"Miracles, Blame and Signs" March 30, 2014

Genesis 45:1-8 John 9:1-12 The first question we ask, the question we always ask is “Who is to blame?” Who did what to whom? Who is responsible? Every year as we start off teaching Confirmation Class, I tell the students a story: that on the way to Church I saw something, bigger than a mouse, smaller than a dog, with tiny ears, a furry tail almost as big as the animal itself, scurrying over the ground leaping through branches of trees gathering nuts in its cheeks. What do you suppose it is? And after an interminable pause one of the students raises their hand to say, “It sure sounds to me like a squirrel, but insofar as this is Church I bet you are going to tell us it was God!” And I remind the class that when in doubt, the answer is probably God. But oddly enough, the story of Joseph is different from those of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in that God spoke to Abraham, God spoke to Isaac, God wrestled with and spoke to Jacob. While Joseph is recorded as having had dreams, and the dreams carry the story, Joseph is not recorded as ever speaking with God. Recall that Abraham's son Isaac was the father of twins: Jacob and Esau, and Jacob ran away, where he fell in love with Rachel, but Jacob was tricked into marrying Rachel's sister Leah. And because Leah knew she was not as loved as Rachel, Leah was consoled by being the mother of several children, where Rachel could not, so like the Sarah before her gave Jacob her maid to have children through, and Leah also gave Jacob her maid by whom to give her more children, until Rachel gives birth to Joseph, the first-born child of Jacob's beloved. Then Rachel gives birth to Benjamin and in the delivery, Rachel died, leaving Jacob whose name is changed to Israel with twelve sons. Joseph's brothers hated him for being the favorite son of their father's favorite wife, so vow to kill him. But at the last minute, instead of killing him, beat him to a pulp and throw his body into a pit, then sell him as a slave to a nomadic band of Ishmaelites. Believing Joseph is gone forever, his brothers tell their father Israel that Joseph was attacked and killed. Over the next many years, through a series of misadventures Joseph is taken from the land of the Canaanites to Egypt, Joseph becomes the servant of a wealthy man, is accused of a rape he did not commit and thrown into prison. In prison, Joseph interprets the dreams of the Jailer, the Butler, the Baker, and eventually Pharaoh, which allows Joseph to prophesy a coming famine. Anticipating the famine, Joseph guides Pharaoh to create storehouses of grain to save Egypt. In return Joseph is set free, made an Egyptian, given an Egyptian name, given the daughter of Pharaoh as a wife who over the next several years bears him sons Ephraim and Manasseh, and under Pharaoh he is made the ruler of all Egypt. Two more years go by, when all the surrounding people also experience famine, and who should come to Egypt seeking help but the eleven sons of Israel. Testing the loyalty of the brothers who had sold Joseph into slavery, Joseph accuses the youngest brother, Benjamin of stealing to see what they would do. And his brother Judah pleads for Benjamin's life, even offering his own life as a slave to save his brother, because it would kill their father to lose another son, especially the remaining son of Rachel. At which, Joseph removes everyone else from the room and confesses to the sons of Israel, that he is Joseph whom they thought dead. Here Joseph interprets for the sons of Israel, that they should feel no suffering or guilt, because God used Joseph's circumstance to provide for Israel. God used Joseph to provide a remnant for the future. The human temptation might have been for Joseph to extract revenge, to punish his brothers for what they had done, to emphasize his power by having them beaten or enslaved as they did to him, but instead Joseph describes God using his life to create a different future for the children of Israel. The point of the story of Joseph is that instead of looking to the past and seeking revenge, instead of seeking blame for who sinned, Joseph names that God uses human circumstance to provide a remnant a different future than anyone imagined. The Gospel of John has more miracles than any other book in the Bible. More stories of Jesus changing water into water, healing the deaf and the blind and the crippled, children with Epilepsy, a woman who had been bleeding for a dozen years who touched his robe and was made well, a child who died and was brought back to life, Lazarus dead and buried in the tomb 3 days resurrected. And yet, in the Gospel of John, these are not Miracle stories, each one is described as a Sign pointing the way to God. The question being what the sign points to in faith. This morning, as Jesus and the disciples are walking along the road, they see a man blind since birth, and the disciples seem to get it... the point is not that Jesus can work a miracle, providing sight to a man who had always been blind, but rather that this was a sign. So they ask, who sinned? Because if blindness from birth is a sign of anything it must be that either the child or the parents sinned, right? And Jesus says NO. The issue is not who sinned to cause this blindness, but rather who can provide sight to the blind, who is the light of the world? This man has lived a different reality. No matter if you closed your eyes, or wore a blindfold, or suddenly were made blind, it is not the same as getting accustomed to life, learning to feed yourself, to walk, to survive without the ability to see, and having well-intentioned people trying to help who sometimes cause greater problems. And Jesus spits in the dust, creating moisture in the dirt, to form clay, then takes this clay of his spittle to anoint the man's eyes, not his eyelids, but his eyes. Then Jesus sends the man to the pool whose names means To Be Sent. And the man washed and he could see. A few weeks ago the phone rang and it was a woman who grew up in our congregation, she was Baptized and Confirmed and Married here. She described she was going through a divorce. Her husband had had multiple affairs, some with prostitutes, some with under age women. He had buried them in over a hundred thousand dollars of debt. I asked how we could help, what did she need? She said, simply to be able to talk, to have my church listen and pray. No blame, but to demonstrate what God could do in the life of another. I punched the answering machine and a voice asked that I call a number, so I did. The woman on the other end described that she had just returned from taking her daughter for drug rehab for meth-amphetamines. She was gone long enough that she had lost her apartment, and while she had found a new place, and given the landlord her entire Social Security Check, she had no been able to afford the Security deposit. The Landlord had offered that if she could come up with a good faith amount, he would credit the balance that she could pay in small installments. What she needed was $75, only $75. I took out my checkbook and wrote the check. No blame, but to demonstrate what God could do in the life of another. Last evening the Confirmation Class went to the Catholic Church. Father Major was preaching, and he gave testimony of his life as a missionary in Sudan. He described how children in Khartoum were taken from the Village Center where they were circumcised and taught to be Muslim. He had gone to his superiors demanding that they decry these acts. And the Church officials had told him to be quiet, that to speak out would cause unnecessary trouble, to speak out could cause him or the church to be evicted from the country. For the last five years, he has been here in the United States because he was exiled from Sudan. Afterward, parishioners described how this 84 year old priest was returning on Monday to Sudan. We named that there is renewed and continual gang violence and warfare. They said the Priest knew this, but he felt he needed to go to minister. No blame, but to demonstrate what God could do in the life of another.