Guilty As Charged

Collective guilt is never an easy pill to swallow, but in some measure we are responsible for the actions of our country, our ancestors and others in the Christian community and in our own church. Don't believe it? If we are not collectively responsible, then for whom did Jesus die?

[Note: For this sermon you will need a volunteer to sit at a small wooden table with an old-style table microphone, perhaps a radio headset, to simulate a wartime broadcast in the 1940s. Dress up the speaker in an old, double-breasted suit. If possible, prerecord the crackling and whistling sound of a radio being tuned. In front of the mike, place a card which says "Voice of America."]

Joseph.

You remember him: the dreamer with the hot threads and a wildly exaggerated sense of his place in the universe. Bright kid with a dull sense of timing.

He's knee-deep in ooze at the bottom of a well 15 miles northeast of nowhere. What do you suppose he's thinking? Which one of his brothers is he blaming for putting him into this fix?

Now he's strapped against his will to the undulating hump of a perambulating camel in the desert, headed south for Egypt. Whom do you suppose he's naming and blaming for this mess?

Then he's a servant in the home of Potiphar Whatshisname of the Egyptian upper...