Hungry
Scripture: Genesis 41:14-16,33-40,46-57 – Joseph part 3 of 4, Eric Vogt, Senior Pastor. Let us pray. Dream-giving, ever-sharing God, we come today trusting that every good gift comes from you, that every gift you give is meant to be shared, and finally that as we learn to share we will find that you provide enough for all. Lord, wake us from our slumber in this time, help us not only to know your dreams but to partner with you and one another and put them into action. Make us hungry for more of you and your purposes in the world. And make us your bread for all those who hunger. Utterly dependent on your liberation and your abundance we pray. Amen.
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We’re in part 3 of our 4 part series on the life of Joseph, and we’ve been connecting with Sarah Heath’s book “What’s your story?” where she wants to help us connect our dreams and stories with God’s dreams and He’sGod’s big story of redemption and restoration. So far in Joseph’s story, it seems like dreamers just get themselves in trouble. 2 weeks ago we saw in Genesis 37 how 17-year-old Joseph was his dad’s favorite, and bragged about his dream where his family would bow down to him, and his brothers throw him into a dry well, a pit, and then sell him into slavery. Last week, Pastor Valerie preached on Genesis 39 and 40, Joseph is in prison where he interprets the dreams of the king’s cupbearer and baker, saying, “don’t interpretations belong to God?” With God’s help, he explains that the cupbearer will be restored to Pharaoh’s court but the baker will be executed. Everything happens as Joseph predicted, but instead of helping Joseph out and putting in a good word with the king, the cupbearer forgets about Joseph.
So to recap, how are things going for Joseph? He’s sold into slavery by his own brothers. He’s a trafficked person living as a refugee, an exile, in a land far from home. When he won’t let his master’s wife use him as a sex object, he’s wrongly imprisoned. He’s in jail, and forgotten, and trapped. What good would dreams do now? Joseph is utterly marginalized, far from every source of power or creativity. We would do well to remember how many Josephs are near us but often invisible to us, how those at the margins struggle to keep dreaming even though their dreams may be all they have left. Objectively, Joseph seems at an utter dead end, powerless over his own destiny. Except God. Unless God intervenes, disrupts, penetrates this system of slavery and marginalization, hope is futile and fruitfulness, abundance is cut off. It’s almost painful to keep dreaming, since those dreams seem so impossible to reach.
At the complete opposite end of the power scale is Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. Pharaoh is accustomed to getting things his way, to snapping his fingers and having people make his desires happen however self-indulgent or arbitrary. This is a man at the top of the food chain, with life and death in his hands, as we see with Joseph’s cellmates the cupbearer and the baker. For both Joseph and Pharaoh, it can be hard to keep dreaming. Joseph, in the pit of oppression and injustice, can give up on thinking anything can change. Pharaoh, lulled to dreamless sleep by luxury, can lose a sense that there’s anything beyond his own power and comfort. When you get everything you imagine, your imagination grows dull and self-centered.
So for both of them, and for all of us, dreams are disruptive. They point to another way, an understanding that the world could be different. Dreams are the beginning of a great reversal that comes from God. At the beginning of today’s passage, Joseph has no power and Pharaoh has all the power. Dreams are the beginning of that getting turned upside down.
We didn’t read all of Genesis 41, so I’ll fill you in and you can go read it later. Two years after the cupbearer got out of jail but forgot about Joseph, Pharaoh has 2 dreams. In one, seven scrawny cows eat seven healthy cows on the bank of the Nile. In the second dream, 7 lean ears of grain devour 7 full heads of grain. Pharaoh is disturbed by these dreams, and asks all the scholars and Freudian psychoanalysts and religious experts to explain them, but they cannot. For once, Pharaoh is not in control – the dreams point to a world beyond his reach. The cupbearer remembers how Joseph had interpreted his dream 2 years prior, and Pharaoh summons Joseph out of the prison to interpret his dreams.
That’s where our reading picks up. Joseph shaves and changes clothes, like he’s going to a job interview. He sees the light of day and breathes free air for the first time in years, and he dresses the part of a new start. He dresses for the job he wants, not the job he has. It’s a little like baptism – not an end, but a beginning to a new life, a new story. Joseph says to Pharaoh, interpreting dreams is not about me – God will do it, God will give you an answer with shalom, with peace and well-being. You may be disturbed now, but this foreign God, the God of the Hebrews is going to bring you not just inner peace but a wholeness and connection with your surroundings. Joseph hasn’t even heard the dream yet, but he trusts that God will bring peace and wants good for Pharaoh – even if that means a challenge is ahead that will take Pharaoh off his pedestal even as it lifts Joseph up. I will be the messenger in interpreting your dream, Joseph says, but God should get the credit. The dream, as well as its interpretation and the way it will be fulfilled, it all comes from God.
So Joseph interprets the dreams, explaining to Pharaoh that both dreams are the same. The 7 thin cows and 7 thin ears of grain represent 7 years of famine that are coming, which will overtake 7 years of abundance that come first. The famine, Joseph predicts in verse 30, will devastate the land and be so severe that everyone will forget about the abundance of the past.
We’ve reached a climactic moment in Joseph’s story. 2 weeks ago, we looked at the 12 steps of the Hero’s Journey that make up all our great stories, according to scholar Joseph Campbell. (slide, p. 26-27 in Heath, “What’s your story?”) After the call to adventure (step 2) and crossing the threshold into a new and foreign land beyond what the hero has previously known (step 5), the hero encounters tests and gains needed knowledge and partners (steps 6 and 7). For Joseph, this preparation has happened through his time as a manager in Potiphar’s house, and as a dream interpreter in prison. The roles he had played made him ready for this climactic moment, step 8 in the Hero’s Journey – experience the ordeal that could lead to his greatest fear being realized, or even death. It is risky to give Pharaoh what sounds not like shalom, like peace, but rather like bad news about this coming famine. It would be safer to tell the king what he wants to hear, that the dreams are meaningless, that he’s in control, that everything will be OK. But Joseph is prepared, and he embraces the moment with boldness. Not only does he tell Pharaoh that disaster is coming, he has a plan about how it can be averted.
Joseph knows that Pharaoh’s God-given dreams don’t determine every aspect of the future. The coming abundance and famine will set a context, but the way that the leadership responds to those circumstances remains open to human activity. There’s a huge IF implied in these dreams. The land doesn’t have to be consumed and everyone doesn’t have to starve during the famine, if you respond wisely now.
So Joseph is prepared not only to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams, but to offer him a plan to address the predicted disaster. He cleverly seems to write his own job description. Here’s what you need, king. Find yourself <someone> with some real wisdom and insight (wink wink!). Put yourself on a diet before you need it – don’t get greedy during your time of abundance. I’ve heard financial planners say save 10%, give away 10%, live on 80% of your income. Well, Joseph says save 20% now, so you’ll have enough to live on and be generous with when times get hard ahead.
Pharaoh recognizes Joseph’s wisdom, and gives God the credit. Pharaoh has recognized his limitations, and it’s in this disruption of power that God enters the picture. Can we find anyone like Joseph with such God-given gifts? And Pharaoh puts Joseph in charge of all of Egypt. This is step 9 of Joseph Campbell’s “Hero’s Journey” (slide). Joseph receives the object of his desire, the fulfillment – at least in part – of his dream as an arrogant 17 year old, now 13 long and painful years later. He had dreamed of being in charge, of people bowing down to him – and now it’s happening. Not at all in the way he expected, or by a process he would have wished for, but he is finally achieving his desire.
In her book “What’s Your Story?”, Sarah Heath writes that we need to get in touch with our desires, that it’s our desires that determine the direction of our story. And our desires are shaped by who we are, our God-given identity and gifts and the roles we play. We’ve often been told, maybe especially in religious contexts, that our desires are bad. We’ve been told to ignore our desires, because we fear failure, or they seem unrealistic, or we’ll just get hurt either in getting what we want or in missing it. It’s true, our desires and longings can get misdirected, we can pursue things that are self-serving and harmful, we can put our own interests ahead of God’s purposes and the welfare of others. But just because they can be abused is no reason, Heath writes, to give up on desires and dreams in and of themselves. Instead, we need to get in touch with our deep desires and our deep identity that shapes our sense of purpose and calling.
Who am I, and what do I really want? Over the last few weeks on Sundays, as well as in the home meetings where Valerie and I are gathering with you all across the city, we’ve tried to ask about the foundations of our shared stories. Where do you come from? How did you get here? What do, what did, you want to be when you grow up? How’s that working out? Are you remembering your dreams of old? Are you fulfilling them? Are you still hungry, and for what? How can you live and give from a place of passion?
Your identity is not just your job, though we do get caught in that “what do you do for a living?” trap we discussed a few weeks ago. What are all the roles you play? (slide, page 88 in Heath book) I’m not just a pastor. I’m a dad, a husband, a son, a friend, a neighbor. A citizen, with rights and responsibilities to engage in American history and the struggle to name that black and brown and trans lives matter in Charlottesville or Austin, Durham or Travis Park across the street. I’m a steward of gifts I didn’t earn and didn’t always choose, gifts passed down to me by church and family and life circumstances, gifts that come from God and that I have a responsibility to tend and share wisely.
What’s your role in this story, and your purpose? We can identify the desires that come from God, or refine them, when we see that when we’re living in our calling, then it will give God credit and it will bless other people. Our calling, our sweet spot, won’t just build us up but will seek shalom, wellbeing, wholeness, for others. This is not predetermined, but a story we share and write together with God. It wasn’t bad for Joseph to desire the kind of leadership he did, but as a 17-year-old, he made it all about his own glory. After all these trials and tribulations, now he gives God credit and recognizes how his gaining leadership and power is for the sake of feeding other people. His hunger, his passion, his role and purpose, his identity connects with the needs and desires, the hunger, of others.
The challenge is for Joseph to stay grounded and humble, seeking the good of others, even as he is raised to new power and prominence. Both temptation and good lie inside Joseph’s original dream. It’s not bad for us to be hungry for community and belonging, for purpose and significance, for identity and value. We can’t deny or give up on those hungers, those dreams and callings. But we also have to seek them in connection with God and with others, so that we don’t distort them into making the story just about taking care of ourselves. For Joseph, as we’ll see as Pastor Billie preaches next week, he has to stay connected to his family and his Hebrew roots. Even as he has Egyptian power, an Egyptian name, Egyptian wife, God wants to use his role as an immigrant from Israel. With God, nothing about our stories, our background, our desires is wasted. Joseph can’t just leave his old life behind and forget about where he came from, even though he names his kids “forget” and “fruitful.” Even in those names, Joseph isn’t ignoring the scars and challenges of the past, but naming them. God is going to use all of Joseph’s story, his multicultural background, his access to Egyptian power and his messy Israelite heritage and family.
Dreams are disruptive, giving us a vision of a world that’s not yet here. And we need to pay attention to those dreams and desires, not dismiss them or deny them. But dreams by themselves are also not enough. God won’t just make even God’s own dreams happen without our faithful participation. For Joseph and for us, we need to couple dreams from God and their God-given interpretation together with a number of other elements.
We need dreams and. Dreams and a plan.
Dreams and action to follow the plan.
Dreams and hard-won lessons.
Dreams and the roles we didn’t know were preparing us for the role of a lifetime.
Joseph already knew how to be a manager, a steward, from his hard years enslaved with Potiphar. He knew how to be a dream interpreter from his time in prison. We need dreams and wisdom, discernment, experience. We need dreams and unlikely partners, working with and seeking the good of even our captors, our enemies, like refugees in Egypt. God wants good for Pharaoh and Egypt too, and the good of Israel is bound up in the good of Egypt. In all these things – dreams, plans, action, experience, gifts, partners – it all comes from God. We, like Joseph, need to name it. God is the one who will interpret the dreams. And through our witness, our actions and our words, our desires and our roles, our gifts and our hunger, we trust that our neighbors see God at work, as Pharaoh identifies that the Spirit of God is with Joseph. God didn’t give us the hardships. But God won’t waste those scars and the lessons learned along the way. God will use all of it, will give us a part in a grand story, but we have to keep dreaming, keep planning, keep working the plan, keep sharing our gifts, keep open to unlikely partners and plot twists, keep being open to God.
We’ve only had 3 out of 9 home meetings we’ve planned for Valerie and I to listen to your story, share ours, and seek the next chapter of Travis Park’s story together. But we’ve started to hear some repeated hungers. Travis Park has a long tradition of being hungry to welcome all people with God’s love, and especially those at the margins. How can we keep living into that dream? How do we grow our hospitality to the homeless and LGBTQ populations that have been important to us, while also seeking to provide sanctuary to other groups in need? The best of our story, the fulfillment of our story, is not behind us but is ahead of us, if we have ears to hear and the will to act on our hunger. We want to be a people who grow in community with each other, whose families are influenced for generations because of the friendships we form together. We want to be a people who pass down the gifts of our faith, this story that shapes us, a sense of identity and belonging and purpose, to younger generations.
I believe God gives us the dream, the hunger, and also gives us all we need to see that hunger satisfied not just for us but for the sake, the shalom, of others. But we have to share. We have to share our stories, our gifts, our roles. No one of us, no one pastor or staff person, no long-time lay leader who’s been a pillar of the church or some amazing new leader we keep waiting to walk through that door, no one person can do it all by themselves. We have to share the dreams and plan and gifts and action, the part in it that I bring and you bring. The abundance in one place and time is enough to meet the lack, the hunger, in another place and time. If we share.
That means we don’t just share from our places of abundance. We also have to share the hunger we feel even when that’s vulnerable. When it seems raw and honest and vulnerable to say that the future looks pretty bleak unless God shows up. Many of us have known, the church has known, a lot of abundant, fruitful years, and it appears that there is famine up ahead. Not just famine for us, for the church. There’s real hunger and lack in the world around us. This is not about only what’s good for me or my family or Travis Park or the larger Methodist church or the whole church. It’s not only about what’s good for downtown, or San Antonio, or the United States. It’s not about what’s good for either Egypt or Israel – God’s got a dream and plan that’s big enough for all of it. God’s abundance is enough to meet the needs of the lack – if we save wisely, if we share generously, if we each contribute our part. When our hunger, both need and desire, joins up with God’s dream, when we live passionately not just to feed ourselves but to be part of God’s feeding program for the whole world, then we’re living the story, the life, that we’re made for. Let’s go do that.
Pray. God, give us this day our daily bread. Give us your dream about a bigger table. Use all our stories, our roles, our gifts, our hurts and habits, use it all that all might be fed. Don’t just feed me, or my church, or my tribe, or my city. Feed our enemies. Feed our kids. Feed people we don’t know yet, and feed us through them. Make us hungry in you. Make us dream in you. Make us act and give in you. Make us satisfied in you. Amen.
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Genesis 41:14-16, 33-40, 46-57 (CEB)
14 So Pharaoh summoned Joseph, and they quickly brought him from the dungeon. He shaved, changed clothes, and appeared before Pharaoh.15 Pharaoh said to Joseph, "I had a dream, but no one could interpret it. Then I heard that when you hear a dream, you can interpret it." 16 Joseph answered Pharaoh, "It's not me. God will give Pharaoh a favorable response."
17 So Pharaoh said to Joseph, "In my dream I was standing on the bank of the Nile.
18 In front of me, seven fattened, stout cows climbed up out of the Nile and grazed on the reeds. 19 Just then, seven other cows, weak and frail and thin, climbed up after them. I've never seen such awful cows in all the land of Egypt. 20 Then the thin, frail cows devoured the first seven, fattened cows. 21 But after they swallowed them whole, no one would have known it. They looked just as bad as they had before. Then I woke up.
22 I went to sleep again and saw in my dream seven full and healthy ears of grain growing on one stalk. 23 Just then, seven hard and thin ears of grain, scorched by the east wind, sprouted after them, 24 and the thin ears swallowed up the healthy ears. I told the religious experts, but they couldn't explain it to me."
25 Joseph said to Pharaoh, “Pharaoh has actually had one dream. God has announced to Pharaoh what he is about to do. 26 The seven healthy cows are seven years, and the seven healthy ears of grain are seven years. It's actually one dream. 27 The seven thin and frail cows, climbing up after them, are seven years. The seven thin ears of grain, scorched by the east wind, are seven years of famine. 28 It's just as I told Pharaoh: God has shown Pharaoh what he is about to do. 29 Seven years of great abundance are now coming throughout the entire land of Egypt. 30 After them, seven years of famine will appear, and all of the abundance in the land of Egypt will be forgotten. The famine will devastate the land. 31 No one will remember the abundance in the land because the famine that follows will be so very severe. 32 The dream occurred to Pharaoh twice because God has determined to do it, and God will make it happen soon.
33 "Now Pharaoh should find an intelligent, wise man and give him authority over the land of Egypt. 34 Then Pharaoh should appoint administrators over the land and take one-fifth of all the produce of the land of Egypt during the seven years of abundance.
35 During the good years that are coming, they should collect all such food and store the grain under Pharaoh's control, protecting the food in the cities. 36 This food will be reserved for the seven years of famine to follow in the land of Egypt so that the land won't be ravaged by the famine."
37 This advice seemed wise to Pharaoh and all his servants, 38 and Pharaoh said to his servants, "Can we find a man with more God-given gifts than this one?" 39 Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Since God has made all this known to you, no one is as intelligent and wise as you are. 40 You will be in charge of my kingdom, and all my people will obey your command. Only as the enthroned king will I be greater than you."
41Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Know this: I've given you authority over the entire land of Egypt." 42 Pharaoh took his signet ring from his hand and put it on Joseph's hand, he dressed him in linen clothes, and he put a gold necklace around his neck. 43 He put Joseph on the chariot of his second-in-command, and everyone in front of him cried out, "Attention!" So Pharaoh installed him over the entire land of Egypt. 44 Pharaoh said to Joseph, "I am Pharaoh; no one will do anything or go anywhere in all the land of Egypt without your permission." 45 Pharaoh renamed Joseph, Zaphenath-paneah, and married him to Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera the priest of Heliopolis. Then Joseph assumed control of the land of Egypt.
46 Joseph was 30 years old when he began to serve Pharaoh, Egypt's king, when he left Pharaoh's court and traveled through the entire land of Egypt. 47 During the seven years of abundance, the land produced plentifully. 48 He collected all of the food during the seven years of abundance in the land of Egypt, and stored the food in cities. In each city, he stored the food from the fields surrounding it. 49 Joseph amassed grain like the sand of the sea. There was so much that he stopped trying to measure it because it was beyond measuring.
50 Before the years of famine arrived, Asenath the daughter of Potiphera, priest of Heliopolis, gave birth to two sons for Joseph. 51 Joseph named the oldest son Manasseh,"because," he said, "God has helped me forget all of my troubles and everyone in my father's household." 52 He named the second Ephraim,"because," he said, "God has given me children in the land where I've been treated harshly."
53 The seven years of abundance in the land of Egypt came to an end, 54 and the seven years of famine began, just as Joseph had said. The famine struck every country, but the entire land of Egypt had bread. 55 When the famine ravaged the entire land of Egypt and the people pleaded to Pharaoh for bread, Pharaoh said to all of the Egyptians, "Go to Joseph. Do whatever he tells you."
56 The famine covered every part of the land, and Joseph opened all of the granaries and sold grain to the Egyptians. In the land of Egypt, the famine became more and more severe. 57 Every country came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because in every country the famine had also become more severe.