Sun Prairie UMC

Today, I am going to start off a little different for my sermon.  I am actually going to sing you a song written and recorded by one of my favorite Christian Singers by the name of Randy Stonehill.  The song is called Rachel Delevoreyas and it is about a girl from his growing up. 

Sing the Song

            This song is about hurt.  Emotional pain that we carry around with us through life.  Are you carrying emotional pain?  How does it affect you?

            Many of us get hurt in life.  Some of us are hurt by the words cruel little children tell us.  Some of us are hurt by actions that have been done by adults toward us in our past, or by friends and co-workers or by spouses.  We carry the pain and the hurt?  But the question for me today, is how can we carry it, so it doesn’t dominate us?

            In our scripture for today, Joseph is meeting up with his brothers.  Only they haven’t recognized him.

            Let me give you some background, in case you don’t know the story or have forgotten it.  Joseph is one of many sons of Jacob.  But he was a dreamer.  He dreamed that one day his brothers would bow down to him.

            When he told the dream to his family, they didn’t appreciate it. 

            To make matters worse between him and his brothers, he was the oldest son of his father’s favorite wife, which made him the obvious favorite son.  So that created even more anger and jealousy with his brothers.

            To make matters worse.  Joseph knew he was the favorite and he had a bit of an attitude about it.  He even kind of flaunted it.

            So much so, that one day his brothers decided to kill him.  So they threw him into a pit to die.  Then they decided to sell him.  But when they went to pull him out of the pit, he was already gone.  Someone else had pulled him out and eventually sold him into slavery in Egypt.

            After some challenges in Egypt, Joseph, by God’s help eventually rose to a position of power as the second in the land.  The scene from our scripture is when he has met up with his brothers again. 

            If there is anyone in the Bible who has lived through emotional pain it is Joseph.  But he doesn’t let it cripple him.  I wonder what we can learn from Joseph.

            So many people I know are crippled by emotional pain they carry around.  I have come to realize that emotional pain can cripple us when we do one of a couple of things.  Like try to ignore that anything wrong or hurtful has really happened to us.  When we somehow try and forget, without dealing with it.  When we bury it deep within and say, to ourselves and others “I am never going to talk about this hurt again,” we never give ourselves the chance to heal.

            When we ignore the hurt and pain, we might even fool ourselves into thinking that we have mastered the pain.  We might even fool ourselves into thinking that we have a handle on the hurt.  But when we bury it and not deal with it.  When we ignore it hoping it will go away.  It will have a way of coming out.  But instead of coming out the right way, it will come out side-ways in the form of inappropriate anger, or anxiety, or depression.

            Another way emotional pain can cripple us is when we go to the other extreme and see ourself as the perpetual victim.  When we begin to see every one as out to get us.  This simply doesn’t help us develop the mind set to overcome the hurt we have experienced in our life.

            So, what can we do?  What can we do if we are carrying around hurt?

            Joseph, throughout his life does a couple of things remarkably well.  The first thing he does is he stays faithful.  He doesn’t blame God or turn away from God in all of the difficulty he faces.  He remembers that he belongs to God.  If you are here today and you are carrying around a boatload of hurts.  What is stopping you from turning to God?  What is stopping you from being a part of the Church or a small group?

            It is in staying connected in faith that I believe we give God the space to help give us the strength to make it through the pain we may be feeling and eventually to experience the healing we long for.

            The Second thing Joseph does is he doesn’t forget his story and who he is.  Joseph has a willingness to share with those who ask who he is and what has happened to him.  Sometimes when we carry around emotional pain, we don’t want to tell anyone, because we worry about what others will think of us.

            But telling the story of the hurt and the pain is one of the ways we move toward healing.  Find a good friend you can talk with.  Become a part of a small group in our church.  If your hurts are really big or deeply buried, then find a counselor or a therapist to talk with about your emotional pain.  But talking and telling the story allow us to learn and grow and open the doors to healing.

            The final thing Joseph does, is that he stays hopeful and trusting that God won’t abandon him.  And in trusting that God won’t abandon him he is able to look back on his life and see the hand of God at work in so many ways.  So much so that eventually he is able to look at his brothers and say, “What you intended for harm to me, God intended for good.  Look at all the good that has come of what has happened in my life.” 

            Joseph is able to open his eyes and see the hand of God at work for him.  But he is able to do that because he has stayed faithful, he understands who he is, and he continued to trust God.

            In closing, I want to share with you that when Randy Stonehill wrote the song I sang for you, he didn’t know what had become of Rachel Delevoreyas.  But he had always wondered.  He had always felt bad over how she had been treated.  The first time he sang the song in a concert, Rachel’s sister was in the audience. 

            When the concert was over, she connected up with Randy and helped Randy and Rachel reconnect in life.  Rachel had become a concert violinist.  He was able to apologize for the cruelty of she had been treated.  She assured him that even though it had hurt for a long time in her life that God was good to her and she was experiencing healing. 

            God is good.  God wants to bring healing to us as well.  May we learn to turn to God, to stay faithful, to remember who we are, trusting the God of grace. 

Amen