The Book of Genesis is one of the world’s greatest works of literature. In 1996, Bill Moyers did a popular 10-episode TV series on Genesis and then published a companion book which is still in print.
         The final story in Genesis is about Joseph and his brothers. It really takes the cake as far as classic sibling rivalry goes. Let’s not lose sight of the fact that Genesis is not just about families and individuals. It is about nations. Today’s text, in particular, is not just about an adolescent boy who had a coat of many colors. It’s a story about world hunger. And it is a story about the Providence of God.
            I have today’s text from the last chapter in the great Book of Genesis. It is the denouement of the whole Book of Genesis.

[Title Slide: The Providence of God.]

            We pick up the story when Joseph’s eleven Brothers bring their elderly father Jacob all the way down from Canaan into Egypt to ask for food. That’s about 550 miles by camel caravan. Imagine their surprise when they arrive, only to discover that their long lost brother Joseph, whom they sold into slavery, is now in charge of Egypt’s equivalent of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. 

 

Gen. 50: 15-21

 15 . . . Joseph's brothers . . . said, "What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?"

16 So they sent word to Joseph, saying, "Your father left these instructions before he died:

17 'This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.' Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father." When their message came to him, Joseph wept.

 18 His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. "We are your slaves," they said.

19 But Joseph said to them, "Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God?

20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

 

            In the Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Gilead, the Rev. John Ames says every sermon is a passionate dialogue with the congregation. Like Pastor Ames, I want to engage you in a passionate dialogue about world hunger and the Providence of God.
           Let’s look at today’s text as God’s Happy Ending to one of the greatest literary narratives in the world. Genesis 50 is an almost unbelievable ending to all those classic stories of family hatreds, birthright robbing, exiles, and murders as told throughout Genesis. They are all stories about how God intended to bring Good out of Evil.
           Like a saint, Joseph forgave his brothers. After all they did to him, he said to them, “You intended to harm me,  but God intended it for good, to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So don’t be afraid.”
          The Providence of God is a very important doctrine for Presbyterians. Richard Deibert will tell you that this passage is a key text in John Calvin’s theology. In 1847, writing his Commentary on Genesis in Geneva, Switzerland, John Calvin used our text about Joseph and his brothers to lay down the basic doctrine of God’s Sovereignty, so central to Presbyterian beliefs.

            Calvin said this:[i]

            [Project John Calvin Quote slide.]

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            Nothing is done without God’s will; because he both governs the counsels of men, and sways their wills and turns their efforts at his pleasure, and regulates all events.

        Let the impious rage. Their evil intentions shall be turned to the reverse of what they intended. They shall promote our salvation, though they do it reluctantly.  

         In the story of Joseph and his brothers in Genesis 50, God is said to have "meant it unto good," because contrary to expectation, He brought joy out of evil beginnings. 

         If human minds cannot reach these depths, let us adore the mysteries we do not comprehend.
                                    John Calvin 
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         [Hungry slide HERE.]

           Skeptics ask: “How can an All Powerful and an All Good God permit world hunger?” Today, an estimated 850 million people, close to a billion people are facing hunger in Africa, Asia, and in our own hemisphere, in Haiti. That’s about one out of eight people on the planet. 25,000 fatalities due to food related causes per day. Out of respect for the children present, let’s not go into any deeper detail. But surely we all get the picture of  what famine means.
            Or do we get the picture?
            There are numerous studies that show that we are more likely to help a single person in dire need than we are to help ten, or fifty, or a thousand.[ii] 
            So, when we hear that there are 100 million MORE people starving this year than last year, we can’t cope with the idea of misery in such large numbers. That’s equal to a third of the US population.
            When Jesus said, “The poor ye have with you always,” he did not mean that we should therefore ignore them.
            Remember, in Matthew 25, Jesus also said this:

35 for I was ahungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink:

37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee ahungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? 

    40  And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. 

            For the next fifteen minutes, as we think of the issue of world hunger, let’s try to look through the eyes of Christ. Instead of blocking off our feelings because the numbers are so unimaginably large, let’s see faces of real people who could be our own friends and family members. 
            In your mind’s eye, to gain a little perspective, let’s draw a simple analogy between the world and our little church:
            Imagine that Peace Presbyterian Church is a microcosm of the entire human population on Earth. Picture the eighty of us sitting here on a typical Sunday morning. Now imagine that two of our families are sitting up here on the front rows, two Moms, two Dads, a total of six kids among them, ten members altogether. That represents one out of eight of all of our whole  membership. Here, among us, a part of us, every Sunday.
            Now let’s ask them, “Brothers and sisters, why are you hungry? Why don’t you buy something to eat for yourselves and your children?” So they tell us, “Well, we can only afford to buy a cup of rice per day to feed our families.”
            The question remains: where’s the Providence of God? Wouldn’t God provide for our hungry brothers and sisters, through us? Wouldn’t you think that the other 70 of us church members would step in to help them out?
            Consider the beautiful African country of Zimbabwe, formerly known as Southern Rhodesia. Only thirty years ago, Southern Rhodesia was the breadbasket of Africa. But today, after 28 years of criminal mismanagement and internal terrorism under the dictatorship of President Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe is a poster child for global starvation. The average Zimbabwean Gross Domestic Product is less than $200 per capita per year. Imagine trying to eat on 60 cents a day. The average life span in Zimbabwe is less than 40 years.
           Just last week, President Mugabe suspended all food relief programs in Zimbabwe. All because he is in the last throes of a national election where he lost, but is now refusing to give up power. Two million of Zimbabwe’s 13 million people depend on food aid, and they are now at risk of starving. That’s a ratio of one out of seven persons.
           What about the Providence of God in Zimbabwe? Is Zimbabwe a pagan country? No, Zimbabwe is 50 percent Christian, and 25 percent more believe in a combination of Christian and native religions.
           Where, in this evil situation, is the Providence of God?
           In Genesis 50, Canaan was a lot like Zimbabwe. In the beginning of the story of Genesis, Canaan was the promised land of milk and honey for Abraham and his descendents. And of course, two hundred years later, in the beginning of the book of Exodus when Moses led the Children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, it was the promised land once again. But in our story at the end of Genesis, the story of Joseph and his Brothers, Canaan  is the setting of a countrywide famine. Remember, that was why Joseph’s Brothers brought their dying father Jacob down to Egypt in the first place. Canaan was in the midst of a famine and they were all starving.
           Thanks to Joseph, a man of God who was the opposite of Robert Mugabe, Egypt was the Rice Bowl of the whole known world according to Genesis. You remember the story of Joseph’s career in Egypt after he was sold into slavery by his older brothers. Through his power to interpret the Pharaoh’s dreams, he rose to become the ruler of Egypt. Think of him as the Secretary of Agriculture, among other things. Joseph led Egypt to stockpile their grain to protect themselves against the dry years of famine. That made Egypt a very wealthy nation, and Joseph became a very wealthy man.
           Today, in the modern world food crisis, that same Egypt is one of the suffering Third World countries. Some of Egypt’s poorest people are rioting in the streets because the 50 percent inflation in food prices is squeezing more and more poor Egyptians past endurance into severe hunger.
           The world hunger crisis today is not due to a food shortage.
           Instead, it is due to greed. This crisis is a “perfect storm” of skyrockting oil prices, and rampant inflation in the poorest countries.
           Maybe you saw in the news that earlier this month, the United Nations held a conference in Rome to work on the problem of world hunger. Representatives of the starving regions were there, pleading with rich nations to help them.
           For example, At the U. N. conference, Egypt’s President Mubarek pointed out the fact that America’s use of corn for conversion into ethanol is one of the major factors responsible for this latest increase in world hunger. One bushel out of every five bushels of U. S. corn is now diverted into the booming market for ethanol. This demand has driven up corn prices, which is wonderful for our Midwest farmers. (On a lighter note, the price of popcorn has also gone up. Going to the movies is now more expensive.)
           The recent disastrous floods in Iowa are driving corn prices even higher. From 3-5 million acres of Iowa’s corn crop are considered destroyed. That represents all the corn that Iowa would have exported for food this coming year. This week, corn prices reached a historic high of $8 per bushel. That’s twice as high as this same time last year.
           The amount of corn needed to create just one tankful of bio-fuel for my car is enough to feed a human person for a whole year. America is exacerbating the world’s food crisis, and the world’s poor are more at risk of famine because of the soaring demand for corn ethanol.
            The irony is, it takes more than one gallon of gasoline to produce each gallon of corn ethanol. They’re supposed to be working on that little problem.
            One might ask, is it God’s will that America should be promoting corn ethanol, the least attractive of all the alternative sources of fuel, the one fuel technology that directly increases world hunger more than any other? Other countries like Brazil are producing ethanol from inedible grasses and varieties of cane, at much lower cost. But America’s Midwest farm belt does not have very much uncultivated land covered in grassland and inedible cane.
            Judi Creneti told me a joke. There’s this Presbyterian elder who prayed, “Dear Lord, why don’t you do something about the world food crisis.” Then the clouds rolled up, lightning flashed, and God spoke back to the elder: God said, “Let me ask you the same question.”
            What can we as Christians do?

[Bread for the World Logo Slide Here]

           Emily Deibert has one good approach to that question. Emily is spending her summer studying with the Bread for the World organization to learn how to reduce world hunger by 50 percent in the next generation. The U. S. has already committed a few billion dollars for food relief for next year. Bread for the World is urging Congress to go ahead and release the money now, and not wait until the Fiscal Year, because people are starving now. One out of  eight hungry people in the world cannot wait another six months.

[Slide: One Great Hour of Sharing slide]

        Another example: The Presbyterian Church (USA) is one of nine Christian denominations who participate in the One Great Hour of Sharing, an ecumenical program for worldwide relief programs. One Great Hour of Sharing supports critical relief projects in over 100 countries.
        Another example: The Presbyterian Church USA website designates 48 separate Presbyterian mission projects for our own poverty and hunger relief programs and missionaries that we support by our pledges and contributions. This includes the mission project in Arcadia. Our church, under Junie Miller’s leadership, is directly involved in hands-on mission work in Arcadia.
         Out of those 48 projects on the PC-USA website, several are targeted directly to go for international relief, in places like Africa.
         Most of the PC-USA projects declare a modest fundraising goal of from $25,000-100,000 each.
         Compare these figures with people’s voluntary donations to political campaigns.
         Well over a million Americans have clicked on the Internet to donate from $5 up to help Barack Obama pay for his TV ads this summer. Over half of those contributions were less than $25 each. That is a wonderful testimony to the power of the internet in drumming up support for presidential campaigning this year.
         What if some of us who think nothing of giving a token amount to help pay for a 30-second TV advertisement for the candidate of our choice decided to match that same gift with a click on the  PC-USA website with an equal amount for global hunger? If everyone in even the lowest giving categories did something like that, America’s churches could be receiving over $20 million in new money for their relief funds.
           Let’s get practical. We’re Presbyterians, after all. For accounting purposes, if my sermon influences you to want to make a donation over and above your pledge today, and I think it should, please channel your special gifts through the church.
          Having said that much, I must also add the obvious: disaster relief is a special offering. By definition, it is not a part of our regular church budget. We do not keep our own reserve fund for this purpose. It would take proper church action to create such a fund.
          To give you another example, the Presbyterian Newsletter last week carried an appeal for donations to the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance program, known  as PDA, for our sister Presbyterian churches caught in the Iowa flooding. I’ve put a copy of that Newsletter out on the Welcome table for your information. But I can’t advocate that Peace Presbyterian Church, as such, should send money, for the good reason that it is not in the budget.
          It’s entirely up to you as an individual if you want to do it. Nothing is stopping you from giving your money any way you choose. If that should be your decision, then I bless you for it, because obviously the need is real, and it is urgent.
         Here’s a providential blessing. Here’s a bonus when it comes to making donations for direct food relief, specifically overseas. When you give your offerings to PC-USA, or Bread for the World, or the One Great Hour of Sharing offering, did you know your donation money reaches up to three times as many people as your tax dollars?
         Compared with Church mission programs, government food aid programs are inherently inefficient. When you give to a faith based appeal, you can be sure that most of your gifts actually reach the needy. On the other hand, only a third of your tax money for international food aid ever reaches the needy. By law, federal aid for food must be spent for US farm surplus food, not spent overseas. By law, the goods must then be shipped in American transportation, which is to say, union tankers. There’s also a lot more bureaucracy. In fact, most of our tax money earmarked for foreign aid stays in this country.
        Put it this way: every dollar you give to a faith based food relief program, will go directly towards saving two or three times as many children.

[Title slide of God’s Providence—the title slide]

My conclusion is brief. Listen to Joseph in God’s Happy Ending in Genesis 50:
“20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. 21 So then, don't be afraid.”

1. We believe that Your Love is greater than Evil in any form.

            2. We believe that even if we cannot understand the reasons for world famine, or other disasters, You continue to work in ways that we can only call mysterious ways.

            3. Help us to see Your face in the faces of those who suffer. And let them see the face of Christ in ours, as we share the bounty of your blessings with those in great need.

            4. Remind us that we, too, shall have our own joyful Chapter 50, in the end. We thank You for the power of faith, the evidence of things we cannot see or understand.

            5. We praise You, in the midst of both the Good and the Evil of our present time, and in this world in which we live, and in the world to come. We are humbly grateful for Your eternal providence,

            Amen.