Hard Times:
Genesis 41: 28-36, 46-49 ; Matthew 6: 19-21
Some friends and I played a game the other night. What is your favorite struggle meal? By that, we mean what do you eat when payday hasn’t quite hit, but the previous pay day is a little too far away to buy the groceries you need. Here are a few of the answers: ramen noodles with frozen vegetables, fried bologna sandwiches, cabbage soup (simply cabbage, water, and a bullion cube), “ham-dogger,” or hamburger shaped like a hot dog, and SpaghettiOs with mashed potatoes. We all have our childhood…or sometimes adulthood…struggle meal.
In our Hebrew and Gospel lessons for today, we learn about how to deal with and overcome hard times in our lives. These can be financial, situational, mental, or any other kind of hard time where we experience a deficit of something we need to bring a balance in life. There are three lessons we can learn from these scriptures when hard times fall upon us: first, do not resign yourself to disaster; second, look for where God provides solutions; third, lean into your God-given creativity.
First, in hard times, do not resign yourself to disaster. After Joseph had been forgotten, when Pharaoh has a prophetic dream, the cup bearer suddenly remembers Joseph and recommends him to Pharaoh for his dream interpretation abilities. Joseph is cleaned up and shaved then presented to Pharaoh. If you think about hard times, Joseph spent two years—two full years—in prison awaiting God’s movement and the cup bearer’s poor memory. He made the best of his situation, but it certainly wasn’t easy for him. Now he is in one of the grandest palaces in the known world: from nomad in the wilderness, to slave, to prisoner, and now to the halls of Pharaoh, Joseph never resigned himself to disaster, for he trusted that God had a plan.
Pharaoh’s dream is indeed hard—seven fat cows followed by seven skinny cows who devour the fat cows and never gain weight. But Joseph has the answer. There will be seven very good years of abundance, followed by seven years of famine, which will eat up all the abundance. Joseph’s advice to Pharaoh is to start now saving up grain and goods to prepare for the famine. This was a not a time for Egypt to resign itself, or Pharaoh to resign himself to disaster, for Pharaoh had options of what to do. He had choices for how to approach the hard times that were coming. He could ignore it, or he could trust God’s vision and prepare.
It is often easy for us to simply sit down and let disaster wash over us. We used to joke growing up that our family motto was this, ”When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream, and shout.” But we don’t have to wait for disaster because we, as people who follow Christ, store up treasures in heaven, and not here on earth. Whatever blessings come and go here on earth. We have to remember that our ultimate blessing, our ultimate good time is in the eternal.
That’s often easier said than done when we are accustomed to receiving God’s blessings. It’s a little harder when the hard times come, or when we feel that we’ve always been blessed. Sometimes it feels cruel, sometimes it feels painful, but we must remember those words, “where our treasure is, there our heart will also be” is about much more than just our money. If we have nothing else in life, but we still have faith, then we are never on hard times, for we have God’s ultimate blessing.
In hard times, we must also look to where God is providing solutions. Part of what got Joseph elevated to a position of power again and again is that he was a problem solver. He learned how to make Potipher’s house run efficiently. He learned how to make the jail function as well as a jail can function. He now provides a solution to Pharaoh for the coming famine. The problem with a famine is that it wasn’t very predictable in ancient times. They were reliant on the river to flood and saturate the lands. But if there was drought or a particularly bad rainy season, then a famine could easily result. Here, God gave a word well in advance, so preparations could be made.
And this wasn’t just to help Egypt. The abundance that Joseph stored up as Pharaoh’s go-to person was tremendous, overwhelming. It allowed for a global saving from the famine. All of the lands known to them dealt with this famine, but God used Joseph and this dream to save all of the known world from a brutal seven year famine. And in it all Joseph gives credit to God.
One of my pastoral requests early on is that if someone brings me a problem, particularly with the church, they must also come with an idea for a solution. I’m happy to be a listening ear, but if all we do is complain, then what is the point? When we find ourselves in hard times, God always provides the opportunities to problem-solve or find solutions. Humanly, we often don’t want that. We store up treasures on earth, and those treasures are our pride, our sense of self-sufficiency, our desire for control. We cannot fix spiritual problems with human solutions. In those times we need God. Like Joseph, we need God’s vision, God’s interpretation and explanation, and to follow God’s plan.
Lastly, we must lean into the creativity God gives us. Joseph was not a prophet. Joseph was not a king. He was simply a man with God’s favor and gifts available for the task at hand. He simply allowed God to work through him for creative ways to save people from starvation. It would be unheard of in any other scenario for a Hebrew slave to become the Prime Minister of Egypt, right under the power of Pharaoh. Only God could have orchestrated something so extraordinary and creative. And it’s especially miraculous that it was Egypt which was the only country around known for its exceptional granaries and store houses. God’s solution was creative, incredible, and planned in a perfect way.
Joseph did have to struggle and go through tough times along the way. The journey was not easy, but the outcome was undeniably incredible. Likewise, God can work in and through us to achieve amazing things in times of hardship and struggle. When we read the Gospel lesson, it tells us to store up treasures in heaven. But there’s a big opening for creativity in this teaching. There’s nothing that says HOW to store up treasures in heaven. Jesus’s teaching leaves room for the holy creativity of God working through us when we are willing and listening.
Let me give you an example of how that works. A pastor friend of mine is head of a new church start in Vienna for the United Methodist Church. Now, I’ve never been to Vienna, Georgia, but based on the testimony of others, I gather it is not exactly Midtown Atlanta. But this faithful congregation have decided to let God do some incredible and creative things through them—school supplies, health fair, welcoming those whom other churches have hurt, embracing the idea of meeting at a campground with some fun outdoor things. They are willing to let God speak to them and work creatively through them.
My friends, hard times are part and parcel of the human experience. There may be days when you pick up the filet, the $22 burger, or get the extra vegetable at the Bears Den because times are good enough to treat yourself. Then there may be times you are on your last can of Campbells. An easy life is not a promise. Joseph and God’s people of ancient times had to live with years of plenty and years of famine. Yet in all of it God was there.
We must be bold enough to choose God’s path in the midst of disaster’s onset. We must be willing to seek out and follow the solutions God’ provides us, and we must be willing to go along with God’s inspiration or God’s creativity in all of our lives. We serve a God who loves us, who works in and through us to do the work of saving grace here on earth. Wherever we are in life, may we always remember that if our treasure is in heaven, and if our heart is trusting in God, then we are always truly blessed.
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