Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16; Exodus 3:1-12; Acts 7:1-16
Friday 8 May - Rev. Jerry Eve
I know the Old Testament reading today is the one which gives us our logo as the Church of Scotland. I like its motto too: nec tamen consumebatur, which is Latin for ‘Yet it was not consumed’. That notion that we can be on fire with zeal for the gospel, and yet the fire itself adds fuel to the flames, is one that does appeal to me.
I would prefer, though, to have a think about the New Testament reading today, from Acts. It’s the first part of Stephen’s speech, and takes its hearers back to the time of Genesis, as Stephen first recounts the familiar stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph.
Last year, Alice treated Michelle and myself to tickets at the Edinburgh Playhouse for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. Alice came along as well, and the three of us had a great time. It was colourful and exuberant. Although I had listened to an audio version on CD, and knew the film version with Donny Osmond in the title role, I’d never seen it live.
I thoroughly enjoyed it – especially Tim Rice’s exceptionally corny rhymes. And this isn’t a criticism of it (it is what it is), but beforehand I’d been thinking that Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice had probably done more to make people Biblically literate than all our churches over the past few decades since Joseph, as well as Jesus Christ Superstar, have become such big hits.
But that evening last March gave me a somewhat different view, because whereas the Biblical story itself (which can be found in Genesis 37-46) is full of references to God, these are entirely missing from the musical. What Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber have done is to secularise the story. Which, I do hope isn’t a major cause of its phenomenal success.
That other great Biblical work of theirs, Jesus Christ Superstar, famously ends with the crucifixion, and that has been a problem for us as Christians, for whom the resurrection is central to our faith. Similarly, it now seems to me, that almost the whole point of Joseph has been missed as well. For, in its original form, the point wasn’t that Joseph himself could interpret dreams at all, but that it was God who did that for him. This was something he was always at pains to point out, and I now feel it’s a great shame that’s been lost in the retelling.
In Genesis 40:8, for example, we read that, ‘it is God who gives the ability to interpret dreams,’ and that’s just one of about 25 references to God in these 10 chapters. Add to that about 9 references to the Lord as well, and we see that something central to the text has been expunged.
Incidentally, I don’t think it’s altogether a coincidence that Jesus’ earthly father, who God also speaks to in dreams, is called Joseph as well. Our prayer today bears that in mind.
Let us pray:
O Christ, the Master Carpenter,
Who at the last, through wood and nails,
Purchased our whole salvation
Wield well Your tools in this, the workshop of Your world,
That we, who come rough-hewn to Your bench
May here be fashioned to a truer beauty by Your hand.
We ask it for Your own Name's sake, Amen (Iona Community).