The promise of God's restoring work for humanity and creation seldom appears to have an easy time maintaining any momentum. Each time the promise seems to be well on its way to success it ends up taking a detour into difficult and dangerous circumstances. The conclusion of the Joseph story is one such deadly detour.
We left the story of the promise last week with Jacob and his clan safely ensconced in Egypt with plenty to eat and connections to power (which means the promise is safe). What we did not take a look at was the cost of that safety. If we carefully read the texts at the end of Genesis what we discover is that Joseph, while being able to save Egypt and his family from starvation also assisted the Pharaoh in consolidating all power into Pharaoh's hands. The Pharaoh essentially makes slaves of all Egyptians and ultimately of the clan of Joseph (who have come to be known as Hebrews).
This enslavement then poses one more threat to the promise. The question becomes how can a community of slaves ever be God's instruments of universal salvation and restoration? That question is the one posed in the opening lines of the book of Exodus, the second book of our English Bible.
"8 Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9 He said to his people, "Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. 10 Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land." 11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh." Exodus 1:8-11 (NRSV)
In some sense this is the constant condition of the Promise. It is held captive by someone. Martin Luther (the first of those who worked to reform the church in the 1500s) wrote a pamphlet entitled "The Babylonian Captivity of the Church." Though we will deal with Babylonians later what we can gain from his writing is that the church, and the promise it holds, is always at risk of being taken captive and losing its power to transform persons and the world.
As most of us are aware we, the people of God are just that, people. We are not perfect and are constantly making missteps in our attempts to live out the Promise in such a way that our relationship with God, others and the world are fully restored. While we desire to live out the Promise we are often led astray by those who claim to be able to have all of the answers as to how the Promise ought to be lived out. We see this in our own time in those who preach an exclusivist Gospel (only certain people are acceptable to God) or a self-centered Gospel (God is all about me and not about my serving others). When the church follows one of these paths (among many) it allows the promise of God's reconciling and restoring love to be held captive…its transforming power diminished.
The challenge before us at First Presbyterian Church of Birmingham is to be constantly checking in with scripture and tradition in such a way that we set the Promise free rather than holding it captive by our preconceived notions of what church and faith are all about. As we head into a new decade I believe we are up to the task of being the Promise bearers for God and for God's Son, Jesus the Christ.
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