…She called her
household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “this Hebrew has been brought to
us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. When
he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the
house.”
She
kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. Then she told him this
story: “That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport
of me. But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran
out of the house.” [#metoo]
When
his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, “This is how your
slave treated me,” he burned with anger. Joseph’s master took him and put him
in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined. [Genesis
39:14-20]
Joseph, the 'slave' in this story was actually a powerful
man.[1]
He was in charge of all of the properties, possessions, wealth, and the whole
estate of the captain of Pharaoh's guards. Women in Egypt of the Pharaohs had a
lot less power than do women of today.[2]
Potiphar's wife spoke out about this powerful man in her husband's employ
taking advantage of her: there was no guarantee her husband would believe her
over his right hand man. You can see she even needed the support of his staff
to back her up. She confided in them that this servant of her husband's was
here to make sport of them. She took a chance, she spoke up, and Joseph lost
his job without warning and wound up in prison. There was no trial, you
wouldn't want to disgrace Potiphar's wife any further. Even her identity is
forever protected. Her name is never mentioned in the official record. She is
protected.
Recently in Ontario the leader of the Opposition Party was
accused of similar things by two anonymous people from years gone by and he
lost his job and was condemned by the PM, the Premier, his own party and others
in a matter of hours. Over night he lost his job and his reputation. His
accusers are protected; they went to the media; they didn't face him. He didn't
get a trial. He has affidavits and evidence that even seem to clear his name.
One day he seemed poised to be the next ruler of this province and the next,
with reputation besmirched, his staff turned on him (even as those reporting to
Joseph seem to have abandoned him) and now who knows what his future holds.
I know a teacher who was exonerated of similar accusations
made by students. He never taught again. He couldn't deal with the emotional
toll that took. Unsubstantiated harassment charges have even struck closer to
home causing even more emotional hurt and chaos.
Joseph we know was innocent but he went to jail.
As well as false accusations from others, there are real
abuses that real people do suffer at the hands of people in authority over them
which is why we have things like #metoo. I am a part of an hierarchical
organization and have certainly been privy to stories of apparent abuses of power. Power,
however, be it the power of a teacher, a politician, an employer or a
high-ranking employee, may indeed be tenuous.[3]
No matter how secure we may feel, doing the work of God or the work of man, we
are indeed vulnerable.
We can be vulnerable to well-meaning social movements that
quickly become like the French Revolution's guillotine which even took the head
of the head of the revolution. We can be vulnerable to circumstance or
vindictive people. We can feel completely secure in our job and our life; we
can feel we are completely safe and secure, in charge of all of the business
operations of a powerful person or a company or a ministry; we can even be poised
to become premier of a country's largest province... and then we aren't.
(One minute you're on top of the world and the next thing
you know, you're non-stop to nowhere - FP)
Our Lord and Saviour was executed for treason. That trial
seemed trumped up and certainly didn’t last very long. He went from being
accused to being arrested, to being condemned, and then to die in no time at
all.
Today is the second Sunday of Lent. Do we know what Lent is
all about? Why do many Christians observe lent? It is to get us ready for
Easter and Good Friday: the death and resurrection of our Lord. Lent is an
opportunity for repentance, prayer and fasting. It reminds us of the forty days
Jesus spent fasting in preparation for entering into ministry. Traditionally
people give up eating meat (other than fish) on Fridays and some people will
also give up chocolate or something else for Lent.
This year Lent began on Valentine’s Day. This Valentine’s
Day at a Kiwanis luncheon, Susan and I were seated next to a Roman Catholic
friend, He did order the fish and he didn’t have the chocolate even on
Valentine’s Day. Lent is a time to make ourselves ready for Easter through
repentance, prayer, and fasting.
I think that a key way to prepare ourselves for worship of
the Lord through Lent is to realize that indeed God is in control of our lives.
In the lectionary for today there are readings from Genesis 17 where God
reminds Abraham that YHWH is the one who is going to bless Abraham. Abraham
won’t achieve things, God will provide them. We can’t achieve things, the LORD
will provide. And Romans 4:13-25 speaks about the faith of Abraham and God’s
faithfulness. This is important. Salvation comes from Christ alone. There is
nothing we can to do to achieve it. Our perceived security through wealth,
position, intelligence, or integrity is a lie. We cannot be self-sufficient.
·
1 Samuel 17:47 "...it is not by sword or spear
that the Lord saves; for the battle belongs to the Lord..."
·
Ecclesiastes 9:11 “…The race is not to the swift or the
battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant
or favour to the learned…”
·
Zechariah 4:6 “…This is the word of the LORD to
Zerubbabel: 'Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says the LORD
Almighty.”
·
Acts 4:12: “Salvation is found in no one else, for
there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be
saved.”
·
2 Corinthians 12:9-10: But he said to me, “My grace is
sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will
boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest
on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in
hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am
strong.
·
Deuteronomy 8:10-18a: When you have eaten and are
satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. Be careful
that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his
laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and
are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds
and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is
multiplied, then your heart will become
proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt,
out of the land of slavery. He
led you through the vast and dreadful wilderness, that thirsty and waterless
land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. He gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your
ancestors had never known, to humble and test you so that in the end it might go
well with you. You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands
have produced this wealth for me.”
·
Proverbs 16:18: Pride comes before a fall
Joseph, whom we read about in Genesis 39, had a significant
amount of power placed in his hands – maybe for the second time in his life, if
we count the sway he had over his dad in childhood. I don’t know if he had
become or was at risk of becoming proud due to his position and status and
favour or whatever else. I do believe, however, that these accusations from
Potiphar’s wife which precipitated his time in jail must have hurt him a lot.
He must have realized just how vulnerable he was. He must have realized that it
is not by his might that he survives but purely by the grace of God. Job
34:14-15: “If God were to withdraw his Spirit, all life would disappear and
mankind would turn again to dust.”
And so it is with us today. It is in moments of insecurity
that we turn to the Lord for security. It is when we are broken that He can
make us whole. It is when we are fallen that He may lift us up. A verse that I
often turn to when I am reminded of my vulnerability is from 1 Samuel 17:47
"...it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle
belongs to the Lord..."
This week Billy Graham was ‘Promoted to Glory’. He always
put the gospel in its most basic form. We need salvation. There is trouble
everywhere. The Clash sounds that in this life there will be trouble and as we
stay there may be double. Matthew 6:33, God knows what we need; God will be
with us in our troubles and as we seek first the Kingdom of God and His
righteousness all we need will be added unto us.
Psalm 46:10: God: “be still and know that I am God.” Lent is
a time to be still and focus on God rather than on ourselves. It is reminiscent
of Jesus’ time in the desert and can remind us of Joseph’s time on his way to
prison before he is lifted up. So today
I encourage us not to rely on our positions, our strength, our skills, our
talents, our smarts, our looks, or anything else – just like with Joseph in
Genesis 39, they can all disappear in a moment but let us instead look to our
Saviour for our Salvation. For salvation comes from Christ alone.
Let us pray.
Check out new blogs daily at
[1] Cf. Terence
E. Fretheim, The Book of Genesis, (NIB I: Abingdon Press: Nashville, 1994), 610
[2] Cf. John H.
Sailhamer. The, Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Genesis/Exposition
of Genesis/VI. The Account of Jacob (37:1-49:33)/E. Joseph in the House of
Potiphar (39:1-23), Book Version: 4.0.2 : 7-20 This story about Joseph reverses
a well-known plot in the patriarchal narratives.
[3] Cf. Terence
E. Fretheim, The Book of Genesis, (NIB I: Abingdon Press: Nashville, 1994),
612.
Posts
