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Upside Down - September 30, 2007

Upside Down

Genesis 37:1-11, Mark 3:20-21

September 30, 2007

Rev. Dave R. Garwick

Did you catch that there, what we read in the Gospel Lesson?Jesus' family thought He was nuts...at least to start with. Jesus enters a house and a crowd gathers and when His family heard about this, "they went to take charge of Him, for they said, 'He is out of His mind.'"

His FAMILY thought that He was out of His mind! And then, when the first Gospel gets written down, the Gospel on which others are based, of all the things that went on Jesus' thirty some years of life, THIS for some reason is one of the things they make sure to include. There is a part of me that thinks, "With a publicity agent like that, who needs enemies?!"

And yet, it is things like this in the Bible that convinces me that the Bible CAN be trusted. Skeptics like to say that the Bible - especially the things it says about Jesus - is just propaganda made up by His supporters. But if THAT were true, then things like what we just read would never have been reported. You can trust what God allowed to be preserved in the Bible.

Trusting what is in the Bible is so hard for so many of us these days...whenever it disagrees with what WE think it should say. theses days people say things like, "Well, I believe in a higher power of some kind - just not all this stuff about Jesus." Spoken just like Satan himself would say it. According to what you just read in the Gospel Lesson, that is always the way it has been with the Messiah. Just like His family at the outset of His ministry, we want to take charge of God's Word rather than the other way around. Sometimes God's Word, especially His Word made flesh, seems so upside down:

- like the command to love our enemies (especially those who want to harm us)
- like Jesus telling us to ask God to forgive us as we forgive others (even those who have harmed us or betrayed us again and again)
- like the warning that deliberately continuing to slander others or creating discord of having sex outside of marriage or drunkenness is as serious as witchcraft and will cost us our place in heaven (even with causes that you think are important, even when those you love do these things and want you to turn a blind eye to what they are doing)
- like the command to honor our parents (regardless of how we feel about them) - like the claim that Jesus really did rise from the dead (when nobody actually saw Him or anybody else do this) - like the promise that Jesus was a sacrifice to purchase forgiveness for any and all sins of those who are in His good graces (no matter how serious the sin)
- like the idea that those good graces will depend upon how we have treated the oppressed (regardless of your politics about taxes and social spending priorities)

All of these things seem so upside down whenever they mash up against how WE think things should be.

God chooses ways that so often look foolish because we have become accustomed to the upside down ways of this world. When you're used to being upside down, then whatever is right side up will LOOK upside down.

Take the story of Joseph and his brothers in the Bible Focus that was read at the beginning of the service. God chooses the next to the youngest of twelve brothers to lead the rest. But this seems to turn things completely upside down. Everybody knows that the eldest takes the lead, right? Regardless of his abilities, his character, his needs or anything else. Especially in those days, it was always and only the oldest who got first place.

Same thing today: "Mom, Jimmy's two years younger than me, so how come HE gets to go?" It's fascinating how so many grown-up sisters and brothers play the same games, especially at family reunions...or parents' funerals.

So, when young Joseph tells them about a dream he had that HE would be the leader, he was practically laughed out of town. First his brothers mock him: "Hey, Mr. Bigshot, you're forgetting your place...at the BACK of the line, kid." And when Joseph tells everyone about a second dream he had about being the leader of the whole clan, even his dad, Jacob - otherwise known as Israel - says, "You're getting too big for your britches, young man." This coming from Jacob, of all people, who himself had been the younger brother chosen to be leader of the previous generation. How soon we forget.

From a HUMAN point of view, this young Joseph certainly would have appeared cocky, shooting off his mouth and bragging that all the other brothers were going to have to serve him...when all he was doing was telling the truth. Even though his dad, Jacob, was also a little put off with Joseph's dreams, the very last phrase is interesting. It says, "[Joseph's] brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind."

"But his father kept the matter in mind." In other words, despite how this looks, maybe there just might be something more to this. Just maybe God is doing something here.

Look at the front of the bulletin cover for a moment. What is the main thing you see on that altar? A cross. More specifically, it is a gold plated cross. We have gotten so used to the symbol of the cross, especially of beautiful crosses, that we totally miss how upside down it is to have a gold plated cross. The cross was the worst instrument of torture and execution in the days of Jesus - on the day of Jesus. Imagine having on our altar a gold plated electric chair. To even imagine such a thing is disgusting and revolting. But the cross is gold plated because God used the most awful thing imaginable to achieve the most wonderful thing imaginable.

That God would use a cross to accomplish His will on His only beloved Son as the way to secure eternal life for the likes of us is the most upside down thing in the history of human experience. THAT is why it is right for the cross to be gold plated.

Here's the point. Whenever you expect God to do one thing and the exact opposite happens, do what Jacob did: keep the matter in mind. Whenever you have turned something over to God, keep a sharp eye out for upside down things...and keep the matter in mind. Remember that it is THIS world that is upside down, which is why the apostle Paul said in this morning's Epistle Lesson, "God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength." Praise be to Christ!