What you intended for evil...

 Read Genesis 50

The world has a word that it likes to use to explain existence, consequences, and the whole what goes around comes around thing.

The word is Karma. Its roots are in Buddhism and Hinduism. It was something used to describe how the events of this life would impact what you came back as in the next life.

Yes, if you were on Santa’s naughty list in this life, you might come back as a cockroach in the next life.  And of course, you wouldn’t eat steak because it might be Uncle Bob, who didn’t do well enough to come back as a human, but not so bad as to be a mosquito hated by all.

We have, of course, Americanized Karma. Now Karma includes getting hit in the head by the bird passing by because three days ago you spit in the grits.   What goes around comes around.

Karma came on the American scene back in the 1960s and 1970s, and then we didn’t hear from it for a while.  It resurfaced with the advent of social media, but has too many competitors in the Universe as god domain.

Karma in its basic sense can just be simple revenge.  The universe got even with you for what you did to me.

Christians know that vengeance belongs to God alone.  We might think that we can have righteous anger but that’s just the drug of anger working on us and convincing us to surrender our sound mind.

Vengeance belongs only to God.  He didn’t ask for consultants or a cheering section.

But sometimes, it seems that the universe does put things right.  The job I lost because my coworker kept lying about me was never really for me and I would not have found the job I love so much without getting fired from the other job.

That’s the universe.  That’s the alignment of the planets. That’s Karma, right?

Consider Joseph. He had some dreams in which his brothers and even his parents were bowing down to him.  He had a beautiful coat.  It seemed that he was the favorite.

His brothers threw him in a deep hole—a dry well.  Surely, they thought he had it coming.

Then they sold him into slavery.  They couldn’t tell their father about throwing him in a hole. In the skewed logic of the moment, it seemed like the right thing to do.

Of course, there had to be a cover story.  Blood on the coat of many colors would leave their father to draw his own conclusions.

Joseph trusted God and was in charge of Potiphar’s household until Potiphar’s wife wanted a roll in the hay with Joseph. Then it was off to prison.

But soon Joseph was running the prison. It was still prison and he would have rather been somewhere else, but Joseph remained faithful to God.

The next thing you know, Joseph is before the Pharoah explaining a dream from  God and then he is running the country.

His brothers came before him in search of food. While he did not reveal himself right away, eventually he did and brought all of Jacobs's family into Egypt, thus saving them from devastation and destruction.  The family of Jacob prospered in the land of Goshen in Egypt.

Joseph told his brothers that it was God, not them, who sent him ahead of them into this land so that he could save many lives. 

After many years, Jacob died.  While Joseph had the authority to do whatever he wanted to his brothers at any time he wanted, he did nothing against them.

But guilt was still at work in the brothers.  Now that Dad was gone, Joseph might not feel as restrained as when he was alive.  They might be turned into slaves or killed. They knew that they deserved it.

Karma might just run its course.

They were afraid of what Joseph might do to them, so they sent him a note saying, “Remember that Dad wanted you to forgive us even though Karma said we should be your slaves forever.”

This saddened Joseph.  He thought he had explained that it was God at work in this whole business.

Realize that these brothers had never really come to repentance.  Joseph had surely forgiven them already.  He had no choice. He accepted and even embraced the work that God was doing through him.  Sold into slavery and then into prison were just the cost of doing business for a God who had big plans for you.

He wasn’t angry. He didn’t want revenge?

But guilt and fear and surely the worst case scenario were doing a number of those 10 brothers who threw Joseph in a hole and sold him into slavery.

But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.

What you intended for evil, God used for good.

What you did was still evil but God overcame your evil with good and you should be able to see the results of that.  Look at how many have survived this famine including our father’s own family Can you not see that we are now prospering?

What you intended for evil, God used for good.

Karma is not at work in the world. God is. God is still at work in today’s world.

Evil is everywhere but God will take good, bad, ugly, and evil and use it for our good because we love him and are called according to his purpose.  God is at work in today’s world.

He is at work in our lives.

We are probably not going to prison.  It’s unlikely that we will be sold into slavery. But we have our trials.  Some of them are self-inflicted wounds but some are the result of evil at work in the world.

We can go back to the beginning of Genesis and see evil’s debut.  We didn’t have to wait long.  Evil has always been at work in the world.

Today, perhaps as in the days before the flood, people just took evil in stride as the way of the world and so many are fine with it.

We are not fine with evil but we do not fear evil.

He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world.  God is at work in the world.

Evil will do what evil does but God has already taken care of us.  We will be with him for eternity.  He will be with us in our trials in this age. God is with us.

God is for us.  Who can be against us?

Evil can set itself against us but the victory is won.  God won. God wins. We win.

Whatever the world may do—and it is doing some ugly things—God has us. He owns us. He claims us. He uses everything for our good.

We can’t always see it in the moment.  We don’t always get a Joseph moment where he can say, see what I have been able to do because of the rather uncomfortable and undesirable path I had to walk.

Can you see what God has done in my trials?

That’s the big picture.  That’s the theological, the philosophical, and the sociological aspect of this. We understand this in big-picture terms.

But what about when someone hurts us and it’s just personal.  It may not change the course of history. It may not save many lives, but it hurts.

Can we work through this personal hurt that wants karma to jump in and bring bad things upon the person who hurt us or can we trust that God is using this for good?

I’m not seeing the good yet, so I am in the 100% trust mode, hoping that one day I will be able to see what God did with the bad things that happened to me.

But trust is hard when you are hurting and the person who hurt you is right in front of you.  We don’t want forgiveness and insight into what God is doing.  We want Karma to work its magic.

But, that’s not who we are.  That’s the old worldly self, not the new creation.

We don’t always get the national-level headline of what God is doing in our lives but we must trust that he is very much at work in our lives, in our churches, and in the world.

God desires none to perish. He desires all to come to repentance and seek him and his kingdom and his righteousness.

He desires us to trust him that though the world may attack us with evil, he will use our battles and trials and circumstances for good.

God desires that we trust him even if it’s our own family who has wronged us.  God will use what happened for good.

We come to a familiar place.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your path straight.

Amen.