Texts: Genesis 40:1-23
This sermon was originally preached February 2, 2014 and is part of the sermon series “40.” Below are excerpts followed by a recording of the entire sermon including scripture readings.
Stories like this are in scripture are there to remind us about things…This story is an important reminder to us that Batman is not a member of the Trinity. Our heavenly father, our Lord Christ Jesus, the Holy Spirit, they are not super heroes of any kind. No matter how much we want them to be, no matter how much we might tend to think about them in that way. That’s not the God we serve.
“Batman is not a member of the Trinity. Our heavenly father, our Lord Christ Jesus, the Holy Spirit, they are not super heroes of any kind”
But it’s often what we convince ourselves God is, and I think that is why we’re let down…I sent up my spiritual Bat Signal, but God didn’t leap into action. He didn’t come and save the day. I’m still here, and the bad guys are still here too.
God’s ways are not our ways. And God acts in His time not ours, and he always does so with a longer view of time and space and history than any of us could ever fathom. Moreover, it is often these wilderness roads we travel, these dark and dank places in which we find ourselves, that God uses as the crucibles for our growth and transformation into better more faithful people.
(In the scripture text) Joseph learns to use his gift in service to others rather than service to himself. And when he does that, it ends up benefitting him too.
All of us can be batman, sans the gadgets and the spandex. But All of us can do basically what Batman does….all of us possess God given talents, all of us possess resources in some measure. And we can choose. We can choose to use those gifts and those resources to puff ourselves up or we can choose to use them to serve others and serve our community. We can withdraw into ourselves and our own troubles when times are dark, or we can reach out to others who find themselves in the dark too. And when we choose to serve, I believe that we find, just as Joseph found, that in loving God, in loving neighbor, in serving God and in serving others, we discover life, regardless of what our life’s circumstances happen to be or continue to be.
“when we choose to serve, I believe that we find, just as Joseph found, that in loving God, in loving neighbor, in serving God and in serving others, we discover life”
So many things, so many things in this life, in this world are and will remain beyond our control. And we may or may not be rescued from our present circumstances in a spectacular fashion, God does sometimes do amazing spectacular things like that, but what we need, what we need more than a super hero, is we need to develop a princely heart and servants hands…In the kingdom of God, the heirs are called to be like him…He has called us to let our light shine in the world.
