Betrayed on the Road to Greatness
Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28; 45:1-15
by Jim Westmoreland
To experience betrayal is one of the hardest, most
gut-wrenching and most life-changing experiences that we can face. The potential to have
hurt feelings and misunderstandings is always a possibility. Some people seem to get hurt
easily and often, and they regularly play the game of being hurt and offended to the
detriment of their own happiness and joy.
Betrayal is not your run of the mill "hurt of the day." Betrayal is more than
being hurt or offended. It is having a sacred trust violated. Too many times over the
years, we have read of people entrusted with top secret information for our country, who,
often because they were not appreciated enough, chose to pass on classified information to
our enemies. And the result was the compromised security of the whole country and often
the death of people whose names had been revealed.
Betrayals in the family are the hardest to take because they are so immediately personal
and close to our hearts. Sexual affairs are like that. A spouse makes a series of choices
and eventually the choice to be unfaithful, often with a friend of the family, which makes
it a double betrayal. Or maybe, it is a child betraying their parents or one of their
brothers or sisters. Or, maybe it is our closest friend who betrays a confidence we have
shared, or someone at work who stabbed us in the back to advance themselves.
Whenever and however it happens, we are deeply hurt, at the core of our very being.
The story of Joseph is a story about someone who was betrayed by his brothers, but who did
not choose the path of endless anger, bitterness and self-pity, but who eventually saw
that God was using all that happened to him to be able to serve God in a special way.
Greatness is not the size of our paycheck, job title or the loudness of the applause of
others. It is choosing to be God's person in God's time for God's reasons. Joseph did
those things and that is why I've titled this sermon, "Betrayed on the Road to
Greatness."
Remember that Joseph's father was Jacob. And, remember that Jacob conspired with his
mother, Rebecca, for Jacob to steal his father Isaac's blessing away from Esau. He
succeeded, but he had to flee Esau's wrath, and went away to find a wife from among the
family of Laban, Rebecca's brother. But the trickster got tricked by Laban. Jacob had
worked seven years to marry Rachel, but Laban had given him his oldest daughter, Leah,
instead. So, Jacob had to work another seven years to marry Rachel.
While Jacob worked to marry Rachel, he began having children with Leah. But finally, he
married his beloved Rachel and their first child was Joseph. The older brothers' mother
was Leah. Though not the firstborn of his father, it was clear to all the brothers that
Joseph had received their father's blessing. They worked out in the fields and tended
flocks while Joseph stayed home with Jacob and Rachel, his father and mother. Joseph was
ambitious and had dreams, which he shared openly, about others bowing down to him. He
didn't give his brothers a lot of reasons to make them feel that he was one of them. The
scriptures say they were jealous of him and they even hated him. Yet, they were his
brothers, and Jacob was their father.
One day Joseph's father sent him to go find the other brothers who were pasturing their
father's herds in distant pastures. Jacob wanted Joseph to bring back a report on the
welfare of his brothers and how the animals were doing. That's when the other brothers see
him coming and plot to kill him. When he gets to them, they decide they can't directly
attack him and kill him so they just throw down in a hole with no water, and they are
going to leave him there to die. But, they see a caravan of Ishmaelite traders traveling
from Gilead on the way to Egypt, and they sell Joseph to them.
Next, Joseph is sold to Potiphar, the captain of Pharoh's bodygards. He is bright,
handsome and given responsibilities. Next, Potiphar's wife tries to seduce him, but he
runs away. She accuses him of attacking her, and he is thrown into prison. There, he stays
out of trouble, but becomes known as one who can interpret dreams. Eventually, he
interprets Pharoh's dreams about the seven gaunt and thin cows eating up the seven fat
cows and about the seven thin ears of corn swallowing up the seven plump and full ears of
corn. He told Pharoh that there would be seven years of plenty followed by seven years of
famine.
Pharoh made Joseph his right hand man, like his prime minister, who was the head of his
administration. Joseph was given power and authority to manage the harvest of plenty and
to prepare for the years of famine.
Meanwhile, Joseph's brothers had told Jacob that Joseph had been killed. Heartbroken,
Jacob and Rachel had one more child, Benjamin, but Rachel died in childbirth. Now, all
that Jacob has left of him and Rachel is Benjamin. The famine strikes, the brothers
eventually go to Egypt to beg for food. They are brought before Joseph who recognizes
them, inquires about their family and tells them they must bring their younger brother.
They had changed, because, though they knew that Benjamin was very special to Jacob, they
know wanted to protect him and their father from anymore heartache.
The story ends with the family gathered, Joseph revealing himself and forgiving his
brothers, and all of the family together hugging and embracing in the special joy
celebration and reconciliation.
Joseph was betrayed. When we are betrayed, we are faced with some life-shaping choices. We
can remember the hurt and fester in it. We can carry it around like a 50 lb. sack of
rotten potatoes, or we can let it go.
One day, two monks were walking through the countryside. They were on their way to another
village to help bring in the crops. As they walked, they spied an old woman sitting at the
edge of a river. She was upset because there was no bridge, and she could not get across
on her own. The first monk kindly offered, "We will carry you across if you would
like." "Thank you," she said gratefully, accepting their help. So the two
men joined hands, lifted her between them and carried her across the river. When they got
to the other side, they set her down, and she went on her way.
After they had walked another mile or so, the second monk began to complain. "Look at
my clothes," he said. "They are filthy from carrying that woman across the
river. And my back still hurts from lifting her. I can feel it getting stiff." The
first monk just smiled and nodded his head.
A few more miles up the road, the second monk griped again, "My back is hurting me so
badly, and it is all because we had to carry that silly woman across the river! I cannot
go any farther because of the pain." The first monk looked down at his partner, now
lying on the ground, moaning. "Have you wondered why I am not complaining?" he
asked. "Your back hurts because you are still carrying the woman. But I set her down
five miles ago." -- Dr. Anthony T. Evans, Guiding Your Family in a
Misguided World.
That is what many of us are like in dealing with our hurts and betrayals. We can hold on
to them or let them go.
E. Stanley Jones told a story about a rattlesnake. If cornered, it will sometimes become
so angry it will bite itself. That is exactly what the harboring of hate and resentment
against others is--a biting of oneself. We think that we are harming others in holding
these spites and hates, but the deeper harm is to ourselves. --E. Stanley
Jones, Reader's Digest, December 1981.
If Joseph had chosen bitterness and self-pity, the rest of this story would be very
different. But he chose greatness by letting God take the bitterness of betrayal away so
that Joseph could be God's servant.
Think about the oyster. It takes a grain of sand and turns it into a beautiful pearl. Too
often we are just the opposite--we take pearls and turn them into grains of sand.
Our great need is to find a way to let go. Let God be in charge of settling scores in His
own way. It is not easy, but God honors our openness to Him when we do let go. And, often
when we hold on to our hurts and bitterness, we postpone the blessings and joy that God
wants us to have.
Shortly after the turn of the century, Japan invaded, conquered, and occupied
Korea. Of all of their oppressors, Japan was the most ruthless. They overwhelmed the
Koreans with a brutality that would sicken the strongest of stomachs. Their crimes against
women and children were inhuman. Many Koreans live today with the physical and emotional
scars from the Japanese occupation.
One group singled out for concentrated oppression was the Christians. When the Japanese
army overpowered Korea one of the first things they did was board up the evangelical
churches and eject most foreign missionaries.
The conquerors started by refusing to allow churches to meet and jailing many of the key
Christian spokesmen. Anguish filled the hearts of the oppressed -- and kindled hatred deep
in their souls. One pastor persistently entreated his local Japanese police chief for
permission to meet for services. His nagging was finally accommodated, and the police
chief offered to unlock his church ... for one meeting.
It didn't take long for word to travel. Committed Christians starving for an opportunity
for unhindered worship quickly made their plans. Long before dawn on that promised Sunday,
Korean families throughout a wide area made their way to the church. They passed the
staring eyes of their Japanese captors, but nothing was going to steal their joy. As they
closed the doors behind them they shut out the cares of oppression and shut in a burning
spirit anxious to glorify their Lord.
The Korean church has always had a reputation as a singing church. Their voices of praise
could not be concealed inside the little wooden frame sanctuary. Song after song rang
through the open windows into the bright Sunday morning. For a handful of peasants
listening nearby, the last two songs this congregation sang seemed suspended in time. It
was during a stanza of "Nearer My God to Thee" that the Japanese police chief
waiting outside gave the orders. The people toward the back of the church could hear them
when they barricaded the doors, but no one realized that they had doused the church with
kerosene until they smelled the smoke. The dried wooden skin of the small church quickly
ignited. Fumes filled the structure as tongues of flame began to lick the baseboard on the
interior walls.
There was an immediate rush for the windows. But momentary hope recoiled in horror as the
men climbing out the windows came crashing back in -- their bodies ripped by a hail of
bullets. The good pastor knew it was the end. With a calm that comes from confidence, he
led his congregation in a hymn whose words served as a fitting farewell to earth and a
loving salutation to heaven. The first few words were all the prompting the terrified
worshipers needed. With smoke burning their eyes, they instantly joined as one to sing
their hope and leave their legacy.
Their song became a serenade to the horrified and helpless witnesses outside. Their words
also tugged at the hearts of the cruel men who oversaw this flaming execution of the
innocent: "Alas! and did my Savior bleed? and did my Sovereign die? Would he devote
that sacred head for such a worm as I?"
Just before the roof collapsed they sang the last verse, their words an eternal testimony
to their faith: "But drops of grief can ne'er repay the debt of love I owe: Here,
Lord, I give myself away 'Tis all that I can do! At the cross, at the cross Where I first
saw the light, And the burden of my heart rolled away -- It was there by faith I received
my sight, And now I am happy all the day."
The strains of music and wails of children were lost in a roar of flames. Clearing the
incinerated remains was the easy part. Erasing the hate would take decades. For some of
the relatives of the victims, this carnage was too much. Evil had stooped to a new low,
and there seemed to be no way to curb their bitter loathing of the Japanese.
In the decades that followed, that bitterness was passed on to a new generation. The
Japanese, although conquered, remained a hated enemy. The monument the Koreans built at
the location of the fire not only memorialized the people who died, but stood as a silent
reminder of their pain.
Suffering, of course, is a part of life. People hurt people. Almost all of us have
experienced it at some time. Maybe you felt it when you came home to find that your spouse
had abandoned you, or when your integrity was destroyed by a series of well-timed lies, or
when your company was bled dry by a partner or when the stock value and your retirement
plummeted over accounting scandals. It kills you inside. Bitterness clamps down on your
soul like iron shackles.
The Korean people who found it too hard to forgive could not enjoy the "peace that
passes all understanding." Hatred choked their joy. It wasn't until 1972 that any
hope came. A group of Japanese pastors traveling through Korea came upon the memorial.
When they read the details of the tragedy and the names of the spiritual brothers and
sisters who had perished, they were overcome with shame. Their country had sinned, and
even though none of them were personally involved (some were not even born at the time of
the tragedy), they still felt a national guilt that could not be excused.
They returned to Japan committed to right a wrong. There was an immediate outpouring of
love from their fellow believers. They raised ten million yen ($25,000). The money was
transferred through proper channels and a beautiful white church building was erected on
the sight of the tragedy.
When the dedication service for the new building was held, a delegation from Japan joined
the relatives and special guests. Although their generosity was acknowledged and their
attempts at making peace appreciated, the memories were still there. Hatred preserves
pain. It keeps the wounds open and the hurts fresh. The Koreans' bitterness had
festered for decades. Christian brothers or not, these Japanese were descendants of a
ruthless enemy.
The speeches were made, the details of the tragedy recalled, and the names of the dead
honored. It was time to bring the service to a close. Someone in charge of the agenda
thought it would be appropriate to conclude with the same two songs that were sung the day
the church was burned.
The song leader began the words to "Nearer My God to Thee." But something
remarkable happened as the voices mingled on the familiar melody. As the memories of the
past mixed with the truth of the song, resistance started to melt. The inspiration that
gave hope to a doomed collection of churchgoers in a past generation gave hope once more.
The song leader closed the service with the hymn "At the Cross."
The normally stoic and reserved Japanese could not contain themselves. The tears that
began to fill their eyes during the song suddenly gushed from deep inside. They turned to
their Korean spiritual relatives and begged them to forgive. The guarded, calloused hearts
of the Koreans were not quick to surrender. But the love of the Japanese believers --
unintimidated by decades of hatred -- tore at the Koreans' emotions: "At the cross,
at the cross Where I first saw the light, And the burden of my heart rolled away ..."
One Korean turned toward a Japanese brother. Then another. And then the floodgates holding
back a wave of emotion let go. The Koreans met their new Japanese friends in the middle.
They clung to each other and wept. Japanese tears of repentance and Korean tears of
forgiveness intermingled to bathe the site of an old nightmare.
Heaven had sent the gift of reconciliation to the people gathered in a little white church
in Korea. --Tim Kimmel, Little House on the Freeway, pp. 56-61.
Sometimes, a church can get stuck nursing old wounds because of something that happened
years ago. Obviously, that can happen to any of us. Yet, God's will is always to take
whatever happens and use it for good. We can reach out to hurting people because we know
what it is like to hurt. We can offer hope to those who have betrayed others because we,
too, are guilty of our own betrayals. Yet, God has loved us, and He desires us to share
His love, His grace and forgiveness, His concern for others. And when we do, we will have
moved from the devastating results of betrayal to the great joy of being God's person and
letting Him lead us to help others.