query args not reflected in request

I’m using genesis. My feature post widget does not want to respect the orderby and order attributes I set in the widget.

The bizarre thing is that
var_dump($featured_posts->query);

outputs

array(6) {
  ["post_type"]=>
  string(4) "post"
  ["cat"]=>
  string(1) "0"
  ["showposts"]=>
  string(1) "4"
  ["offset"]=>
  string(1) "1"
  ["orderby"]=>
  string(4) "date"
  ["order"]=>
  string(3) "ASC"
}

But outputting this:
var_dump($featured_posts->request);

outputs this

string(237) "SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS tbl_posts.ID FROM be_posts WHERE 1=1 AND tbl_posts.post_type = 'post' AND (tbl_posts.post_status = 'publish' OR tbl_posts.post_status = 'private') GROUP BY tbl_posts.ID ORDER BY tbl_posts.menu_order ASC LIMIT 1, 4"

How is this possible? Who is the culprit, wp or genesis?