There are No Small Roles on the Stage of Life
Today, one of our members recalled how the superintendent of the school system visited with her and her husband one afternoon to ask them to contribute to the purchase of the large pipe organ that resounds through our worship space every Sunday morning. This was over 50 years ago. The Baby Boomers were just hitting kindergarten and, when he found out that both this woman and her husband had both been trained as teachers, he urged them to go back into teaching. She said that her husband didn’t take his advice, but she did and she went back to the classroom and taught for decades before she retired – influencing a couple of generations of schoolchildren; some of whom are now the leaders of our community.
She said, “It’s funny that a chance encounter like that changed my life”.
In Genesis 37, Jacob sends his son, Joseph, to look for his 10 older brothers who are tending their sheep in Shechem, he thinks. But when Joseph gets to Shechem, he doesn’t find his brothers.
Then the Bible says “a man” whose name we don’t know, asked Joseph what he was looking for and when Joseph explains that he’s looking for his brothers, the man says that he thought he heard them saying that they were going to Dothan.
This is a very minor detail in the dramatic story about how Joseph’s brothers, jealous of their father’s preference for Joseph, sell Joseph into slavery. It’s easily overlooked.
But, when you think about it, if it hadn’t been for this unnamed man, Joseph would have gone home and told his Dad that he couldn’t find his brothers, and Jacob would have shrugged his shoulders and all the dramatic events of Joseph’s life: his slavery and imprisonment in Egypt, and his remarkable rise to become Egypt’s Secretary of Agriculture whose wise policies would save, not only Egypt, but his father and brothers and their families so that they could become Israel, would never have happened.
Aren’t there chance encounters in your own life in which minor players, perhaps people whose names you did not know and you only met once, changed your life?
I remember a single conversation with a professor sitting across the table from me at lunch in the seminary cafeteria who insisted that I take a certain course that I thought was unnecessary because I intended to be a pastor in rural churches and he said there was no way I could know that and this course would prepare me for urban ministry as well. Little did I know that for most of my ministry I would serve in urban and suburban churches – partly because I took that course.
Almost everyday, you have a walk-on part in somebody else’s life story. They say in the theater that there are no small roles, just small actors. Who knows what might happen if you were a big person with a small role in another person’s life?
She said, “It’s funny that a chance encounter like that changed my life”.
In Genesis 37, Jacob sends his son, Joseph, to look for his 10 older brothers who are tending their sheep in Shechem, he thinks. But when Joseph gets to Shechem, he doesn’t find his brothers.
Then the Bible says “a man” whose name we don’t know, asked Joseph what he was looking for and when Joseph explains that he’s looking for his brothers, the man says that he thought he heard them saying that they were going to Dothan.
This is a very minor detail in the dramatic story about how Joseph’s brothers, jealous of their father’s preference for Joseph, sell Joseph into slavery. It’s easily overlooked.
But, when you think about it, if it hadn’t been for this unnamed man, Joseph would have gone home and told his Dad that he couldn’t find his brothers, and Jacob would have shrugged his shoulders and all the dramatic events of Joseph’s life: his slavery and imprisonment in Egypt, and his remarkable rise to become Egypt’s Secretary of Agriculture whose wise policies would save, not only Egypt, but his father and brothers and their families so that they could become Israel, would never have happened.
Aren’t there chance encounters in your own life in which minor players, perhaps people whose names you did not know and you only met once, changed your life?
I remember a single conversation with a professor sitting across the table from me at lunch in the seminary cafeteria who insisted that I take a certain course that I thought was unnecessary because I intended to be a pastor in rural churches and he said there was no way I could know that and this course would prepare me for urban ministry as well. Little did I know that for most of my ministry I would serve in urban and suburban churches – partly because I took that course.
Almost everyday, you have a walk-on part in somebody else’s life story. They say in the theater that there are no small roles, just small actors. Who knows what might happen if you were a big person with a small role in another person’s life?
