Pentecost 12. Jealousy and Envy.

Genesis 37.1-4,12-28, Psalm 105.1-6,16-22, Romans 10.4-15, Matthew 14.22-36

Sibling rivalry.
Its great fun, isn’t it?
Anyone with siblings will know about it.
Anyone with Children will know about it.
Sometimes it goes on for years. I know of elderly people who are still resentful of siblings, and don’t talk to them.

Usually at the heart of it is jealousy and envy.

Jealousy and envy. The two emotions more likely than most to bring about bloodshed. Most hatred can be brought down to this. Many wars can be attributed to these two. Many, many deaths. I saw a murder investigation show the other night, an Australian show, where a man had murdered his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend. Quite horrible. Some may call it a crime of passion. A crime of passion? No, a crime of jealousy.

Joseph’s brothers were jealous and envious of him. They coveted his favoured status with his father. They resented the fact that he dreamed of them bowing down to him, that he would have lordship over his older brothers. This part of the story has been left out of the appointed reading for this morning, unfortunately. Because it appears that they took this seriously as well, and it created more resentment. Apart from the dishonour of it all, why was this kid so blessed?

Israel, Jacob as we knew him last week, had a few wives and concubines. He wasn’t just sowing his wild oats, he was sowing quite a few domestic ones as well. But Joseph was the son of his favourite wife, Rachel. So this of course helped him to be the favourite. And being the youngest, and a child of his father’s older age, also stacks up in his favour. Its no wonder his brothers were slightly peeved.

Jealousy – Why has that person got what I haven’t? Envy – I want what that person has got. Powerful emotions, and usually built around possessions and comparisons. Not just material possessions, but things like the why does that person get more than I get? Why doesn’t that person love me? Why does that person get favoured treatment? I mean, it’s not even objective, this stuff – our own internal perceptions of what others have and haven’t got are not at all reliable. Rarely do we know the actual background, and that there may actually be a reason for the difference. My immediately younger sister and I were always jealous of the attention our youngest sister got from our parents. One day my mother, who didn’t deny it, told us why. My youngest sister had meningitis as a baby, and nearly died. It left her with epilepsy as a child, something which fortunately seemed to lesson, although she has other health issues. But in the light of this, the fact that she almost died, perhaps it’s understandable that there was some favouritism. Getting the whole picture helped me to understand, a little at least, and work through it. And let’s face it, the fact is that no one gets an equal share of anything. I have much better health than her. Perhaps she is envious of that. So it works both ways. We each have something to be envious off in each other.

We have something of a sibling rivalry thing happening in the church, with the more traditional parts of the church in a bit of a decline, whilst the more lively contemporary parts having a bit of a boom time. The reasons for this are probably fairly obvious, and in any case are probably best kept for another time. At the heart of it all is, I think, jealousy and envy. I feel it myself at times. I feel jealous and envious of the fact that at a time when the part of the church that I belong to is shrinking, their’s is growing. Not gradually either, but at a huge rate of knots. It’s not fair, is it? We are just as faithful as them, yet they are growing.

Well, there are probably many, many factors for this, that have nothing at all to do with our faithful any of us are, or whether God favours some churches more than others. It’s probably got do with our ability to embrace change more than any perceived favouritism on God’s part. But what we must not do is let it divide us, because if we are divided, we are more likely to fall and to fail. And besides, there is a lot that bonds us together, much much more than what could break us apart.

Joseph’s brothers could have done well to have remembered that. That even though Joseph may have seemed more blessed than they were, there was still much more than joined them together. They were family. Some of them may have had different mothers, but they were joined in having the one father. They shared a common ancestry, they shared blood. They were, even if they didn’t want to see it at the time, one.

We’re like that in the church. For all our perceived differences in theology, scriptural interpretation and morality codes, we all share a common ancestry. We look to God as our Father, we look to Jesus as our saviour, we look to the Spirit as that which sanctifies and empowers us for our life and work in the world. We confess the Nicene Creed. And we seek to express our Christian faith in a way that is real for us, that says what we feel, and is authentic. Different ways of being church just don’t matter so much. Because when we get back to the basics of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we see that Jesus was actually against exclusive religious hierarchy. Jesus was about unity. Even Paul – what does he say in the reading this morning? – “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on Him.” Says it all, doesn’t it. God is God for all of us who confess the Nicene Creed. It’s just human stuff that keeps us apart. And it is those brave souls whose prophetic words of unity attempt to bridge the divides that struggle to keep us together.

Many of you will have heard of a new congregation that will be starting in the Brighton area in February next year. It is a church plant from Holy Trinity, North Terrace. Now if there was ever a sibling rivalry happening in the Adelaide diocese, its between the greater part of the diocese and Holy Trinity, which is largely directed from the Diocese of Sydney. Holy Trinity are hoping to bring a seeding congregation of 70 from their North Terrace congregations to kick things off. 70 people!!!!! To start with!!!!! They did a similar thing in Aldgate, which is now up to over 200 every Sunday. Now the first reaction in most of us, I imagine, is one of fear. They are taking us over. They are moving into our patch. Well, geographical boundaries for parishes have not existed in the Diocesan ordinances since the late 1980’s, so they are not infringing anything there. We fear they will decimate our congregations, which have already got smaller. Well, they didn’t in Stirling. If anything, they took a few people from the Uniting and other protestant churches. But they also reached a lot of people who were not church goers, who may not have even been believers. Now that is something to celebrate I think. Does it matter what type of church they go to, so long as they get some good teaching about the salvation of Jesus Christ and God’s grace, as long as they receive the spirit? We may not agree with everything they will hear, but they have become believers, and that is brilliant. I say good on them for taking seriously the mission of the church, when the traditional church was sitting on its hands wondering why the churches are empty. And when they do move in here, perhaps we can learn from them.

Because in the end, working together with our siblings is much more productive and life-giving than working against them. Setting aside the minor differences, and working together on growing the kingdom of God is so much more what God wants us to do. Being prophetic voices for extending a welcome to them is a step reminiscent of Joseph’s brothers Judah and Reuben, who whilst not actually convincing the brothers to not harm Joseph at all, at least managed to keep him alive, and in the long run, secure the future of God’s people, the nation of Israel. This is what we have to do to secure the future of the church of God, in whatever form it will take. Because the one thing about the church that doesn’t change, is, paradoxically, the fact that it does change. The Church has never been constant, it is dynamic, just as we are, just as our faith is, just as our God is. And just as there was a reason for Joseph to end up with Lordship over his brothers, to be in a position to save them, so it may be that there is a reason for one part of the church to be growing and one shrinking. Only God knows what will happen.

So, we are called to embrace others, seek to work with them, and try to at least set aside jealousy and envy. If we can do this, nothing will hold us back, and the hopes of all Christians will indeed be realised. God’s Kingdom here on earth.

The Lord be with you.