Pick me!

I am sorry for being rather quiet recently – I’ve had some full weeks of speaking and writing. I’ve been greatly encouraged to see some people discover faith and to be involved with some precious ministry – with someone who had experienced a murder in the family this year, with another who was able for the first time to disclose deep childhood trauma and another who had lost a child. I had one specific word of knowledge that I could not possibly have known and God poured out his comfort and healing - I am so grateful to know the one who is close to the broken-hearted. Sunday night’s service leader wrote, “a lad who had come for the the first time said that God had dealt with something he had had in his life for 20 years! Incredible!” I’ve also been involved in some leaders’ training – God’s presence is beyond wonderful. So thank you so much for sharing in this ministry.

 I’ve also loved preparing for my lectures at St.Mellitus and this week’s thought emerges from my study on Joseph.

 Do you remember that agonising moment at school when the PE teacher asked someone to pick a team? Maybe you loved it because you were first up. Inside, I was shouting, “Pick me, pick me! Don’t let me last to be picked!”  Dreadful! I am so glad I don’t ever have to go through that again.

 Of course, the first to be picked were the strongest, the best.  

What about God’s team? Who does God pick?

 “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.”  1 Corinthians 12:7

 I remember being with Jackie Pullinger in Hong Kong who has had the most amazing ministry to gang members and drug addicts there.  The picture is of a very young me when I was there! We would see heroin addicts come off heroin with no withdrawal symptoms (except for one who didn’t want to pray and we had to let him leave because he was in such a bad way). We even saw the guys come off methadone. Sometimes they relapsed because of course, the addiction wasn’t just physical but Jackie knew it is a long walk to wholeness. The ongoing miracle was seeing hearts changed so that they would eventually be completely free. I remember seeing Elfrida (in the photo) start to smile again having been a prostitute and addict for decades. Jackie loved this verse from 1 Corinthians and would often share it. And for those who thought they were great team material, she would mention a Queen (of Sweden I think) who used to thank God for the “m” in “many” in the preceding verse – “Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.

 God consistently chooses the unexpected for his team so that we know it is down to him not us and that knocks both pride and inadequacy flying. 

 It is a pattern throughout Scripture – God picks Moses the stammerer, David the youngest, Rahab the prostitute, Mary the teenager, Matthew the despised – the list is long. Yet we find it hard to get the message. It hit me again as I was lecturing on the story of Joseph and noticed something that I had never seen before - God chose a would-be murderer to be the father of the Jewish people.

 12 sons were born to Jacob, 12 sons born into a promise of God’s blessing. Why was Judah the one who ended up as the father of the Jewish people, the father of David’s line, the father of the line of Jesus?  Trace his story – it is a shocker; Judah is the ring-leader in his brother Joseph’s murder attempt.

Personally, I would have picked noble and wise Joseph – one of the few true heroes in the Old Testament. Sure, he didn’t start well, telling tales and showing off but he ended up rescuing not just one but two nations from extinction from famine. He was an outstanding leader, he was prayerful, he was prophetic and he showed the very nature of God, extending lavish forgiveness to his would-be murderers, embracing them as his brothers and finding them homes. Why wasn’t Joseph’s family picked over Judah?  

 It reminds us that any eternal impact we can have is by grace.

 But still Judah did have a part to play. It turns out that we need to acknowledge our need of that grace.

 Why was Judah picked?  Rabbi Jonathan Sacks tells us that his name, Judah, means to acknowledge. When silver is found in his sack, Judah admits that God had uncovered his guilt (and I am sure he isn’t referring to the silver of which he is innocent). Then, Joseph sets it up so that all the brothers could have replayed the same cards and left their youngest brother enslaved (Benjamin this time) but this time, Judah shows the power of repentance – he has changed. Genesis is a book that is shocking with its depictions of fratricide, jealousy, slavery and abuse, but at the end, unexpectedly there is an extraordinary twist - Judah offers himself in the place of his brother Benjamin. Judah has repented: he is no longer a jealous murderer, now instead he points forward to another big brother, our big brother, Jesus, who offered himself in our place.

 Could it be, as Sacks suggests, that Judah was picked because he was the first penitent in Scripture? Is that why he receives so much grace? Far more grace than he expected – not only reprieve from vengeance but the promise of a future, the promise of blessing. 

 There is always more grace than we expect because God loves us more than we know. 

 As I’ve written elsewhere, repentance gets a bad press. Biblical repentance isn’t self-flagellation – it’s casting ourselves on God, acknowledging our need of him. Always, when we turn to him with all of our hearts, God not only forgives, God swoops in with more than enough empowering grace. 

  It is because of God that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.