Listen to Sermon
Pastor Tom Johnson, September 17, 2017
Staci slammed the door—shutting out her brother Brad’s angry and hurtful words—leaving him in thick silence. All he sees now was her name on her bedroom door—Staci with an “i” dotted by a circle. The silence is quickly ambushed by the screaming and nagging thought Brad has—that he should knock on that door—immediately—and say, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me.” An hour passes. Brad and Staci are still not talking. The scraping and banging of forks at the dinner table is deafening. A week passes. Brad goes off to college—the silence only occasionally being interrupted by superficial conversation at Thanksgiving and family picnics on the Fourth of July. Years pass. Brad moves across the country. The silence between Brad and Staci is now only interrupted by the annual Christmas card—with the solitary name “Staci” written in ink ending in an “i” dotted by a circle. Decades pass. Decades of silence between them. The silence is a lie because there is no peace. All is quiet—that is, until five o’clock one snowy Friday morning when the phone rings…
That’s when the news wakes up our wounded child. For Joseph and his brothers, the news of their father’s death wakes up their wounded child. Loss has a way of doing that—stirring up old memories and opening up old wounds. It’s times like these that pain and resentment surface—stuff that we thought was buried and forgotten. Old thoughts resurface like “Joseph was always daddy’s favorite!” “Joseph was always a well-dressed spoiled brat—when we were kids in our father Jacob’s house in his multicolored tunic and now in Pharaoh’s house in royal garb. And what about Joseph? You’ll remember that Joseph’s brothers threw him into the ditch and sold him into slavery. You’ll remember that it was because of his slavery in Egypt that he was falsely accused of trying to violate Potipher’s wife and was thrown into prison. Joseph had his own painful memory and resentment to deal with. “Because of you, brothers, I was sold into slavery, spent years in prison, and almost lost my life and my faith.” The silence is finally broken. We know the years of silence was a lie because all this stuff resurfaces at Jacob’s death.
Like Joseph and his brothers, we can buy into the lie that time heals all wounds—the lie that silence is the same as forgiving and forgetting. We buy into the lie that the slammed doors of our teenage years will not impact the rest of our lives. We buy into the lie that an unforgiving spirit has no impact on our daily lives. We buy into the lie that guilt and shame will fade away on its own. When his brothers ask for forgiveness, Joseph weeps. He weeps. Is it the news of his father’s death? Is it because his own painful memories? Are they tears of compassion for his brothers because they carried the burden of guilt, shame, and fear of retaliation all these years? We’re not told. I think Joseph wept because of all of those things—all of the above.
Through salty tears, Joseph runs to that place he learned to run when he was experiencing his darkest hours. Joseph runs to the loving, merciful, and gracious arms of God, his heavenly Father. He speaks some of the most powerful words of good news in the Bible: “As for you, you meant evil against me but God meant it for good.” Joseph is made whole and mended by the gospel. Joseph speaks out of his faith in a forgiving, loving, and merciful God. Joseph reminds us God has a plan for our lives. He reminds us that God even uses evil meant for our destruction. He reminds us that God forgives our sin so we can forgive one another—even decades old dysfunctional and destructive family behavior. He reminds us of the God who has a plan for our good. God leads us through the valley of the shadow of death. God even uses the unjust, gruesome, and evil death of His Son for the forgiveness, life, and salvation of the world.
Joseph’s words remind us that God breaks the deafening silence. God melts away the bitterness, the pain, the guilt, the anger—with a word of reconciliation: “As for you, you meant evil against me but God meant it for good.” Only the love of God through his Son Jesus Christ can heal the wounded child within all of us. And since God has forgiven us a lifetime of sin—a debt that we could never repay—so we ought to forgive the nickels and dimes of our sins against each other. And we should forgive from our heart—a heart filled with gratitude and faith in God’s forgiveness and a heart filled with compassion for those weighed down with guilt and shame. God has written the script for the drama of our lives. The story ends with forgiveness, peace, and reconciliation with him and one another—or rather, that is how our story begins. This may lead us to finally pick up the phone and speak words of comfort—or write that note of reconciliation—or lead us to have that conversation that breaks years of silence with a good word. Just as Joseph finally broke the silence: “As for you, you meant evil against me but God meant it for good.” We have wronged each other. But in the midst of the pain, guilt, and chaos, God has a plan—a plan of forgiveness, life, reconciliation, and eternal salvation. “As for you, you meant evil against me but God meant it for good.”
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