From Good to Good
In the first creation story, found in Genesis 1, the creation story that we did NOT read this Fall, God creates methodically over six days. On each day of creation, as God calls forth the next tier of created order, God surveys what God has done and declares it good.
Last week I shared the gesture used in Godly Play to describe God drawing near. There is also a gesture used in Godly Play to demonstrate God’s proclamation of goodness. When we tell the story of creation in Godly Play we see what was created and recount God declaring it GOOD (use the gesture repeatedly).
“On the very first day, God have us the gift of light – so now there was not just darkness, but there was light and dark…not just the light in the light bulb or in the car lights at night --- not just that light, but all of the light that is light. When God saw the light, God said “It is good.”
The book of Genesis opens with God creating what is good each day for six days.
And here at the very end of Genesis, an epic story is winding down with a proclamation that God has made something GOOD in the midst of all of the chaos that got our characters to this moment.
And chaos it is.
Last week, we were still hanging out with Abram and Sarai, not yet renamed Abraham and Sarah, as they waited impatiently for God’s promised heir. Here at the end of Genesis, we are three generations down the road and none of the action - between Abram gazing at the stars and Joseph’s declaration that God is making something good of it all - has been without drama.
In case you’re not familiar or need a recap, here’s the Reader’s Digest condensed version of what has happened since last week’s text:
God repeats his commitment and blessing to Abram and Sarai, changing their names to reflect their identity – Abraham meaning father of a great nation and Sarah meaning princess or woman of power.
· Isaac is born to Abraham and Sarah in their old age.
· After some years, God’s asks that Abraham sacrifice Isaac, then stops him at the last minute.
· God makes the same promise to Isaac. I will make of you a great nation…
Isaac and wife Rebekah have twins – Esau and Jacob.
· Jacob is the second born but gets Isaac’s blessing.
· Blessing is important – it establishes who will inherit the greatest share, who will lead the clan moving forward.
· Esau and Jacob have a rocky relationship and go without speaking for years.
Jacob falls in love with Rachel,
· and commits to a long term of service to her father to gain her hand,
· but Laban, her father (his uncle) tricks Jacob into marrying Rachel’s older sister Leah – a fact he doesn’t realize until after the wedding night.
· Jacob is so in love with Rachel that he commits to a second term of service to marry her.
Jacob wrestles in the wilderness with God and gets a new name, Israel, as well as God’s blessing.
Jacob has 12 sons.
· His favorite is Joseph, Rachel’s oldest son, born late to Rachel.
· Jacob presents Joseph with a beautiful multi-colored coat…a sign of daddy’s love. (an echo of Isaac’s preference of Jacob?)
· Once again, that off-balance parental love sets up big resentment among the brothers.
· And then Joseph had a couple of dreams
o He dreamed that he and his brothers were binding sheaves of wheat – suddenly his stood, and the others’ sheaves bowed to him. He told his brothers about this…they were indignant.
o He dreamed that the sun, moon and eleven stars were bowing down to him.
This time his father and his brothers were incensed.
Jealousy continued to eat at Joseph’s brothers.
And so 10 of them (Benjamin was not with them) kidnapped Joseph and sold him into slavery (after deciding that it was unwise to kill him).
They tell their dad some fool story about Joseph’s death and present Jacob with that beautiful multi-colored coat dipped in blood. Jacob’s heart is broken, believing his son has been eaten by a wild animal.
Joseph is sold into Egypt, and ends up a slave in the household of a high-ranking official in Egypt, who treats him well until the Egyptian’s wife accuses Joseph of trying to sleep with her.
Joseph gets thrown in prison.
In prison, Joseph demonstrates his gift for interpreting dreams.
The Pharaoh learns of this gift Joseph has and calls on him to work on some dreams.
· Joseph predicts a famine in seven years.
· Pharaoh gives Joseph a big job and
· puts him in charge of Egypt’s preparation of food stores for this famine.
When the famine finally comes, Joseph’s brothers get word of there being grain available in Egypt. They visit the man in charge, who happens to be their brother Joseph, the one they sold into slavery, that they do not recognize at first…
But Joseph does recognize them, and he really messes with his brothers while they don’t recognize him.
· He tosses them in prison,
· he sends them back to Canaan to get their youngest brother Benjamin, who is also Rachel’s son,
· and then Joseph sets Benjamin up to look like a thief.
Then (only then) does Joseph reveal his real identity to his brothers.
· Joseph convinces his brothers to go get their aging dad and move to Egypt.
· Jacob is dying, and he gives Joseph his blessing.
· Upon Jacob’s death, Joseph returns Jacob’s body to Canaan.
When Joseph returns to Egypt,
· his brothers worry about Joseph’s retribution and revenge.
· They ask for his forgiveness.
And this is where we reconnect with the text today. The brothers come to him, aware that with their father gone, Joseph may choose to seek revenge rather than embracing them with family loyalty.
In the text, they tell Joseph they were instructed by their father to as for his forgiveness. If that really happened, it happened “off camera.” That means we don’t really know – maybe this is a manipulation of Joseph on their part. I think it is fair to read it that way.
And Joseph hears them ask for forgiveness (sort of – I mean really, they suggest their father is asking on their behalf) and he weeps.
His brothers, seeing this response also begin to weep, as they fall to their knees and offer themselves as slaves.
Joseph refuses to judge them further. He begins by saying, “do not be afraid.”
We’ve heard that before, right?
As it is used throughout scripture, it signals that a blessing is about to drop.
Joseph goes on – what YOU intended for HARM, God has made into something GOOD (use the gesture).
Joseph has the means to take care of his brothers and their households. He has the means to shelter them in the midst of a famine. He has the means to see that the descendants of Abraham survive and continue to multiply – moving closer and closer to the vast number of stars in the sky.
What you all intended for harm, GOD has made GOOD.
In the Hebrew, the word GOOD is derived from the same word found in the days of creation. God called the light “good.” (use the gesture) – in Hebrew towb (tov)
On the sixth day, God called all of creation “very good” – in Hebrew tov me-hod
What you intended for harm, God has made “good” – letowbah (le tov ah)
So….the 50 chapters of Genesis begin and end with a “Goodness” (tov) brought about by God.
The circumstances are very different, but in some way, we have been brought full circle from the birth of creation to the birth of a people who are now safely tucked into Egypt for a season to thrive and to multiply.
It is interesting to my bible-geeky self to discover that a variation of this same Hebrew word for “good” (towb – (tov)) is used to describe the baby Moses in Exodus – his mother saw that he was “good” or “whole” or “beautiful” and hid him for three months.
Now…I think there can be tricky stuff here. We might be tempted to read this and say that God had all of these things happen so that it turned out this way – for good.
Or we can say that God can turn the bad actions of others into good.
But I think it is more accurate to our lived experience of God to say that in the midst of a bunch of hard and horrible things that people do to one another, there is still a kind of wholeness that can emerge.
In the case of the big story of God …
The family will continue.
Imperfectly.
But the story will continue.
And Abraham’s descendants will continue to multiply.
And God will continue to work through the broken and imperfect people.
God will work in Egypt.
God will work in the wilderness.
God will work in seasons of plenty and in seasons of famine.
Even as God does today.
And we know this because we are a part of this ongoing, unfolding, big story of God.
Can we trust that it will be Good (tov)? Maybe even “very good?” (tov-meh-od)
I believe that we can – even when we cannot see the good.
How hard that is with wars, raging and violence in our schools. And yet there is nothing new under the sun. Somehow…
God is in the midst of it all.
Do not be afraid.
It is good.
It is very good.
May it be so.
Amen.
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