Power and Desperation
Posted on Jul 24, 2016 by Shera Payne No comments
Genesis 42:1-25
The Old Testament has a lot of history in it, some death and bloodshed, people in desperate straits and a helping of vengeance. Some might say that this has little relevance to our lives today.
But parts of it speaks to us across the ages, SHOUTS to us about power and desperation-
We can see on the one hand how God can use people in power to further His plan, and on the other hand how in the most desperate of situations he might be preparing us for greater things.
So, who has power?
Many people in our world have power
In 1887 Lord Acton, historian and moralist said “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” He wasn’t the first to say something like this but it’s the most well remembered.
There’s more than a grain of truth in this. Throughout the ages people in power have often abused it- Roman emperors declared themselves gods, (one made a senator of his horse!). Napoleon declared himself emperor.
In 2013 Kim Jong Un of North Korea declared that the people were only allowed to wear one of 28 styles of haircut and why? Well, just because he could!
Closer to home the bread winner- traditionally a man comes home with brown envelope on a Friday- puts it on the mantelpiece minus his beer & fags money. He leaves what he considers enough for housekeeping. This might be something from the past but I bet it still does happen.
You don’t need to be important or well known to exercise power and in each of these cases there is someone in charge who calls the shots, usually unchallenged and accountable to nobody.
Someone on whom many rely for well-being, health, happiness, life or death. At this person’s decision or whim, lives are changed for better or for worse, and all parties know it.
The motives for abuse of power are normally self-aggrandisement, pursuit of wealth or fame or just having power for power’s sake.
Let’s be honest here. We all at times do enjoy a bit of power- the opportunity to do as we like without having to answer for it
We would love to spend all our money on ourselves, vote for the people that do us the most good, regardless of others and not use God’s gifts in service of others. How nice it would be to be in control of everything for our own ends. How dangerous, how DESTRUCTIVE would we become? Would we be happy? Is that how to serve God?
Think what it would be like to have power thrust upon you almost unexpectedly and be suddenly faced with temptation so great that it is almost impossible to resist. It WOULD be almost impossible to resists, unless you are someone special. Someone whom God has chosen for a specific task. Someone like Joseph.
You know the background to Joseph’s rise to power:
Favoured by his father over his brothers.
Dreams sent from God showing his brothers bowing down before him
They get fed up, throw him into a pit and then sell him to passing traders, feigning his death
Sold as a slave to Potiphar, works his way up till he is the head of the household and BANG once again knocked back- this time by lies from Potiphar’s wife enraged by his refusal to give in to her amorous advances. Off he goes to prison for a time. Interprets a couple of dreams and as a result is released into Pharaoh’s household where he interprets Pharaoh’s dreams as God’s message of impending famine. Once again he rises to the top, only this time he is the second most powerful person in Egypt, responsible for managing the country’s food supply for the next 14 years (7 years of plenty then 7 years of nothing).
THIS IS SOME JOURNEY!!
So here he is, still with faith in God despite all he’s been through. Now he faces a big test- how will he handle this new found power?
Famine filled the land. An international disaster we would say today. People starving, whole villages dying out and not just in Egypt. Into the middle of this walks Joseph’s brothers, hungry and exhausted from Canaan, come to buy grain without which they and their large extended family would starve.
These are the guys who threw him into a pit. Without them he wouldn’t have been a slave, been falsely imprisoned and suffered for years far from home, far from family.
If you were Joseph, what thought would be going through your mind? You now have the cause of your misery and lost years before you begging for help, defenceless while you have ultimate power. You can do whatever you like to these people. Nobody will blame you. They DESERVE IT don’t they?
You might think that the greatest tests of Joseph’s life had been all he had suffered at the hands of his brothers, Potiphar’s wife, the prison…
Well, actually this is his greatest test of all. Previously he had suffered and been tested without having any power to respond. Now his “enemies” are before him like rabbits caught in the headlights, and he has the power of life or death over them. How to resist such temptation to take revenge??
BIT HE RESISTED THE TEMPTATION…. AND THAT’S THE POINT!
What was is that enabled Joseph to use his power to help his brothers rather than destroy them? What were his motives?
Joseph recognised his brothers immediately although they had no idea who he was (clean shaven, Egyptian language and appearance etc)
He will have remembered the dreams he had which caused so much trouble and will have pretty quickly realised that here, now, they were being fulfilled. This is a further test for Joseph- how important he must be that his own God-sent dreams have been fulfilled – a green light to exact revenge on the wrongdoers!!
However, Joseph saw far beyond his. He not only realised is dreams were being fulfilled; he also began to understand the REASON for them.
This wasn’t all happening just to give him the opportunity to get his own back- No, he realised that God had planned this all along and God had put him in the position to protect and save his family.
The power, position and prestige that God had given Joseph was to serve a purpose greater than revenge.
The leadership that God had given him also carried with it the responsibility to use power for a greater good.
This is a message for our time- rather than being aware of the power we yield (at whatever level) we should acknowledge that we have power by God’s grace and that it has been given to us for a purpose.
Going back to his dreams for a moment- many people say you can make the Bible say what you want it to- you can interpret bits to suit your own agenda. Like it or not, people do do this. But not Joseph! This was a message from God and had he been filled with vengeance and hatred, Joseph could easily have justified the most appalling acts against his brothers as having been prophesied and thus approved of by God. After all, hadn’t God shown his brothers bowing down to him? What more evidence do you need?
Joseph did actually start off treating them a bit harshly.
On the pretence of accusing them of being spies, threw them in jail for 3 days but made sure they were together. Undoubtedly this was to give them the chance to discuss their predicament and maybe this powerful Egyptian’s treatment of them was actually God’s punishment for the sins against Joseph all those years ago? How should they react? How did they feel? This would have been a desperate time for them
The relationship between their present predicament and their treatment of Joseph was too obvious to overlook. Each of them acknowledged that their difficulties were the result of their sin in regard to Joseph.
They had pleaded for mercy and not received it, just as Joseph had cried for help from the pit and they had ignored him. Reuben then reminded them of his warnings and their resistance.
Sin always has consequences and they were realising how painful this was. The brothers may also be realising the hand of God in their lives.
They were desperate and fearful for their lives. But yet out if their desperation came a sense of shame and remorse: in verse 21 they say “Truly we are guilty concerning our brother, because we saw the distress of his soul when he pleaded with us, yet we would not listen; and Joseph, being able to understand their language (though they still didn’t know who he was) learned of this and was deeply moved. and Joseph, being able to understand their language (though they still didn’t know who he was) learned of this and was deeply moved.
Joseph knew why God had given him this power. He knew God had a reason for delivering his brothers to him and he knew he must use his power for God’s purpose rather than selfish ends.
He recognised their desperation and forgave them.
The brothers hadn’t talked about what they did to Joseph 20 years previously but now they were forced into dredging up the past that they had denied for so long. You see by his actions Joseph had also freed them from this terrible secret which had kept them imprisoned (though not physically) for all this time, the brothers hadn’t talked about what they did to Joseph 20 years previously but now they were forced into dredging up the past that they had denied for so long. You see by his actions through Joseph, God had also freed them from this terrible secret which had kept them imprisoned (though not physically) for all this time.
This also should resonate with us- how often do we keep ourselves prisoner of our own consciences? We can easily oppress ourselves and become imprisoned by an invisible jailer when actually God has the key to our release if only we knew how to ask..
The whole of Psalm 88 is a plea to God for release from a hopeless world. The narrator has been “sick and close to death since youth” and stands “hopeless and desperate” before God’s terrors. It is a Psalm of no answers and offers no solution to this man’s terrible plight. However, as I said the text in one long plea to God. We all get down from time to time, sometimes very very low. Grief and depression take a long time to heal but with faith we can always take our problems to God and although like Joseph’s imprisonment, it will take time, we must have faith in God’s solution reaching us.
At the beginning I asked who has power in our world and there were examples of people using this power badly. Most of us will never wield huge power (nor would we want to) but we are all able to change and influence those around us so let’s all take a leaf out of Joseph’s book and use what power we have for the good of all and the glory of God. Whether this is the way we spend or money, the people we vote for or the way we comfort people in need, let’s make sure we do it for the right reasons, God’s reasons.
Sermon: Andy Littlewood 24 July 2016