30-Second Moses

30-Second Moses

30-Second Bunnies: Bible Stories

Are you familiar with 30-Second Bunnies? I've downloaded the Bunnies version of Twilight, above. If you've read the 544-page book, and/or sat through the 2 hour movie, you might be surprised how easily it is condensed.

This is what we are going to do with the story of Moses.

You have been reading (I am sure, because I asked you to, and you always do what your pastor asks you to do) the first 15 chapters of the book of Exodus. It starts with the Hebrew slaves in Egypt, and concludes with a BIG PRODUCTION NUMBER-- everybody dancing on the free shore of the Red Sea.

In between is the story of Moses, from baby-in-a-basket, to righteous hero with a big stick.

So on Sunday, get ready to tell the fast version.

Covenant: There's that word again.

Here's a link to a little reflection on the meaning of Covenant, by a way cool pastor from Boston.
http://act.ucc.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=29986.0&dlv_id=33347

Exodus

Next week (November 7) we serve coffee and cookies after worship and communion during worship.
Bodie, Addy, & Annie B. -- Bring 3 doz cookies (each) to church by 9:30 on Sunday morning. You can drop them off at church earlier in the week if you want to.
Mitch & Allison -- Be at church by 9:30 on Sunday to set up for coffee, and then leave worship during the last hymn so you are ready to pour coffee & lemonade when the people come.
Annie G. & Tom -- You are on clean-up, when people start to leave you can wash the dishes, wipe the counters and tables, and last of all take out the trash.
Kali & Austin-- Help serve communion during worship. I'll call you forward when it's time, and you each will hold a chalice of grape juice for the other communion server and me.

Then, November 14, because so many of you have other commitments that day (those deer won't hunt themselves, after all), we are taking a holiday from confirmation.

We will be back to class to share what we know about the Exodus from Egypt. It all starts when there is a new king in Egypt, who didn't know Joseph....
Read a chapter a day for the next fifteen days... Chapters 1-15 of Exodus, the second book of the bible.

God is Turning Bad into Good: Joseph in Egypt

For the story of Joseph, read Genesis 37, 39-45, we will focus especially 45:4-15. 

Genesis 37

Joseph Dreams of Greatness

Jacob settled in the land where his father had lived as an alien, the land of Canaan. This is the story of the family of Jacob.

Joseph, being seventeen years old, was shepherding the flock with his brothers; he was a helper to the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives; and Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he had made him a long robe with sleeves.But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him.

 Once Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. He said to them, ‘Listen to this dream that I dreamed.There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright; then your sheaves gathered around it, and bowed down to my sheaf.’ His brothers said to him, ‘Are you indeed to reign over us? Are you indeed to have dominion over us?’ So they hated him even more because of his dreams and his words.

 He had another dream, and told it to his brothers, saying, ‘Look, I have had another dream: the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.’ But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him, and said to him, ‘What kind of dream is this that you have had? Shall we indeed come, I and your mother and your brothers, and bow to the ground before you?’ So his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.

Joseph Is Sold by His Brothers

 Now his brothers went to pasture their father’s flock near Shechem. And Israel said to Joseph, ‘Are not your brothers pasturing the flock at Shechem? Come, I will send you to them.’ He answered, ‘Here I am.’ So he said to him, ‘Go now, see if it is well with your brothers and with the flock; and bring word back to me.’ So he sent him from the valley of Hebron.

He came to Shechem, and a man found him wandering in the fields; the man asked him, ‘What are you seeking?’ ‘I am seeking my brothers,’ he said; ‘tell me, please, where they are pasturing the flock.’ The man said, ‘They have gone away, for I heard them say, “Let us go to Dothan.” ’ So Joseph went after his brothers, and found them at Dothan. They saw him from a distance, and before he came near to them, they conspired to kill him. They said to one another, ‘Here comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; then we shall say that a wild animal has devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams.’ But when Reuben heard it, he delivered him out of their hands, saying, ‘Let us not take his life.’ Reuben said to them, ‘Shed no blood; throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but lay no hand on him’—that he might rescue him out of their hand and restore him to his father.So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the long robe with sleeves that he wore; and they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it.

 Then they sat down to eat; and looking up they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels carrying gum, balm, and resin, on their way to carry it down to Egypt. Then Judah said to his brothers, ‘What profit is there if we kill our brother and conceal his blood?Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and not lay our hands on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.’ And his brothers agreed. When some Midianite traders passed by, they drew Joseph up, lifting him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. And they took Joseph to Egypt.

 When Reuben returned to the pit and saw that Joseph was not in the pit, he tore his clothes. He returned to his brothers, and said, ‘The boy is gone; and I, where can I turn?’ Then they took Joseph’s robe, slaughtered a goat, and dipped the robe in the blood. They had the long robe with sleeves taken to their father, and they said, ‘This we have found; see now whether it is your son’s robe or not.’ He recognized it, and said, ‘It is my son’s robe! A wild animal has devoured him; Joseph is without doubt torn to pieces.’ Then Jacob tore his garments, and put sackcloth on his loins, and mourned for his son for many days. All his sons and all his daughters sought to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted, and said, ‘No, I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning.’ Thus his father bewailed him. Meanwhile the Midianites had sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard.

But wait, it gets worse. Read on from chapter 39 to learn how Joseph ends up in jail. But then it gets better, so keep reading.

Eventually Josephs brothers go to him (but they don't know its him), for food. First he gets some payback, then he is moved to forgiveness.

Then Joseph said to his brothers, ‘Come closer to me.’ And they came closer. He said, ‘I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt.And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither ploughing nor harvest. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, “Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not delay. You shall settle in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children, as well as your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. I will provide for you there—since there are five more years of famine to come—so that you and your household, and all that you have, will not come to poverty.” And now your eyes and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see that it is my own mouth that speaks to you. You must tell my father how greatly I am honoured in Egypt, and all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here.’ Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, while Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.

After all he had been through, Joseph was able to say to his brothers, it has all been for the best. It was not you who sent me here. God sent me here to preserve life.

In the last chapter of Genesis, after their father Jacob dies, the brothers are afraid that Joseph might turn on them. They seemed to think that it was only out of respect for their father that they were not punished for what they did to Joseph. So they decided to grovel:

15 Realizing that their father was dead, Joseph’s brothers said, ‘What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the wrong that we did to him?’ ¹⁶So they approached^* Joseph, saying, ‘Your father gave this instruction before he died, ¹⁷“Say to Joseph: I beg you, forgive the crime of your brothers and the wrong they did in harming you.” Now therefore please forgive the crime of the servants of the God of your father.’ Joseph wept when they spoke to him. ¹⁸Then his brothers also wept,^* fell down before him, and said, ‘We are here as your slaves.’ ¹⁹But Joseph said to them, ‘Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God? ²⁰Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today. ²¹So have no fear; I myself will provide for you and your little ones.’ In this way he reassured them, speaking kindly to them.

"Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good." That is one of the most powerful quotations from the bible. People have found the strength to forgive, and live faithfully in the midst of trouble, believing that no matter what happens, God has a way of using it for good.

For a movie-musical version of the story, google "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat." 

Why 12 is a Magic Number

For Sunday, October 24.

Genesis 35:23-27

The sons of Leah: Reuben (Jacob’s firstborn), Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. The sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin. The sons of Bilhah, Rachel’s maid: Dan and Naphtali. The sons of Zilpah, Leah’s maid: Gad and Asher. These were the sons of Jacob who were born to him in Paddan-aram. Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre, or Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had resided as aliens.

Last week we talked about the Covenant God made with Abraham, promising he and his wife Sarah would be the father and mother of a great nation. They had one son, Isaac, who was the father of Jacob, and Jacob had twelve sons. Those are the names given to the twelve tribes of Israel.

Twelve is a number that will show up again in the New Testament—Jesus chose twelve apostles. Twelve is a number that represents completeness. Twelve tribes and twelve apostles create a kind of symmetry (balance, mirror image) between the Old and New Testaments of the bible.

You can read the dramatic detail of Jacob’s family, the power struggles between his four wives, in Genesis chapters 29 and 30.

The stories about Abraham

Everybody should know the basic story about Abraham. Here are the stories straight out of Genesis, the first book of the bible, that we are going to talk about at confirmation class on Sunday:

First, a couple of versions of the Covenant story:

Genesis 12:1-9

1 The Lord said to Abram, "Leave your country, your relatives, and your father's home, and go to a land that I am going to show you. 2 I will give you many descendants, and they will become a great nation. I will bless you and make your name famous, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, But I will curse those who curse you. And through you I will bless all the nations." 4 When Abram was seventy-five years old, he started out from Haran, as the Lord had told him to do; and Lot went with him. 5 Abram took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all the wealth and all the slaves they had acquired in Haran, and they started out for the land of Canaan. When they arrived in Canaan, 6 Abram traveled through the land until he came to the sacred tree of Moreh, the holy place at Shechem. (At that time the Canaanites were still living in the land.) 7The Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, "This is the country that I am going to give to your descendants." Then Abram built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him. 8 After that, he moved on south to the hill country east of the city of Bethel and set up his camp between Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There also he built an altar and worshiped the Lord. 9Then he moved on from place to place, going toward the southern part of Canaan.

Here are the three things I want you to remember about God's covenant with Abraham: God promises Abraham: 1) Many descendants, 2) God's blessing, and 3) a certain piece of land for a country. 
The hitch is, Abraham had two sons. And there has been disagreement for thousands of years about which of Abe's sons' descendants are entitled to that piece of land and that blessing.

Here is how it happened. When God made this promise, Abraham had no children. How can you become the father of a great nation, a whole country, without any children? Abraham's wife Sarah was old, and had no children, so Sarah arranged for her maid, Hagar, to be a kind of surrogate mother. Hagar and Abraham's son was called Ishmael. Apparently, that's not what God had in mind, according to the story in Genesis 17, in which God insists that Sarah's child will be the one who inherits the Covenant.

"You must no longer call your wife Sarai; from now on her name is Sarah.16 I will bless her, and I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she will become the mother of nations, and there will be kings among her descendants." 17 Abraham bowed down with his face touching the ground, but he began to laugh when he thought, "Can a man have a child when he is a hundred years old? Can Sarah have a child at ninety?" 18 He asked God, "Why not let Ishmael be my heir?" 19 But God said, "No. Your wife Sarah will bear you a son and you will name him Isaac. I will keep my covenant with him and with his descendants forever. It is an everlasting covenant. 20 I have heard your request about Ishmael, so I will bless him and give him many children and many descendants. He will be the father of twelve princes, and I will make a great nation of his descendants. 21 But I will keep my covenant with your son Isaac, who will be born to Sarah about this time next year."

People who follow Islam count themselves as children of Abraham through Abraham's son Ishmael. Jews and Christians count themselves as children of Abraham through his son Isaac. Having a common ancestor, according to the stories of our faith, should bring us together, but the truth is, sometimes we act out an ancient "sibling rivalry," fighting for the status of God's beloved children. As if God could choose! It's like asking your mother to chose between you and your brother or sister. That's what I think.

So come to confirmation class ready to re-tell the stories of Abraham and discuss the "so what."