Genesis 37, 39-50
Episode 5: Joseph
This is the story of the family of Jacob” are the opening lines of the 12-chapter novella that wraps up the book of Genesis. It centers around Joseph, Jacob (aka Israel)’s favorite of his 11 sons, (that is, before Ben comes along, making it 12 – the 12 tribes of Israel).
In 2012, artist Sue Hensel stood at the front of our sanctuary with a large canvas and pastels and drew this image, while I stood at the podium in the back of the sanctuary and read through the entire story of Joseph from beginning to end.
Every time we came to the phrase, “The Lord was with Joseph” we all stopped and sang it, and then we continued with the refrain periodically throughout the rest of the story.
But here’s the thing, every time it’s said, “The Lord was with Joseph” Joseph is in kind of crappy circumstances. He’s sold into slavery, and “the Lord was with Joseph and he became a successful man.”
He’s thrown into jail “but the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love, he gave him favor in the sight of the chief jailer.”
“The Lord was with him; and whatever he did, the Lord made it prosper – in the dungeon.”
Joseph was 17 when he arrived in Egypt, and into slavery. Being falsely accused by his boss’s wife lands him in that dungeon prison for many years – including the two years the baker who had promised to mention him to Pharoah after Joseph did him a solid had forgotten about him, before suddenly remembering, when Pharoah’s dream could not be interpreted by the top magicians, that one Hebrew guy in the dungeon who was good with dreams. So by the time Joseph stands before the Pharoah and gets put in charge of Operation Outlast Famine, he is 30 years old.
When this all began, Joseph, whom the text is careful to mention is both handsome and good looking, was a cocky kid, the favorite their father, bragging about his crazy dreams to his inferior brothers and driving them crazy with rage.
But as we follow the terrifying trajectory of his life, from stability to upheaval, from security to volatility, from ease to agony, from recognition to rejection, again and again, the constant through line is The Lord is with Joseph. And regardless of where he is or what is happening, God keeps working through for the goodness of others. Joseph had no choice in what happened to him, no control over any of it. God did not spare him suffering, that’s not what God does, God comes into suffering with us. And the Lord was with Joseph.
His brothers’ lives went a different way. After faking Joseph’s death and selling him to slavers, they had to live with what they’d done. They had to go home and face Dad. And Jacob’s grief was crushing and continuous. He would not be consoled. And the brothers must now keep their terrible secret from their family for the rest of their lives.
When they arrive in Egypt two years into the devastating famine, among the desperate crowds, they have lived these past 22 years as slaves to their guilt and shame. But the one they’d sold into slavery, who spent many of those years in captivity, had been made free long ago. Unburdened by bitterness, outrage or ego, available to God and to those around him, the 39-year-old Joseph is unrecognizable.
It’s not just that his boyhood dreams have come true, and everyone is bowing to him, including his brothers, it’s that he has been formed into a person attuned to God.
Later, after they’ve all been reunited and their father’s grief has ended, after everything Joseph does for his brothers - moving all their families and households there, setting everyone up in the good graces of the Pharoah and on vast stretches of land, promising to continue caring for them all through the rest of the famine, the brothers are still trapped in guilt. They still can’t accept the gift that has been given to them. When Dad dies, the brothers are afraid Joseph will take his revenge on them.
They scheme to tell Joseph that their father’s dying wish was that Joseph forgive them. But when they do, Joseph weeps. Then, using the phrase that throughout our whole scripture is our alert that what we’re about to hear is the good news that pulls us back into the Way of God, Joseph says, “Don’t be afraid!”
He continues, “Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people. No, don’t be afraid. I will continue to take care of you and your children.” So, he reassured them by speaking kindly to them.” (Gen 50:19-21)
We’ve talked about this before, but I think about it often, that the Greek word for “forgive” means literally, let go. Just let go. Stop hanging onto something, stop feeding it, clinging to it, holding the weight of it. Just let go.
Joseph had forgiven his brothers ages ago, but they hadn’t forgiven themselves. They were invited to let go and they kept hanging on. Set free, they were still living in the Way of Fear.
What are we hanging onto that it’s hard to let go of?
It might not be guilt or shame; it may be anger or a story of betrayal. But right now, walking through the world in these days and hours leading up to the US election, it feels like everyone is on edge. And I wonder if what we’re hanging onto is fear itself. Apprehension. Dread.
This week Barb Blue preached to me the gospel/good news that pulls us into the Way of God when she texted after her bible study, “There is no election result that can thwart God.”
God is about saving us, which is to say, God is about restoring us to shalom – to wholeness, reconnecting us to our maker and all our siblings on this earth. All creation belongs to God, and God cannot be thwarted. And the story of Joseph tells us there is no arrogance or rivalry, no hatred or jealousy, no horrific betrayal, no appalling violence, no cover up, no great success, no accusation or smear campaign, no captivity or languishing, no faulty memory or failed magician, no famine, or scheming, or shame, or guilt, or fear that can thwart God.
Nothing in history, in the present moment, or yet to come is bigger than God’s redemptive plan for the world. There is nobody outside of God’s sights. We’re all in this story.
We might have trouble tolerating our smug siblings, we might even imagine doing violence to them or fantasize about sending them far away forever. Or we might be the ones with the arrogance problem, looking down on our brothers and sisters with disdain. Either way, God cannot be thwarted from working God’s purposes in and through any and every scenario we manage to cook up or mess up. Nothing we can do can stop God from loving the world and saving it, from loving us and saving us.
We can’t control what will happen. Or what will happen after that. Simply wanting one thing or another doesn’t make it so, just as fearing one thing or another can’t keep it from coming.
So what if, instead, we let go? What if we accept what is, and decide to assume the inner stance of least resistance to the light that no darkness can overcome shining in us and through us? What if we practiced trusting that the Lord is with us?
Today we’re invited into the posture of Joseph. Not the insufferable, 17-year-old Joseph with the bragging problem, but the Joseph who had been through it, whose trust in God was deep and embedded, who had learned through two decades of unpredictability and strain to ride out the waves of both constantly changing circumstances and monotonous confinement, with his heart tuned to God. The Joseph set free by forgiveness who used the gifts he’d been given whenever they were called upon.
Our biblical ancestors are not examples to model ourselves after, so I don’t want to put Joseph on a pedestal. But the story is not really about Joseph, it’s about God. It’s always about God. God whose purposes cannot be stopped. And Joseph seemed to learn how to practice assuming the stance that offers the least resistance of openness to God, waiting and ready when God called on him to act.
Nearly seven hundred years after Joseph, David, fleeing the wrath of a murderous king (don’t worry- we’ll get to that story!) wrote this:
Psalm 36:5-7 (NLT):
“Your steadfast love, O Lord, is as vast as the heavens; your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the ocean depths. You save humans and animals alike, O Lord. How precious is your unfailing love, O God! All humanity finds shelter in the shadow of your wings.”
What if we choose to simply move into this world today, tomorrow, and the next day, in the shadow of God’s wings? What if we practice assuming the stance of least resistance to the Holy Spirit, who hovers over chaos and breathes life into dust, hovering over our chaos and breathing new life into our world?
It’s not up to us to save the world, that’s God’s job. Don’t be afraid! Are we in the place of God? As we live our lives and make our mistakes, God is not only present in our personal realities, but God’s larger purposes are unfolding in, through and despite us. We can join in on knowingly, with eyes wide open and hearts and hands readily available to listen and respond to God’s call, or we can join in by accident without our awareness or conscious involvement. We can see it and celebrate God’s salvation, or we can miss it. But we can never stop God’s redemption or prevent God’s presence. God will do what God does, and God cannot be thwarted.
Amen.
