A Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost Genesis 45:1-15 “I will be with you.”  God’s promise to Jacob had not gone unfulfilled.  God had indeed been with Jacob, and now God was with Jacob’s offspring – in this case, Joseph.  But what was going through Joseph’s mind during the encounter in our reading from Genesis this morning. Standing before him are his 10 brothers who betrayed him.  Because of their jealousy, they had faked Joseph’s death and sold him off into slavery, causing their father, Jacob, untold grief, not to mention the years of suffering Joseph endured.  And now, … Continue reading Joseph’s Grief Observed

A sermon for the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost — Genesis 32:22-31 A first-grade Sunday School teacher seated her students in a circle, and asked them what they wanted to be when they grew up.  One by one, each child announced, "I want to be a doctor, like my father," or "I want to be a pilot, like my mother."   All the students in the circle had shared their dreams, when the time came for the most shy and timid boy in the class to speak.  He said, "When I grow up, I'm going to be a lion tamer in … Continue reading Israel’s Limp