Politics, Economics, and Joseph, Prince of Egypt

Text: Genesis 41:25-36,39-41

            This is the kind of scripture where I can easily get in trouble because at its heart is a story about farming. There is not much scarier than preaching for people who know far more than you about the subject you are talking about, and I’m about as qualified to talk about farming as most of you are about premillenial dispensationalism (and you can thank me later that I’m not talking about that). But thankfully, this isn’t only about farming; it’s also about politics and religion. Hey, what could possibly go wrong?

            Pharaoh has a problem: he has two bad dreams. He doesn’t know exactly what they mean, but he’s pretty certain that no good will come of them. As luck would have it our favorite dream interpreter, Joseph, just happens to be residing in one of Pharaoh’s prisons waiting for just this opportunity. And he knows exactly what Pharaoh’s dreams are about. Three things: land, food, and economics.

            These were the political hot-button issues of the day. If Pharaoh were going to strengthen his power it would be through understanding the land and its food and making the right strategic moves to better the economy. This shouldn’t sound so different from our own politics. These just happen to be the concerns at the forefront of life here in Kittson County. Land, food and economics.

            Things were simpler in Joseph’s day. There was no global economy, no corporations or large-scale businesses, but we shouldn’t confuse a simpler life with an easy life. Things were very tenuous. At the first drought you risked not only losing the farm but quite literally starving to death. There were no safety nets, no insurance, nobody to help save you but your family who was subject to the same natural disasters. In short, drought meant death.

           So when Joseph interprets Pharaoh’s dreams it gives him an incredible economic advantage in an agrarian age. If you know when the drought is coming—and for how long—it is considerably easier to survive. Joseph’s interpretation gives Pharaoh both an economic and political advantage. Take 1/5 of your crops, Joseph says, for the next seven years and store the grain for those lean years ahead. This is the 1800 BC version of betting against the market.

            Most of us could use Joseph’s kind of inside knowledge. No matter your faith in the Farmer’s Almanac or the Weather Channel there is no way to know for certain what is coming. We routinely mock meteorologists for their faulty predictions. In the Twin Cities I would often listen to Dan Barreiro on KFAN perpetually ridicule the “weather terrorists,” as he calls them, especially Paul Douglas—or “the goof on the roof”—for his overly scientific but incredibly inaccurate forecasts. The weather is so big, so complicated, and so completely beyond our comprehension that predicting five days out is hard; never mind laying out the next fourteen years.

            This is why we save up. We are looking for a security blanket just in case the worst comes to pass. Maybe you’ve seen that television program, Doomsday Preppers—it’s essentially a documentary of people who build bunkers for the end of the world. This is the ideology right at its heart. We don’t know what’s coming; it may very well be bad; so we had better stock up… or else.

            But what is enough? What can assure our survival? The story of Pharaoh and Joseph is not about fear for the future; it’s a story about the advantage of knowing how much to save and how much to spend. Pharaoh furthers his political power because—thanks to Joseph—he knows how the resources he will have so he can wisely use what can be used and save what must be saved. Most of us have some idea what we will need—we might have budgets and 401K’s—but there are no guarantees. So it’s easy to become scared, and when we get scared about money, time and resources we become self-centered. Then, we treat our wealth as if it our rightful inheritance. Pretty soon, we forget that all of this comes from God—it never was ours; it can never become ours.

            We make the mistake that Egypt makes when this Pharaoh is no longer in power. We forget about Joseph and the God from whom this blessing came. We forget that everything that we have is God’s. Pretty soon, we are enslaving the things that were gifts freely given. It is amazing how quickly we turn from desperate prayer for survival in the face of extreme adversity to living as if it didn’t matter, as if our most desperate prayers were answered and yet we are entitled to more.

            As Joseph says to Pharaoh, “After [the seven years of plenty], there will arise seven years of famine, and all the plenty will be forgotten in the land of Egypt.” Will the people of Egypt remember the blessings of those seven years? Will they prepare in the boon times? No. They are going to forget all about it, and only out of desperation will they come to Joseph and Pharaoh, with starvation on their lips, and beg for the food they have kept in wait.

             Human beings are notoriously short-sighted. Look at our election rhetoric. What do we want? Short-term gains. When do we want them? Yesterday.

We listen to elected officials talk about economic gains and losses within the terms of various incumbents as if our economic history can be easily dissected into four or six-year chunks. We listen to advertisements about failed economic policies as if the only thing we need in our lives is a bigger and more massive “national economy” more disparate from the things we do in our lives, rather than smaller and more localized economies that values the lives and work of the community. We look at a story like the one of Pharaoh and Joseph and have half a mind to think, “Man, if only our leaders had that kind of foresight.”

But that’s a pipedream. They can’t. As far as I know God isn’t sharing dreams about future economic shortfalls. We don’t have that insider knowledge. This past week I listened to an adviser from Portico, formerly known as the ELCA Board of Pensions, talk about the people who want to tell you when the next “bear market” will be. She said the truth is they don’t know; they can’t know; if they did know they’d have all their money in at the right time. The reality of our lives is that we can only see dimly the future ahead of us. Like the weather terrorists of KFAN fame or the economic analysts we are slaves to a future that is not yet visible to us.

Because of this we are called to God’s kind of stewardship, which is caring for the resources that have been entrusted to us. What does God want of us in a world so unpredictable? The same as always: Love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. And in case you were wondering, yes, that means loving God with your money and your land and your food as well. No long-term, macroeconomic theory can trump the commandment to be present with those in need in our midst. You love your God not by holding on but by letting go of your need to be in control of what may come. The future is a mystery. The present is filled with people in need, people whose lives will interact with your own in ways we can’t anticipate. The world out there is in need of your love. Go. Show it. Be Christ. Love your neighbor. The rest is commentary.