Bibliography: Culture Shifts, Lesson 6
What we have before us is a very touching scene. This family has hurt one another incredibly.
Joseph’s story is one of the rich time honored stories that has been retold many times in life of the church. In recent years, an animated film about Joseph’s story has been released at the box office. You may know it as Joseph, King of Dreams.
Joseph’s father is Jacob - also known as Israel. Jacob had several wives. By these wives Jacob has had 10 sons and an unrevealed number of daughters. Jacob favors one wife, Rachel, over the others and shows favoritism to the two sons he has fathered with Rachel. Joseph is one of these sons. It has led to hate and discontent among these brothers. They are caught up in the “father-always-loved-you-better-than-me” syndrome.
Though it is understandable what led these brothers to have these feelings due to the actions of their parent, Joseph’s brothers did a horrible thing in their own right. They acted on their jealousy. Initially, in their hate they intended to kill their brother and tell their father Joseph had been eaten by a lion. Instead, an Arab caravan conveniently passing by led them to sell their brother into slavery.
Joseph, I would say, is not completely innocent in his relationship with his brothers. It seems to me that as I read this ancient story, there were signs of Joseph embracing his father’s favoritism.
When he worked in the fields, tending sheep, he would return and tell his father the things his brothers had done wrong and that his father would be displeased about. He had a dream in which he saw himself ruling over his brothers. I don’t think it would take a genius to figure out this wouldn’t make them happy, but Joseph doesn’t hesitate to share this vision of his future with them.
So Joseph is not completely innocent in the dysfunctionalism that exists within his family. Joseph definitely comes from the ultimate dysfunctional family. His story is a typical example of biblical family life and dysfunctional behavior. Their family history is not an odd, one of a kind narrative. Their family isn’t the first family in the Bible to have some relationship issues. It is an example of common human experiences in scripture.
The odd thing is, our modern society exhibits this biblical model of a multifamily unit than society did, say, 40 to 50 years ago. We have it in our heads that the perfect model family consists of one mother, one father, and 2 to 3 children which all stay together until death parts the parents. Such a modeld family may be ideal, but it didn’t exist in form in the Bible, and seldom does it exist for us today.
We can relate to relationship issue and dysfunctional families. Far too many of us understand the “yours, mine, and ours” of family life. We participate in such families as children, as adults, as grandparents, aunts or uncles. And whether or not our family exhibits the perfect model structure, or not, far too many of us can understand and relate to issues of getting along with one another. We can understand the resentment of Joseph’s brothers because we’ve been there. We have family gathering that resemble the situation that has led to Joseph’s family reunion. We can comprehend the feelings of mistreatment and injustice on Joseph’s behalf because we’ve been there too.
We read Joseph’s story and we respond in the affirmative. “That’s right,” we say. They have a right to be resentful, he is correct in feeling hurt and crying out against the injustice done to him, because we’ve been treated that way too in our own families.
When we catch up with Joseph in our story, he has been through a lot. It wasn’t just enough his brothers sold him into slavery. Other people have compounded the wrong doing of his brothers. In the home in which Joseph was sold into servitude, Joseph was falsely accused of trying to rape the mistress of the household. Joseph spent several years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. How do you think he must have felt about his brothers while he was there? What must he have been thinking all those years - “I wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t have treated me that way.”
And now Joseph finds himself in a unique, and I would think somewhat awkward situation. Joseph has been able to turn his life around. Its definitely been a long road. But since coming into captivity, while he was in prison, the Lord has blessed everything that Joseph has done.
Initially he advances in the home in which he was a slave. In prison he advances as a model prisoner and example. Finally, he is taken into service in the household of Pharaoh, the king. There he also advances until he becomes the king’s right-hand man and second in command.
Now we might ask what it is that has made it possible for Joseph to prevail and triumph over such adversity, but the Bible leaves us no question. God was with Joseph every step of the way, showing him kindness, granting him favor, giving him success in everything he did. And this wasn’t just unknowing kindness on the part of God to Joseph. When approached by Pharaoh to interpret his dream, Joseph acknowledges that it is God who is able to do that for Pharaoh through Joseph, not Joseph himself.
Joseph leads a life of faith. He has a faithful relationship with God. We see this is true as we explore this reunion Joseph has with his brothers.
Imagine Joseph’s reaction. He has managed to save the nation of Egypt from destitution and destruction during a terrible famine. People both native and foreign are coming to buy goods from Egypt just to survive. Through Joseph’s cleverness, Pharaoh is becoming a very rich king, and Joseph has a great deal of power as his second in command. Imagine his reaction when his brothers, the very one who treated him so badly, arrive one day in need of his assistance in order to survive. They must buy the Pharaoh’s grain in order to eat. How Joseph must have felt to see them there. What opportunity he had to pay them back for the horrible things they had done to him. Perhaps in part, if we read the rest of Joseph’s story, we might say that Joseph did enact some kind of revenge, but from the point of our story this evening, Joseph can no longer stay separated from his family.
Joseph, however, has a unique way of interpreting his life experiences. Here we see a great example of the life of faith he lives. All that has befallen him he sees as brought upon him by the hand of God. Why does Joseph believe he endured all these things? Because it put him in a position to care for his family, particularly his father who loves him a great deal and whose love Joseph greatly returns.
“Do no be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for it was to save lives that God sent me here.
Now I’m not sure I would agree with Joseph that God sent him into slavery in Egypt in order to save the lives of his family and countless Egyptians. It is an interesting understanding of his own faith journey Joseph has, but one thing we can note - is that through all of the difficulties and hardships Joseph faced, he made a decision to do things differently than the past.
He could have been bitter towards his brothers and what they had done to him, but he’s not. He has suffered great pain. It has not been an easy journey. In fact, once we see a Joseph who appears actively involved in being a faithful person, it got harder for Joseph before it got better.
I don’t think there is any doubt that the Joseph we see in Egypt whose endeavors are blessed by God, and the Joseph we see here reconciling with his brothers is a different Joseph than the one who gave bad reports on his brothers’ behavior to their father, and who boasted of ruling over them some day.
It may have taken a long time to come to fruitation - it takes a while to reverse the pattern of wrongs we have done.
Joseph’s life definitely got worse before it got better - going from slavery to prison before coming into the highly exalted position he has with the king. But it appears to me that Joseph has decided to go about doing his relationships differently than the manner in which his family had interacted with one another before.
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Notice that Joseph’s brothers, don’t seek forgiveness for their behavior and how they have wronged him. Joseph’s emotional response is to words spoken by his brother Judah who does acknowledge at least how what they have done has hurt their father. He doesn’t realize it is to Joseph that he is speaking, so it makes sense that he wouldn’t acknowledge the pain he has caused Joseph. But even now that Joseph has revealed himself to them, whether out of fear, guilt, or a little of both, we don’t hear the brothers asking for forgiveness.
Nor does Joseph speak words to forgive them. Rather, he notes that the difficulties he has faced has brought them all to a better place. Had Joseph offered forgiveness for how they had treated him, had his brothers sought forgiveness for their actions, it would have changed the dynamics of how this family comes back together.
I’m not saying they weren’t sorry for what they had done or that Joseph didn’t forgive them for what they had done. What I want us to note is that the focus of this encounter is not laying blame and acknowledging guilt. The focus of this encounter is having a relationship with one another in a different way than they had before.
Most important from this rocky reconciliation I think we see is how Joseph has made the decision to go about doing things differently than he has before and we notice this the most in the way he now with his family.
Joseph’s family was a dysfunctional family that did some very hurtful things to one another. But God works good out of evil intent, creates in us hearts that desire goodness, gives us the opportunity and power to respond in goodness, and works with and through those that embrace God and God’s goodness. (!!!) We can see a difference in understanding God’s actions in this way, than in Joseph’s understanding of his experiences.
Joseph made a decision to behave differently with his family members based upon his relationship with and an understanding of who God is. It made a difference in who Joseph became, and in the path this family would take together. Their relationship is forever changed.
Notice too, Joseph’s changed motivation for what he does. From the time of Joseph’s great grandfather, his family has lived a life of promise. God promised to Abraham, Joseph’s great grandfather life, eternal life through his children and future descendants. In fact, it was the promise of eternal life so great that his descendants would be so numerous, they would become a nation.
Now, maybe that doesn’t sound like such an amazing promise to us, but in that ancient day through your children was how one achieved immortality. It was an incredible promise of some magnitude for Abraham to receive. It required incredible faith of some magnitude for Abraham to believe in it. He and his wife, Sarah, were old - long past child bearing years - when the promise is given to them by God. Abraham had faith and believed in a promise that could not come to fruitation in his life time.
Joseph, however, sees this promise as being fulfilled, lived out in his life time. We know this is Joseph’s thought, when he speaks of his family as a remnant. A remnant is piece of something that is saved. He understands them as a remnant of God’s promise. Abraham’s line will not die out. It will continue. Joseph and his brothers are a living remnant of God’s promise.
For Joseph, God’s promise of life, salvation, eternal life - as he understood it - is being fulfilled through him and that of his family. This is not a future event as Joseph sees it. This is an actuality taking place through him and through his family. How so?
Joseph’s personal experiences let him through tough times when could have easily died. He overcame great adversity and odds. If he hadn’t he wouldn’t have been in a position to help his family through a terrible famine that gripped the country for seven long years. Not only would Egypt have suffered and many people died, Joseph’s father, brothers, and family would have certainly, most definitely died.
It is no wonder that Joseph sees the difficulties he faced as God’s great providence to fulfill the promise made to Joseph’s ancestor, Abraham.
To Joseph, it wasn’t just a promise for future life. It was a fulfillment of that promise in his life and the life of his family.
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The question is, what does this mean for us? I would bet that in each of our families there are individuals we have a hard time getting along with. There are countless stories of countless family gatherings where old hurts arise time and time again, where family members continue to hurt one another.
If we truly take our relationship with Christ seriously, can we follow in Joseph’s footsteps? Can we go about engaging with our family members differently? Can we, do we let our relationships with Jesus guide and determine how we will interact with others - not only our personal family members and the members of our church family, but all of our relationships both within and outside the church?
Do we respond as faithful Christians? Do we attempt to heal old wounds, do we attempt to bring peace instead of pain, do we offer reconciliation instead of division? Are we about of trying to bring the family together, or are we about taking the family apart?
What does it mean to be the family of God? Do we live as if it is a promise fulfilled in our lives today? Faced with such adversity as Joseph, and often caused by the ones we love, trust, and hold dear, can we, do we act as faithful followers of God, putting our best forward in whatever position we find ourselves in?
The name of this sermon is “This Group Must Somehow Form A Family.” Sometimes we have this very sentiment about our own family and personal relationships. We wonder that it is even possible for us to come together at all. Joseph’s family experience was such an experience, and in the midst of the worst of it, Joseph embraced God. He didn’t know Jesus - he didn’t have the benefit of Christ -but Joseph knew that a relationship with God was important and influenced all his relationships.
We do have the benefit of knowing Christ and are made family through him - with him, and with one another. However what is true about our personal families is also true about our Christian family. We bring all our excess baggage with us. We are people filled with mistakes. As a Christian family our relationships with one another can be tricky and require as much work at those at home. It is true: this group must somehow form a family.
We are called and invited to discover what Joseph discovered:
A relationship with God is vital, and impacts all of our other relationships - with children, parents, spouses, brothers and sisters in Christ, coworkers, employees, employers, friends, and pre-Christians as well.
We are invited, like Joseph, to go about doing things differently in our relationships because of our relationships with Christ.
In Jesus name, Amen
