Monday • 3/14/2022
Monday of 2 Lent, Year Two

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 56; Psalm 57; Genesis 41:46–57; 1 Corinthians 4:8–21; Mark 3:7–19a

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 9 (“The First Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 12:2–6, BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94)

Almost without exception, when a person answers my “How are you?” with, “Livin’ the dream, man, livin’ the dream,” I know the real answer is quite different. More like, “I’ve got more going out than coming in, I’m losing my kids, things are flat with my spouse, and my dog just died.” Most people are living less than “the dream.” And it’s amplified by the larger horrorscape we are living in: a virus has been bent on killing the human race, a bully nation is marauding its neighbor, politicians are more interested in scoring points than in helping citizens, and people are profoundly perplexed and at odds on matters of personal identity and race. “Livin’ the dream, man”? Not so much!

Today’s readings in Genesis and 1 Corinthians offer perspective and wisdom for living our less-than-ideal lives in a less-than-ideal world.

Joseph’s seven years of plenty and seven years of famine. Regarding dreams, Joseph has been given a gift. It’s been a mixed blessing. Rashly sharing his own dreams gets him sold into slavery, while interpreting the Egyptian cupbearer’s dream (eventually) lifts him from prison. Interpreting Pharaoh’s dream leads to him being placed in charge of the entire Egyptian economy, and makes Egypt the breadbasket of the surrounding world.

More subtly, Joseph’s dreams accomplish two important things on God’s behalf in the Genesis narrative. In the first place, Joseph provides an advance look at the way Yahweh intends to bless the world through Abraham’s seed. Israel’s divine mission is to reverse the curse of the Garden and the Flood and the Tower of Babel, that is, to put an end to sin and death and alienation and estrangement. Here toward the end of Genesis, a seed of Abraham not only blesses the nation of Israel with provision in advance of famine, but he enables that nation to be a blessing to other nations during that famine.

In the second place, Joseph’s reconciliation with his brothers (a reversal of the fratricide theme introduced with the Cain and Abel story) leads to Jacob bringing his family to Egypt, thereby staging the future, and long prophesied, sojourn and rescue from “a country not their own” (see Genesis 15:13–14).

By exercising faithful stewardship of his gift, by showing humility in the face of personal adversity, and by displaying prudence when granted prosperity, Joseph contributes to God’s larger redemptive purposes in ways probably beyond his ability to comprehend.

Paul’s “Would that you were kings…” Paul rebukes the Corinthians for their arrogant blustering. They mask their insecurities with a great display of their Kingdom-of-God status. They act like they mean it when they say they are “livin’ the dream!” Paul mockingly parrots them, “Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Quite apart from us you have become kings!” (1 Corinthians 4:8a). If I may paraphrase their mindset and self-claims: “In Jesus, we’re livin’ the dream! We have charismatic gifts! We’ve been raised up with Christ and rule with him! We live the victorious Christian life! We know the Spirit’s leading, and it surpasses Scripture’s teachings, because our God hasn’t stopped speaking — he speaks to us!!” (see 1 Corinthians 4:6,8a).

Paul’s rejoinder cuts to the quick: “Indeed, I wish that you had become kings, so that we might be kings with you!” (1 Corinthians 4:8b). He then introduces a theme that will course through his two epistles to the Corinthians: “For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, as though sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to mortals. We are fools for the sake of Christ, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we are hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed and beaten and homeless, and we grow weary from the work of our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we speak kindly. We have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day” (1 Corinthians 4:9–13; and see also 4:4–18; 6:4–10; 11:23–27; 12:10).

We live in a sloppy “already/not yet” situation — that is to say, redemption has been accomplished for us, the benefits of which are being partially applied to our lives now, but which we will not receive completely until Christ returns to consummate history and to raise us up from the dead. The Corinthians dissolve the “already/not yet” into an over-realized eschatology in which there’s only an “already.” Paul works hard to help them (and us) understand that the “already/not yet” in which we live involves suffering — and a lot of it.

The power of God, insists Paul, is manifest not in escaping the ugliness of broken relationships, marauding tyrants, beloved people or pets who die, and perplexing questions. The power of God is manifest in knowing the crucified Christ who walks with us through it all, helping us to bear the cross he has called on us to take up.

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Adapted from Pixabay