More from Psalm 25. Right away, maybe it feels like two very different messages separated by a comma. The first thought is so hopeful, grace-filled, and promising: it’s just ongoing love and faithfulness with God. Jesus’ followers need to have a deep understanding of that, and take it to heart, personally. But, then, it’s a message for the rest of the earth, too. A movement called “the People of the Second Chance” is trying to make God’s deep grace well-known to all. I just posted this graphic of theirs yesterday:

The grace of the LORD of heaven and earth means:  none of us has any grounds for hopelessness today.  None.  A long time ago, David knew that too.

Then there’s the second thought, and it seems to fly in the face of unconditional grace a little.  After the comma, there’s suddenly talk about covenant and decrees.  It’s as if the love/faithfulness in part 1 is reserved only for a select group, those who are obedient.  Some of us shout, “Yeah!  This is no cheap grace!  God wouldn’t have us running around doing whatever we want, however we want, whenever we want, and then just call it ‘all good’ and wave it away.”  The cynics among us say, “I knew there was more to it” because the first half of verse 10 sounded a little too squeaky clean, too easy, too full of gum-drops and daisies.  And, then, those of us who prefer to punish ourselves are almost relieved to hear this and declare that we, the disobedient, deserve nothing good so we can expect nothing good; it only seems right for God to withhold God’s love and faithfulness.

But let’s not take David where I assume he doesn’t want to go.  Rather, let him take us somewhere.  Reading the whole psalm, I hear someone who is in touch with both of the thoughts in verse 10.  Here is a man who has felt and known the Lord’s love, who has been delivered through peril and wrongdoing, and who has no room to doubt that God forgives relentlessly; it’s also a man who hints at a dire need for forgiveness, who is bold to confess at God’s feet, and in the same breath praises God for the grace he knows he’ll find.

He decides that all the paths of the Lord are truly good, even those that are still undiscovered, and even those that put us in harm’s way.  So the question becomes, are we going to run after the LORD’s path, or one of our making?  Are we going to truly covenant with God in intimate relationship; or pick our own bearings, head in our own directions, and run after fleeting side-tracks?  Or maybe just sit down right here?

Today, keep together any tension you might feel in Psalm 25:10, and let the Spirit of God guide you in it.  And may God hold us each to the high standard of obedience, and lead us in paths of life.

How do people do these things? Listen to the traffic/crowd in the background; this is just a normal day in the street-trade for this guy. Real art.

It’s a Psalm of David.  That’s important because we can know he meant just what he said.  David wasn’t making small-talk prayer with God, he spent a huge chunk of his life in danger, with stout and face-to-face enemies.  Not just Goliath, but later his own beloved king-turned-crook, Saul.  Not just king Saul, but the king’s men and the army of Israel.  Not just his own people’s army, but their enemies, too, the Philistines and other marauding tribes and later his own family/children.  The saying is, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” but when that doesn’t turn out true, like with David, it means truly living on the edge.  And, oftentimes, David chose to be in this position, in a manner of speaking.

He didn’t directly ask for enemies, or for so much ruckus to live through, but he did run completely after God and God’s leading with healthy disregard for the danger.  I won’t encourage you to be purposely foolhardy or naive today, but if we intend to call God LORD and claim to invest our trust in God, truly, we might find ourselves praying along with David here.  Throwing away heart-freezing caution.  And we might find ourselves teetering like never before over the possibility of shame and defeat, with enemies-a-plenty.

On Survivor last night one girl (Kat) told the host, Jeff, that she wasn’t used to failure; she never failed at anything.  Jeff couldn’t believe it and provoked her to take that further, and she admitted that, really, she just never puts herself in situations where she could fail.  That sentiment keeps popping up around/inside me lately, and Psalm 25 tackles it.  When we flee from even the possibility of failure, we are withholding our trust.  Particularly from the LORD our God.  That’s no way of life.  Jesus came so that we could LIVE.  So, following him, do we know that teetering over possible failure is something we can more-than-survive?

Our church family is going to approach the Lenten journey with a special language.  We’re trying to go on a kind of “walkabout” together.  Walkabout is a rite of passage for Aboriginal Australians that involves a long-term wilderness time, following ancient pathways across vast tracts of rugged countryside.  I understand they take hardly anything with them and survive with nature.  Sounds a little insane to our well-ordered, over-scheduled, and safe American culture.  It’s the kind of thing somebody like this might do:

(Sorry, I had to squeeze Dundee into this somehow).  Maybe we need walkabout to mess with our culture or our “normal”.  No, we’re by no means observing anywhere near the authentic Aboriginal version.  Duh.  And I don’t want this idea to in any way mock their way of life.  But we’re to learn from them, and to use this image in our effort to glorify God in Christ Jesus.

It’s also an image that shouldn’t water down Lent.  Let’s not settle for pretending this is some kind of nice, little pleasure-hiking trip.  The goal is to remember the two challenges before us from last week, carrying over into Lent:  to get to know Jesus as a living, breathing person; and to listen to him (which produces action).  We intend to walkabout being led by the Holy Spirit; hence, a “holy walkabout”.

Commit to this season.  There will be good opportunities for support and sustenance as we travel together, especially on Sundays when we celebrate the Lord’s Day as a journeying community.  Another special tool is the conversation we can have here.  My Lenten commitment is to post a devotional each day, often something simple or brief, as we focus on walking towards great hope.  So check in, leave your comments, and keep those feet moving.

Today Good Morning America did a preview of a story that’s coming on Nightline tonight.  It’s the beginning of coverage on Apple’s manufacturing facilities in China for iPads, etc.  In response to rumors of human rights abuses, ABC toured the factories and interviewed workers.  I’ve spent a little bit of time in the third world and seen rough things, heard rough stories, especially from manufacturing facilities; but this was a good reminder.  Especially since this factory is supposedly one of the sweetest gigs in China.  We can wonder what the worst facilities are like.  It’s powerful to me to see the young Chinese woman who works the assembly line helping crank out thousands of iPads, and in this interview she gets her first chance to actually hold a finished one and use it herself.

Paul Noth’s cartoon cracks me up.  If you’ve ever done a Waldo book, like, say, sitting beside your friend or sibling, you know it’s a race to find him.  You scan the insane cartoon scene of hundreds of people and animals and pirates until one of you hits on his little bespectacled face; whoever points him out first wins.  And repeat, page after page.  When the book’s done, does it have a lot of re-read value?  Negative, because you already remember where you found him last time.

Now, don’t be Jesus-juked, but this whole deal is exactly how we treat Jesus Christ our Lord sometimes.  I don’t usually call out his whole rank and title like that in casual conversation, but it makes for the comparison with Waldo.  We occasionally, or often, treat Jesus/faith like a game to win, or an objective to be completed; we flip through the Bible or other such places, scan for Jesus, point him out “There he is…found him…oh, there is again…” and move on until we feel like we’re done.  Even though our great hope is that this man is God, and is alive and breathing, we might not often consider Jesus’ feelings, or wonder how he’s doing, or even wonder how he feels about us or how he could be speaking to us right now.  I spend vastly more time trying to tell God how I’m doing and/or how God can improve that.

In a way that makes good sense, because this is God.  Ask, “How you doing?” and what’s God going to say?  “Well, I’m perfect today, I’m God.”  When we reject or neglect Jesus’ feelings, we don’t expect to find him in a scene like poor Waldo above, dejected and depressed.  This is God.  However.  However.  Do we realize that God leads us to believe it is painful when we turn our backs on him?  Throughout Scripture, in the Psalms and prophets, etc., God appears to mourn and grieve over us when we bail out on that relationship.  Because he just loves every one of us.

So remember now, this series in the gospel of Mark has had a central question:  how are we getting to know Jesus?  Not, “What facts did I learn about Jesus?” or “3 steps to successful living”, as sermons tend to go.  It’s a healthier basis for relationship to start asking, “How’s Jesus?”  Today is our series finale, so we’ll take that approach with Mark 9:2-9.

And it’s strange things.  Jesus is transfigured on the mountaintop, which gives us a special title for worship, “Transfiguration Sunday”.  It gets a fancy name because this passage always shows up in the Christian year as a turning point.  It marks changing seasons.  This is the last Sunday in Epiphany season, for one.  What’s that about?  Epiphany is all about mystery.  No, not Agatha Christie or James Patterson style.  Mystery in the Christian sense refers to the unexplainable, powerful, or miraculous — the stuff that can’t be proven, but also the stuff that a person can just sense or feel in a deeper way than can be described.  The mysterious are the big and small things that tell us God is moving, behind the scenes or out front.

So Epiphany season started back after Christmastide, and it’s flowed along with our series in Mark 1-2, with Jesus doing the mysterious.  He has been miraculous, wild, and sometimes unexplainable; people have been healed physically (curing illness), spiritually (defeating evil spirits), and personally (forgiving sins).  And over and over it seems like people were noticing, “There’s just something about this guy.”

Jesus has taken action, and so far through Mark we have been like eyewitnesses in the crowds.  While Jesus is doing, we are there watching.  It’s not unlike a solid fireworks show.  A pyrotechnics extravaganza, if you will.  The crowd’s job is to enjoy — taking in the sights (colors and patterns and light), sounds (booms, crackles, whistles), and sensations (the concussion of explosions).  *BOOM* *BOOM* *RATTA TATTA TAT* *BOOM*  And my reaction is, “Woah…woah…did you see tha-woah….”  Epiphany.

The turning point here is that we’re starting a new season now, Lent.  Ash Wednesday (Feb. 22 this year) kicks off this 40-day time of preparation for Easter.  For all the potential celebration at Easter of resurrection and life, Lent is to prep our hearts to hope.  And I think if so far we’ve been watching Jesus and saying, “Woah”, then this is more of a time for taking a step forward to say, “How can I be more a part of this?”

That’s the turning point Jesus’ closest followers had on the mountaintop.  It’s one huge moment of mystery, when for a second it’s like heaven is blown wide open and reality is shifted.  Some very-holy-but-very-dead legends of the past are alive and speaking to a different-looking Jesus; we see who he has always been, who he truly is, and always will be.  And is the point that Peter and the others hit their knees, confess Jesus as the Messiah, and say, “That’s it, I’ve had it, this is all I needed, take me on home, Lord”?  No.  It’s not their end, it’s a kind of start.  God tells them to listen to Jesus.  Now that they had seen him in his fullness, to remember it and LISTEN.

For me, listening implies action.  Stepping forward to become involved and not just spectating anymore.  This is the difference between how we’ve moved through Epiphany and we how we head into Lent. The foremost goal should still be knowing Jesus as a living, breathing person, but that goal is transforming to include listening — changing, being and doing in response to knowing him.  Wondering how Jesus feels, how he feels about me personally, how he feels about my potential for being and action, and pursuing it for the next 40 days.

Like a football player juking you at the last second and going a different direction, the Jesus Juke is when someone takes what is clearly a joke filled conversation and completely reverses direction into something serious and holy.

…I once tweeted about going to see Conan O’Brien live and how big the crowd was. Someone wrote back, “If we held a concert for Jesus and gave away free tickets, no one would come.”

So, turning the light-hearted into a Christian “Debbie Downer” moment.  If you’re familiar, do you notice some feelings that it produces in you, like guilt/shame when you’re being juked, or religious pride/self-satisfaction when you’re juking others?  Not cool.

But on the other hand, there are those times when I need a little juking, or something.  Sometimes I do need to be held accountable, or I feel the desire to hold those I love accountable.   How do we do it without being a self-righteous juke-jerk?  How do we change direction, even abruptly, without beating up on ourselves or others?  The only way I see is this:  leave the juking to Jesus.

For one, that is something he does often and well.  Jesus knew (and knows) how to flip the script on people, to shake up assumptions, without inflicting damage on us.  Continuing in Mark (2:1-11) there is a stark example.  We’ve followed Jesus in Galilee, and the explosion of miraculous deeds he’s been doing — defeating evil and healing illness.  Naturally, Jesus is now quite popular; but here in this crowded house, I think the story gets suddenly waaay deeper.

Because, Jesus seems really pleased by the actions and faith of the paralyzed man and his buddies who tear through the roof to see him.  But the scene doesn’t play out like usual.  Jesus doesn’t say, “That’s good faith you have there, and now (*SHAZAM*) your friend will walk again.”  He turns to the paralyzed one on the mat, saying, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”  Juked their faces off.

I wonder if there was awkward or intent silence.  “What did he say?”  Think about their different reactions.  I bet somebody there was disappointed — the paralyzed man, his buddies, or others — because they were expectinghealing.  Somebody heard Jesus say, “your sins are forgiven” and was truly let down.  If you’re reading this passage for the first time, with curiosity or even with great hope about Jesus, wondering if he might be as special as all these Christians make out, you might currently feel let down a little too.

You might say something like, “Here we go, Jesus starting in on the religious talk, bringing up an antiquated, superstitious idea like ‘sin’.”  As Americans in general we seem to shy away from some tradition, the sin and hell business, in favor of accentuating the positive.  We see ourselves in a morally-decent light; we do our best and don’t cause too terrible much harm; what faults we have are usually linked to something in our environment, our experience, or our biology.  Agreed, a little?

Well, Jesus is encroaching on that; with this one statement, he’s made it so that we can’t use him for just some wise sayings or the “golden rule”.  To take him at his own word here, and to give him any credibility at all, we’ll have to admit what he’s taking for granted about us:  that we’re far from perfect and need to be forgiven.  And he implies that he specifically is the one to do the forgiving.  Whatever expectations are brought to Jesus in Mark 2, back then or even today, he jukes things good.

There were other feelings present in the room that day, too.  We know that the Jewish people at the time were instead very familiar with their own sinfulness.  Moses’ Law, and especially the human exaggeration of the Law, made faith something that was a terrible burden.  In actuality, God had given the people huge ways to atone for sin, a whole system of sacrifice and redemption; but the ones in charge downplayed God’s grace and played-up human guilt.  Personal sin was a stout, unshakable reality.  So, when Jesus says what he says about forgiveness, the religious leaders are deeply disturbed.  This forgiveness came too easy; and who is this Jesus, a man, who claims such authority and puts himself at God’s level?

But most importantly, on the flip side, I bet somebody there heard these words and wondered, “Can it be?  Can Jesus do that?  …could he, for me?”

In the context of their world, THAT was a far larger step of faith than breaking through a roof in search of physical healing.  But that they might all know his authority, Jesus still ordered the man to walk.  What a juke it all was.  A paralyzed man walking became the second most powerful deed of the day.  Because he was also now a forgiven child of God.  Handling the other-than-expected is hard.  Admitting our imperfection is harder, and deeply personal.  But with Jesus healing/forgiveness is just as personal.  Be juked.

Going on to read our episode in Genesis 41:1-36, after these two years we find that Pharaoh himself has had strange dreams, symbolic dreams.  First of seven fat cows coming up out of the Nile that are eaten up by seven starving, ugly cows.  Weirdness.  Then the same thing again, a dream of seven healthy heads of grain, but they’re swallowed up by seven thin, scraggly heads of grain.

It thoroughly freaks Pharaoh out, he summons all the experts and nobody can figure it out.  Just then the Cup-bearer remembers Joseph’s talent with dreams, tells Pharaoh about what had happened two years before, and they call him out of prison, shave him and dress him, and put him before the king of Egypt.  Joseph goes on to interpret the dreams well, he says that they’re a sign that seven years of plenty are coming, but they’ll be followed by seven years of great famine that will eradicate the good years; and Joseph advises Pharaoh to appoint someone wise to plan during the good years to store away and prepare for the bad.  After this passage, Pharaoh listens and appoints Joseph, as one certainly in tune with God and the truth.  God is still with him, it plays out well for Joseph, but I’m interested in how he possibly persevered under these conditions, and continued in his call journey, to get to this good conclusion.

The Middle

Because last week we considered the highs and lows of Joseph’s journey, and how he does well at losing big and winning big, and we can stand to learn from it.  This week is a different but important point for us.  I think it’s about how we respond in the neither high nor low but the average moments of life, the ordinary.  After all, in some ways, the high highs and low lows may even provoke us to pursue God more than usual.  When someone hits the lottery, what do they say?  “HALLELEUJAH!”  And that might be the longest conversation they’ve had with God EVER.

Our highest of highs can be so high that they make us very aware of how God’s blessed us, and we might be provoked to thanks.  Our lowest of lows – hitting “rock bottom” like the old timey preachers preached – can provoke us to change and do better, to motivate us.  Maybe the harder place is just in the middle.  Because in the middle you know it could be better, but it could also be worse.  And would we rather risk the present comfort for something better, or stick with what we’ve got lest we lose it to something worse?

Castaway

That reminds me of the movie “Castaway” where Tom Hanks plays a character named Chuck Nolan who works for FedEx.  He’s all about being timely, that every second counts; he’s a huge workaholic, carrying his beeper everywhere.  And at Christmas dinner with the love of his life, he answers a page and has to fly off somewhere for the job.  Like a fool, he goes, and the plane crashes.  He is the sole survivor, and uses a life-raft to wash up on the beach of a small deserted island.

Talk about a roller-coaster.  Right away, we see Chuck in a terrible low, the trauma of a freakin’ plane crash in the ocean.  But then also right away, there’s a huge high — he’s alive.  But then, right away the next low kicks in – he’s alone, and he has to figure out how to survive.  Then the next high comes as he starts trying to survive, searching FedEx packages washing up from the wreck, finding food, etc.  And after that one of the biggest lows comes when Chuck sees a light on the horizon from some vessel but has no way to signal them, so he jumps back in the rubber raft and paddles frantically toward the open water.  But he finds that the island is surrounded by a reef and huge waves that tumble him back, destroy his raft, gash his leg on the coral, and wash him up again on the beach.  At that point, he starts to realize (doing the math) – they may never find me…it’s thousands of square miles to search for me…I may never leave this place.

From that low he gains some ground again.  Chuck still has a deep hope, in the form of a locket that has a picture of the woman he loves, the hope that if he stays alive and keeps breathing, he might see her again one day.  Then there are big moments fighting for survival; developing tools, building shelter, and making FIRE!

Five Years Later…

As his survival skills sink in, the movie-makers use that common trick where they fade out and then fade back in, and at the bottom of the screen they tell us that some time has passed, “Five years later”.  And we can tell time has passed because how does Chuck look?  Lean and tan and a with a huge beard, spearing fish with great skill.  His survival is down to a tee, and he looks like he could do this as long as necessary.

Think about that five years that the movie quickly blinks over.  Five years of developing a survival routine, and getting good at living.  Day in, day out, years passing by.  That is about as “middle of the road” and ordinary as it gets.  The highs and lows of his first weeks on the island are past, and he’s settled in to something in between.  Now, he knows it can be far better – it’s what he hopes for, to one day be found or leave and find the woman and life he’s lost.  But he’s also sure there’s worse, that’s not surviving.  But then comes the decision point that challenges the status quo.  One day he’s out and about and something special washes up outta nowhere.  A giant piece of porta-potty.  The two walls of a porta-john that form a giant plastic wedge, and it clicks for him that if he attaches this to a raft, he’ll have an awesome sail that might help him power past the giant waves that trap him.

Decision time.  If I do this just right, and brave the breakers that almost killed me last time, if I leave all this behind, I might just make it to my hope against all hopes, back home, back to her.

Castaway Joseph

Freeze things there.  It looks to me just like Joseph’s situation.  For one thing, when Joseph is presented to Pharaoh what did they have to do?  Shave him and change his clothes.  He was as raggedy as a castaway.  More importantly, he’s had two years of prison routine.  It’s not the worst place he’s ever been (nearly murdered by his brothers, a slave).  It’s certainly not the best place he’s been.  He’s still in prison.  But he’s doing well, his glorifying God, he’s a leader, has authority, following the call, but I’m sure he still hoped to see his dad again, and get home again, or be free.

But into that middle-of-the-road place arrives a decision time in the form of Pharaoh’s cup-bearer and baker.  One morning they hit Joseph with a word that is super-charged for him:  DREAMS.  They both had dreams.  And what is Joseph’s history with dreams?  Remember back to the start of the story, it’s having and interpreting his dreams as a boy that infuriated his brothers to the point of nearly killing him, and selling him into slavery.  Dreams are a hot-button issue for Joseph.  He might have just run for his life in the other direction.  Decision time.  And he asks them to tell him the dreams, he interprets them and he’s right.  But does it free him?  NO.  They just forget about him for two more years.  I’d be even more frustrated with dreams now.  But then Pharaoh comes a-knocking one day (and no one denies Pharaoh), and he draws Joseph into his presence and says, “I’ve been having dreams, and I’m told you’re the one to talk to.”  Dreams again, AHHHH!  If I’m Joseph I think I’m taking crazy pills. And he still has a choice here, he can always bail out and ask to be left in prison.  Indeed, by trying to interpret he’ll be taking a chance that if he screws up Pharaoh will just kill him.  But he steps out and says, “God can interpret your dreams” and lets Pharaoh know about the coming famine.  We see how it turns out for him, just like it did for Chuck Nolan, pretty well overall.  They both found their freedom because they stepped out of the comfortable and ordinary; they risked a greater low for the chance at a greater high.

You and Me

And they show us why we can’t always settle for “okay” or the middle of the road.  Now, be mindful, we don’t always have to demand the highest of highs, or yell at God when we don’t catch the breaks we want or have all our dreams fulfilled.  We should certainly know how to be thankful for our current status, and enjoy the everyday middle.  But, but, to cling to the middle, and hide there?  Nah.  I’d almost guarantee God will call us to step away from it sometime.  What we once were grateful for, at some point we’ll probably be led to leave behind.  I don’t think God’s call guarantees that the next step will be one into greater comfort, either, or success, or fame, or status.  But it will be one where we find our truest selves, and our deepest fulfillment.

So, reflect on your highest of highs and lowest of lows.  Reflect on where you are, and odds are it’s in-between.  What does that “okay” or ordinary place look like?  And then in what way does God challenge it, or call you out of it, or send some porta-potty your way to provoke a decision point?  Then it’s time to respond.

He corrected me that they don’t have a pole anymore because someone once greased it as a prank and it’s a liability.  BUT.  Assuming they did have a pole, I see “Hineni” as answering God just like those guys and gals — not knowing what’s waiting, they are resolved to take that plunge.  And there can be a big fluctuation on how their days go, with high highs and terribly low lows.  I mean, best-possible-case-scenario:  the fire crew answers the call in record time, has everything they need, follows their training perfectly, and puts out the fire immediately.  Not only that, but the building they saved is historic and famous, filled with 1,000 schoolchildren and kittens, and CNN happened to be close by; moreover, the mayor gives them awards and a private citizen grants each $100,000 for their heroism.  Kaboom.  A great day.  Not likely at all, ever, but if we knew the fire was going to go this way, who wouldn’t volunteer to jump down the pole?

On the other side is the worst day, the lowest of lows:  nothing goes right, everybody arrives late on the scene, the blaze goes out of control and there’s no stopping it.  We fight it tirelessly to no use, and lose several members of our crew in the process.  Turns out there were others in the building we couldn’t save, and still more who just lost everything they owned/loved.  Also not your everyday situation, but sometimes close; or think about all the days in-between, the thankless or mundane calls.  If they knew that’s what they were walking into, who would do it?

Thank goodness, firefighting isn’t pay-as-you-go, so that these folks choose whether or not they’re willing to answer the call at a given day/time based on a whim.  Because we know we have got to have fire people who are resolved to GO, and to answer, regardless of the coming circumstances.  And thankfully that’s how so many of them see their work.

But you and I are in the same kind of boat, as people called by God.  There are dire circumstances to which we’re summoned, that depend on God at work through us.  There can be exuberant high points, and hideous low points.  Victories and casualties.  Welcome to the call of God.  “Hineni” is taking the step onto the pole, down into action, with resolve, towards the unknown ahead.

I think it’s where we find Joseph again, in his story continuing now in Genesis 39.  Highs and lows.  Joseph is exemplary of how to handle two of the bigger trials that we all deal with:  winning big and losing big.  Those two extremes provoke a lot of different reactions in us; we can come out on top, with honor and integrity, or we can do pretty poorly.  What does it look like when we let winning/losing beat us?  How do we act?

Losing Big

In my experience of others and within myself, we sore losers bear some common traits.  1.  Blame.  Sometimes the blame is laid on circumstances or surroundings (“The sun was in my eyes”).  Or we blame teammates, or try to accuse our opponent of foul play — all trying to minimize our responsibility and maximize others’ responsibility for the loss.

2.  Denial.  I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time controlling the competitive part of me; so even if I’m playing something for good fun, if my opponent takes the game real serious or talks a lot of smack or is consumed with winning, some part of me wants to put them in their place, to shut them up, and show them what’s up.  Maybe you relate, maybe not.  The thing is, even when that works out and my team smashes the big-talker’s team, it’s often these same opponents who don’t seem  to realize how bad they’ve been beaten.  It doesn’t shut them up.  It sometimes sends them to this place of denial that has them talking even MORE smack.  “I’ll get you next time”…”Let’s run it back”…”You got lucky”.  And oftentimes these folks act almost cockier, more arrogant, in the loss.  It’s like you can see their pride trying to swell up to block out the insecurity that came with losing.  An inability to face the truth of the loss.  Prime example recently, Charlie Sheen.  We know the famous comments.  Interviewer to Charlie:  “Some are saying you’re bi-polar”  Sheen’s response, “I’m bi-winning.”  Some of us handle losing big by refusing to acknowledge it, and even going to a place of non-reality where it’s like it never happened.

3.  Quit.  Plenty of times, sore losers know how to just quit.  We refuse to play again, we don’t want the experience of losing again, and we “take our ball and go home.”  Even if it means others can no longer play, even if it means we never have a chance to get any better.

Winning Big

On the other end, us bad winners have common traits of our own.  1.  Taunting/mocking.  Where we maximize what we’ve done and minimize everybody else — our opponents or teammates.  I know a lot of this is just getting caught up in the moment of victory, but not always.  Think about those famous way-too-over-the-top touchdown dances, they usually involve the one player hogging up ESPN’s end-zone camera, even though it took the other 10 players to get them there.  And then there’s the intended effect on the other team — to kick them while they’re down, to use that psychology of “See, we’re better than you, there’s no use in even trying anymore.”

2.  Taking advantage.  We all try to use our strengths and overcome our opponents’ weaknesses; but there are those players who so want to ensure victory that they will use any and every edge they can find.  Plenty of our champs and stat-leaders turn out performance-enhancement positive.  We say, “But he/she was so good, why soil that talent with cheating?  Why not just play straight-up?”  Because then they might not feel as sure to win; and we never know if they would’ve accomplished what they had or not, playing honorably.

3.  Retiring.  Now, yes, we all have to do it.  And in many sports it’s wiser to retire sooner than later for health’s sake.  But then there are those who don’t handle winning well by quitting prematurely lest their star start to shine less, or their opponents learn their game, or the up-and-comer faces them down.  This is tough in some arenas where players have a very limited window of their athletic prime.  Tennis, for example, seems to fall to the teens and 20-somethings; but we have examples of noble champions in people like Federer, who are edging towards the end of their prime but stick around to not only play but continue winning at times.  His dominance is seemingly over, he’s dealt with injury, but he plays on.  Like in poker, it just seems right to me to give folks “a chance to win their money back.”  Quitting the game while you’re on top, when you’ve still got fight left in you, is a poor way to go out in my book.  Sometimes it reflects a resting on our laurels, a self-satisfaction at glory-gone-by, when truly our ability to compete is far from over.  It’s a poor winner who will only play as long as he/she is the champ.

So what about Joseph?

In Joseph’s deep losses (slavery, taken to a foreign land, wrongfully accused of rape and sent to prison, etc.) and excellent wins (becoming Potiphar’s house-manager, prospering, God’s favor, becoming the warden’s prison-manager), how does he respond?

Did he place blame and set his heart to revenge his brothers?  Did he lie down on the road to Egypt to die?  Honestly, I guess we don’t fully know; the story leaves out the details.  But the next thing we hear is that Joseph is doing well in Potiphar’s household, “the Lord was with him” and he prospered.  There’s a pattern at work in him that we’ve seen before.  He’s the favorite to his Egyptian master, and been endowed with authority over everything, just like he was back home in his father’s house, even as second to youngest.  I think we see an integrity of character in him, that is attached to God, and that he is still living out of somehow.  In the face of great loss, Joseph’s heart perseveres.

Then, did he take his position of power and abuse it?  Did he rest on his laurels and decide that God had finally brought him to where he deserved, and it was time to reap the benefits?  Did he say to himself, “God himself has prospered you, Joseph, and made you great in the Egyptian’s house, why not take his wife, too, who obviously wants you?”  Nope.  He recognizes the wrong it would do to his master, and to God, and refuses, even to the effect of going to prison for it.

How does he do it?

And how do we do such?  How to lose so well AND win so well?  Again, the story isn’t explicit, it doesn’t give a “how-to” for being like Joseph, it just shows us how to be.  I think as if to say there’s no magic formula or secret step-by-step, there’s just doing it.  Because even after the great high of rising in Potiphar’s household, Joseph is at a great low again in prison.  But the pattern re-emerges:  he’s very quickly the favorite who has been given authority over everything and God is with him and he prospers.  Whatever the circumstance, Joseph just seems to choose to persevere with a heart grounded in God.  He never quits, never takes his ball and goes home, never retires while he’s ahead.

Don’t we know God’s call is EXACTLY like that for us?  We said last week that the call of God comes under heavy assault, and we see it again in Joseph again.  We see that the call is assailed by evil, death,  and sin.  MANY of us know that in our own experience.  But do we also know that for all their power, evil, death and sin cannot do an ounce of harm to God’s call?  They cannot change it or damage it or stop it.  Only we can do that.  Why does the call of God sometimes seem to turn out fruitless?  Because we choose whether or not to answer it, and whether or not to continue in it along the way.   When some of us find ourselves in the midst of GREAT loss, losing huge, we bail out on the call journey.  When some of us find ourselves winning big, we settle into enjoying the comfort of the moment, retire from the race, or quit while we’re ahead.

Joseph teaches another option:  answer the call and press on.  Through high and low, when you think it’s over for bad or for good.  While we have breath, we have a chance to cry, “Hineni!”