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Joseph Part 8: Genesis 42-45
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
This profound trust that we call faith, that love and grace and goodness and acceptance and unmerited welcome are always moving toward us. Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information.
Speaker 1:Glad to have you here at Commons, especially as we make that final movement towards Advent. Today, we are finishing up a longer series on the character of Joseph. Next week, we begin the season of Advent together. And I don't know about you, but Christmas has kind of snuck up on me again a little bit here. But now that we see it peeking around the corner, I'm starting to get excited as well.
Speaker 1:And Christmas is a big deal here at Commons. We are preparing for five Christmas Eve services. They all will be packed, and we're working really hard to make sure there's room for everyone. You can help us with that by registering for tickets at commons.church/christmas. Again, you never need a ticket to get into church, especially on Christmas Eve, but registering helps us to ensure that we have seating for everyone.
Speaker 1:Now another big part of Christmas at Commons is our annual advent campaign. And every year, we try to take some of the generosity that is engendered by the Christmas story and point that away from ourselves towards those in need. And our goal this year is to raise $50,000 on top of what we're already doing all year. That's a big number, but together, I really think we can do something incredible. And so starting next week and through Advent, we are gonna highlight some of the projects that are part of this Advent goal.
Speaker 1:But really quickly here, I wanna give you the four big projects. First, we have a new four year post secondary scholarship that we are providing to a young mom finishing her high school across the street at Louise Dean School. Second, we have an expanded collection of local agencies here in Kensington, and this year also in Inglewood, which we're really excited about. Third is our ongoing efforts for benevolence and local aid for those in the commons community that need some help throughout the year. And then finally, we're doing another round of fundraising for our refugee resettlement efforts here in the city.
Speaker 1:And if you saw the news this week, then you know that our newest family arrived here in Calgary on Monday. This is Nagat and her four children, and they are an Eritrean family that have arrived from Sudan. And our teams have already been hard at work for months now preparing for them and getting them settled this week. And you can head to commons.church/advent to contribute to these projects, but also to learn more about all of them that are happening at this time. And this is a season where this community has been incredibly generous in the past.
Speaker 1:And so we want to thank you in advance of an Advent that we know will be very open handed. Now that's Advent, but we're not there yet because we still have one more week with Joseph. And I hope that you've been enjoying this series. I always find it personally engaging to get to dig into some of these longer sections and take our time with them. Joseph in particular though, is just a very literary, very beautiful story, and there's a reason that stories like these have endured for so long.
Speaker 1:They're good stories. They're human stories. And even when we take eight weeks to digest them, there is still a lot that's left on the table. And so I hope that if you missed a week here or there, you're able to catch up online. You can always head to commons.church, and there you'll find video and audio from the weekends.
Speaker 1:We know everyone can't make it every week, so do that. But in seven weeks so far, we have seen Joseph start off as this brash, arrogant kid with literal dreams of grandeur, who is loved by his father but ostracized by his brothers whose jealousy eventually drives them to evil. They kidnap Joseph, they sell him to slave traders and they tell their father he was killed. Joseph gets taken to Egypt and sold to a man named Potiphar. He impresses his new boss and he gets put in charge of the household.
Speaker 1:That's great, but when there is systemic imbalance of power, injustice is always one step away and Joseph is falsely accused by Potiphar's wife and immediately thrown into prison. And there Joseph becomes the stand in for any marginalized person whose body and voice and experience has been ignored or exploited by those around them. I'm reminded this week that we observed the transgender day of remembrance for those who've suffered violence. And we have stories of missing and murdered indigenous women that surround us. We all have people in our lives who've been victimized by power and ignored by the structures of the world.
Speaker 1:And even if we struggle to relate to Joseph's predicament here, we are surrounded by these stories all the time. And yet even in prison Joseph impresses and eventually Joseph gets pulled from prison to interpret the dreams of pharaoh. Seven good years are coming, seven bad years will follow and Joseph's advice is to prepare now. And so last week we noted the very striking image the text gives us of Joseph who we once knew as brash and arrogant and young, now being called on for his wisdom discretion and discernment. And I love this idea that who I am today does not limit who I might become tomorrow.
Speaker 1:I have things to learn, and I have experiences to gather. I have more to be than I am right now. And rather than become frustrated by that learning curve, I choose to be excited by it because it means that there is always more ahead for me. Now today, Joseph has been put in charge of Egypt. He is rolling out his plans for the nation, and we are finally going to get the long awaited payoff to the dreams that we started with all those many weeks ago.
Speaker 1:Because today is the reunification of Joseph and his brothers. And so let's pray, and then we'll dive into this story. God of all grace, help us this day as we reach toward the end of this narrative to place everything that we have read and experienced so far into this larger context of reconciliation. Might we know you as the God who is drawing all things back to yourself. The God who is invested in more than the ordering of creation, but also this complex dance of relationship and healing.
Speaker 1:If we need to, might we begin a process of reconciliation with you today? If we need to, might we begin a process of reconciliation with family today? If we need to, might we begin a process of reconciliation with each other here in this room, in this moment today. Help us to believe that the same God who created the heavens and the earth, the sun, the stars, the moon, and the oceans is the same God who cares about our relationships between fathers and sons and mothers and siblings. May we hold our relationships with the same holy reverence that you do.
Speaker 1:Where we are stubborn, soften us. Where we are afraid, strengthen us. Where we are weak and wounded, would you be with us? In the strong name, the risen Christ, we pray. Amen.
Speaker 1:Okay. Today, we bring this tale to a close, and we land on the reconciliation of Joseph and his family. But there are still some twists and turns to get there, and that's kind of how this works, isn't it? When trust has been broken, particularly when trust has been broken by someone close, There is a lot of work to be done. Whenever I do something that upsets my son, he will often say, you hurt my feelings.
Speaker 1:And when I inevitably, as any good Canadian would, respond instinctively with, I'm sorry, he has started responding with, well, doesn't make things better, does it, dad? And as much as that's amusing when the situation surrounds the fact that I won't extend his screen time for the day, there is a lot of wisdom in there. And so as we begin a story of reconciliation, I hope that you find joy, I hope that you see hope, and I trust that you will uncover all kinds of ways that grace is present to you right now. But hear this, I also understand that forgiveness is hard. And reconciliation is a process, and we are all of us somewhere on that journey.
Speaker 1:And so wherever you are today, even if you are still processing something, remember to hold grace for yourself as well because not everything can be fixed in a thirty minute conversation. But let's jump back into the story. At the end of chapter 41 and this is verse 56 where we read, that when the famine had spread over the whole country Joseph opened all of the storehouses and sold grain to the Egyptians for the famine was severe throughout the land. In fact, all the world came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph Joseph because the famine was severe everywhere. Now we need to move forward into the next chapter, but there is some interesting stuff here to pick up at the end of chapter 41.
Speaker 1:Last week, we saw Pharaoh put Joseph in charge of his empire, and I think this is one of those moments where we have to give some credit to Pharaoh. Good leaders know when to hand away power. And really anyone here who aspires to have significant impact needs to learn this as quickly as possible. Because anyone who is a compelling leader will inevitably and very quickly become their own bottleneck if they try to hang on to everything. And if we had another week in this series, I would have called it leadership lessons with Pharaoh because the first thing that he does after putting Joseph in charge is send him out on tour.
Speaker 1:And this is brilliant because here's the thing about leadership. We all know people who have a parent authority. Like that means they have a title or a position or in this case the endorsement of pharaoh. But we also all know that doesn't always translate to actual authority. Because the people who have real actual authority in our lives are not the people with titles.
Speaker 1:They are the people who show up. And the people who get to know us and the people who earn the right to lead us. And so even after Joseph is given the authority he still goes out and he crisscrosses the nation and he meets the people he needs to work for and with if he wants to lead them well. And again, we need to move forward because there's lots for us to cover today, but everyone here, you are a leader in some significant aspect of your life. And these are two really important principles to hang on to.
Speaker 1:One, that when you have authority, you need to learn to give it away to the right people. And two, when you are given authority, you need to learn to earn it anyway. But Egypt is full of grain. And so they open the storehouses to the people and other nations come to buy grain from them. And so now in chapter 42 we read that when Jacob learned there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons, why do you just keep looking at each other?
Speaker 1:I've heard there's grain in Egypt. Go down there, buy some for us so that we may live and not die. Now there's this weird phrase here. Jacob says to his sons, why do you just keep looking at each other? And that sounds sort of dismissive and it may be.
Speaker 1:Things are tense in the family so it's not surprising considering they are living in a famine that things are heated. But the word here, tetrau, means to stare at someone. And what's interesting is that elsewhere in the scripture, this word is only used in the context of meeting someone in battle. That is you stare them down. So it could be that what's going on here is that hard times have now turned these brothers against each other.
Speaker 1:And what Jacob is saying is something like, why are you fighting with yourselves when there's a famine that threatens all of us? And I think that's probably more common than we realize, isn't it? When things are hard, we look for scapegoats. It's almost like it's hardwired into humanity, this need to shift our problems, our predicaments onto someone else. And often in the absence of an easy target or an outsider that we can blame, the next target is actually those who are closest to us.
Speaker 1:And so when you find yourself feeling almost irrationally upset with someone you know that you love, sometimes that's a sign to slow down and step back and take a breath and think about what's happening inside of you. Because often what happens is that it has less to do with them. It has more to do with how you are struggling to process something in your story. But what happens is that Judah and nine of his brothers are eventually sent down to Egypt to buy grain. And Benjamin, the youngest, is kept at home with Jacob because in the absence of Joseph, Benjamin has become the new favored son.
Speaker 1:But at this point a lot has happened. Joseph has become governor now in Egypt and he is married and he has two sons of his own. Sons he has named Manasseh which is a play on the word for forgotten and Ephraim which is a play on the word for fruitful. And so in some sense we get this signal that Joseph has made peace with the past. Either he knows he has been forgotten or he has forgotten the past but either way he has become fruitful and blessed in his new life.
Speaker 1:And yet all of a sudden here come his brothers. Verse seven says that as soon as Joseph saw them he recognized them But he pretended to be a stranger and he spoke harshly to them. Where do you come from? He asked. Now we could ask, why Joseph recognizes his brothers but they don't recognize him?
Speaker 1:And that's a good question but there are some practical reasons. First of all, more than twenty years has passed at this point. And while Joseph's brothers were men when they last saw him, he was 17. And 17 year old boys can look very different from 40 year old men unless you're me. Because seriously, if I shave my beard I could still pass for 20 these days.
Speaker 1:But that's actually another good point because in Semitic cultures men wore beards. And in Egyptian culture men were clean shaven and they often wore makeup. And so it's unsurprising that Joseph looks nothing like what his brothers remembered. And also remember that Joseph is not going by Joseph at this point. He has been given the names Zephaneth Panea by Pharaoh, which means something like God speaks and he lives or, and this is a real translation, the man who knows things, which is a pretty awesome name to be given I think.
Speaker 1:Point is, Joseph has an Egyptian name. Joseph looks like an Egyptian. Joseph talks like an Egyptian. Joseph walks like an Egyptian, and I'm pretty sure the Bengals wrote a song about him. Anyone under 30, you don't get that joke.
Speaker 1:That's okay. But Joseph asks, where are you from? They tell him and he says, lies. You are spies. You have come to see where our land is unprotected and he has them thrown into jail.
Speaker 1:Now, it's not unreasonable that Joseph is a little vindictive here. Not healthy, not good, not endorsing his strategy but understandable nonetheless. His brothers did sell him after all. But he also has a bit of a plan here. And actually what he does is he starts to show a bit of his hand.
Speaker 1:After three days in jail he comes to them and says, I see that there are 10 of you here but I know about you. I know that you're spies. I know that there are 12 brothers. And one of you is gonna stay here in prison, and the rest of you are gonna go home, and you're gonna get your youngest brother. And if you don't get back here with him in front of me, I will execute one of you.
Speaker 1:Now, in the background here, there was an effort by Joseph to get all his brothers together in his presence and to fulfill his dream perhaps, maybe to have them reconciled. But it's not hard to cheer for Joseph at least a little bit as he puts the screws to these guys. I mean I liked John Wick as much as the next guy and we all revel in revenge fantasies, But it is important to remember that not everything you read in your bible is meant for you to emulate. Some of it is here for you to avoid. And just imagine the brothers are too fearful and they don't return and Joseph gets to murder his brother Simeon.
Speaker 1:I mean that's a story that plays out all the time, all across the world. Revenge is not novel. And that's not a story that's worth holding onto and remembering. But, the brothers say to one another, surely we are being punished because of our brother. We saw how distressed he was when he pleaded with us for his life but we would not listen.
Speaker 1:And Ruben said, didn't I tell you not to sin against the boy? But no, you would not listen. And now we must give an accounting for his blood. And we're literally, what it says here in Hebrew is now his blood is required from us. And what's fascinating here is that the brothers are talking to each other in front of Joseph, but they're talking in Hebrew and so they assume that this Egyptian has no idea what they're saying, but of course he does doesn't he?
Speaker 1:And so we read that Joseph has to leave the room because he breaks down crying over what he hears. And there's something really powerful here. Because in a sense Joseph is testing his brothers but in another sense maybe he's being tested as well. Like he can stand before his brothers and he can keep up his facade. He can keep his identity secret and he can vent his frustration with them.
Speaker 1:But when he sees their deep shame and their honest remorse. Without the pretense of performance, that's what gets to him. And look, they haven't apologized for anything yet. There has not been reconciliation yet. We're getting there, but we're not there yet.
Speaker 1:And yet it's this glimmer of recognition. That the brothers perhaps understand their sins, that the memory of Joseph's pleading is there, Reuben's recounting of the story without any attempt to disarm it or explain it away. That's what breaks through Joseph's wall. And maybe you have had someone own the way that they hurt you. And not just apologize for it, but like really own it and understand it.
Speaker 1:Almost as if you saw the lights come on in them and they clearly understood what they had done and they changed in front of you because of it. I think some of that is what Joseph is experiencing here. And it's only a start. Reconciliation will take a lot longer and a lot more work, but there seems to be a glimmer of hope in Joseph for what might become possible. Because you see if Joseph's heart can soften then forgiveness becomes possible and that means reconciliation is thinkable.
Speaker 1:That means that in every small moment when someone acknowledges their missteps and our hearts are altered and forgiveness is offered, the gospel is experienced somehow in real time in each moment. And even the hint of that is the tangible reminder that we are not defined by our worst moments. We are always the moments that we choose to live out of here in this moment right now. And it's possible that you have hurt someone and they're not ready to hear your apology just yet. And it's possible that you've been hurt and you're not ready to forgive just yet.
Speaker 1:But these stories are here to remind us that there comes a time. And if it's not now, that's okay, it's a process, but don't lose hope for what's possible. Because as touched as he is, Joseph is not ready to forgive yet. And so he sends his brothers home to get the youngest brother Benjamin and he tests them a second time. This time he sends them with the food for their family but in it he hides the silver that was used to pay for it.
Speaker 1:And so the brothers return home and they open their sacks and they find the silver and they worry that it will look like they've stolen it. And so they explain to their father what has happened and they tell him they need to return with Benjamin but Jacob says, my son will not go down there with you. His brother is dead and he is the only one left. And my goodness, Jacob can be an awful father at times. Like, imagine saying this to nine of your sons when one of your sons is being held in prison, his life in the balance, and you still want to play favorites.
Speaker 1:And look, I am not gonna put the blame for what happened to Joseph on Jacob. It was the brothers who made their decisions and they have to own that, but notice here that even when you get away with it, evil is not going to take you where you want to be. Remember, these brothers got rid of Joseph because they were second best in their father's eyes, and even without him they still are. And it still hurts. And as tough as it is to read Jacob's words, and as much as we should absolutely acknowledge his complicity in the dysfunction of his family, I think we're meant to recognize here.
Speaker 1:And whenever we think violence will get us to where we want to go, we have already been deceived in the worst possible way. Because these brothers want their father to love them, so they lash out at Joseph, and all that does is create even more distance between them and their father. And maybe you recognize. Somewhere where you thought violence or greed or being selfish was gonna get you where you wanted to go, and you gave in and you found yourself let down by it. The famine doesn't let up.
Speaker 1:And the grain is eaten and eventually Jacob realizes that they're going to have to return to Egypt. And so he relents and Benjamin is allowed to accompany his brothers. This time when they arrive in Joseph's presence he has a third test for them. He tries to get them to leave Benjamin in prison this time, but Judah, the one who took the lead and sold Joseph into slavery all those years ago, he steps up, he turns to Joseph and he says, look I can't let this happen again. Let him go home.
Speaker 1:I'll take his place. I will even be your slave if I need to but save my brother. And it's at this that Jokov could no longer contain himself. And he cries out and he makes himself known to his brothers and he weeps so loudly that the Egyptians in the next room can hear him. And he says to his brothers, I am your brother the one you sold into Egypt.
Speaker 1:And now do not be distressed. Do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here because it was to save you that God sent me ahead. And this is one of those moments where too many words are probably unhelpful. After everything that we have seen in the last eight weeks, I would argue that there is very little left to add to the story except simply to read it aloud. But I do want to draw your attention to two things here as we close this series.
Speaker 1:First, Joseph says do not be distressed, do not be angry with yourselves. And in Hebrew the words are and the meaning here according to Victor Hamilton's commentary on Genesis is probably something like, do not feel pain for the past. Do not cause yourself pain in this present. And I think this is really important because forgiveness is not what happens after we decide that someone feels bad enough or regrets enough or has paid enough for what they've done to us. Forgiveness is ultimately when we choose to move first.
Speaker 1:And I can't tell you how many times I have sat with someone and heard them say like, I would forgive them, but I don't think they understand what they did to me. Listen to me. Reconciliation requires both people. Reunion needs both sides Moving forward in your relationship after someone has hurt you absolutely obliges that person to own their mistakes and apologize for your pain and make amends. But reconciliation starts with forgiveness.
Speaker 1:Yes. There's that moment earlier in the story where Joseph sees something in his brothers and it softens his heart and it prepares him for this. But notice here that in the end it's Joseph that moves first. And that's because forgiveness is about saying, I want the best for you because I need the best for me. And holding on to all of this pain longer than I need to, and wishing for the universe to punish you, and hoping that my hurt could somehow magically be transferred to you, none of that is good for me.
Speaker 1:And so I choose to send it away. That is literally what forgiveness means, that we send our hurt and our offense away. And here, just like your life, there is zero chance for honest reconciliation unless Joseph's family and his brothers own their mistakes and make amends. But before any of that can happen, Joseph has to say, no matter what, I don't want you to feel bad. I don't want you to feel worse.
Speaker 1:I want you to know that you are forgiven. Because that's what I need for myself right now. And this game of passing pain back and forth, it's killing all of us so all of it stops right here. See, in the end, this story is about the fact that Joseph leads with forgiveness, his family responds in repentance, and reconciliation is able to overcome years of internalized hurt. But if you are waiting for the moment when you will be able to simply forget what happened to you, instead of consciously forgive, I'm sorry, but it's not coming.
Speaker 1:Because forgiveness is always a choice that we make. And for Joseph, that choice does not come easily, but it does come. And that's where I think we should find some comfort. But it's also where an ancient story becomes an even more ancient story. Because that's where this story becomes the story.
Speaker 1:The story of the universe. The story that was incarnated and enfleshed in Jesus. The story that next week we begin to prepare ourselves for the arrival of. Because this is the gospel story that God chooses to forgive, that God always moves first. The tiny moments of grace and forgiveness, whether writ small in our lives or in our stories, they point to the source that sits at the center of all things.
Speaker 1:This profound trust that we call faith, that love and grace and goodness and acceptance and unmerited welcome are always moving toward us. Because this is what defines the divine, that God moves first. And so as we exit Joseph and we enter Advent and we prepare ourselves to remember that God has never waited for us to be ready or right or repentant, May you notice God's movement towards you today in this moment. May that enable you somehow to begin to send your hurts away. And may you then fall endlessly into the embrace of the one who already loves you completely without any precondition.
Speaker 1:Because that's gospel. Let's pray. God, for all the ways that we have been hurt or injured caused pain by those in our lives, May you be present by your spirit healing us, preparing us, getting us ready for the moment we we can send that offense away and extend your forgiveness and grace into the world. God, we recognize that reconciliation will always take two people, and we can't make that happen if someone else isn't ready to make that movement, but we can always make the choice that is good for ourselves, that's healthy for us, to recognize that we don't have to carry this pain anymore. And so, God, might we be captured by your story.
Speaker 1:The one who just forgives. The one who simply loves. The one who embraces all without any precondition. Who requires no sacrifice, no gift, no repentance, nothing but love extended to us. And then as we sense it, as we experience it, as we turn towards you and run to your arms, may we be changed into the kind of people who could offer that same grace to the world that your kingdom might come.
Speaker 1:In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray. Amen.