Scripture: Genesis 45: 1-15
"God sent me before you to preserve life."
- Genesis 45:5
Understanding God's involvement in the life of the cosmos seems particularly germane in
our own world where it is so often confusing to discern the hand of God in it.
Where is God's hand in the intractable conundrum of Israel/ Palestine, where the ethic
of an eye for an eye locks Jew and Muslim in a seemingly intractable embrace of death?
Where is God's hand in the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic church or the decades
long conflict over human sexuality in the Presbyterian Church or any other big issues that
plague our globe?
Its not only these mega-issues that the question is pertinent. Where is God's hand in
my life and yours? If God has a plan for me how do I discern it? How do I discern God's
activity not only in the triumphs and the moments of sheer grace, but also in the trials?
We may want to confess that God's activity is a factor to be reckoned with in all
events both global and personal, but those of us who want to make that confession
recognize that these same events could be interpreted without reference to God at all. How
are we to understand God's hand, God's providence and God's agency in the warp and woof of
human history and our own history?
The question is addressed by the story of Joseph and his brothers. The scene in today's
lesson is the dramatic conclusion to a journey that covers eight chapters in the Book of
Genesis. Because it's a complicated and long story, I'm going to take some time to give
you the highlights.
The journey involves the fortunes and misfortunes of Joseph, Jacob's son. There are
many details to the account but behind all these details is the question whether God will
remain faithful to the promises God made to Abraham and Sarah for Israel to be a family
where God's salvation is worked out: to bear a great multitude, to be a light to the
nations, and to be an instrument of God's shalom.
Joseph is the runt, the youngest son in a seriously dysfunctional family. In his inept
father's sight, he is the favored one. Jacob could have used a parenting class but that's
not the point of the story. Jacob adorns Joseph with special favors including the fabled
multi-colored robe. Joseph flaunts his favored status. He plays the shrink, interpreting
his dreams to predict that one day they will all bow down before him. His brothers detest
the brat. They understand his dreams to be a product of his own arrogance. They seize the
pipsqueak, strip him of his robe and conspire to kill him to put to an end Joseph's
delusions of grandeur. In their conspiracy they argue and fight among themselves, as
conspirators are prone to do. Instead of murder they decide to throw him into a pit then
sell him to a passing caravan as a slave for some pieces of silver. They cover their
tracks by dipping his robe in goat's blood and telling their father he was killed by a
wild animal.
I'll pause for a moment and comment that not only does this soap opera look like
something ripped off from one of those vile, late afternoon talk shows, but that the
intent of the story is to covey how God's hand can bring about good even in the evil
designs of very sick people. Sinful behaviors may indeed frustrate divine purposes in the
world, but they do not, finally, stymie them.
No individual in the story emerges as innocent. Even Joseph, though the primary victim,
practically begs to be hit in the face with a big wad of camel dung. Everyone in his own
way contributes to the mess in which the family finds itself. All are responsible. None
sees it. God isn't even mentioned in the story. Not a single reference is made to God, yet
God's hand is working in all of these activities. God works in and through even the worst
that this family can perpetrate; in everything - even in evil - God works for good.
Joseph ends up in Egypt. He rises to become a high official in the Egyptian bureaucracy
and because he is favored in God's sight, prosperity flows from his leadership. He has a
brush with Monica Lewinsky a.k.a. Potiphar, but unlike last decade's President, Joseph is
innocent this time. Framed, he gets thrown into jail, but soon gets out due to his own
brilliance and eventually becomes prime minister of Egypt. Egypt prospers. A famine
strikes but Joseph manages the economy well. His brothers and ailing father in the
meantime back in Canaan are in desperate straits and in danger of starving. They come to
Egypt to purchase grain.
They come to the office of the prime minister. Leaving out lots of details, Joseph
recognizes his family but they do not recognize him. He weeps but not in their presence.
They purchase grain but discover on their journey back to Canaan that the silver coins
they had handed over was resting in the sacks of grain they had just purchased. Joseph had
ordered it so. They try to figure out what it all means, thinking that they are going to
get caught for being thieves. But then they make a connection between their guilt for
having sold their brother into slavery and this silver that now fills their grain bags.
They begin to suspect that there are some larger purposes being played out and it gets a
little spooky for them. They return to their father but the famine worsens and must return
to Egypt again.
That brings us up to the beginning of the Old Testament reading for today. Once again,
Joseph's brothers are in his executive office to purchase grain. No able to bear his grief
and compassion, he loses control. He dismisses all the attendants so that the family
members can be alone and deal with their matters privately. He reveals his identity to his
brothers and weeps so loudly that the Egyptians hear. It has become a very public affair.
His brothers are reduced to an agitated, fearful silence.
Joseph asks his brothers to come closer. They come closer. He goes to the heart of the
issue. "You sold me into slavery." The brothers distressed, terrified and
fearful.
An eye for an eye? A wound for a wound? An insult for an insult? Vengeance? Getting
even? Revenge that ancient formula for futility? Will the Palestinians ever get even for
what Israelis have done to them or visa versa? Will Tutsis ever get even with Hutus? Will
America ever get even with Bin Laden? Will the Bloods ever get even with the Crips? Will
Joseph ever get even with his brothers? "You sold me into slavery."
Joseph does not scold them or blame them; he does not try to make them feel guilty or
shameful. He asks for no confession of sin and issues no absolution. Rather, he declares,
"God has sent me before you to preserve life." Joseph says, fundamentally, that
in spite of their past history, all will be well because all that has happened corresponds
to God's purposes. He invites them to view the past from the perspective of the present
and God's future activity for salvation, for his family and for the world's. God has taken
over and what they have done in all the sordid details has been used to bring about
reconciliation so that God's plan can unfold. God's hand is in it. Their actions have
become God's by being woven into divine, life giving purposes.
Joseph could have obliterated them. He could have gotten even. All of these he had at
his power, but the one thing that getting even can not do is heal. Only forgiveness has
the power to make a break through. The world's standards of justice would not be
necessarily be served, but God's purposes would.
Why would South Africa's Nelson Mandela decide that reconciliation and not retaliation
was the way out of decades of racial hatred perpetrated upon his own people? Why? Why
should Serbs and Croats forgive each other? Should South forgive North and North South?
Why should families set aside their petty battles and let them go? When an eye for an eye
makes plain sense and it is imprinted into every human heart, both yours and mine, why try
something different? It's because God's hand is in it.
Presbyterians have always held to a high doctrine of God's providence. This admittedly
ambiguous doctrine holds that humans have both the freedom to choose our own course, and
that God's purposes shape human history. In the providence of God we have been placed here
to choose to honor God's best purposes or to subvert them. Though it may not always be
easy to see, God's hand is always working toward greater freedom, greater compassion,
greater justice, greater healing. The signs are there, but will we see them?
Whenever there are signs of life rather then death, signs of reconciliation rather than
estrangement, signs of forgiveness rather than retribution, God has been at work in, with,
and under human affairs. Whenever we choose to participate in recognizing these signs, we
partner with God. And even when we don't God is still working, planning, unfolding, to
bring everything that has happened into the orbit of larger purposes for good and for
life. This is our faith. May we have the eyes to see it. Amen.
