“How God Makes Lemonade” by the Rev. Dr. Don Wahlig, February 23, 2025, Year C / Epiphany 7 - Genesis 45:3-11, 15 / Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40 / 1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50 / Luke 6:27-38

THEME:  Trust that God can and will work for our good, even in the face of evil circumstances.

Do we have any coffee lovers out there? I love coffee – especially dark roast. For me, the day does not begin until I have had a cup or two. I just do not function well without it. You have probably seen the sign in a lot of offices that says, “No coffee, No workie.” That is me. But, at the same time, there are some who cannot stand coffee. My wife is one of them. She says to me “I do not understand how something that smells so good can taste so bad.” And yet, she loves coffee ice cream. Like lemonade, the sugar in coffee ice cream makes something bitter taste oh-so-sweet. Which illustrates perfectly the point that Joseph makes in today’s text.   

This passage paints Joseph in a very positive light, doesn’t it? We are tempted to think that, despite the great wrong his brothers have done him, he magnanimously and instantly forgives them. This is the furthest thing from the truth. Joseph is no angel. Go back a few chapters and we see 17-year-old Joseph, spoiled by his father Jacob, tattling on his older brothers, and arrogantly flouting his dreams of greatness. According to Joseph, these dreams mean that one day his brothers will all bow down and serve him. Is it any wonder his brothers have it in for him? 

But even so, what they do to him is completely out of line. They chuck him into a pit and sell him off to slavery in Egypt. Even worse, they break their father’s heart by deceiving him into thinking that Joseph, his favorite son, has been killed by wild animals. But then God steps in. In Egypt, Joseph is sold to Potiphar, the captain of Pharaoh’s guard. With God’s help, Joseph thrives. But when Potiphar’s wife tries to seduce him, Joseph refuses, but ends up with the blame anyway, and he is thrown into prison.  But, even in prison, God makes Joseph prosper.  He becomes the jailer’s assistant who handles all the issues with the other inmates. Along the way, Joseph develops a reputation for interpreting dreams. And, so, after two years in prison, when Pharaoh has dreams that need interpreting, it is Joseph he calls for. Among Pharaoh’s advisers, only Joseph can interpret his troubling dreams. Giving all the credit to God, Joseph accurately predicts 7 years of bountiful harvests, followed by 7 years of famine.  When Pharaoh sees the wisdom of the plan Joseph devises to prepare for this, Pharaoh makes Joseph his number 2, second only to Pharaoh himself. 

And so, when the famine takes hold and Jacob sends his remaining sons to Egypt to buy grain, they find themselves speaking with Joseph, but Joseph withholds his identity from them. Several times his brothers travel back and forth from Canaan to Egypt.  Each time, Joseph puts them through an emotional wringer.  He makes his brothers fear for their lives and for the life of their starving, elderly father back in Canaan. Whatever you want to call it – retribution, getting his own back, getting even – it is the furthest thing from magnanimous forgiveness. It is justice, but it is not grace, at least not yet. Joseph is looking for something. He wants to see that his brothers understand and repent the wrong they did him. Even more, he wants to know that they understand the importance of family bonds. And when he sees this, he finally reveals his identity and there is an emotional reunion. The brothers are finally reconciled and reunited. In hindsight, Joseph sees God’s hand behind it all.

He chooses grace over revenge because he recognizes that God has transformed the evil of his brothers’ actions into the blessing of family unity. God did not cause this evil. The ugly side of our humanity is responsible for that. But even as we suffer human evil, God chooses to walk with us and work with us to overcome it. God will even commandeer evil to bring new life, to us and to others. But here is the catch. It is hard to see God’s hand at work when we are in the midst of suffering.

So, the question for you and me is how do we keep our faith in God, trusting his providence and goodness, while we are in the midst of the pain that evil causes? As impressive as it was that Joseph finally reconciles with his brothers, it is even more impressive that he retained his faith in God’s providence as he was suffering. Surely, he was tempted to give up on God while he was learning to be Potiphar’s slave.  Or when he was wrongly accused by Potiphar’s wife. Or when he was holed up in a jail cell for two years?

Isn’t that the challenge for all of us? It is a heck of a lot easier to trust in God’s goodness after he leads us out of our pain. The real test of our faith is whether we can trust his goodness when we are still in that dark and lonely place, struggling to find a way out.  The real question is how do we do that? The answer is to remember that God is still with us in the darkness.  Because he is still with us, we can stay connected with him in even the darkest times.

That connection starts with prayer. Prayers asking God for deliverance. Maybe ‘asking’ is too weak a word. I think we have all begged God for help and relief. Sometimes these are angry prayers – and that is OK. Especially when our suffering is great, we are all tempted to blame God for our pain. But God does not cause our suffering. Suffering is simply the nature of this world.  In the next world, when Christ returns with his Kingdom, there will be no more suffering. But in this world, suffering is a reality.  For reasons we do not know, God permits evil to operate and he allows suffering to exist. Someday, we will have the opportunity to ask why, but by then it will not matter and we will not care.

Instead of blaming God, the better, more helpful path is to thank him. That means supplementing our prayers of deliverance with prayers of gratitude. That may sound odd - counterintuitive even - but it helps to remind ourselves of what God has done in the past to bless us and deliver us from pain. If you need help, go to the psalms. There is a reason why Psalm 23 is the most popular of all. In fact, the 10 most popular psalms are all psalms of gratitude to God for delivering his people from suffering. In those dark times, as lost as we may feel, we remember how God somehow worked through us and our suffering to bring us to the other side, back to wholeness. God either changes our circumstances, or he changes us. Sometimes he does both. 

And then, having said our prayers - pleading, thanking and praising God - we have to surrender. Because trusting God means getting comfortable with not knowing everything - not knowing how God is going to accomplish what needs to be done, and not knowing when God will do it. In my life, I have found that one of the most helpful resources for surrender is a prayer written by Thomas Merton, one the most popular and prolific spiritual writers of the last century. Here is what has become known as the Merton prayer:  

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end, nor do I really know myself. And the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. 

But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road. Though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore, will I trust you always.  Though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death, I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

Friends, I have to imagine that Joseph prayed something like this when he was down there in that pit, without any food or water. And I have to believe he said a similar prayer when Potiphar had him thrown in jail for something he did not even do. And I am sure that when he was finally reconciled and reunited with his brothers, he knew for sure that God heard his prayers and answered them. That is how God makes lemonade out of lemons. And there is no sweeter taste in this life than that.

May it be so.