Rev. Jared Buss
Pittsburgh New Church; February 25, 2024
Readings: Genesis 43:24-34; Arcana Coelestia §5703.2
Today’s sermon is about the Lord bringing order to our lives. Order is one of those things that can sound appealing, and can sound very unappealing. Order can feel like the opposite of freedom. But on the other hand, life sometimes feels messy—it sometimes feels quite out of our control—and the idea that the Lord can bring sense and wholeness and stability to our lives sometimes sounds really nice.
The story we’re going to look at gives us an illustration of how He brings order to our lives. Two specific ideas that are illustrated by this story are that the Lord works with us gently—after all, He doesn’t want to trample our freedom—and that He can bring order to our lives even when we don’t see that He is present. After we’ve talked about what He does, we’ll look at what we have to do, to receive or to participate in the order that He is creating.
The story we’ll look at is the next part of the Joseph story. Joseph told his brothers that they would not see his face unless they brought Benjamin with them when they returned to Egypt (Gen. 43:3, 5). At first Israel didn’t want to let Benjamin go, but he changed his mind. So Benjamin and the others went down to Egypt.
The tone of this second trip to Egypt is completely different from the tone of the first trip. The first time the brothers came down—when Benjamin was not with them—Joseph spoke roughly to them and put them in prison (Gen. 42:7, 17). This time, because Benjamin is present, the brothers are taken to Joseph’s house, to share a meal with him (43:16). While they wait for Joseph to arrive, they express the fear that they’ve been brought to that place to be turned into slaves, but Joseph’s servant reassures them (vv. 18-23). And then we read: [vv. 24-34].
This scene has a softer tone; and that softness is a suggestion of the order that the Lord is creating. Throughout this story, Joseph represents the Lord, and also the Lord’s presence in the truth that we know (AC §5574, see §5696). Joseph’s ten brothers represent “truths known to the church and present in the natural” (ibid.). So they represent the true ideas that we know, but may or may not be applying to our lives. This story is about the way that the Lord works with our minds, and teaches us to use the truths that we know. When we use the truth for the sake of the good of our neighbors, we find the Lord within it: we find the Lord’s life and spirit within the teachings of the Word. Until then, the Lord is hidden from us, which is why Joseph’s brothers don’t recognize him.
But because Benjamin is present, Joseph begins to draw nearer to his brothers. He eats a meal with them. He and his servants speak gently to them. Good things are happening, though the brothers clearly have no idea just how much Joseph loves them. Benjamin, who makes this conjunction possible, stands for truth that looks to what is good (AC §§3969.3, 4592, 5586, 5600, 5686, 5689). We can think of him as the recognition that all of the truth in our heads exists to serve what is good, and as an effort to put the truth to work in the name of something good.
When that Benjamin quality is with us, the Lord draws near. And when the Lord draws near, He brings order to our lives. What Joseph does, in the story, is seat his brothers at the table in their birth order (Gen. 43:33). In other words, he arranges them from oldest to youngest. He orders them from oldest to youngest. This astonishes his brothers, because it means that he knows their birth order—he knows things that no stranger should know. Here’s what the Heavenly Doctrine has to tell us about the internal meaning of this moment in this story: [read AC §5703.2].“When the Lord is present, His very presence arranges everything into order” (ibid.). Order flows from Him wherever He goes. And to the degree that we’re willing to receive Him, His order extends into our lives.
What is order anyway? The story gives us a wonderful illustration of it. Joseph’s brothers are arranged before him, and Joseph’s brothers represent truths. So one way to understand order is as the proper arrangement of truths. The Lord unsnarls the things we know. He puts first things first and last things last.
To make this clearer, let’s use a specific teaching from the Word as an example. In Luke the Lord says, “If your brother sins against you, rebuke him” (17:3). This teaching comes from the Lord’s mouth—it is a true and useful teaching. When people hurt us, it’s useful to say something about that to them. But it’s pretty obvious that a religion built exclusively on this teaching would be an unpleasant religion. If we made it our life’s purpose to rebuke other people for their sins, our behavior would be harsh, and that harshness would be disorderly. This teaching needs to be put in its proper place. To begin with, it should be read in context. The Lord says, “If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him” (vv. 3, 4). The context changes the tone of the Lord’s words. And of course, this teaching needs to be read in light of everything else that the Lord says about charity and forgiveness. It needs to be subordinated to the truths that He identifies as leading truths, such as “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31, et al.). First things need to come first, and last things need to come last. The things that come last are still important. “If your brother sins against you, rebuke him” is a useful teaching. But it has to follow other principles; it can’t lead them.
The Lord does this with all of the truths that we know. Not just with truths from the Word, but with all of the information that we know—everything that we’ve ever learned. He orders all of the ideas in our heads. Little by little, He resolves the conflicts between truths that seem incompatible. He unsnarls thoughts that cause confusion and anxiety. And He gives us a sense of purpose—because little by little, everything we know is ordered underneath the will to do what is good. The reading said that the aim of the Lord’s order is “to see that truths are properly arranged beneath good” (AC §5703). That’s why this process can’t take place until Benjamin—who represents truth that looks to good—is present.
What’s striking about this whole process is how gentle it is, and how the Lord is willing to conceal the part He plays in it, until we’re ready to see Him. In the story it’s clear that Joseph is the one who arranges His brothers in their birth order, but the story doesn’t say that he’s the one who does this. It says, “And they sat before him, the firstborn according to his birthright and the youngest according to his youth” (Gen. 43:33). It’s as though this ordering just happens, on its own. When the Lord is present, order “just happens.” His presence simply arranges things the way they’re meant to be arranged, much as the warmth of the sun makes plants grow the way they’re meant to grow.
And as I said before, when we’re willing to let Him be present with us, this ordering of our minds takes place even if we don’t know that it’s happening. Even if we don’t see that the Lord is present with us. Throughout this story, Joseph is hidden from his brothers. This symbolizes a state in our lives in which the Lord isn’t really seen. In the story, Joseph weeps for his brothers, but He actively hides his tears from them. He goes into another room to weep, and before he comes out again, He washes His face (Gen 43:30, 31). His tears symbolize the mercy of the Lord, who loves us ardently (AC §§5691, 5693). The Lord is willing to conceal the intensity of His love for us, because if we feel the full force of His love before we’re ready to feel it, it will only feel forceful (AC §§5694-5697). And that’s not what love is meant to be.
“Order” can be a very forceful word. “Order” has connotations of heavy-handed, authoritarian government. The bad guys in the newest Star Wars trilogy are called “the First Order,” which tells you everything you need to know about what this word can mean. But “order” can also have a very different tone. The Lord’s order isn’t oppressive. Obedience to Him is extremely important—yet our freedom is more important to Him. We know this because He gives us the freedom to disobey Him.
It can help to think of order not in terms of rules but in terms of health. Order is to the spirit what health is to the body (note AC §4839.2). The human body consists of countless parts and pieces, and all of those pieces need to be arranged in a specific order. The humerus is meant to go above the radius; if that order were to be reversed, that would be bad. When things in our bodies are out of order, we call that being sick or injured. If the body is too severely disordered, it dies. When the pieces of our bodies are in order—or as they are meant to be—we say that we are healthy.
In the gospel we see that the Lord brings health with Him wherever He goes. The gospel is filled with stories in which He heals people of their afflictions, and there are some stories that give us the impression that health simply radiates from Him to everyone around Him. We read:
And He came down with them and stood on a level place with a crowd of His disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear Him and be healed of their diseases, as well as those who were tormented with unclean spirits. And they were healed. And the whole multitude sought to touch Him, for power went out from Him and healed them all. (Luke 6:17-19)
This is an illustration of what He does for our spirits. “When the Lord is present His very presence arranges everything into order. The Lord is order itself, and therefore wherever He is present order exists, and wherever order exists He is present” (AC §5703.2).
That last sentence tells us what we need to do to receive Him—to make room for the presence that restores us to order. “Wherever He is present order exists, and wherever order exists He is present.” As with so many aspects of spiritual growth, there’s a give and take here—a back and forth, like breathing in and breathing out. We need to ask the Lord to be present, so that He can create order in our lives; and we need to put our lives in order, so that He can be present. We have to recognize that we need His power, and pray to Him to be present with us, just as the multitudes in the gospel prayed that He would touch them and heal them. And we need to hold ourselves responsible for obeying the laws of order. When we’re confronted with the mess that life sometimes seem to be, it becomes obvious that we’re not strong enough to simply snap our lives into order. But we can start with the basics. The Ten Commandments are the basic laws of order: if we strive to shun revenge and adultery and theft and blasphemy and deceit, in the name of God, our lives will be in a basic state of order. At least external order. And where there is order the Lord is present; and from His presence flows a deeper kind of order. And the cycle repeats itself.
In John He says:
He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him. (14:21)
Amen.