Bible Text: Genesis 45:25-46:7 | Preacher: Pastor Dorry Newcomer | Series: Genesis | I decided to title this sermon, “Wildest Dreams”.  When we meet up with Jacob in our lesson today, he’s dealing with something he never imagined, even in his wildest dreams:  Canaan, the land God promised to Abraham and his ancestors, is suffering from a famine.  Starvation is a real threat.  God had promised Abraham that he would give him a land and a people more numerous than stars in the sky and grains of sand on the seashore—but due to some unforeseen circumstances, the land God gave them cannot sustain all the people.  They are in a crisis situation.

Does that sound familiar?  We are dealing with some unforeseen circumstances ourselves.  This is the third week for recording a sermon and sharing it via the internet instead of being with you all in person on Sunday mornings.  I’ve been saying 2020 is the year everything comes into focus, but none of us saw this coming!  We are in a situation we never imagined, even in our wildest dreams, and so is Jacob.  But lucky for Jacob, there’s good news:  it turns out his beloved son Joseph is not dead.  He was sold into slavery, taken “down to Egypt”, and has become a prominent government official who just happens to have access to stores of grain.  AND, he’s willing to share!  Jacob and his huge extended family will be saved from the famine by the brother they despised.  All they have to do is go to a new place. Leave their beloved Canaan, and move to Egypt.

Talk about “wildest dreams”!  The story of how Joseph reunites with his brothers has many twists and turns.  If you haven’t already, I recommend taking some time to read Genesis chapters 40-45 and see how wild dreams turned into hopeful reality for Joseph, and ultimately for Israel.  But there’s a catch to this hope. In the book of Genesis, people don’t head “over” to Egypt.  They go “down” to Egypt.  That is no doubt because Egypt is south of Canaan. But in addition to the literal meaning, the denotation, there’s a figurative meaning, the connotation.  And the connotation in this case is not good, because the book of Genesis was written generations after Jacob.  It was written by people who knew that the Hebrews would move to Egypt and eventually become slaves there.  Going “down to Egypt” was a little like going “down the tubes.”  Not good.  Not someplace you’d want to go.

Jacob by now is an old man.  He’s done his fair share of travelling.  He doesn’t really want to make any more trips.  He knows he cannot stay in Canaan, but he’s really not sure about this trip to Egypt.  I just need to stop here and once again say, holy cow!  This is so like us!  None of us wanted to embark on the corona virus journey we find ourselves on.  Three weeks ago I met with the organizers of our Oyster Supper and we agonized over whether to cancel it or not.  Now, looking back, that seems like another lifetime—and it wasn’t even last month!  So much has changed so very quickly for us.  Living through a pandemic is like “going down to Egypt”—it’s a place none of us would choose willingly.  At best, it’s a time for shelter in place and quarantine, which provides safety from the virus but doesn’t protect us from loneliness, fear, and anxiety.  At worst, our corona virus journey involves panic, illness, and mortality.  All places none of us wants to go.

Unforeseen circumstances.  Unimaginable realities.  Wild dreams.  They are part of life!  For us, and for Jacob.  Times of change can really throw us for a loop, and we need assurance of God’s presence with us more than ever.  So I love the fact that, way back in December, the passage we chose to focus on for today is God appearing to Jacob in the night.

Now if this sounds like déjà vu all over again, you’re on to something.  This is the third time God appears to Jacob in the night.  The first time, Jacob had the stairway to heaven dream.  The second time, Jacob wrestled God and walked away with a new name and a limp.  Now he is on his way “down to Egypt”, and he is afraid.  God comes to him in a vision in the night, and spoke reassuring words to him.  “I am God, the God of your father; do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make of you a great nation there.  I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again; and Joseph’s own hand shall close your eyes.”

Do not be afraid.  There’s another case of déjà vu all over again!  Popular Christian writer Rick Warren says that there are 365 times in the Bible where it says, “Fear not!”  One for every day of the year.  God does not want us to be afraid because God is love, perfect love.  And perfect love casts out all fear.  There is no place we can go that we will be without love.  Jacob is headed “down to Egypt”, this place he doesn’t want to go—and God tells him, don’t be afraid, I will be with you even there.  I believe God is telling us the same thing today.

But I want to point out something really important.  God tells Jacob to not be afraid.  But he never tells him to not be sad.  I know everyone is doing their best to “stay positive” these days, and to make lemonade out of lemons.  That’s great.  But Jesus said it is the truth that will set us free.  It’s telling the truth about our situation that opens the door for God’s presence to be felt and seen.

Don’t be afraid, God says, but tell the truth.  Many years ago, we went on a family vacation to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.  We were camping and needed some supplies, so we did what we people do when camping in remote areas:  we drove to the closest Wal-Mart.  There were a lot of pickup trucks with gun racks in the parking lot.  But what really caught my attention was seeing a bumper sticker on a rusty car that said, “If you’re skaret, say you’re skaret”!  God says, do not be afraid.  But if you’re skaret, say you’re skaret!  Tell God the truth about your fears, and then start naming what is true:  God’s love.  God’s provision.  Let God’s presence guide you back on to the solid ground of faith and trust.

And if you’re sad, say you’re sad.  This week Bishop Johnson sent an email imploring us to not have worship on Easter.  The idea of not gathering together on the most important day of the Christian year, that makes me sad!  Do no harm. But safety first comes at a high price, lots of sacrfices, lots of loss.  Last Sunday, our friends texted us a photo as they packed up their daughter and brought her home from college.  I got sad thinking about how she won’t be able to enjoy the final weeks of her senior year and celebrate at graduation.  On Friday night, a Facebook friend posted a picture of her daughter hanging out at home wearing a long sequined gown, because her prom had been cancelled.  All dressed up with no place to go—that’s sad!  I am sad that I cannot visit my mom right now, until I don’t know when.  I get sad when I think about the people who are suffering whether it be from loneliness, or lost wages, or confinement at home, or possible exposure to the virus at work. This is a sad time. Whether we realize it or not, we are all doing a lot of grieving these days.

I know you didn’t tune into worship today to hear me talk about grieving. You’re probably wondering, Pastor Dorry, give us some words of hope!   Believe me, I want those words of hope, too.  The only problem is, to get to hope, we have to go “down to Egypt.”  We have to go the place we don’t want to go.  In order to get relief, we must visit our grief.  We must go to the place of sadness and suffering in our hearts.  It is only from that place of our darkness that the light of hope can begin to dawn.

The writers of the book of Genesis wanted to be sure future generations would never feel like they were the first members of the human race to ever find themselves dealing with unimaginable realities.  They also wanted to be sure we would know, there is another Unimaginable Reality, with a capital U and a capital R, the God of Creation, who journeys with us, and who never leaves us.  Whether we are going down to Egypt to escape a famine like Jacob, or going down to Egypt because of the corona virus, God is with us.

The writers of Genesis also wanted us to know that Egypt would not be Jacob’s final resting place.  Jacob would return to Canaan.  His beloved son Joseph would bury him, and he would rest in peace.  In the Bible, Egypt is a place of sojourn.  It is a place of detour.  It is a place of both blessing and curse, a place from which we can learn and grow.  But for people of faith, “Egypt” is never permanent.  God is always at work to bring us back up, back up to a new and abundant life.

And to me, that truth is the source of our hope.  This week my friend Walter shared with me an ancient teaching called The Wheel of Life.  The Wheel of Life was commonly etched into medieval buildings as a teaching tool to help people understand and cope with change.  At the top of the wheel is a well-dressed, smiling, kingly or queenly person. This person is in the position of Happiness.  Things are normal and going well. But change happens, and the wheel turns with a clockwise movement. The same person is now upside down and falling through space with a look of distress. This is the position of Loss. The wheel continues its movement and at the bottom of the wheel the individual has now lost the fine attire and is being pulled naked along through the muck and mire of life. This is the position of Suffering. The wheel turns and the person, who is again clothed, rises up to the position of Hope. There is hopeful anticipation of once again reaching the position of happiness.

The wheel’s lesson is that there are basically four positions in life: happy, loss, suffering, and hope. We are always moving between these four places, because the winds of change are always blowing. The wheel always turns. Our happiness is not a permanent state—but neither is our suffering.  But to get to hope and happiness, we must move through the suffering.  We must endure those periods where we feel like we are free-falling in a world of loss, where we find ourselves reluctantly going down to Egypt and being dragged through the muck and mire of life.  Our human nature is to resist suffering and grief as much as possible. But God never tells us not to be sad.  We must name our grief in order to find relief.  Hope keeps us from getting stuck in our grief, but if we ignore our grief, true hope eludes us.

It seems like so long ago that we were gathered in worship, reciting together our memory verse for the month.  Do you remember it?  It comes from 2 Corinthians 10:5, “We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”  Our world is fighting a common enemy, the corona virus, to minimize the loss to human life.  But we are also all fighting a different unseen enemy, a battle that takes place in our minds.  Will we travel this corona virus journey in anxiety—or peace?  Will we go down to Egypt dragging with us false thoughts and fears—or will we trust?  Will we endure this quarantine period without ever naming our grief—or will we find relief by telling the truth?  Will we seize the opportunity of this season to turn our loneliness into solitude, and experience perhaps for the first time ever the sacred ground of our own inner selves?  As we make every effort to minimize the loss to human life, let us make every effort to maximize our experience of abundant and eternal life.

In my wildest dreams, I never imagined a time when staying home on a Sunday morning was the holiest thing any of us could do!  But this is the day the Lord has made for us.  Let’s not waste it.  Let’s rejoice and be glad, for God is with us, and can use even this for good.  Travelling mercies, my friends, as we go down to Egypt, and God will be with you until we can meet again!  In the name of Jesus, Amen.