possibility. We recalled how Sarah had used her Egyptian handmaid Hagaar to get a son under her control, then was jealous of Ishmael, when far beyond her time she conceived and bore Isaac, that Sarah wanted the Egyptian's baby Ishmael put to death, instead Abraham sent him into the wilderness where Ishmael's crying was heard by God.

We emphasized that Isaac was a model of the Promise, questioning whether Abraham would be willing and able to sacrifice the Promise, to sacrifice Isaac, or if possessing, he would abandon faith in God. After Abraham, we followed his son Isaac who fell in love, but he and his wife each played favorites among their twins, until her twin Jacob tricked his brother Esau out of his birthright by using Esau's hunger, his need for food. Having tricked his brother, Jacob deceived their father Isaac, then ran away to a far distant country, where he took as a wife Leah and Rachel the woman he truly loved, and also conceived by their handmaidens, after decades returned with his family to wander with God, following the Promise of a Land and Name and Generations in the land of the Canaanites.

The Patriarch Jacob had 10 sons and a daughter, when his beloved Rachel gave birth to her first born Joseph, then years later Baby Benjamin and she died in childbirth. Jacob, like his parents before him played favorites, that while he loved all his children, he treated Joseph differently. We remember the Coat of Many Colors, every color reminiscent of the lush Promise of the Garden of Eden. Some paradigms seem universal to all families. The elder ones are the first born and doted upon as infants, but by the time younger children come along not only have the parents been worn down, when the younger ones come of age we tend to have more time to listen and talk together, sharing hopes and dreams as adults. Joseph uses his relationship with their father Jacob against his brothers, tattling on them as younger children often do.

Joseph recognized from the first, that he was different from his brothers. What may not be immediately apparent is that Joseph was also different from the Patriarchs before him. Where Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Jacob, had all been focused on the Promise of God, Joseph never mentions the Promise, rarely even mentions God, Joseph instead is a Man of Dreams, who believes in the power of his Dreams. Rather than a Promise of Land and a Name and Children, in Joseph's Dream all his brothers bow down before him. In another, his brothers, his mother and father, are as the Sun and Moon and Stars, that all bow to the earth before Joseph. As the third of four children, like Joseph I recall spying upon and tattling on the older ones. I also recall being suspended by my ankles and dropped through the haychute by those same brothers. Joseph's brothers drop him into a pit, then devise to sell him into slavery to Ishmaelites. The brothers return to their father Jacob, and deceive him to gain the love he had for Joseph. But Jacob is inconsolable in his loss of his son. Jacob retreats into himself, believing the promise is no more, the child he loved is dead, he focuses only upon his loss.
Joseph gets into all kinds of trouble when away from family, when away from the Promise of God. Eventually, Joseph finds himself in the Pharaoh's dungeon, imprisoned as a slave. But it is here that Joseph uses his dreams and interpretation of dreams. Joseph, like his father before him, could have wallowed in grief, mourning the loss of what had been. Instead, Joseph uses his dreams to benefit his others, the cook and butcher who feed him, eventually even guiding the Pharaoh's Dreams.

After the Recession two years ago, the political games of the Debt Ceiling, and the turbulence of the International Stock Market these last several weeks, many of us have lost sleep.Two years ago, when the Housing Market Recession began, I recall forecasts that it would take two years for our Economy to recover to where it was. A month ago, the forecasters described another two years before things would be back like they were before. With the losses and gains of this last week, does anyone remember what the values used to be?

Last night I had a dream. I was down at the water's edge, when Seven Fat Porkbelly's came down to drink, and they drank with a great thirst, but the lake was still replenished. Then Seven Sickly Scrawny Pork-bellies came down, and these consumed the seven fat Porkbellies. And I recalled the Dreams of Joseph and Pharaoh, except that just before I awoke I heard a voice proclaim, “Stay away from the Porkbellies, you are Kosher.”

Joseph is a different Patriarch, from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They each believed in the Promise of God, they spoke with God and followed God, knowing God heard their cries. Joseph's is a Civil Religion, Joseph rarely even mentions God exists. Joseph believes in his Dreams. But when given the opportunity, when his brothers are in need of food and he has all the power, instead of retribution, instead of recalling past hurts and losses, rather than being focused on forgiveness Joseph loved his brothers, and acts for their future, letting down his guard, to reveal who he really is to them. And it here, that Joseph describes God has been present using all our circumstances, even the ones that seemed to be for evil turned out to be for a purpose that benefitted life.

We live in changing times, times when old Paradigms, old ways of thinking and relating seem out of touch. There are certain of Jesus' words that strike us as being out of touch, especially harsh when it was not needed. Others have looked at this collection of passages in the 15th Chapter of Matthew and guessed that he had a bunch of miscellaneous stories so put them all together; but I think there is a link here, that it is not the way things were created, not the circumstances that present themselves that are good or bad or evil, but what we choose to do with them, whether we choose to act as if this moment is a circumstance of healing of faith or not, whether we see God in this moment and act in faith or only by our past devices.

How odd, that Matthew does not identify this woman who seeks out Jesus as being a Gentile, a non-Jew, as being a woman of Tyre or Sidon, as he was wandering through that non-Jewish region, but instead, rather than identifying her as a Greek or a Roman, she is named as a Canaanite. She has no individual name, but is identified as one of the Rejected People of the Old Testament, one of those displaced by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Moses and David and Solomon. She seeks Jesus out. The automatic response is rejection, the Messiah has come for God's own people. Over the years, I have heard many describe frustration with this passage, that they actually prefer the company of their dogs to their own children, or that their dogs were better trained. I think perhaps the meaning of the words is not that Jesus insulted her as a Dog, or as a Rabid Wild Beast, but as a Pet, a member of the household who is not a son or daughter. But still she presses to change the relationship, she acts in faith. Matthew is unique among the Gospels, for Matthew Jesus is not only the Messiah, not a dispenser of miracle cures healing the whole world, but repeatedly in addition to caring for the crowds, he responded to someone from outside the faith community, the Gerasene Demoniac who identified himself as “Roman Legion”, this Canaanite woman, who themselves crossed the boundary of distance to act in faith, to believe life could be different and asked for help.

Too often, we in the faith community, are like the Sunday School teacher beginning a lesson on the Parable of the Publican and the Sinner who each went up to the Temple to pray, and though the Teacher has a wonderful, insightful lesson prepared, begins the class with a prayer “Thank God we are members of this Presbyterian Church not like that Publican who condemned the Tax Collector.” We need to question changing our paradigms, considering whether we have lived in the past, held back by our losses and grief, whether we have judged others as Canaanites, and whether we act only to fulfill our dreams, or if we could envision that God uses even our circumstances for life, helping others to believe.