Partners
in Perspective
Genesis
50:15-21 and Philippians 4:10-23
In
a Peanuts cartoon Lucy is sitting on a bench looking discouraged when Charlie
Brown says to her, “Lucy, life does have its ups and downs, you know….” Lucy explodes, “But why? Why should it?! Why can’t my life be all ‘ups’?
If I want all ‘ups,’ why can’t I have them? Why can’t I move from one
‘up’ to another ‘up’? Why can’t I just
go from an ‘up’ to an ‘upper-up’? I
DON’T WANT ANY ‘DOWNS’! I JUST WANT ‘UPS’ AND ‘UPS’ AND ‘UPS’!” Lucy is not alone, you know. Many of us feel cheated when life throws us
a “down.” But, of course, what goes up, must come down. How will we handle it when it is our life
that comes down?
Tom
Spath, one of my colleagues in Texas, once told me about Ana Martinez, the
daughter of Rev. Lucio Martinez, a Presbyterian minister from Guatemala. At the
time, Rev. Martinez had received numerous death threats from a para-military
group called the Avenging Jaguar, and he was being shadowed by American
Presbyterians 24 hours a day to prevent, hopefully, an assassination attempt.
In any case, Ana, the Martinez' daughter, arrived in the U.S. to attend the
Presbyterian Pan American High School with the dream of becoming a bi-lingual
secretary. Ana was only 14 years old. She left her mother, father, and three
sisters. One of her sisters had given birth to a boy six years earlier, so she
also left a nephew. This child was born because her sister was attacked by one
of the soldiers who was associated with the group that left death threats for
her father.
Ana
left a world full of fear to live at the Presbyterian Pan American School in
south Texas. The move brought its own
uncertainties. Would Ana learn sufficient English quickly enough so she could
master her classes? Would she adjust to living away from family and friends.
Would she adjust to living in the first world with its running hot water, air
conditioning, staying up late at night and not rising until 7 AM! Ana was used
to rising at 4 AM to begin the daily chores of sweeping dirt floors. The
uncertainties were different, but the fears they brought were real. My question
for us is this: was Ana better off before or after she came to the U.S.? In
which situation should she be more content? In which situation would you be more
content?
My
mother-in-law Nancy has Parkinson's. For twenty years Nancy deteriorated from
strong and athletic to shaking to trembling to frozen. Medications helped some
but not enough. Suddenly, ten years ago, Nancy discovered the existence of a
new surgery in which doctors put four tiny lesions on the brain and many of the
most debilitating symptoms of the disease were relieved. Unfortunately, the
symptoms decreased but the disease continued.
Her back muscles continued to twist until she was so bent over that her
ribs were below her pelvis and she was beginning to have difficulty
breathing. Because of this situation,
Nancy had a series of surgeries on her back that have straightened up her
spine, but have left her paralyzed from the waist down. My question for us is this: was Nancy better
off before or after she had her surgeries? In which situation should she be
more content? In which situation would you be more content?
I
think we all want to be content; it is something of a universal desire. The
only folks who don't seek contentment are those who are so abused by others in
this world that they do not know that it exists or that it is a possibility.
For the rest of us, however, we recognize that contentment is good but that
life offers certain challenges to our contentment. Perhaps like Ana it is the
prospect of the unknown that challenges our contentment. Perhaps like Nancy it
is an illness that challenges our contentment. Perhaps it is being stuck in
muddy waters having to decide between two options neither of which are wholly
pure and both of which are ethically dubious. Perhaps it is the challenge of a
relationship gone from sweet to sour and we don't know how to make it sweet
again. What is the secret? What is the secret of contentment?
Paul
says that he has learned the secret of being content, that for any and every
situation, in need or in plenty, whether well fed or hungry: we can do all
things through Christ who gives us strength. The word translated
"strength" in our English Bibles is "dynamo" which is where
we get our words for "dynamic" and "dynamite." Paul knew
quite a bit about need and quite a bit about plenty, and through these times,
both bad and good, he discovered the dynamic strength of Christ at work through
him.
Paul
discovered Christ's dynamic strength in times of need:
V such as the time Paul was
blinded for a while and had to be led around by the hand.
V Or the time Paul's friends
foiled an assassination attempt by lowering him over the city wall in a basket.
V Or the time Paul was
preaching and a riot broke out and he was stripped and beaten.
V Or the time Paul was on a
ship tossed about by a hurricane for two weeks before wrecking off the coast of
Malta.
V Or the two times Paul was
thrown into prison.
V Or the time Paul had what the
Bible calls "a sharp disagreement" with a friend, which led two close
friends and mission partners to split, one going one way and one going the
other.
V Or the thorn in the flesh
Paul had, from which he repeatedly begged the Lord to be freed, but which the
Lord only said, "My grace is sufficient."
Paul knew much need in his
life and discovered Christ's dynamic strength in the midst of such times.
Paul
also discovered Christ's dynamic strength in times of plenty:
V Paul was blessed with good
friends. In virtually every letter he ever wrote, Paul sent greetings to friend
after friend, nearly three dozen are mentioned in Romans alone. The Book of
Acts tells us that Paul traveled with men and women who formed a core group of
support and community for his ministry.
V Paul was blessed with such
spiritual visions and dreams that we cannot even imagine. There was the leading
of the Holy Spirit directing Paul to go one place and not another, warning him
about trials to come, encouraging him to persevere with the thorn in his flesh,
that kind of stuff.
V Even more, Paul saw the
resurrected Christ face to face.
V Perhaps even better than
seeing Christ resurrected, Paul was lifted into the third level of heaven in a
vision and saw things that he says, "a person is not permitted to
tell."
V Paul was blessed with
material things, at least at times. There were times when churches, like the
Philippian church, supported Paul's missionary ventures. There were other times
when Paul did business in his "other" work as a tentmaker.
Paul knew much plenty in
his life, and he discovered Christ's dynamic strength in the midst of such
times.
The secret Paul learned was this: he defined
himself not by outward circumstances but by his inward relationship with Jesus
Christ. Would Paul rather not have been in prison? Sure. Would Paul have
preferred not to have had the sharp disagreement with his friend Barnabas? No
doubt. Did Paul ever feel sad or discouraged when in the midst of his times of
trial? From time to time he probably did. But Paul did not dwell on the
difficulty but relished the relationship he had with the one who gave him the
dynamic strength to do all things. "All things," of course, does not
deal with taking the thorn out of his flesh or stopping the hurricane that was
tossing his boat to and fro nor anything else dealing with changing outward
circumstances. Rather, "all things" has to do with being able to take
up the challenge set before us this day, to do all things Christ calls us to
do.
Joseph is a good example of one who lived not for
the outward circumstance but by his relationship with God to accomplish
whatever was set before him on a particular day. The background to today's
reading from Genesis takes us all the way back to chapter 37. Joseph was his
father's favorite son and pretty proud of the fact. His eleven brothers took
exception to Joseph's arrogance, beat him up, and sold him into slavery. Nice
family, right? In a moment's time Joseph went from team captain to water boy.
While in Egypt, Joseph set about the task set before him that day, and he was a
good servant to Potiphar the captain of Pharaoh's guard. The Scripture says,
"The Lord gave him success in all that he did, so Joseph found favor in
Potiphar's eyes." So things had gone from good to bad to good. But then
Potiphar's wife took a liking to young Joseph, but when Joseph rebuffed her
advances she falsely accused him of a crime he did not commit. So Joseph ended
up in prison. However, even in prison Joseph did what was set before him that
day. Eventually, because of his faithfulness, he was put in charge of the other
prisoners, and the Scripture says, "The warden paid no attention to
anything under Joseph's care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him
success in whatever he did."
As the years passed, Joseph interpreted the dreams
of some other prisoners, which led Pharaoh to ask Joseph to interpret Pharaoh's
own dreams. After Joseph successfully interpreted Pharaoh's dreams that there
would be seven years of feast followed by seven years of famine, he was
rewarded by being made overseer of all Egypt, Pharaoh's chief of staff. If we
are keeping score, Joseph's outward circumstances have now gone from good to
bad to good to bad to good. Joseph did his job well such that during the seven
years of feast Egypt stored up enough grain to feed both its own people and the
entire region. Then came the seven years of famine. The people surrounding
Egypt began to starve, including Israel. The whole world was in crisis. And
when Joseph's brothers came to Egypt with hat in hand, asking for food, Joseph
had the opportunity to exact his revenge. Here, the whole world was falling
apart around him, and Joseph had the power of life and death over his own flesh
and blood who had sold him into slavery. Yet, Joseph was not concerned with the
outward circumstances of what his brothers had done to him but with his own
relationship before God. Joseph understood that throughout the – what is now –
good to bad to good to bad to good to bad to good outward circumstances God had
been with him. Joseph told his brothers, "Do not be afraid. You intended
to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done,
the saving of many lives...I will provide for you and your children."
Joseph was called to do many different things, and for each of them God gave
him the dynamic strength needed for that day.
It is sometimes called the “Stockdale Paradox,”
which refers to Jim Stockdale, the highest ranking officer in the Hanoi Hilton
during the Vietnam War. Admiral
Stockdale suffered through eight years of brutal torture and was able, not only
to maintain his own integrity and dignity but to help his fellow POWs maintain
theirs as well. When Admiral Stockdale
was asked who wasn’t able to handle the torture, he answered, “Oh, that’s easy,
the optimists…they were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by
Christmas,’ and Christmas would come and go…they died of a broken heart.” When asked what made him and his soldiers
able to handle the torture, he paused before answering, “I never lost faith in
the end of the story. I never doubted
not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end…This is
a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in
the end – which you can never afford to lose – with the discipline to confront
the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.” To me, this sounds a lot like a man who
refused to get caught up in the outward circumstances of his life.
When we learn the secret of contentment that Paul
had discovered by the time he wrote his letter to the Philippians, we learn to
ask a different question from what we normally ask. Instead of asking,
"What things will make us content," we begin to ask, "To what is
God calling us today?" Our calling may be simple, like Joseph's when he
was a caretaker in Potiphar's house. Or our calling may be exalted, like
Joseph's when he saved God's people from starvation. In fulfilling our calling
comes contentment. In pursuing our purpose comes God's power.
Returning
to Ana and Nancy for a moment, I wonder. Will they have a tendency to focus on
their outward circumstances? Almost certainly. Will some people tell Ana and
Nancy that they are better off now than they were before or better off before
rather than now? Most definitely. But what I wonder is whether any of these
folks will be correct? And I think that depends upon Ana and Nancy. What will
they do? Will they focus on their outward circumstances? Or will they drink
from the well-spring of their relationship with Jesus Christ?
What would you do in their circumstance? What would you do?