Navigating the New Normal:Thoughts on Life After College

MP3 Here

I was thinking a couple days ago about the first quarter I started teaching regularly here at CL. The freshman girls that year had formed a special bond. As I was just kind of learning how to do this, giving my first, uneven messages, they all sat together every week, right across the front…and they all dressed alike…and wore their hair in identical side ponytails…and frankly, I found them mildly terrifying. And for the first few months there was only one freshman guy, a seemingly quiet, introverted boy who sat all the way in the back. Well, those women are graduating in a couple weeks…and so is Kiho. And they don’t wear side ponys any more (at least Kiho doesn’t)…and I’ve come to call many of them friends…my life, the life of my family, this ministry and this campus have all been substantially enriched by their years here. And that little core group has been joined over the years by a number of fine men and women who will also graduate this year and have also had remarkable runs. And we are genuinely thrilled for you. Graduation is a really fun, exciting time and you totally deserve to celebrate and be celebrated.


But graduation has always reminded me of friend who once told me about his last day in the Army. He and a handful of other guys who were also done that day went to a one hour seminar on how to integrate back into the civilian world…and then they simply weren’t in the army any more. Reflecting on that day, he looked at me in disbelief and said, ‘It takes 6 months to join the army and only 1 hour to unjoin.’ After 4 years of a rigorous but counter cultural lifestyle, they were going to face a new-normal, and the army thought that the least they could do is provide them an one-hour of thoughts on that process.

I have often thought about how finishing up college is a similar shocking experience of plunging into a new normal…except without the one hour exit seminar. You don’t even get an exit seminar. And that’s not ok. Now, we are way too late in the quarter for me to stand up here and talk for an hour…So I’m going to give you 25 minutes. These are a few of thoughts that I have compiled over last few years of watching people make the transition well and poorly and from over a dozen substantial responses I got from a request I sent out to last year’s seniors. As usual, I have a lot of thoughts and quotes from last year’s class that I couldn’t squeeze into the talk. So I have put them online.

You see, there are two big transitions in our culture where the church is just getting killed. The first and toughest, you have made it through. The transition from high school to college is strewn with carnage of faith. It is like the banks of Normandy…many just don’t make it...they walk away from Jesus for good. This is why Amanda and I do what we do. That’s why we have joined the effort on this front.

But the second big transition is more subtle. It is the transition from college to church. And here the losses are not to unbelief…but to ineffectiveness. Fewer people take themselves out of the faith, but many take themselves out of the game. So there are three big ideas I’d like to offer you about how to Navigate the New Normal. First…

I. Learn to Work with God

Many (maybe most) of my friends who were serious about their faith in college went into full time (usually support raising) ministry. There was a perception that only second class, materialistic Christians get ‘secular’ jobs. And while that is great, I soon realized that I had not been given any theological resources for how to do anything else without feeling like a spiritual failure. I had no theology of work.

Usually, if you hear work talked about in church it is an exhortation to not work too much. I have heard the value of work generally pitched in three ways in Christian circles (in order of increasing compellingness):

1. People Like to Eat: The verse you hear get kicked around is the one where Paul says: ‘Anyone who doesn’t provide for his family is worse than an unbeliever’ – So man up and go to work. It is an unfortunate consequence of the fall so push thorough it. It sucks, but the world is fallen and you need to keep your family in Top Ramen.

2. Pastors Like to Eat: You see, by working hard, you produce excess resources that you can use to fund full time ministers who can devote their energies full time to the work of the gospel (the real work). You have the responsibility and privilege to become silent partners in their ministry by getting out of bed and going to the cube farm year after year.

3. You are a Missionary: Full time Christian workers lose most of their connections outside of the Christian community pretty quickly. They have the training but no access. This is actually the primary frustration of most of my friends who are in full time ministry…they got into it to introduce people to Jesus, but their circle shifts so that they know very few people who don’t already know him. By getting a secular job you are a ‘secret agent,’ you ‘infiltrate’ the secular world, you have the access. Your work is a platform for ministry. By working with integrity and looking for opportunities for the gospel to take root, work provides you with spiritual opportunities.

Now, there is an element of truth to each of these, but they are all fundamentally flawed. Even together, they paint a fundamentally impoverished picture. That honestly sounds like a pretty terrible way to spend your life. These motivations are not going to do it. Just a couple weeks ago, I had a student ask me ‘how do you do it? How do you go to work?” You are going to have to find meaning in those 50 to 60 hours per week or it is going to diminish you. You need a theology of work.

Remember, Adam and Eve they had jobs in paradise and I believe we will have jobs after the resurrection. Our culture has adopted the Roman and Greek view of work: Leisure is good and work is bad. But the Hebrew, view of work could not be more different.

As I said earlier this year: Work is a pre-fall ordinance. It was part of God’s good creation BEFORE the fall. Work is normative…full time ministry is the exception. We were made to work. We were made to join God in bringing order out of chaos. To join God in his initiative of making things and caring for the people and earth he made. God made work, the fall made it hard. But good, useful, diligent work is part of God’s intent for human flourishing. So you have to learn to make your work into worship. What is it about aerospace engineering that brings order out of chaos? What is it about occupational therapy that rolls back the effects of the fall? What is it about working in a coffee shop while you look for something in your field that declares the coming kingdom?

You have to learn to work with God.

II. Become the Church

You’ve got to get in a church. The local church is the basic functional unit of Christian life and practice is the ‘missional community.’ Whether or not you flourish in this transition really depends on how soon and well you integrate into a missional community. As I mentioned, last year’s seniors had lots to say about this transition, and I am going to quote them throughout this talk, starting with Monica, who said:

“Find a church and get involved ASAP.”

Christianity simply cannot be done alone. It wasn’t deigned to be done alone. But getting in on the community and the mission is harder in the next phase. It is harder for a couple reasons. First, because there are a lot of weird churches out there:

Joey and Laura ‘Welcome the Birds’ video

You have to find a church that is serious about the Scriptures and the big ideas that have been important to the Church always and everywhere. And you have to find a church that translates these into action. Finding a church that believes true things, (that majors on the majors) and puts them into action is non-negotiable. But too many wander for too long looking for a sort of ‘College Life for grown ups…” Here’s what Natalia said about this process:

“It took me soooo long to find a church because I was being (obnoxiously?) picky. Don't get me wrong, I think it's important to find a church where you're being challenged, however, I had a bad habit of writing off most churches I went to because it was "too this" or "too that"... and then realized that the church is made up of imperfect human beings and I was looking for perfection.”

But once you find a good church, your job is not done. The harder part is to become part of that church. And that is surprisingly difficult. You see most local churches are pitched to the leading/giving generation…the forty and fifty something crowd. Here is the sad truth. Churches are run by middle age people with money to give, children to care for and limited energy for innovation. A 22 year old does not fit their paradigm…shoot, a 28 year old hardly fits that paradigm. So most churches are ignoring our most energetic and creative people leaving them on the sidelines until they make some money and make some babies and fit the paradigm.

The question is, do you have the discipleship level to make community and mission happen anyway? You have got to find a way to get in on 1) Community and 2) Mission. And so let me take those in turn.

1) Community: Finding and maintaining community will take more intentional effort on your part outside of the college environment. This frustrates a lot of people. But the #1 piece of advice from last year’s seniors was that you have GOT to make community happen…because dominant theme that emerged when people talked about their struggles transitioning to life after college was loneliness.

“…feeling lonely and wishing you were still in college…”
“… season of loneliness …”
“…extended loneliness…”
“…it seemed like I was wandering into the future alone, defenseless…”
“…I began to feel lonely “
“...In the loneliness…Sometimes if feels like you've fallen off the face of the earth…”

“…every single person in our class (yes, even the ones who are engaged and married!) has talked of feeling lonely post-college. I mean, even if you stay, everyone else leaves…I don’t think I have ever been as lonely or felt as much like a failure as I did in the 6 months immediately following senior year. ”

And this was my experience, and the experience of my friends when we graduated almost 15 years ago. Now, most of those quotes were followed with thoughts about how loneness was an opportunity of a new kind of spiritual growth…and it is, I also experienced that, but that is a special temporary sort of grace…God’s normative environment for our flourishing is community…

Now, this is kind of a downer. Why would I tell you this? 2 Reasons

1) It helps to know you are not weird when it happens…and…

2) To press upon you that you have GOT to make community happen

Listen, one of the reasons I am a Christian, is because Jesus seems to get me. He seems to understand what human beings need in a deep and insightful way. And one of those things is other people.

New York Times columnist David Brooks was surveying some recent psychological research in a column a few months ago and marshaled an impressive amount of evidence that significant relationships with ‘other people’ (of the non-digital variety) is the most important factor in human flourishing.

“According to one study, (he says) joining a group that meets even just once a month produces the same happiness gain as doubling your income.” – David Brooks – New York Times

But here is the thing, until now, there has been a generational ministry set aside for you in the church…a structural mechanism in the church for grouping the other people like you together for natural community. Community was there, you just had to find it. That ends now. In college, we have urged you again and again…”Find Community.” But in the next life stage, community isn’t found. It’s forged.

Now as it turns out, I never had to learn to be very good at that…because I married someone who was amazing at it. We lived in 3 cities (slide - map) in the first 5 years after college…and we developed close friends in each place (not as close or ubiquitous as our college friends, but close enough for us to smile nostalgically every time we think of them – slide - pics). How did she do it…she was constantly inviting. Constantly taking risks of rejection. Constantly asking people to do stuff together. And here is the crazy thing. My wife is an introvert. She loves being alone. But she knows she needs people even if she doesn’t feel like being with people.

So she was constantly cooking meals, inviting friends to concerts, running around after church and inviting all of the people anywhere close to our life stage to lunch EVERY SUNDAY, creating every opportunity she could manufacture for connection. Because after college, community isn’t found, it’s forged.

But here’s the other thing about friendship. The very deepest friendships that we have had since college have not simply emerged from our desire to have friends…they have developed from sharing a common passionate purpose. Community emerges from mission. Which leads me to the second part of getting into the Church which is harder after college than it was in college:

2) Mission: You will probably have to start ‘at the bottom’ in ministry. When I was in undergrad I was the student leader of our campus ministry (that was roughly half the size of College Life). Junior year our campus pastor had a brain aneurism and the para-church staff worker was pulled from campus because he couldn’t raise enough support. When I came on as the student leader my Junior year, we suddenly went from 2 adult leaders, to zero. So for a year and a half I essentially ran a Christian ministry of over 100 students. But Amanda had the really distinguished college ministry. Amanda led small groups every single semester after her freshman year, most of them for spiritually curious students with no spiritual background and she walked with nearly a dozen people as they found faith in Jesus during her time in college. Then we graduated, got married, joined the church and looked for a ministry. We went to the leaders and asked them to put us to work. They looked at us, their eyes lit up, and they said, “You know what we really need, we need bodies to staff the nursery for the early service. We can’t seem find people willing to get up that early.”

This is not uncommon. Because of the insane pace and turnover in campus ministry, it provides students great opportunities to do REALLY significant ministry and many of you have developed fantastic ministry skill sets. Some of you have led small groups, developed kingdom projects, imagined exciting new initiatives, some of you have preached, others have led worship or…I mean, Tony, Alex, Deiter, Lenna and Kiki have made these events happen every week (and these events that are bigger and take more planning than 80% of American church services). But these skills and gifts are generally not recognized quickly by the local Church. They often look at you and see your age. So Amanda and I had a choice. We could do what needed to be done, or we could take our ball and go home.

So we staffed the nursery, and before long we ran the nursery, and after a couple years we were asked to lead a small group, and after a couple of years we were asked to run a ghetto youth ministry, and a full decade and a theology degree later we were asked to serve on an elder board and I started teaching sporadically in different ministries…and finally, a dozen years after college, Dan Seitz took a risk on us, and finally here we are in a great ministry, doing the kind of thing I pictured us doing right out of college. But it started with earning trust by playing blocks with Evan, a 3 year old who used to come to church so sleepy, dazed and confused, he was still holding his cold buttered toast…and would just stand there holding that toast watching me build block towers until he finally pulled it together enough to actually take a bite of the toast like 20 minutes later. But some of my college friends were offended by ‘starting over’ in ministry…and they never started. Most of them were taken out of the game.

The local church requires patience and humility…but I really believe that with all its flaws, it is God’s primary vehicle for his kingdom. So find a good local church (actually, forget that, it doesn’t exist, find a tolerable church and learn to love them), stay at it, and prove your value to them by doing whatever they need done as well as you can.

If you wait for the church to discover how productive, innovative and creative you can be…you will wait a long time. They will inadvertently waste your 20’s, unless you refuse to let them…so refuse to let them.

So you are going to have to forge a community AND a ministry (while lovingly submitting to, learning from and esteeming the leadership of that church). The sooner you stop seeing the old people in the church as your adversaries and start embracing them as mentors…the sooner they will embrace your contributions…Because you need the perspective and vision of the older generations But they need your energy and innovation. Win them to that understanding by your humility and eagerness. Finally…

III. Build or Venture

I remember one morning my senior year. I was walking to a final deeply sleep deprived (which, unfortunately, described most mornings of my undergraduate experience). And as I was trudging up the steep hill our little campus was built on I thought of all the people who told me to enjoy college because they would be the best days of my life. And I remember thinking “Shoot, I hope they are wrong.” And you know what, they were. Once we made it through those rough first couple of years transitioning to the church, ministry and marriage…our 20’s were better than our college years…and the ministry and family years of our 30’s have been better still.

I actually feel really bad for the people who told me that college would be the best days of my life. It means they got stuck. They failed to embrace and enjoy the blessings and challenges of each life stage for what they are…they just processed them through the lens of ‘less freedom’ ‘fewer friends’ ‘more hours in a cubicle’ ‘more poo on my shirt’ (which happens when you have kids, or before that if you are an agg major).

If college turns out to be the best days of your life…your life sucks. You need to get a life. But the transition between life stages whether it is HS-College, or College-after college or to suddenly becoming responsible for tiny human beings, it shakes you up and asks you what you’re really made of.

You don’t have to know where you are going to make ground. Who you become is a function of what you try. You won’t know where you are headed until you try a path.

“Be content with your season of life and maximize your time in it.”-Monica

And your post-college twenties are your chance to either set up future decades to be reliable foundational members of your community and church or to take on risky ventures that won’t be available later on. So don’t waste them. Whatever you choose to do, make sure you move forward. It doesn’t have to move you towards a particular goal, but this is either a time to build or it’s a time to venture. You either need to be building for the long term (save for a house even if you don’t have a girlfriend, get the hard degree you will need so you don’t have to go back when you have kids, build a career you love, get the theological development and skills you need for lifetime of fruitful lay ministry), or it’s a time for venturing (get in on a church plant, join a mission initiative, start a business)…venture on a risky, exciting initiative that could fail, but it’s ok if it does, because no one is counting on you to eat. But do something. It is a time to build or to venture. Which of those you choose has a lot to do with your personality and your gifting. But floating is not an option.

I don’t do long quotes often, but Shauna Niequist, an author from Chicago, put this pretty well:

This is the thing: When you hit 28 or 30, everything begins to divide. You can see very clearly two kinds of people. On one side, people who have used their 20s to learn and grow, to find God and themselves and their dreams, people who know what works and what doesn’t, who have pushed through to become real live adults. Then there’s the other kind, who are hanging onto college…with all their might. They’ve stayed in jobs they hate, because they’re too scared to get another one. They’ve stayed with men or women who are good but not great, because they don’t want to be lonely. They mean to find a church, they mean to develop intimate friendships…But they don’t do those things, so they live in an extended adolescence, no closer to adulthood than when they graduated.
 Don’t be like that. Don’t get stuck. Move, travel, take a class, take a risk. There is a season for wildness and a season for settledness, and this is neither. This season is about becoming. Don’t lose yourself at happy hour, but don’t lose yourself on the corporate ladder either. Stop every once in a while…with your journal.

Ask yourself some good questions like: “Am I proud of the life I’m living? What have I tried this month? What have I learned about God this year?...Do the people I’m spending time with give me life, or make me feel small? Is there any brokenness in my life that’s keeping me from moving forward?”


Now is your time. Walk closely with people you love, and with people who believe God is good and life is a grand adventure. Don’t get stuck in the past, and don’t try to fast-forward yourself into a future you haven’t yet earned.

This is in line with what Gail, one of last year’s seniors said was the most helpful thing for her in the transition. She said that loosing the 10 week evaluation cycle left her drifting, overwhelmed by the new time scale of her ventures. She said that disciplining herself to set and revisit a series of short and long term goals that was really significant to help her get a handle on the life stage. So, you want to Navigate the New Normal of life after college? 1)Learn to work with God, 2) Become the church and 3) Build or Venture…
…and that is fine for seniors. But what about the rest of you? Well, we probably won’t give this talk again next year…so you should probably consider this your exit seminar. But there are a couple ways that these ideas can inform your college years.

Thoughts for Underclassmen
1. Hit the Summer hard.

Its good training. Get in a church, work hard, keep up the disciplines, set aside the video game console and find something useful to do whether or not you get paid, make intentional contact with CL friends in your area and practice making new friends outside of the campus environment.

2. Get Momentum into the transition.

Several people told me that having that next thing already lined up when they graduated was the most helpful thing for them in the transition. So, Juniors, spend THIS summer deciding what grad schools or internships you want to apply to (even if you have NO IDEA what you want to do or if grad school is even for you). Set aside a couple hours a week to prayerfully surf these web sites. Take initiative in the process of deciding. And find a vocational mentor early on who can help you think about it (btw Natalia, Michelle was just telling me how you are doing this for her). The deadline for many grad schools and missions opportunities is January 1 and it comes and goes before many seniors even notice. How might you want to build or venture...you need to think about this early if you are going to get momentum into the transition. Don’t give up on the year after undergrad until it is upon you because it seems overwhelming. Put intentional thought and energy into what you want to do...and then send out a variety of applications that will help you build or venture.

Because you will NEVER have more energy or capacity than you do right now. Seriously, I fall asleep most nights at 9:30 whether I want to or not...it is currently past my bed time...I am on the verge of falling asleep right now mid sentence...and I'm not even THAT old. Now is the time to do the ‘hard thing’ whether it is grad school, or peace corps, or missions, or to taking a REAL, sustained shot at an artistic dream, or to do a ministry internship in Wisconsin with Adam Darbonne (which is a possibility – if you’re interested come talk to me). Years in your early 20’s – before you have kids - are incredibly precious in retrospect. You WILL wish you did more with them. Get purposeful momentum into the transition.

Finally, undergrads…

3. Leave it on the Field at College.

I think the best predictor of how this transition will go for you is how you handle your senior year. If your senior year is largely spent looking ahead, you may be the kind of person who does a lot of ‘looking back’ once you are out of here.

I want to close with a quote from one of the funniest people I know…Bronwyn Murphy. I am convinced that the Murphy’s could be a sit com…I’d watch that. They are hilarious. And there would probably be so much sports talk in that sit com, that it could probably air on ESPN. But it would also be the one of the most insightful things on television. So Bronwyn weighed in on this transition for me, and it got real…listen to what she said.

One of the biggest tragedies I have witnessed is graduating seniors refusing to finish strong (classes, ministry, relationships) in the present because they are so focused on the future. Once they graduate, they become inefficient and frankly joy-less in the present as they long for what was in the past (roommates, fellowship, relationships, DC late night)…Both miss entirely the blessings of God in the present.

But if you embrace your senior year for all of its complexity and melancholy and ‘leave it on the field’ in your classes and ministry, then you are probably the kind of person who will find God’s best in a new, totally different situation. If you practice thankfulness, if you wage contentment…you will build the spiritual muscles that will help you through this transition…and the ones coming…the joys and boredoms of parenthood…the estrangement and grace of a difficult season of marriage…the terrors and beauty of adult children…the horror and adjustment of a serious illness…the melancholy and faithfulness of getting old.

It starts now…with embracing THIS season…like a grown up…balancing vocation, community, family and ministry when you come back in the Fall. I’ll see you then.


Note: I have accumulated footnotes and deleted sceens from this talk in a seperate post

Brother from Another Mother: Judah, Joseph and the Story of Self Donation

Note: This talk covered 12 chapters of Genesis, so it is mostly story telling with a little preaching at the end. To make the story telling a little easier to take, I co-taught this with two students (Landon Ellis and Peter Nittler) who wrote and performed monologues, videos and dialogs as Joseph and Judah. So this talk has a non-traditional format. It takes the form of a play in 4 acts, and I jump in between them for comment.

MP3 (right click - save as)
There are some questions have obvious answers…

But there are other questions that have obvious answers…that are wrong.

For example, who did the US hockey team defeat in the gold medal game in 1980?

Well this event is famous for ‘the miracle on ice’ where the US beat a superior Soviet team at the peak of the cold war…It is a question with an obvious answer…but it is an obvious answer that is wrong. The famous game against the soviets was a semi-final game. I had to go on Wikipedia to find out that they beat Finland 4-2 in the gold medal game.

Or what about….Who won the Oscar for best film in 1998?

Well the most memorable film moment of 1998 was Spielberg and Hanks collaborating for that epic D-day scene and one of the finest films in years…Saving Private Ryan. It’s the obvious answer…but it’s an obvious answer that is wrong. In one of the most inexplicable moments in Academy history, they honored a totally forgettable film that year called “Shakespeare in Love?”

So, let’s do one more:

“Who are the 4 Patriarchs in Genesis?”

Well after we’ve spent the whole year studying Genesis, that is a question with an obvious answer. We have spent most of this year talking about 4 dudes: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph.

It is a question with an obvious answer…an obvious answer that is wrong. You see, Joseph gets most of the 4th generation press. We’ve been talking about him for several weeks. More pages of your bible are dedicated to his story than Abraham, Isaac or Jacob.

And as we have seen for the last couple weeks, he was an impressive guy – you could even argue that he is the most impressive of the four. But the rest of the story does not go through him. The Genesis story of God’s plan of human rescue and redemption goes through one of Jacob’s other sons…It goes through Judah.

So tonight I want to ask a very basic question. Why Judah?

After his birth, (which Alyssa already told us was kind of special) Judah is only mentioned 4 times in the Genesis narrative…but he is mentioned nearly 800 times in the rest of the Bible.

When the prophets talk about the divided kingdom years later they use a short hand referring to the northern kingdom as Israel, Joseph or Ephraim (Joseph’s son) and to the southern kingdom, the one that persists, the one that produces Messiah as Judah.

But that seems a little like saying Wow, Steven Baldwin is my favorite actor, or Cooper Manning is my favorite quarterback. In both cases there is a brother (or two) that seem like more obvious choices.

So what we are going to do with most of our time tonight is just tell Judah and Joseph’s intertwined stories. It unfolds in the latter chapters of Genesis as a play in 4 acts.

But to do this, I want you to imagine the story with me. Sometimes I think people find the scriptures dull because they read them dully. They do not read with their imaginations. Sometimes I feel like we find the scriptures dull because we’re dull these ancient texts burst at the seems with story….but you have to be willing to read slowly enough.

Sometimes, in ancient literature, a single adjective carries a lifetime of hurt or joy and decades pass in the space of a period…and the text often just reports the facts leaving it to you to reconstruct the emotion, tension and drama. So tonight, I’ve asked a couple of friends to help us imagine thee intertwining stories of Joseph and Judah that unfolds in 4 acts…

…and it starts with Act 1 where Judah and his brothers selling Joseph to slave traders and pretending he was dead. Most of the brothers just wanted to leave Joseph to die, but it was Judah that had the idea to sell him into slavery.

Act 1: A Crass Calculation

JUDAH (Played by Peter Nittler)

No! No! Is that? Is that Joseph?! Oh COME on, this was supposed to be a Josephless outing. And why is he running like that? (waves) ya we see you, ya we hate you, and your coat doesn’t help.


He’s probably coming to tell us his latest HILARIOUS dream… that sometime in the future, someone will make a musical about his life, and his amazing technicolor dreamcoat.


Something tells me I’m not the only one who would rather greet Joseph with a holy fist than with open arms. Who can blame us though, I mean the shear ARROGANCE of this punk makes me want to vomit on his coat just to say, “I thought it could use more color”…


And to make it worse, our father LOVES Joseph…I’m serious. It’s inconceivable.


I’m not sold on this whole “let’s kill the dreamer thing” cuz like… Murder’s… like… kind of a big deal… but I wouldn’t mind seeing him gone… so here are some pros and cons


Pro’s… well, no more Joseph, no more OBNOXIOUS coat, I could live the rest of my life in the sheer euphoria knowing that none of his “dreams” came true.


Con’s… if there need be any… murder’s bad I guess, APPARENTLY he is family, I guess there’s potential for guilt at some point in my life, and it will cripple my father but most importantly, his murder gives us nothing in return, yes there will be no more Joseph, but there will also be no extra fortune in it for me if he dies…


I say we sell him. He can live the rest of his life in captivity bowing down to all while no one bows to him, while I can live the rest of my life in utter freedom and bliss with Joseph only as a memory I can surely suppress!


Speak of the serpent, are those Midianite traders?! Guys wait up, do I have the man for YOU?! What’ll you give me for a potentially crazy youngster with rockin abs and a fierce imagination… 20 shekels… SOLD.

JOSEPH (played by Landon Ellis)


Oh, those brothers of mine. It’s just like them to pull this kind of stuff. They think they’re so hilarious trying to rile me up like this. Pretending to throw me in a pit and leave me there to die, then getting my hopes up by pulling me out of the pit, only to have a VERY convincing acting troupe stage a fake transaction where I’m sold into slavery! I mean, imagine if they weren’t pretending, imagine what kind of trouble I’d be in…


You really gotta hand it to ‘em though. It must’ve been a huge project. And THAT’S probably why they left me at home when they went out to “tend the flocks”…they had to finish scheming their big plan!


You know, I actually thought they might’ve been mad at me. I know, I know, it sounds ridiculous; who could be mad at the youngster in the cute colorful coat? But seriously, they’ve all been acting a little weird ever since I had my dreams.


Ah, but they don’t know that I know what they’re up to. So the jokee becomes the jokER! I’ll show them; I’m going to remain calm, cool, and collected.


This is taking a while though. They’re gonna kick themselves when we have to walk back in the dark. If they were smart they would’ve gotten me back before bedtime.


I wonder…noooo…you don’t think…they might’ve actually…SOLD me? They didn’t ACTUALLY want to get rid of me…they weren’t ACTUALLY going to KILL me, were they? I mean, Dad might’ve showed me a little favoritism here and there, but…I’m the obvious choice! I…if this is real…oh crap.

Which brings us to Act 2. If you’ve been coming to these talks, Act 1 is familiar… but Act 2 is a little less talked about…you see Act 2 includes the sex scenes Genesis 38 and 39. You all heard Adam’s talk about Joseph’s sexual purity in Genesis 39. But what you may not know is that Genesis 38 is a strange story about Judah’s sexual brokenness. Genesis 38 never made much sense to me. It occurs in the middle of the Joseph story…and does not really move his story forward. But I’m convinced that its narrative purpose was to set Joseph’s sexual purity against Judah’s sexual brokenness and to show us the turning point for Judah. The author is keeping us up to date with Judah…and is brutally honest about his failures. This is where Judah hits bottom.

Act 2: A Sexual Contrast (video)



Judah

Ok doc let me catch you up… So if we’re keeping score I fathered 3 lads within 5 verses.


My first born got SMITED by God for wickedness… can you believe that? SMITED, I sold my own brother into slavery, what in the world could this have done that was THAT much worse than that.


And so now I gotta deal with his poor widow, Tamar…anyway, so I try to the noble thing and tell my second son, Onan… you know… do your brotherly deed if you know what I mean, become acquainted with your brother’s wife.


But Onan, poor poor Onan. I loved that boy. But that’s exactly what he was, a boy trapped in a man’s body (not like in a costume, just immature)... He pretty much just used her for sex. Well I don’t think that pleased God too much cuzzzz he got smited too…


So back to our score keeping, we’re down to one… and that number is rapidly approaching zero… And I didn’t want Tamar to have to deal with yet ANOTHER dead son of mine so I told her to wait until Shelah had grown up before they became… one…


Now… umm… doc, remember I was lonely, I had just lost two sons and I’m still reeling from the loss of Shua. Ah doc, she was a beauty...a little outta my league, you know how that goes… Anyway, I was heartbroken and looking for some… companionship…


So I’m out there looking for my friend for the evening and I see this gorgeous young lady who’s hair looked like a dark waterfall and who’s eyes looked at me like they already knew me…


Problem is doc, she did know me… she knew me well… she knew me well enough to get exactly what she needed from me and then disappear in the morning.


You see, my friend that night wasn’t REALLY a prostitute, she was ummm...The one I THOUGHT was a prostitute and who I (cough) ...laid with…. Was actually... Tamar, my firstborn’s wife.


Mmhmm… swallow that one for a second. I guess she was mad I didn’t give her Shelah… Heck of a way to get back at me, huh? And then I forced her to go public and realized …she really is “more righteous than I”

Doesn’t stop there Doc oh no no no no no (shaking head)… She got knocked up. YUP, gotta add two more youngsters to the list… Perez and Zerah… tainted children forever… the sons of my sin and the sons of my shame


The final score? Three.. a tragic tragic three.

JOSEPH (video)


What am I in for? What am I in for??


I’m in for being “handsome in form and appearance”. THAT’s what I’m in for. What, what…doesn’t make sense you say? Ah, yes, well let me explain.


This dingleberry I was working for, Potipher—he’s got this real treat for a wife. Can you believe this? Whenever I see the woman she comes up to me and starts begging, “Joseph, Joseph, lie with me”.


Well, I am a man of principle, and one whom the Lord has blessed thank you very much, so I responded, “Potipher’s wife, you are very beautiful and I’m flattered, and, well, not surprised by your desires; however, your husband has kept nothing back from me in this house except you. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?”


Well, one day she got a little physical and she tried to grab me. Luckily, I’m elusive enough that she only got a hold of my garment…but I gotta say, first my rainbow coat gets stolen and now this! Maybe I just shouldn’t wear clothes and save everyone the effort of stealing them! But I digress.


Anyway, once she got a hold of that, she lied to her husband and said I tried to sleep with her! And what’s worse, he believed her. After years of my faithful service…


And so that’s it, that’s why I’m here with you in prison. No due process, no lawyer. The only real criminal is HER, for stealing my clothes.

And that’s Act 2. Genesis 38 not only makes the story of Potipher’s wife look tame it makes the plots of most soap operas look tame. Judah has sex with a prostitute, only it isn’t a prostitute…it’s his dead sons’ wife (and yes, sons’ plural). And she gets pregnant with twins. And Judah is about to have her burned alive, when she reveals that he’s the daddy. But then we get, what I believe, is Judah’s turning point. He comes to a point of realization and repentance…the text is pretty clear that after Onan died he never really intended to take care of Tamar…But in that moment, he stops blaming Tamar or God saying “she is more righteous than I.” Act 2 ends with Judah repenting of sin and providing for his daughter in law. Which brings us to Act 3.

Years later, Joseph ends up reunited and reconciled to his brothers who sold him but they still have a dark history between them and they’ve been separated for decades, so they are practically strangers. The text gives us a climactic reconciliation scene. But real reconciliation is a long difficult process. Forgiveness takes a moment reconciliation is hard work that takes time.

I imagine that Joseph must have eventually had some intense times with the brothers…including Judah. Imagine what it would have been like for Joseph and Judah to sit down after decades of separation and both of them still carrying the memories of the dark events that separated them. Maybe, let’s say, at Benjamin’s wedding.

Eventually Benjamin would have gotten married and Joseph would have thrown him an elaborate Egyptian wedding. You see, old people experiences weddings differently than young people…get reflective and sometimes melancholy, especially if there is an open bar…and they think about the big events that have set the trajectory of our lives…So let’s set Act 3 at Benjamin’s wedding after the brothers have been reunited.

Act 3: A Complicated Reunion

Judah: Is anyone sitting here? (gestures at an empty seat)

Joseph: Looks like you are!

Judah: So Joseph, an Egyptian wife eh? And your boys are almost the same age as Perez and Zerah. Boy, they grow up fast, don’t they?

Joseph: They sure do. Your boy’s mom was a Canaanite from what I hear!

Judah: That’s right, you’re not the only one in the family into exotic women. I wish you could have met Shua…Man, I miss her. Anyway, its great you threw this big wedding for Benjamin…but your boys are the only ones who have any idea what to do at an Egyptian wedding.


Joseph: Well, I was 17 when I ‘left home’ (air quotes) – I’ve had some time to acclimate.

Judah: Yeah, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. Um…I’m sorry I sold you to slave traders. (dead pan)

Joseph: Yeah, that sucked.

Judah: You know, I REALLLLLLY hated you.

Joseph: Is that so? You know, I’m not sure you understand how apologies are supposed to work.

Judah: Remember that night at the Jabbok River? When we first came into the promise land?

Joseph: Jabbok River? Uhh, I don’t think so.

Judah: You couldn’t have been older than 4 or 5. You might have even slept through it. But I was a teenager. I knew that Dad thought uncle Esau had brought an army to that river to slaughter us. And what does he do? He sends me, my mother and my brothers first to face our deaths. And he hides you and your mom – the loved wife and her precious son - behind us…hoping that Uncle Esau would be so distracted slaughtering us that you could sneak to freedom. You were too young to understand. But Rueben, Levi, Simeon and I…we knew what was going on… the thing is, we were ALREADY bitter about the way Dad favored PERFECT Joseph and Rachel. But that night... as we crossed that river... Terrified... our fear turned to hatred…we hated you.

Joseph: Judah, that was out of my control.

Judah: Yeah, but that didn’t matter. When we sold you into slavery, I didn’t even think twice…I thought with you gone, Dad would have more time and interest for us.. The unloved sons. But Reuben slept with his concubine and Levi and Simeon slaughtered a village and, really, Benjamin became the center of Dad’s world. Same old same old.

But then, decades passed. And then I lost sons. And the nights began to get long. And I had time to think… how horrible we were… how horrible I was. And I began to imagine where you were and what became of you…and it haunted me.

Joseph: Judah…What you meant for evil, God meant for good. I’ve already forgiven you. We’re cool. (awkward silence) …Hey I think it’s time for the Egyptian chicken dance.


Judah: Oh, yeah, totally, chicken dance, for sure!

(Landon and Peter do a couple steps of the chicken dance which transitions to ‘walk like an Egyptian’)

Act 3 intermission

But to really understand how complicated the brother’s reconciliation would have been, we have to talk about the story of their reunion. You see decades after Joseph is sold, a famine hit the entire region, and Jacob sent the brothers down to buy grain from the only place that had it…Egypt. Where Joseph was in charge. And he recognized them, but they didn’t recognize him. And the stuff Joseph does is really weird.
He accuses them of being spies, jailed them for three days, eavesdropped on their conversations by pretending not to know their language, he took Simeon, one of Leah’s sons hostage and had him tied up in front of the brothers and told them if they ever wanted to see him again they had have to come back with Benjamin (the youngest of the brothers and Joseph’s only full brother who his mom, Rachel, died delivering – and who their father loved too much to send on the dangerous journey to Egypt). But then he sent them home with food and their money which totally messes with their heads. When they ran out of food they went back with Benjamin and Joseph welcomed them but then he framed Benjamin for stealing palace treasure, pretends to have figured it out by magic and takes Benjamin as a slave.

Bottom line of this story, Joseph used his power to toy with them. A lot of people will try to justify Joseph’s behavior here. One theory is that he is trying to lead his brothers into repentance. But I don’t think that is what’s going on here. Joseph might be the most admirable of the patriarchs, and as we’ve seen over the last few weeks has heroic moments…but he is not a hero. One of the themes of Genesis we have hit again and again this year is that the Bible only has room for one hero, Jesus. The people in his story are a total mess. Joseph has some great moments, but this isn’t one of them. When he messes with his brother he is being a jerk.

You see Mirolslov Volf who is a Christian theologian from Serbia, and witnessed some of the genocide there, says that the greatest violence that an oppressor does to the oppressed is to fill their hearts with hate. So that when the oppressed get power, they become oppressors… he says

“One of the most insidious aspects of the practice of evil (is that) In addition to inflicting harm, the practice of evil keeps re-creating a world without innocence. Evil generates new evil as evildoers fashion victims in their own ugly image.”

That is what I think is going on here. Joseph brother’s betrayal has festered in him for years …And so he just messes with them. And he does a lot of crying …he literally leaves the room crying 4 times in the passage. Dude is a mess. Until Judah steps up and puts an unexpected end to it all.
When the brothers face Joseph's charge against Benjamin, it is Judah who does the talking. He tells Joseph how fragile their father is and how losing Benjamin will kill him. And then says this:

Genesis 44:33 Now therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a servant to my lord, and let the boy go back with his brothers. 34 For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the evil that would find my father.”

And Joseph immediately reveals himself and embraces his brothers. So, with that let’s get back to the wedding

Joseph: Well while we are repenting…I guess it is my turn.

Judah: Your turn? What do you mean?

Joseph: So you know when the famine hit, and dad sent you and the brothers down to get some grain?

Judah: Yeah, and we showed up asking you for food…except we had no idea it was you.

Joseph: Yeah, well, I recognized you from the moment you walked in. And I basically toyed with you.

Judah: Yeah, that sucked. I mean, you called us “spies”! “Spies?” was that the best you could come up with? Real creative.

Joseph: Well, maybe it wasn’t my most inspired work, but it all led to framing Benjamin, and forcing you to leave him behind as my slave.

Judah: I knew it! I knew it was you!

Joseph: What can I say? I hated you. Those long nights with the welts from the Midianite whips against the Sainai sand as I marched for months to my new life of slavery…unending days in an Egyptian prison eating garbage and living within 10 feet of my own excrement…years of loneliness…decades of homesickness…I had some time to think about what you guys did to me…and then you just show up, out of the blue, and need me…but have no idea it’s me. And so I messed with you.


Judah: And we did whatever you asked…because we needed food.

Joseph: Until I forced you to leave Benjamin behind. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I was certain that Benjamin, my mom’s only other son, would be the new favorite. And knowing how you guys got rid of me—I figured that you’d just cut your losses with him. But not this time. At least not you, Judah.


I couldn’t believe it. Leah’s son, the son of the unloved wife, offering himself in place of my brother…Rachel’s kid. Your love for Dad was bigger than your bitterness toward my mom. That changed everything, Judah. That act healed our family. Decades of mutual anger, hate and violence…undone with a selfless act. You were the very one who sold me into slavery because I was Rachel’s son, and yet you offered to sacrifice yourself to free my replacement.

Which leads us to Act 4 and the scripture Rebecca read. You see, at the end of Genesis, as Jacob is dying, and he prophesies over Joseph’s sons. And he blesses Joseph’s younger son Ephraim.

And then he turns to the rest of his sons. And he has very terse and biting words for some of them. Reuben, Levi and Simon each get blasted rather than blessed. But after Joseph’s sons he has the most to say to Judah. And I imagine what he had to say to Judah must have been confusing to everyone.

So let’s go back to our characters for one last scene. For Act 4 imagine Joseph and Judah, who over the years became friends as well as brothers, passing their last days as a couple old coots on the banks of the Nile…and they try to make sense of this.

(costume change – old dude cloths) - suspenders, socks/sandals

Act 4: A Confusing Prophecy

Joseph: Dude, we got old!

Judah: Hmm? What’s that you say?

Joseph: (shakes his head) Do you ever wonder about Dad’s prophecy over us?

Judah: From time to time…BRUTALLY awkward event, all of us brothers in one room while pops either tore us to shreds or drowned us with affirmation... You were definitely Dad’s favorite right up until the end there, weren’t cha?

Joseph: Yeah, but your blessing was different. The more I think about it, the more I think you’re the one of us that’s really going to be great. You’re the one who’s going to matter.

Judah: Oh, stop it!

Joseph: Seriously! I mean: “Your brothers will praise you,” “Your father’s sons will bow down to you” – those were MY dreams…and then the kicker: “The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet.” I might’ve gotten some nice blessings from Dad, but your descendants will rule. Abraham’s story goes through you, Judah.

Judah: But that’s what makes no sense … Yahweh’s covenant going through the line of the brother-seller?!


Joseph: Through you and the son you made with your sons’ widow who you thought was a hooker.

Judah: (winces) Yeah, weird right? I totally don’t get it.

Joseph: I didn’t either…for years. But now I have an idea.

Judah: Oh do you? Well, please…elaborate!

Joseph: I keep coming back to that day…that day you healed our family with your offer to sacrifice yourself. I wonder if that isn’t the kind of thing that our story is all about…if self donation isn’t precisely the kind of thing that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob would make his story about.

You see, the story goes through Judah. And not just Judah, but Tamar and Perez. Genesis 38, the tawdry sex scandal with Tamar, seems like a totally unnecessary passage, until they show up 44 words into the New Testament. As Matthew is laying out the genealogy of Jesus it reads:

1 This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:
2 Abraham was the father of Isaac,
Isaac the father of Jacob,
Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,
3 Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar,
Perez the father of Hezron,

And so this whole story leads up to a very simple question…Why? Why Judah? Why Tamar? Why did God send his story of redemption through them? Let me conclude with two thoughts about why this is precisely the kind of thing the God we have learned about throughout Genesis would do:

1) Because the story of Jesus is a story of God bringing beauty out of hopelessness and degradation. The story of Judah and Tamar is HORRIBLE. It is sad, and sick, and entirely without heroes. But it ends with repentance. And so it is exactly the kind of story that the God of the Bible would use to knit into his cosmic narrative of redemption. And if he can use that kind of story…if Judah and Tamar are not out of reach to live lives of purpose and worship…neither are you.

2) Second, Because Judah’s act of self donation is precisely what The Story is all about. Judah and Joseph do not know where their story is heading. They just know that Yahweh has chosen their family to somehow bring his grace and favor to the whole world. But we know how that story goes. We know that the climax of that story is that the cycle of evil and vengeance is undone by an act of God’s self donation. In Jesus, the God of Genesis steps up, in a confusing but fundamental way, to sacrifice himself on our behalf. And so, despite his checkered past, Judah’s act of self donation is what the story is all about.

The story is about Jesus reconciling people to God and each other by sacrificing himself.

And so that is how we can live as children of the covenant to. We look for ways to diffuse vengeance and speak grace by self donation. We follow Jesus just as Judah prefigured him in self giving love even for those who are mistreating us…and especially for those we have wronged.

Note: This message started its life as a blog post