Daily Devotion for Lent 2018 - Day 38, Maundy Thursday

Scripture Reading: Genesis 47 (NRSV)

The famine has finally taken its toll upon the land.  People are selling all they have just to survive.

Joseph interpreted the dream of Pharaoh which foretold this calamity.  He made provision to store up grain during the good years in order to get them through the difficult years.

Sometimes slavery is masked as life-giving

but it is always demeaning to both slave and master.

Now Joseph is making Pharaoh very wealthy through his foresight.  The livestock, the property and the very lives of the people become Pharaoh's.  While this is shrewd business, it does not grant freedom or life to the people.  They have become pawns on the chessboard.

It sounds like just good business when you are the owner.  But if you are the "owned" the narrative changes.  His own people will suffer for 400 years as slaves because Joseph did not choose to be merciful.  He could have simply earned the goodwill of all of Egypt and beyond by sharing what he had.  Neither Pharaoh or Joseph earned the grain they stored during the good years.  They were only able to store it because they saw in a vision from God that this famine was coming.

A good leader serves the people rather than seeks to become wealthy from them.  A good leader does not seek to own the people he or she serves.

Jesus may have reflected on this when he was asked to raise two of his disciples above the others in Matthew 20:20-28:

Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to him with her sons, and kneeling before him, she asked a favor of him.  And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Declare that these two sons of mine will sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.”  But Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?" They said to him, “We are able.”  He said to them, “You will indeed drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left, this is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.”

When the ten heard it, they were angry with the two brothers.  But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them.  It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

When our team dominates another in sports, we consider it a great victory.  When we dominate another in life, it is demeaning to the life of the other.  We have to learn to leave some behavior on the playing field.  Jesus teaches us a better way - a way that shares life with the world.  If we practice this way, could we ease the misery and suffering of future generations?

Pour into our hearts the spirit of unselfishness,

so that, when our cup overflows,

we may seek to share our happiness with our siblings.

O God of love,

who makes your sun to rise on the evil and on the good,

and sends rain on the just and the unjust,

grant that we may become more and more your true children,

by receiving into our souls more of your own spirit

of ungrudging and unwearying kindness;

which we ask in the name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Prayer by John Hunter, Congregational minister, England, early 20th century

Photo by Alan via Flickr.com.  Used under the Creative Commons license.