Like last week, we have skipped ahead a few generations in Genesis to get to today’s reading. So to quickly summarize, Abraham, whose deep desire for a son we heard about in last week’s reading, fathered a son by the name of Isaac. Isaac was the father of two children, Esau and Jacob. Jacob or Israel as he will later be called, has twelve sons, and at least one daughter. Of all of these children, Jacob has a favorite child—his son Joseph. Joseph is Jacob’s favorite because although he is one of the youngest children of Jacob, he is the first child of Jacob’s favorite wife Rachel.
See Jacob has this little problem with favoritism. He treats his wife Leah as a second-class citizen even though she is the one who gives birth to most of his children. And he treats Rachel’s son Joseph with such open and obvious favoritism that his brothers take note. Jacob even goes so far as to put his favoritism on display by gifting Joseph a beautiful coat or robe. Tradition (and the Broadway musical) claim this was a coat of many colors or Joseph’s Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, but the Hebrew is much simpler in its description referring to it as a long-sleeved long coat. I cannot even begin to tell you how terribly disappointed I was as a seminary student to learn that Joseph’s coat may not have been as colorful as I had always imagined. I mean its nice and everything, but still, not the same. And I can’t imagine anyone being inspired to write a song about this coat….
But I digress.
Whatever Joseph’s coat may have looked like, it set him apart and told the whole family, heck the whole community, of Joseph’s favored status. And this did not go over well with his brothers. Solely because of Joseph’s impressive coat, Joseph’s brothers have a hard time even talking to him. They are jealous.
As if that Jacob’s blatant favoritism isn’t enough, there is one other reason that the brothers can’t stand Joseph. And we hear of that in the opening of today’s stories. Joseph has dreams and not just any dreams, but dreams which he interprets as giving him superior status to his brothers. Though we only hear of the dream about sheaves of wheat, he also has another dream along the same lines.
Joseph dreams that he and his brothers are all sheaves of grain and that for whatever reason, Joseph’s sheave rises up and his brothers’ sheaves all bow down to it. Eugene Peterson’s The Message translation explains the brothers reaction this way: His brothers said, “So! You’re going to rule us? You’re going to boss us around?” And they hated him more than ever because of his dream and the way he talked.
I’m not sure whether Joseph was totally naïve or rather arrogant by telling his brothers this dream, but his two dreams here really push the brothers completely over the edge. So much so that they are ready to kill him. Like literally kill him.
Thankfully, Reuben, Jacob’s oldest son, convinces them not to (but only so that he can “rescue” Joseph and hopefully earn some of his father’s favor for himself.
Judah, another brother of Joseph is the one who comes up with the winning plan, however. And so the brothers end up selling the beloved child into slavery in Egypt.
I wonder what it felt like for Joseph to be so betrayed by his brothers. It has to be a huge culture shock to go from the Hebrew culture of Canaan and his favored status as Jacob’s son to being a slave in Egypt. He had to learn a new language, a new way of being, and was basically alone in the world. Alone that is except for God.
Whatever slavery was like for Joseph, it seems to have strengthened him in his walk with God and matured him into a man through whom God was able to do great things. If you want in on some of the details of that transition, go home and read the last 3rd of Genesis starting with our reading from today through the end of that book. It reads less like an ancient Biblical text and more like a novel.
Years later, a severe famine hits the land. Pharaoh had been warned in a dream about this famine—a dream which Joseph had interpreted for him, and as such had been storing up grain for years and years. Pharaoh had placed Joseph in charge of the whole economic system by this point and as such, Joseph was the one responsible for doling out the excess grain.
Word of Egypt’s excess reaches all the way back to Canaan and to the family of Jacob. Desperate the brothers travel there and bow down before Joseph. They don’t recognize their brother, but Joseph recognizes them. And though he tests them to see if they have changed, he gives them what they need freely and eventually reveals himself to them.
Joseph’s father and the rest of the family comes to Egypt where Pharaoh provides not only all the grain they need, but also the finest land in the country for them to settle on.
While this story of Joseph is a great one in and of itself, it also contains some lessons for us. See throughout Genesis God had been working for the good of all creation and the salvation of all people. And this continues through the Joseph story. God’s love travels to Egypt in the person of Joseph and preserves the life of many people. Joseph is able to look back on the trials of his life and see God’s hand at work in them which is why he can tell his brothers “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people.”
This story of Joseph teaches of the power of God to work in hidden ways and to do what Romans 8:28 says “work all things together for the good of those who love God.” Unlike his ancestors in the faith Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Joseph does not have any grand visions or noteworthy conversations with the Lord. Instead, he experiences God much the same way we do… in our hearts and minds guided by the Holy Spirit. The faith that Joseph has, has been passed down to him by his father and mother and his community, much the same way that our faith comes to us. And because Joseph is able to trust his faith and in God, God works through him.
We too have the promise that God has called us according to God’s own purposes and for God’s own reasons. I suspect that as each of us reflects on different times and events in our lives, we can see God at work—perhaps in leading us into a vocation that we love, or into a relationship with the spouse that is just perfect for us, or gifting us with children and family and friends that make life abundantly rich. And even if we never do anything as grand as Joseph did with the saving and preserving of numerous people, we are still called by God to love our neighbors and love even our enemies.
We heard those words in our short gospel reading this morning. Jesus teaches us that we are to do something very difficult—we are to love those who don’t love us, those who would do us harm, and those who have hurt us. Moreover, we are to do good to them, expecting nothing in return. In short, we are to practice radical forgiveness, forgiveness like what Joseph showed to his brothers at the end of today’s main reading.
This kind of forgiveness is tough. But it is possible.
In 2006, a man by the name of Charles Roberts walked into a one room Amish school in Nickel Mines, PA and executed 5 young girls, injured 5 others, and then took his own life. His father initially thought that they would need to leave the community, after all, how could they miss the signs that they son was the type of person who would do these things.
But the Amish had a different view. They forgave. Even while some of the parents were still awaiting word of what had happened to their daughters, one of the Amish community leaders came to the Robert’s home. He said he knew they were grieving the loss of their child as well and he called them friends.
That day in Nickel Mines, the paths of the Roberts family and the Amish community merged. They reached out to one another in grief and bore witness to each other’s pain. The Amish did more than forgive, they embraced Roberts parents as part of their community. Dozens of Amish, including the parents of some of the victims, showed up to form a human chain blocking the media from Charlie Roberts funeral so that his parents could say good-bye to their son. When Teri Roberts underwent treatment for stage 4 breast cancer, one of the girls who survived the massacre cleaned her home before she returned home from the hospital. Amish school children came and caroled for her that Christmas. The Roberts have hosted picnics and teas for the Amish community that continue to this day. They are a family brought together out of tragedy.
This kind of forgiveness, this kind of love for one’s enemies is hard. For the Amish people, it is simply part of living out their faith. Steven Nolt, a professor of Amish studies at Elizabethtown College, said that for most people, forgiveness and acceptance come at the end of a long emotional process. But the Amish forgive first and then every-day work through the emotions of it. This “decisional forgiveness” opened a space for healing for the Amish community and the Roberts family.
Decisional forgiveness is quite simply love for those who should be or are our enemies. We too are called to this kind of forgiveness even if it is really hard.
Just to be clear, though, decisional forgiveness doesn’t mean that we put ourselves back into situations that are harmful or abusive solely for the sake of forgiving our neighbor. Jesus doesn’t ask us or call us to be doormats for abuse or hatred. But even when we need to keep ourselves out of a situation or away from certain people for our emotional, physical, and even spiritual well-being we can make the choice to forgive. We can decide to forgive and turn them over to the mercy of God. We can pray for our enemies and love them even when we have to keep them at arm’s length. And as we do this, we will one day find that our pain is somehow different. It becomes part of our story and part of our testimony to the work of God in our lives and in our world, work to bring all things together for good.
Joseph likely had a lot of feelings to work through when it came to the actions of his brothers. Yet he chose to forgive and committed to the emotional work of that forgiveness. 14 years later, the Amish of Nickel Mines work through their emotions as individuals and as a community. And God is present with them, daily creating space for God’s love to mend the most broken places of their lives.
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” May these stories of God’s love in action and forgiveness experienced teach us to love and forgive as well. Amen.
