Sunday August 10th 2008

All is not Lost

MESSAGE GIVEN BY THE REV. PAUL MULLEN

    Joseph was having the summer of his short life. As the long hot days drifted languidly by he dreamed harvest dreams. A bumper crop of admiration, appreciation, adulation. His splendid robes displayed his father's love. His dreams a gift from God on high. A future so bright he Had to wear shades.

    But dreams of glory seldom fulfill themselves, and rarely without pain, suffering  and just plain inconvenience.

    Joseph started his day dressed in his pride with his head in the dreams of greatness and ended with his naked body sold into slavery.

    The story doesn't end there, even though today’s reading does. It is a story of redemption, forgiveness and reconciliation.

    Slavery doesn’t end there either. It is still a huge problem today, in spite of being illegal in nearly every country. Much of it is sexual slavery, women lured into a life of prostitution, often in foreign countries where, without visas and other documents, they have little hope of escaping. Immigrants, both legal and illegal, are highly susceptible to end up working in sweatshop-like conditions, even in Canada. Held there by fear of being sent back home or losing their work and being sent back.

    I don’t want to minimize these harsh realities. It is imperative that we, as citizens and church members, stand up and speak out. We need more enforcement of existing laws. We need more regulation in this area – this is not free enterprise by any stretch of the imagination.

    I want to ask, though, when did you become a slave?

    Slavery is not always inflicted on you. Sometimes you just make bad choices.

    When I was way too young, well before the legal age, I thought it would be cool to start smoking. It took me 20 years to discover my way out of that enslavement.

    Slavery can come from bad choices.

    Slavery can come from apparently friendly invitations.

    Like when I found that credit was easy to get. It started in college when I was sent an application for a credit card. The first time I went over the limit and paid it back under a wonderful thing happened – they increased my limit! And they did it again, and again. With a stay-at-home wife and two growing kids it was wonderful. We weren't extravagant, just got what we needed and a few things we wanted and then next thing I knew I was looking at those monthly credit card bills and asking myself who I was working for. I would get my pay cheque, pay what I could on the cards and then, in order to feed and clothe the family, have to borrow it back – with interest!

    My disposable income was being disposed of, all right, into a big hole called the monthly payments. Payments became minimum payments and occasionally were missed. I was digging myself deeper and deeper into a very large pit. I had to take any opportunity to earn a little extra income to try to catch up. I felt like I was a slave to the credit card company – whatever I earned and now whatever time I had went to them.

    Finally I had to do something. I put all my cards into an envelope, sealed it and wrote on it in big red letters, "DO YOU REALLY WANT TO SCREW UP THIS BAD?" I left the envelope in the bottom of a dresser drawer so I would have to go look for it if I ever thought I had to charge something. I remember a number of times when I dug out that envelope and read that question over and over and over again . . . and reluctantly put it back in the drawer unopened.

    It was several years before I trusted myself enough to put one and only one card back in my wallet. I rarely use it and usually pay off the balance every month.

    This way out of slavery has not been without consequence, however. I can't even remember the last time they increased my limit . . . not that I care!

    Slavery is not always inflicted on you. Sometimes you are just invited into it and you accept.

    A very common form of slavery to stuff. We buy a huge amount of stuff. So much so that one of the fastest growing industries is . . . storage sheds! We have so much stuff that we don't need that we have no room in the garage and have to rent another garage or shed to put it all in.

    Slavery can also come from appreciation of my brothers' and sisters' gifts. Sociologist and theologian Rene Girard calls this mimetic desire – I want what they have. Joseph’s brothers wanted his special relationship with their father. The Bible calls this covetousness. It is a different sort of slavery.

    We are all given gifts and they are not always appreciated by others. That’s why we have Critics! But having gifts doesn’t guarantee an easy life. Gifts must be used to be developed. Fears tempt us to play it safe, avoiding criticism, perhaps.

    But when we use our gifts, like Joseph did, we can end up in the pits. This story tells us that God is with us even in the pits

    How much of the problem of personal slavery is our own belief that the good stuff comes because of our own brains, beauty, charm, talent, hard work or family? And the companion belief that all the bad stuff is all someone else’s fault – lack of brains, beauty, charm, talent, hard work or family. Ultimately we blame God.

    Joseph and Peter, each in their own way, thought their abilities were their own doing. Joseph ended up in a pit of despair and Peter sank like a stone. It can happen to any of us – in a way it happens to all of us.

    All is not lost, however. There is a way out. Not from our reaching out – it comes to us. Like dreams to Joseph, like a strong hand reaching out to Peter (who’s Greek name is Petros, Rocky) sinking like a stone.

    Bob Dylan sings:

        You're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed

        You're gonna have to serve somebody,

        Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord

        But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

    One way out is to choose a different form of slavery! The Apostle Paul writes:  I am a free man, nobody's slave; but I make myself everybody's slave in order to win as many people as possible. (1Corinthians 9:19)

    We can choose to follow a different master.

    Fifteen or so years ago I hit a low point in my ministry in a conflict with a church family that decided I had to go. The details at this point are irrelevant. What happened to me, though, was remarkable. One rainy night, as the crisis reached its peak, I left a meeting feeling very downhearted. I got in my car and started it. The radio came on and  Amanda Marshall, a favorite Rhythm and Blues singer was singing these words:

        When this trouble passes over

        You and I will walk away,

        Knowing that our love survived

        Another test of faith.

        You and I can walk on water

        The river rises, we rise above.

        It may not look that way right now

        But trust me,  Baby, this is love.

    I felt like God was speaking right to me and it enable me to continue the struggle. I can tell you that I stayed with that church for another six years.

    Simon Doucette, The Tank of Tankful of Blues, spoke at the International Blues Festival yesterday of how the Blues has a bad rap. The Blues aren't about being mournful and sad, its about being down and looking for the hand that's trying to lift you up.

    Joseph was saved from death by his brother Ruben who intervened on his behalf. He also listened to the dreams that kept coming to him.

    Peter was able to rise above the waters of chaos when he accepted the hand up offered to him, acknowledging at the same time that he wasn’t rising by his own efforts.

    You don’t need to believe that people can walk on water to see from this story that we are being reached out to. Jesus shows us that God is always reaching out to us, offering us a different kind of freedom, a freedom that gives us not what we want, but what we truly need.