PsalmTree Daily

“How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?”

The Lord was with Joseph and he prospered…

Wonderful words. We believe them. We count on them for our own lives. But, often that’s as far as it goes.

Life is filled with blessings. The source isn’t always clear. Sometimes blessings seem to be the result of our own hard work. Sometimes blessings seem to come from family or friends…or employers. Joseph worked for Potiphar and lived in his house. When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, Potiphar put him in charge of his household,and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. So he left in Joseph’s care everything he had; “with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate”.

Practically speaking, it was Joseph’s house. He could have chosen to view himself as a “self-made” man or he could have credited Potiphar for his success. Either way, he was a big deal. Even Potiphar’s wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me!”

Here’s where it gets interesting. Most of us would say “I can’t do that. Potiphar has given me everything I have. I won’t insult him like this, or betray his trust.”  From a human perspective we would be right.

Not Joseph. He understood that if God prospered him he was then under God’s authority and control. Joseph didn’t even think about Potiphar. He correctly regarded Potiphar as nothing more than a tool in God’s hand. Therefore, he was of no consequence when Joseph made decisions about right and wrong.

This is important because the world is full of “Potiphar’s wives“, people who tempt us to misbehave. What if that person is a person of earthly influence? Are we more likely to give in? Of course.

Or, we could live like Joseph and view these as people of no consequence.

Live boldly out there today…

“Judah recognized them and said, “She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn’t give her to my son Shelah.”

Let’s not get distracted by the sordid details…Judah consorting with a woman he believes is a prostitute, and finding out she is his own daughter-in-law.

Hard to put a good spin on this one…

Judah was obviously a “Big Shot“. He moved about in his community and got what he wanted. He also did what he wanted. Big shots get to do this. Judah also suffered loss. Two of his sons died and his wife died. Big shots often endure the same pain as the rest of us. But, Big Shots get to take matters into their own hands…

Judah promised Tamar his youngest son…but never followed through. Whatever the reason, nobody held him accountable.

Judah told Tamar to move back home with her dad and she did…with no record of how her dad felt about it. Big Shots wield that kind of authority.

Judah no longer had a wife so he sought another outlet for his cravings. Somebody must have rationalized it away. Nobody told him he couldn’t, or shouldn’t.

In the end, an entire family…probably the entire community…was disrupted. Babies were born and Judah had to endure a healthy dose of humility. To his credit, he handled it well once he recognized his failures.

When we are Big Shots only God is left to keep us in line. That can be embarrassing. Perhaps we should be thankful for our own little corner of existence…where our friends and families are perfectly content to keep us in line.

Live boldly out there today…

“Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had:  We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.”

In Luke 2:18 we are told “Mary pondered these things in her heart”. Good advice for Joseph, son of Jacob.

Mary correctly understood that nobody would really appreciate what the angel of the Lord had just told here about bearing Jesus. Some things are best left unsaid. Occasionally our ego gets in the way and we just have to tell somebody. So, when you’re the youngest child and you have a dream that you will rule over all your siblings…the siblings need to hear it.

I get it…

But, siblings don’t always take the news well…and Joseph paid for his indiscretion. If we aren’t careful we want to look at this as nothing more than the seminal event in the life story of a great Pharoah who personally rescued Israel from famine. After all, Joseph simply relayed what God had told him. He wasn’t responsible for his brothers’ reaction.

I’m more inclined to see this as a human failure that God turned into a great victory.

We can let our egos get the best of us…and hope God picks up the pieces of our broken lives. Some of us are living in that metaphorical pit right now. Or, we can spend a little more time “pondering“. It worked for Mary. She was never thrown in a pit. She was never sold as a slave. She was never cast into prison.

Live boldly out there today…

“These were the kings who reigned in Edom before any Israelite king reigned”

People have long memories…nations, even longer.

Adolph Hitler liked to remind the United States that “5 centuries before Columbus discovered America the German people were ruling central Europe”. The Germans had a sense of history and entitlement. Central Europe was theirs. Half the Holy Roman Emperors were German. This sense of national identity led to World War Two. After World War One the Treaty of Versailles attached such draconian punishments against Germany that the german people felt it was an insult to their honor, their traditions and their rightful place in European history.

I can’t excuse nationalism as a cause for killing millions of people. I understand nationalism as a force for cohesion and vision and action in the psyche of all countries. Which, brings us to the Palestinians.

Esau was the father of the Edomites. His descendents were kings of their land long before any Israelite king reigned.  That was a long time ago but people tend to not forget when they have been abused, slighted or displaced. Thousands of years don’t always mean much to a collective people that wants to reclaim what is theirs.

I’m not excusing Islamic violence. I’m suggesting that it’s not as simple as saying “get over it…that was thousands of years ago!”  When we talk about the “Muslim problem” we need to bear in mind a history that is very compelling to the disenfranchised…if not to us. For them Israel is still an interloper. I’m not a politician but I am a prayer. This could be one that the politicians won’t get right. If that’s the case it could make WWII look like a drive by shooting. More prayer and less politicking may be a more productive approach.

Live boldly out there today…

“Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes. Then come, let us go up to Bethel, where I will build an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone.”

Jacob apparantly had “god” problems ever since his wife stole her father’s household gods when they left. I guess I was under the impression that Jacob probably got rid of them once the confrontation with Laban was over.

I guess I was wrong…

It seems so incongruent from our expectations that one or our great patriarchs struggled with idolatry. We are probably far more sanguine regarding our own struggles with the same issue. Lest we protest, I think we should take a look…

I have 2 wide-screen HD televisions set up on, what amounts to, altars in my home. I don”t bow before them but I certainly recline…and spend hours receiving their messages. I even obey many of them.

I have IRA’s that dominate my decision-making…allowing me to feel secure about my future welfare. I have a nice SUV with all the bells and whistles…that influences the rest of my budget. Mali and I have 2 iphones and an ipad…to ensure we communicate well…even though God doesn’t have an AT&T data plan. Oh, and my house…which contains these “household gods” is probably the only reason I’m actually still working.

Our “gods” are those things that influence our behavior and decision-making. They get us to do things we would not otherwise do. To the degree that these gods detracts from our devotion to “God”, they are destructive. Do I give God as much time as I give my HDTV? Do I give God as much money as I give my mortgage lender? 

I’m not preaching, only asking. When Jacob decided he wanted to rekindle his relationship with God he instinctively knew he needed to strip away all the gods that distracted him. It surely helped him focus. I suppose hearing God is more difficult when we are concentrating on our iphones…

Just a thought…

And, by the way…we could change our clothes as well. I’m really tired of seeing shorts and t-shirts in worship. I wonder if Jacob understood it might be hard for God to take us seriously when we don’t take him seriously. 

Of course, this only really matters if we want God to answer us when we call. Lest we begin thinking God is way to “uptight” about these things it would be helpful to notice that God didn’t tell Jacob to do any of this. Jacob figured it out on his own.

Live boldly out there today…

But Hamor said to them, “My son Shechem has his heart set on your daughter. Please give her to him as his wife. Intermarry with us; give us your daughters and take our daughters for yourselves. You can settle among us; the land is open to you. Live in it, trade in it, and acquire property in it.”

There is just no way we can put a positive spin on a brutal rape. But… I guess a boy’s dad is bound to try. When the evil deed came out Shechem’s dad attempted to recharacterize the situation. “Look at the big picture!” he said. “It’s a small price to pay for becoming our relatives and sharing our wealth, and really…my son loves her!”"

Really? I wonder what Dinah thought about that kind of affection…

We often use such a guise to cover up our bad behavior. Before we know it, we no longer evaluate the morality of our behavior itself but of the possible results of the behavior. Joseph Fletcher called it “situational ethics“.

Jacob fell into the same trap. After his sons got vengeance he said “you have brought trouble on me…I and my household will be destroyed.”  So…the action itself  has no moral weight of its own. It depends on the results. In basketball they call it “no harm, no foul” which of course is a lie. A foul is a foul whether injury is inflicted or not…unless we officially change the definition. Even at that, the concept of “harm’ is pretty subjective. Rick Porter broke my nose (unintentionally, I think) during a “pick-up” basketball game at SPBC. No foul was called! So, even the revised rule isn’t always dependable.

God is not in the business of changing definitions. He has made right and wrong perfectly clear. We can beg God to look at the bigger picture but I suspect He doesn’t have to. He “IS” the bigger picture.

Live boldly out there today…

“But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him and they wept.”

Do you think Jacob was surprised? Of course he was. He thought is was up to him to set things striaght. It never occurred to him that God might be dealing with his brother as well.

So, Jacob prepared for the worst (not really a bad idea) and was surprised by the best. It’s a happy story but I think a lot of stress could have been avoided if Jacob had prayed differently. In 32:11 Jacob prayed “save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me“. Perhaps his prayer could have been something like “Lord, soften Esau’s heart and restore his love for me“.

Of course, we don’t often believe others listen to God as well as we do…

Live boldly out there today…

“Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.”

Jacob was a manipulator. “Manipulating” people was his “sin of choice“. And…it was making his life unmanagable. As he contemplated his return to Esau he knew there were issues between the two of them. He was concerned enough that he prepared for battle.

Jacob was prepared to recognize his own shortcomings in his relationship with Esau. We see later in the chapter…when he wrestled with the angel…Jacob was transformed and much of it was due to his willingness to bear responsibility for his actions.  And when we see Jacob’s name changed we see the potential of something new. When we look at this chapter thoughtfully we can see  something remarkably similar to a 12 step program emerging (12 sons, a coincidence? I think not!) .

1. We admit we are powerless over our sinfulness—that our lives have become unmanageable (Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid)
2. Come to believe that a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity. (I won’t let you go until you bless me!).

I don’t often wonder what prevents me from mending relationships. It usually begins with a conviction that I can manage things on my own. It goes down hill from there. Corrective action generally looks alot like Jacob, recognizing the mess we’ve made of things. But…their is more.

• Admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
• Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of  character.
• Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
• Make a list of all persons we have harmed, and become willing to make amends to them all.
• Make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
• Continue to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admit it.
• Seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
• Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to otheer sinners, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Sound familiar? It’s not just for alcohol and drugs. It’s for whatever sin is getting in your way. It’s transformative but…I didn’t say it was easy!

Live boldly out there today…

“Remember that God is a witness between you and me.”

Jacob means “layer of snares“. We can see this quality in Jacob. In 2012 he would be called a used car salesman (sorry…). On the positive side, people rarely “get over” on a used car salesman. He knows his craft too well. Same with Jacob. He could see it coming: If he didn’t do something on his own he would leave empty-handed. This chapter, and the preceding one, records quite a story of manipulation. Of course, Laban was no paragon of virtue…

If we’re not careful we forget that Jacob is also a man to whom God spoke…and was heard.

When God said “Go back to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you.” He didn’t also say “and take all your stuff with you“. Nevertheless that made sense to Jacob so he gathered all his stuff…and some of Laban’s stuff…if you count the household god that Rachel took. So, they figuratively stole the “family silver” on their way out the door. Laban chased him.

Than an amazing thing happened. God spoke to Laban as well. Before we know it…with the same God speaking to both parties…we have a peace treaty. Mispah!

We all have acquaintances who contend with us. Everything is difficult. We feel defensive and find ourselves doing everything we can just to keep our composure. Often our conduct is not becoming. What would happen if God spoke to that person like He speaks with us?

Live boldly out there today…

“So when Jacob came in from the fields that evening, Leah went out to meet him. “You must sleep with me,” she said. “I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes.” So he slept with her that night”.

We should get one thing straight: Chicanery in the name of God’s will should never be equated with God’s will. In other words, God willed that Abraham be the father of many nations. This doesn’t mean that God willed the activities in this chapter that produced twelve children.

God was highly invested so He was going to work with the consequences of Jacob and Rachel and Leah’s actions. This happens all the time. We misbehave, things work out OK and we convince ourselves it’s God’s will.

When I read through this chapter I can’t help but observe that 12 children was more the result of human intent than Divine intent. I doubt God needed 12 tribes to satisfy the Abrahamic covenant. This should be a word of caution…positive results are not a dependable measure of the holiness of our conduct. Sometimes they are only a measure of God’s intent on getting His way in spite of us.

It’s a nice “fallback” strategy but not one we should be proud of.

Live boldly out there today…