Gifted for Service

Genesis 41:1-36
Preached at Prescott Memorial Baptist Church
August 21, 2011

Lisa Anderson is a chaplain at St Jude. She’s been there for fifteen years. Families come from all over the world to get treatment for their children here in Memphis. Lisa tells about a Japanese couple who brought their baby to St Jude with hope and fear in their hearts. The baby had a rare and awful blood disease. Each day Lisa went by ICU and stood by the baby to pray. She spoke to the parents. They nodded and bowed. They were so broken hearted; it was difficult to look at the pain on their faces. Lisa couldn’t talk with them because she can’t speak Japanese. They couldn’t speak English. Somehow the translator and Lisa could never make it to the ICU at the same time.

One afternoon Lisa was at the dentist having her teeth cleaned when she got a call from the nurses in ICU. The baby was making her transition from this life to the next and the parents were asking for Lisa. “Are you sure this is what they’re asking for?” Lisa wondered how it could be that the parents, who she had never been able to talk with, were asking for her. She went to the bedside and the translator explained that they wanted their baby blessed for the journey. Lisa led them in a ritual, a blessing, and the parents were grateful. The parents who could not speak English understood that Lisa who could not speak Japanese was a connection to the divine, a connection to a love and hope that transcends all languages.

As people of faith we are gifted for service and our gifts are needed by so many people. There’s a famine going on in our world when it comes to our hunger for hope and human connection to the divine.

As people of faith we are richly blessed with gifts and not a day goes by in our ordinary lives that we aren’t called upon to share in hope filled ways. In fact it is our gifts that keep us faithful and grateful. When we begin to lose hope and the lights fade for us we find that reaching out to share and help another person is the most direct way to return to the light of hope. It is through sharing our spiritual gifts and strengths that we rise up out of our own pain and darkness – finding meaning and purpose as we move from morning to night.

Joseph had been in the dungeon for two years. He was there on a false charge. Potiphar’s wife, as you remember, came on to Joseph (who was apparently very handsome) and when he turned her down she cried out accusing Joseph of something he did not do. So Joseph’s master took him and threw him in prison.

And we are told that God was with Joseph. God showed Joseph steadfast love and gave him favor in the eyes of the chief jailer. I just want to point out that scripture says God was with Joseph in the dungeon. So when we talk as if God is with us when we get a good parking place, when we land the job we wanted, when we win the lottery…It is not only when the sky is rosy that we find God within us and beside us. God is the main character in our life’s story no matter where our life takes us.

So after two years in prison, Joseph, the one who had been rejected by his brothers and sold into slavery, earned for himself the respect and admiration of other prisoners as well as the chief jailer. Joseph did not hide his gifts. It is remarkable to think about it. He could have been lost in anger, bitter, reclusive, and depressed—and which one of us would blame him? But Joseph recognized himself as a person created and gifted by God. His gifts were intended to be used for service – whether he was wearing a coat of many colors in his father’s house, on a throne in the palace or down in the dungeon. And it was down in the dungeon where Joseph used his God-given gifts to interpret the dreams of the baker and cupbearer. And that is what ultimately set him free.

Because Joseph shared his gift as an interpreter of dreams, the cupbearer was pulled up into the light and later, when an interpreter of dreams was needed for pharaoh, the cupbearer remembered his days in the dungeon and that set Joseph free. Good stewardship of the gifts he had been given made the difference for Joseph.

The writers of the New Testament remind us over and over again that our gifts come from God and are intended for service. The purpose of our gifts is to increase the hope of the world. In Matthew and Luke we’re asked: If you know how to give good gifts to your children, can you imagine how God in heaven knows how to give good gifts to us? In Corinthians we’re told that although there is a wide variety of gifts given to believers-- all gifts come from One God. James tells us that every good and perfect gift comes from God above.

Our Old Testament friend, Joseph, wasn’t gifted so he could sit on a throne in the palace and feel special, powerful. He was gifted to make a difference in the world around him. So he came up out of the dungeon, into the light, interpreted pharaoh’s dream and –as a result-- all of Egypt and the surrounding regions were fed—grain was set aside during the seven years of plenty so that grain was available to eat in plenty during the seven years of famine.

As I talk about gifts I recognize that we live in a time and a culture where we have been trained to think about ourselves as individuals. If you are like me you are now wondering: What are my gifts? What gifts have I been given? How do my gifts compare to the gifts given to the person next to me? How do my gifts compete? We live in a world that has taught us to think that way.

And I would like for us to consider gifts in a different way. Not the gifts that each one of us has been given but the gifts we have been given together to create a vibrant and hope-filled faith community. I would like to gently lead us away from our individualized packaging and into the family-sized packaging. This congregation has been gifted by way of the individuals that make the congregational body--and those gifts are provided for service, to draw people out of the dungeon and into the light.

I am an infrequent visitor, a guest here, and I can easily point out several gifts this community has been given. Your warm welcome and hospitality are genuine. You are faithful. I have seen you act with absolute generosity, giving more than I would have thought you had to share. You embrace difference in a world that focuses on homogenizing everything. You don’t insist on an agenda of growth as if getting bigger is the only goal that matters for a congregation. You have integrity and a good sense of humor. You have compassion.

You have hope that sustains you and spills out into the community. You have rituals that keep you focused on your good intentions, rituals that remind you of the Source, the God who gave you your good gifts.

Gifts, like love, do not run out but I think they can dry up and blow away if they are not watered by the gentle and steady rains of faith and hope.

Elif Shafak, a Turkish novelist, recently provided a TED Talk titled “The Politics of Fiction.” She says that our social problems too often come from the circles that surround us and keep us comfortable. We choose to be inside circles of people and places that mirror the way we look, think, act and vote.

Shafak says, “If we have no connection whatsoever with the world beyond the one we take for granted then we run the risk of drying up inside. Our imagination might shrink. Our hearts might dwindle and our humanness might wither if we stay for too long inside our cultural cocoons.”

(That’s Technology, Entertainment and Design Talks. You can find these excellent addresses at www.TED.com/Talks. Ideas worth spreading.)

Joseph, so wonderfully gifted for excellent service that his brothers hated him and sold him along with his gifts, was taken as a slave into Egypt. A strange land. A strange story. A trip he made by force and not by choice. He landed in prison. And he was called out of prison to live in the palace. None of it really by choice except that Joseph did choose to stay alive, alert, aware of opportunities to share the gifts he came with.

This church has a long, strange story that rides up and down like a roller coaster ride. It might be nice to have the sanctuary full of people. It might be nice to have offering plates filled with big checks every week. It might be nice to have a televised worship service that wows the world. Some congregations enjoy that kind of gift package.

The package of gifts this congregation has been given is no less stellar and no less valuable. You have chosen to step outside the circle and trust God to provide the meaningful ways to share. Just like Lisa, the chaplain at St Jude, you may be in ministry with people whose language you cannot speak but the divine connection is obvious and understood by all.

Rick Bragg wrote an article, “What Stands in a Storm,” for the August edition of Southern Living Magazine. Everything was vulnerable in Alabama and Mississippi on April 27 of this year when a tornado a mile wide ripped through those states. Rick Bragg lives on a lovely street in Glendale Gardens, Alabama. That day the winds ripped and roared. 2 by 4’s flew through the air like toothpicks. Trees splintered. Shingles flew from the houses like pieces of paper. Sirens screamed. Mothers held on to their babies in closets and bathtubs.

Outside, minutes after the winds died down, people gathered in the street. Tammy Elebash stood in the street with a phone to her ear. “Yes I see the Pitts, the Petrivics. Yes, Mrs. Brannon is fine. She’s on my arm right here.” Inez and John were together holding on to each other while Inez clutched their wedding album, the only thing they had grabbed before taking shelter in their tub.

They stood together in the street. Neighbors. Shocked. Bewildered.

Then one by one they began to notice the change. The once verdant place was laid open, stripped, flattened. They could see things they hadn’t been able to see before like a water tower that used to be invisible behind the curtains of green. It was like the storm had picked these people up and set them down some place ugly, broken and twisted.

They stood together in the street. Neighbors. Shocked. Bewildered. They moved closer together. How awful it would have been to have landed in this ugly, broken and twisted place—alone.

How awful for Joseph had he landed in Egypt, a strange land, alone and without benefit of his faith, without the good gifts God gave to him and the capacity to share them.

How awful for that Japanese couple at St Jude, standing helplessly by the crib had they not felt the connection of hope they found in Lisa?

How awful it would have been to be there alone.

When we think back over the tough times in our own lives it is most often the case that we made it through the struggle, moved from the dungeon into the light of another day, because somebody was there and their gifts connected us to a hope that transcends all things on earth.

It isn’t the gifts so much as it is our faith in the giver of good gifts that sets us free to be generous, compassionate, willing to reach out and grow in whatever circumstances we find ourselves. We are gifted for service.

May we celebrate those gifts in our worship together. And may we find this body of faith affirmed to go out from this place and time together to spread hope in the streets of Memphis, to spread a spirit of compassion in this neighborhood, and to connect with the gifts of all God’s people wherever we meet them.

Amen.