There is at my house a picture I treasure. In that picture I am about three years old, and my father is holding me in his arms. You look at my father and you see that he is wearing the cap of a service station attendant. Shell Oil, it says. Nothing especially remarkable about that, except that the story my grandparents always told me whenever we looked at that picture was, “Oh, you know your dad failed at running that station. He was no businessman. Gave people credit, and they didn’t pay him. Ran the business into the ground, had to give it up.” My grandparents always told me the story of a man who lost out. Too bad about Everett Smith, they would say. Failure!
But I don’t buy that interpretation these days. I’m not three years old anymore, and now when I look at that picture I don’t see a failure in a Shell Oil cap. I see something else entirely. I see a man who was dealt some hard knocks, but didn’t learn to hate those who struck him. I see a man who was given a hard time in life, but who never lost his faith. And so now, when my soul looks back, and I wonder how I got over, I look at his life story and learn again that all things do finally work together for good for those who love God and who are called according to God’s purpose.
Most of the time, when people tell their life stories, they speak about their pain. Listen just a little while, and people will describe for you how something scarred them. They will tell you about the cutting comment that stayed with them for many years. They will speak about the caustic criticism that they never quite shook off. Listen just a little while to anybody telling you his life story, and you will eventually hear a cry of pain.
Do you have a life story like that? A life story that somebody might call a failure? A life story scarred by criticism and messed up by hatred? Few there are who do not have something we look back on, and it hurts us still. We look back in anger, or in disappointment, or in fear. Something we have done, and we are still afraid it may catch up with us; or something done to us, and we don’t feel we ever got over it. Our souls look back, and we feel wounded. Just speaking about this, I can remember harsh things that people said to me when I was as young as twelve years old, and they still sting! You say, “Get over it”, and basically I have. But my life story, and yours, I’m guessing, include some painful moments. When our souls look back, don’t we wonder how we got over?
I know of a man who had had a bright future as a youngster. He was so intelligent, so capable, so much the apple of his parents’ eye. This young man, part of a large family, was a standout. Something about him just caught your attention, and you knew he had tremendous potential. Had he been a member of this church, his picture would have been posted out here on the bulletin board. Oh, he was so brilliant! His parents just couldn’t do enough for him. They gave him all sorts of advantages. They showered gifts on their standout son. This young man was born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. Everything set to go.
But he had not reckoned on something sinister that was brewing, right in his own family. Something that would take a terrible turn and would change his life forever. Something that could, in fact, have turned this young man into bitterness and hostility. But strangely, wonderfully, it did not.
You know this young man. His story is told in the Book of Genesis. His name was Joseph. Joseph of the coat of many colors. Joseph, son of Jacob and Rachel, sold into slavery by his brothers, shipped off to Egypt, where they hoped he would disappear. Joseph, who survived it, became the king’s right hand man, and lived to confront his brothers again. I don’t need to repeat the whole story for you – how those brothers came to Egypt looking for food, but did not even recognize Joseph. You remember how Joseph made them go back home and bring their aged father; you remember how there was reconciliation and a whole new day for that family.
But let me take you to a crucial spot in the story. Let me take you to the moment when the father, Jacob, has died. The family structure is about to change. You’ve seen this kind of thing. You can guess what’s about to happen. I’ve done a lot of funerals after which somebody would say, “I don’t know what’s going to happen to us now; Mama was the glue that held us together.” Well, now, in this Bible story, a band of brothers who have been loyal to their father, are looking at disintegration. They know that without Jacob around to keep things “nice”, all the old garbage is going to come out. And so Joseph’s brothers named their fear. “Joseph, with Dad gone and buried, we’re worried. We’re worried that you will retaliate and get even for all we did to you. Joseph, now that Jacob is dead, and you are in power, what’s next? What can we expect from you? We’re scared, Joseph, that things are going to get mean now that Daddy isn’t here to keep you calm!” They were scared out of their wits! But just listen to the answer they got!
“You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”
You meant it for evil, but God … but God meant it for good. Somehow Joseph got over the terrible thing done to him and saw things in a new way.
I
Does your soul ever look back and wonder how you got over? How did we ever got over the stuff that was done to us? Some of us came out of grinding poverty. I’m sure you’ve heard all the sentimental stories about how wonderfully fulfilling it is to be poor. But you know better, don’t you? Being poor wears out both the body and the soul.
If it wasn’t poverty, maybe it was prejudice. I doubt that I have to instruct anybody in this room about how racism feels and how shattering it is to the spirit. I suspect that I need not recount for this congregation the stuff that has been thrown in your faces and the language that has been spat at you, even if certain public figures have conveniently forgotten what they said in their younger years. We wonder how we ever got past all the stuff that people did to us. Not just what they did physically; more importantly, what they did emotionally. How they attacked us spiritually.
A whole lot of us, even the ones that look privileged, have painful life stories to tell. It was rough!
But did you know that sometimes we bring that on ourselves? Can you see that sometimes we invite the pain that others inflict? Now I’m not talking about blaming the victim. Not at all. But isn’t it true that sometimes we bring on ourselves some of the stuff that comes down?
Joseph had been too good a young man. Too good, and he knew it. In some circles we’d call him “uppity.” Too high and mighty. Do you remember Joseph’s dreams? “Brothers, I dreamed that you were stars, and I was a superstar, and you bowed down to me.” “Brothers, I dreamed that you all were little puny shocks of grain, and you bowed down to my megahaystack?!” Oh, I don’t know anybody who likes being put down. And so Joseph’s brothers resented him. He acted as though he was too good for them, and they didn’t like it.
Is it possible that sometimes we bring hostility on ourselves by our arrogance? Is it possible that sometimes we invite others to gang up on us because we project a superior air? Is it possible that even Christians invite anger because we are too holy by half?
Several months ago, I was in a committee meeting, talking about renovating a building for use by a seminary on whose board I sit. When the idea of finding an architect came up, I said, “The church where I used to be pastor has in its membership several architects, and I imagine one of them might like the job.” But the pastor across the table said, “My church has in its membership the head of the American Institute of Architects, who has already said he will do the job for free.” I thought I saw an arrogant toss in that pastor’s head. Then the conversation turned to legal work, getting some contracts drawn up. Who could do that work? And, not having learned anything on the architect item, I said, “The church I served has several lawyers in it. I could ask one of them to review the contract.” And he said – this pastor across the table – “Well, we have about two hundred lawyers in our church. We can do it in one day’s time.” Wow! How do you think I felt? I felt kind of small. I felt kind of cheap. I felt a slight resentment. Should I have felt that? No. Was it right? No. But was it real? Yes. Because when, like Joseph, you put yourself out there as superior you invite attacks. When you set yourself up as the best and the brightest, in this competitive world of ours, somebody is going to want to shoot you down.
When my soul looks back, and I see how the sin in my life invites hostility, I wonder how I got over. When my soul looks back, and I see that some of the things that have happened to me I asked for, I wonder how I got over. And when my soul looks back at how we Christians represent our goody-goodness to the world, and act as though we had a corner on all things decent, I wonder how we expect to get over our message to a broken and hurting world! Put it down as point number one: if you are proud and arrogant, if you are self-righteous and superior, like Joseph had been, just expect hostility. It will come. When my soul looks back and I see my own sin, I wonder how I got over.
II
However, there is another side. There is another perspective. For there are some people who are easily drawn into hostility and hatred. There are some of us who get offended easily and play the blame game. Why? Because life is hard and we need a scapegoat. We’ve messed up and we need somebody to blame. And so we get drawn into the fires of hatred.
Have you ever felt you were being attacked, and you just couldn’t believe that some people you thought were your friends were in on this fight? Have you ever found yourself overwhelmed by the hostility of others who seemed to be totally out of control? Then maybe you can sense what I’m talking about. Because we’ve got to find some reason to explain our own problems, we’ve got to find some way to interpret why we’ve failed, we look for a scapegoat.
There’s poor Joseph, out there in that field, with all of his brothers. They are thoroughly put off by this arrogant, know-it-all, mama’s boy brother of theirs. Some of them begin to think of some pretty serious stuff, like killing the rotten kid. One or two put the damper on that. But in the end ten brothers gang up and sell Joseph out! Ten of them, a unanimous decision!
Wasn’t there somebody who would hold out for decency? Wasn’t there at least one who would hold back the others? Wouldn’t you think that out of ten, somebody would stand up for justice and for mercy? No, not one. Not one. They ganged up on Joseph and sold him down the river and never looked back. All of them. What was this about? It was about scapegoating. It was about taking their own inadequacy and putting it on somebody else.
What do you make of the hostility toward the Jews in Nazi Germany? How could a nation in which the gospel had been preached for more than a thousand years turn, with such awesome violence, against the Jews? It’s partly about race, and partly about religion. But it’s mostly about an economy in which so many were poor, so many were hungry – and the Jews looked too prosperous. They looked too successful. They looked too much like Joseph! And so the Jews became a convenient whipping boy. All it took was a little rhetoric, a little stirring of the pot, and it wasn’t long before six million died in the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Where were the Christians to stand up and stop that? Snowed under by their own insecurity and blinded by their own failures.
What do you make of the redneck phenomenon in the American South? How do you explain a group of white folks who seem unbending in their distaste for African-Americans? Some of them go to church and hear the good news and probably even sing, “Jesus loves the little children, red and yellow, black and white”. And yet their hearts are full of venom and oppression. How do you explain that? Because when people cannot achieve on their own, when they can’t make it happen for themselves, they look for somebody to blame. And people of color become very convenient scapegoats.
Mark this down, and take it to heart. If somebody is ganging up on you, it probably means you are doing something right! If somebody hates you, for no good reason, it just might mean that your life is so together that it invites resentment. There will always be some who cannot stand for others to be doing well, and who must tear them down. When that happens, it’s not really about you. It’s about them. It’s not really about what you have done. It’s about what they have not done. They just can’t handle others’ success.
When they gang up on you, as Joseph’s brothers did on him, do not pity yourself. Pity them. Pity those who in the smallness of their lives must find scapegoats so that they will feel larger than they are. Pity them, for theirs is a life of sheer futility and frustration. And count yourself blessed to be persecuted for your own success. The Lord Himself says it, “Blessed are you when they persecute you and say all manner of evil things against you falsely, for My sake.”
Oh, when my soul looks back, I wonder how I got past the fears of the futile and the cries of the clueless. I wonder how I got over.
III
Ah, but the truth is we do know how we got over, don’t we? Oh, we do know how we got past hatred and suspicion, now, don’t we? Don’t we really know who brought us through when everybody was ranged against us? Don’t we really know who made a way when there was no way, who exalted every valley and who made low every mountain and hill? Don’t we really know that when we faced anger, when the whole world seemed ready to do us in, there was one who understood, there was one who brought us through? Surely we know that. Joseph knew. Joseph knew who was involved with this.
Joseph’s brothers, cowering, trembling, repentant now that they’d been caught, frightened because the shoe was on the other foot – all of them bowing before the viceroy of Egypt and pleading pitifully for mercy. A day late and a dollar short, a little like certain public figures caught in compromising relationships. Not really repentant, just scared to death. Joseph’s brothers, thinking that now it’s all going to come down on them. “Oh, Joseph, please, please forgive us!” They knew they deserved punishment; they were sure they were going to get hard time. But do you remember what they got?
“You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”
You intended it for evil, but God intended it for good. You did your worst, but God did His best. You were bent on destruction, but God was set for construction. You were focused on death, but God was focused on life. You were putting down, but God was lifting up. You thought you had everything under control, but God would show you He was in control. You meant it for evil, but God took all your messing around and turned it into good according to His purposes.
How did we get over? We got over because God intended us to get over. We got over because God is at work in all things for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. We got over because God, in the most dismal of days and in the darkest of shadows, is still on His throne and is still pursuing His purposes.
One day they ganged up on my Jesus. With brutal force and cruel arms they wrestled Him to a green hill far away and stuck Him up there to die. He was too good for them. They couldn’t abide it that He would heal the sick; they couldn’t deal with someone who would listen to the poor and dine with sinners. They couldn’t handle it that the people, in love, shouted “Hosanna” and spread their cloaks out for Him. They couldn’t stand for anybody to be that good; He had to go. He showed up their shallowness. He exposed their pitiful piety. So they decided to fix my Jesus forever and put Him where He would never bother them again. Their hammers struck Him, blow on blow. Their mouths showered spite at Him. They tore His flesh; they wounded His heart. They intended nothing but harm.
But God .. but God .. who spared not His own Son but freely gave Him up for us all. God intended it for good. And on the third day He rose again, so that all would know that right is not forever on the scaffold, wrong is not forever on the throne. But standeth Christ within the shadows, keeping watch above His own. Our souls look back and wonder how we got over, but we know. We know. But God. But God.
When I see that picture of my dad, taken sixty-five years ago, I don’t see a failure in a Shell Oil cap. I see a man for whom love mattered more than anything else. I don’t see a failed businessman. I see a man of faith who just took it when others ganged up him. When I see that picture of my dad, in whose heart there should have been hatred for all that was done to him, I see only that what others meant for evil, God meant for good, to keep our family alive, to bless my soul with love. When I see that picture and know that life story, with all its pain, I know that others meant it for evil, but God … but God … the same God who raised the Lord Jesus from death, that same God meant it for good. And so when my soul looks back, today I know how I got over.
