Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] I'm getting the feeling that I want to roll up my sleeves for this sermon this morning.
[00:00:08] There are days when the way in which the church delivers the story, the narrative that guides our worship, delivers it in such a way that it almost feels it works against the preacher and the listener.
[00:00:28] And this is one of those days.
[00:00:31] So bear with me, buckle your seatbelt, and let's try to take a ride where we might end up in some place altogether. And that that place might be beautiful.
[00:00:45] Fingers crossed.
[00:00:50] For centuries in the Northern Hemisphere, those who have sought to cross the ocean, or those who have sought to adventure across undulating landscapes.
[00:01:10] For centuries, adventurous humans have used Polaris in order to to navigate from one position to another. At least in the Northern Hemisphere.
[00:01:27] Polaris nickname, of course, is the North Star.
[00:01:33] It has that nickname because of where it sits on the horizon. In the Northern Hemisphere, the star sits just above the North Pole. It's a part of Ursa Minor, and it is the furthest end of the handle on the Little Dipper. It's used as a navigation point not because it doesn't move across the horizon. It moves, but it only moves slightly. And stars that are further south tend to migrate across the horizon as the Earth rotates during the course of the evening.
[00:02:19] Polaris is not actually a single star. It is a cluster of stars, really two stars. And the major one, the one that gives us the brightness in the northern sky, is named Polaris aa.
[00:02:40] It has not always been a navigation point, astronomers tell us, and it will not always be a navigation point for those of us who live in the Northern Hemisphere. At some point it will be replaced by another star, but that most likely will not be in our lifetime.
[00:03:05] So we can depend upon Polaris or the North Star in order to get from one place to another place.
[00:03:16] This star has taken such a central role in lives of humans who live in the Northern Hemisphere that it has both a literal job and a metaphorical job.
[00:03:36] Of course, the literal helps people move from one side of the Atlantic Ocean to the other, or from one side of the continental divide to the other. But the metaphor, the North Star has become important to us in our language and in the sort of existential, social, emotional, spiritual place which we heart driven human beings seek to occupy.
[00:04:04] A North Star, a North Star has come to symbolize the metaphor of like a deep purpose for our life.
[00:04:17] Some use North Star to describe a partner, another human being whose heart is so tied to a our own heart that they seem to beat together.
[00:04:31] Or for someone like me, my North Star might be my vocation, something more than a profession or a job to get up and go to Monday through Friday or Monday through Thursday and a Sunday, something more than that. A role that we find for ourselves amidst a culture that seems to connect to the past, to childhood and young adulthood, and if I am lucky, perhaps into the future as well.
[00:05:11] North Star both literally and metaphorically important and central in the way that we human beings move from one place to another or in the way that we navigate our way through life.
[00:05:31] Now speak about Polaris or the North Star this morning because of this character that we have from the Hebrew scriptures, Joseph.
[00:05:42] Joseph is probably one of the most North Star oriented characters in all of story and storytelling and the church. In her wisdom and in her struggle to communicate the biblical narrative from Genera, from Genesis all the way to the book of Revelation, does a terrible job of telling us or reminding us the story of Joseph. If you were around this church last week, you heard the story that at least the 1970s brought to our consciousness. You heard part of the story that is Joseph and his technicolor dream coat.
[00:06:34] Joseph is the son of Jacob and the brother of many and he stands out. He seems so self possessed and creative that he wears the leopard skin print muumu in all that he does. Or if you were lucky enough to see St. Paul and the broken Bones this past week at the center for the Arts. He wears that gold sequined choir robe that their lead singer wears.
[00:07:14] He is flamboyant and creative and beautifully self possessed and it makes him his dad's favorite and it makes him despised by his brothers. And you heard the story of his brothers conspiring against him when he came out on onto the plains to meet his brothers. They decided at first that they would do him in, that the moomoo and his self possession and his creativity was just too much. So they were going to kill him. And then they changed their minds about killing him. They decided for a more passive alternative instead of killing him, we'll just throw him into a hole that he'll never be able to get out of and and he'll die down there in the bottom of the hole. And then ultimately they decide, as the story tells us, to sell him into slavery just to get him away always and forever. And that's the plan they execute on. And that's the where the story ended last Sunday. And then absurdly and ridiculously we picked the story up this morning and in this reunion that Joseph has with his brothers and I've got some in between story to tell you or to remind you of, because we need to see the high highs of Joseph's life and the low lows of Joseph's life in order to connect to this North Star oriented character.
[00:08:56] Now, the very next thing that happens after Joseph is sold into slavery, he's sold again for a second time.
[00:09:05] He's bought by a guy named Potiphar. Potiphar, who happens to be like Pharaoh's coo.
[00:09:14] So he moves from his land, his homeland, the land of his father and his grandfather and his great grandfather Abraham. And he's pushed into Egypt and. And he is bought as a slave by Pharaoh's coo.
[00:09:31] Potiphar quickly learns that Joseph is a bright and capable leader and manager. And that's a rare quality. Leaders lead and managers manage. But oftentimes leaders don't manage and managers don't lead. But that's not the case for Joseph. Joseph leads and he manages in a brilliant way. And when Potiphar puts him in charge, Potiphar's house begins to prosper.
[00:10:04] Everyone is happy, everyone is cooperating, things are going beautifully and wealth is beginning to be created. Wealth that wasn't expected in Potiphar's house.
[00:10:20] And.
[00:10:22] And Potiphar's wife has a big crush on Joseph.
[00:10:31] High highs and low lows.
[00:10:35] Potiphar's wife propositions Joseph a few times and he, being a person of high character, resists her seduction.
[00:10:45] She then becomes upset and angry, and in a moment where they find themselves together in Potiphar's house with no one else around, she makes a move on Joseph. Joseph panics, she grabs his tunic and Joseph flees, his tunic falling off, running away naked.
[00:11:06] Potiphar's wife, embarrassed by what has happened, embarrassed by her rejection, falsely accuses Joseph of sexual assault.
[00:11:19] Joseph, wrongly accused, falsely accused, is thrown into prison where he begins to flourish.
[00:11:31] High highs and low lows. The chief jailer quickly recognizes that Joseph is both capable leader and capable manager. And the chief jailer of the prison makes Joseph the COO of the prison. And things begin running famously and beautifully and smoothly. And there's no more violence and the inmates are cooperating and everything behind those bars and is a peaceable kingdom. The Lord has come alongside Joseph and is directing his life with favor despite the suffering and inconvenience he experiences while he is in jail.
[00:12:22] Two curious inmates come to be imprisoned alongside Joseph. The story tells us that one of them is Pharaoh's cup bearer, the guy who makes sure that Pharaoh's wine glass is never empty.
[00:12:40] And the other guy is Pharaoh's baker, making sure that at tea time, Pharaoh has the crumpets that he likes best.
[00:12:52] These two, it seems, as the story tells us, are maybe like somewhat like falsely accused.
[00:13:00] The story seems to hint that there's a little bit of a rash decision that Pharaoh makes in order to imprison them. But nevertheless, they are imprisoned. And when these two are imprisoned, each of them has a big dream, a powerful dream, one of those divine existential dreams. And looking for someone to interpret the dream, the prisoners and all who manage the prison turn to Joseph.
[00:13:36] Joseph then interprets the dreams for these two inmates.
[00:13:42] He tells the cupbearer first, after he hears the dream, that pretty soon, before too long, the cupbearer will be released from prison and restored to his position of power and privilege in Pharaoh's house.
[00:14:05] And for the baker, he says, sorry, but it's curtains for you.
[00:14:13] You're going to lose your head.
[00:14:16] He says, within a matter of days, the cupbearer is released from prison and the baker is hung on Pharaoh's gallows.
[00:14:29] But before the cupbearer is released from prison, Joseph implores him like, please, please, when you get out, when you are restored, make my case.
[00:14:41] Get me out of this mess.
[00:14:43] I've been wrongly accused. And as the cupbearer is released from prison, Joseph heart is filled with hope.
[00:14:53] But alas, the cupbearer forgets Joseph and makes no mention of him whatsoever. And Joseph languishes in prison for two more years, two more years until Pharaoh himself has two big dreams.
[00:15:20] The first one is about cattle. About cattle that are fat and healthy and ready for market, and cattle that are skinny and sickly and won't survive. And then he has another dream of about grain. Grain that on the stalk is full and nutritious and full of the energy that we want to capture from grain. And then another piece of grain that is sickly and void of any kind of nutritional quality. And so all of Pharaoh's cabinet is looking for someone who can interpret these profound dreams that Pharaoh has. And the cupbearer is like, oh, wait a minute, I know a guy.
[00:16:17] Joseph is released from prison, attends Pharaoh, listens to his dream, and tells Pharaoh that this, this, this reality, this existential reality that is coming to him and the rest of Egypt is that they will in fact experience seven bountiful, abundant years of harvest, both in their livestock and in their agricultural crop. And then following that period of abundance, there will be seven years of scarcity and. And famine that will ravage the land. And all who are unprepared for what that seven years will bring. And so, Pharaoh, recognizing quickly that Joseph is both a marvelous leader and a wonderful manager, Pharaoh promotes Joseph into his house and instructs Joseph to strategize around how Egypt will weather both the abundant time and the time of scarcity. And that's almost where we find ourselves in the story that we get today.
[00:17:34] If you remember, Joseph is sold into slavery in Egypt. So his family, his brothers, his father, his mothers live just across the border. And we find ourselves in the story during this time of scarcity and famine.
[00:17:53] And Jacob, Joseph's father, sends his brothers out into Egypt, where it is rumored that Egypt has strategized and they've saved the abundance from the prior seven years and that they have plenty, plenty to consume themselves and plenty to sell and share across the land. And so Jacob sends his son, sons, his remaining sons, to Egypt to make a deal. And the brothers come to make a deal with Joseph. And they don't recognize him, though. Joseph recognizes his brothers. And then there's some kind of, like, squirrely sort of funny, curious episode where Joseph is fooling his brothers in order to get them to bring all the brothers back to Egypt. And then we find ourselves in the story where we find ourselves today. It is this gorgeous moment. And, you know, what I would also say is like, you know, you might not hear it in the King James version when it's read. You might not even hear it in Eugene Peterson's message, but there is this, like, big existential moment that happens in. In this turn of the story that is so important for those of us human beings who live in highhighs and lolos and everywhere in between. It's such a curious description of what happens when Joseph reveals himself to his brothers at long last.
[00:19:33] Did you hear it in the story?
[00:19:37] When Joseph reveals himself to his brothers, he sets off this episode of deep sorrow, Reunited with his brothers, faced with the reality of the cruelty that they have done to him, their own brother, Joseph embarks on a sorrowful weeping episode that the story says that all of Egypt can hear.
[00:20:29] This is a real moment, a real moment in Joseph's life where we have the intersection of great sorrow and impending or oncoming joy and reconciliation and healing. This is a profound moment in the life of human beings. And. And this is what this story is meant to narrate to you and me today, 2026, in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Let's go back just for a second. Let's go back to celestial navigation, this idea that you and I that we can have a literal North Star or we can have a metaphorical North Star like it seems Joseph has, or maybe you and I have.
[00:21:23] Here's what we also know about celestial navigation.
[00:21:30] Weather interrupts that reality.
[00:21:35] Weather plays a huge role and has a dramatic impact on our ability to keep sight of our North Star.
[00:21:47] If we were sitting, not in St. John's Church today, but if we were sitting up at the chapel of the Transfiguration in Moose, Wyoming, and we were gazing out of that beautiful window this morning, maybe, like not right now, but definitely at 8 o' clock in the morning. If I were up there doing my priestly priesting thing this morning, I guarantee you that there would be one moment for me to tell a tourist, like, to have this kind of empathic moment of like. Yeah, I know, I know you're one day, you're one day to look out this window and all you see is cloud and fog.
[00:22:34] But I promise, I promise, I assure you they're still there.
[00:22:47] They're out there.
[00:22:49] They're out there behind the fog, behind the clouds, behind the weather. It does not diminish the reality that you do don't get to see you and I.
[00:23:13] Creatures lovingly made with goodness sown into our being, Beloved of God, inseparable from that belovedness.
[00:23:26] For some reason, we experience the bad weather of life.
[00:23:33] I know it firsthand.
[00:23:41] Divorce, cancer, grief, trial, struggle, loss, whatever it is.
[00:23:56] None of us, none of us in this room escapes the turbulent weather that seems to come into our system and make a profound and sometimes really rough impact on our lives.
[00:24:18] And, and the mountains, the star and, and God are always there.
[00:24:28] Both. And now here's the tricky existential piece here. Here's why we're required to roll up our sleeves, literally and metaphorically in this moment.
[00:24:47] We get terrible and we give terrible advice one to another when it comes to the enduring. This hard weather, we tell each other, rise above it.
[00:25:02] Rise above it, Jimmy, where we tell each other, you know, fake it till you make it.
[00:25:08] Fake it till you make it. Or we'd say, like, you know, put your nose to the grindstone or just keep your head down or just move on through it. Or we say, like, think positively.
[00:25:23] Don't dwell on the negative.
[00:25:25] That'll just bring you down.
[00:25:28] All the while our hearts are in this hard weather. This story.
[00:25:37] This story is the intersection of the integration of.
[00:25:46] Of great sorrow and great joy.
[00:25:51] We are not meant to just move on through it or move on past it.
[00:26:02] We are meant to have a deep and abiding sense that our suffering is, is a part of who we are and it is also a part of a system that is much larger than ourselves.
[00:26:26] We have this sense, this intuitive sense. And let me be clear, it's not like everything happens for a reason.
[00:26:40] Take everything happens for a reason and crumple it up and throw it over your shoulder right now. It is not everything happens for a reason.
[00:26:50] It's there is more than meets the eye or the eye of the heart.
[00:27:00] We're part of a system that is so much bigger than us.
[00:27:06] Physicists try to bring theoretical language to this human existential, creative reality that we have. And to be clear, like sometimes like preachers, like we can like pretend like we know more than we do. I don't mean to pretend that I know a lot about physics or quantum reality. I, I come to this, to this terminology in this field of physics through a guy named Richard Rohr, who's a Franciscan priest, a Roman Catholic priest. Rohr accesses physics through this theory that physicists call a unified field.
[00:27:53] And physics comes to understand the unified field through this like head scratching curiosity of like electricity exists and magnetism exists and they seem as though they were separate. But something leads us to believe that there is like an electromagnetism in the cosmos, in the universe, and so there must be something that we don't understand, something at the very bottom or the very top or at the very center of things that we call a unified field, where these different and disparate realities of our life, all the complexities of great joy to great sorrow, seem to come together as one in a unified undergirding place. It is what Hawking and other physicists describe as a theory.
[00:28:57] A theory for everything.
[00:29:07] Hawking has this beautiful quote that for some reason on Sunday morning I cannot commit to my memory. So I'm going to look at this card and I'm going to read it to you because it keeps like he says it so eloquently and precisely that I don't want to mess it up, he says.
[00:29:25] He asks this question, what is it?
[00:29:30] What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe.
[00:29:42] Now, to be clear, Hawking is not making a nod toward God.
[00:29:50] He's just orienting himself in from his position as a physicist to something more. But for us.
[00:30:00] For the spiritual.
[00:30:04] For the spiritual, for the spiritual, but not religious.
[00:30:10] For the spiritual and religious for the religious and not all that spiritual. For the Christian, for the Jew, for the Muslim, for the Buddhist, for the Hindu, for the Yogi for the guru.
[00:30:31] For those of us that come to a place like this on Sunday morning, we know, we know what there is beyond, beneath, around and the very center. At the very center of everything is divine love.
[00:30:54] Like lowercase D, divine love.
[00:30:58] People ask me all the time. They're like, jimmy, you're like, weirdly like spiritual and open, like you'll go to Kriya yoga and sound bowls at Daniela's on Monday at the Elk Refuge, but speak eloquently and passionately about Jesus on Sunday. And I always tell him. I'm like, hey, just to be clear, like the God that I know. The Jewish Christian narrative helps to define the God that I know.
[00:31:27] But God is most certainly not confined to the Jewish Christian story.
[00:31:34] What we're talking about at the center, at the bottom, all around, what we're talking about is divine love.
[00:31:46] And that, that unified field, that theory for everything, that which we lean into when we are blinded by fog or rain or blizzarding snow, when we're sitting in the infusion center or we're on the operating table or we're in the courtroom, or when we're just broken and when we're a mess, what's in the middle of those moments of suffering loss is divine love.
[00:32:23] And what is at the center of that first moment that your baby goes to breast?
[00:32:32] Or that you high five your kid as they come off the soccer field having scored that first goal? Or that feeling that you have when you see them move their tassel from one side of that funny looking hat at graduation, from one side to another.
[00:32:58] Everything, all of it, all of it at the very center is divine love. It is inseparable from our human experience.
[00:33:11] It is sown into our souls.
[00:33:15] We are not able to pull it apart and disintegrate it. It's there.
[00:33:24] It will always be there.
[00:33:27] No matter what you are seeing through your windshield.
[00:33:44] Church.
[00:33:48] This is, Is as hard and as simple as that.
[00:34:04] Our work is integration.
[00:34:09] Not understanding, not accomplishment, not glory.
[00:34:19] Work is integration.
[00:34:23] Integrating this reality into the center of our hearts and integrating ourselves into this field, this dimension that lies at the center and beneath and all around and above everything.
[00:34:44] Not just everything that we know and see, but everything.
[00:34:49] Because there is most certainly more than meets the eye.
[00:34:58] Amen.
