Some years ago, a dear friend loaned me a book entitled But God! The title was taken from Joseph’s discourse to his brothers in today’s lesson from the Hebrew scriptures. There Joseph tells his terrified brothers, “Do not be distressed . . . it was not you who sent me here, but God.” (If that quote sounds mysterious and intriguing, you can find the entire Joseph story in Genesis chapters 37-50.) The premise of that book was that God takes the long view, and while we may think we are in control of history, our own and the world’s, God, completely unbeknownst to us, can use us to benefit humankind in the long run, making the unintended consequences of our thoughts, words, and deeds a blessing for the world.

Paul, in our epistle lesson, makes the same point—that when the Jews failed to recognize Jesus as Messiah, the good news was proclaimed to the Gentiles, symbolically opening the gates of the Kingdom of God to all. The Jewish leaders of that day wanted to maintain the status quo, to avoid rocking the boat, but God had something else in mind, thank goodness. Even Jesus in our gospel passage seems to have had a limited view of his personal vocation (“I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”), but God opened his eyes and heart to a greater vision of love using a female foreigner of all things, something completely counter-cultural in those days.

V. Raymond Edman, who was the fourth president of Wheaton College in Illinois and the author of that 1962 book But God!, shared numerous modern-day vignettes demonstrating that God continues in the business of redeeming the results of our choices in our day and time. Over and over in his book, Edman showed how our intentions may be for good or ill, but God can, in the fullness of time, transform those results into grace for all. I’ve had a few of those “but God” experiences in my life; how about you?