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Joseph Part 2: Genesis 37:1-11
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Because some of your dreams have to earn the right to go public. 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:Welcome today. My name is Jeremy, and I'm really glad that you're here. We are always so thankful that you spend a part of your weekend with us to worship, and we don't take that for granted. So thanks for being here tonight. Today, however, we are continuing our series on Joseph, and in a lot of ways, we are really just getting started today.
Speaker 1:Because last week, we opened the series, but we did not even get to Joseph. In fact, all we did was introduce his father and his great grandfather, and that's because for a lot of us, but especially for biblical characters, families are important. Now, that does not mean that families are determinative. Your family is not your destiny, but in some ways, the less you know about your family and the less you understand about how your family of origin has shaped you, then in some ways you are yielding to inertia. And so on the front end of a dose of story that is fraught with difficult family dynamics, understanding where he comes from and the stories that lay the foundation for his story, all of this becomes really important for us.
Speaker 1:And so last week, we looked at two quick snapshots, one from Abraham and one from Jacob. And there was a lot to take in last week. From Abraham, we got this idea of breathing in, that staying put and being patient and waiting for what's next can be important. But then there's also this idea of breathing out. That there's a time to go and there's a time to risk and there's a time to find what's next on the horizon.
Speaker 1:And really the idea was that wisdom is often found in knowing what season you're in. Do you need to sit and stay or get up and go right now? And then from Jacob, it was this idea of the wrestle. And that somehow our wrestle and struggle and our injury and our healing, all of this can be part of our encounter with the divine. That God is there acknowledging our story and naming what we go through and blessing us as we go through it, all to welcome us into something new.
Speaker 1:All of that is available on the podcast or our YouTube channel. We covered lots last week, so you can catch up there if you need to, but we have a lot to cover today. So let's pray, and then we are gonna dive straight into the opening of the Joseph story tonight. God of grace, help us as we come to the text today to find ourselves in the stories of your people. Help us to dig and sift and search for the realities that transcend this particular story and speak to us about what it means to be human.
Speaker 1:For those of us who feel today like you have spoken to us in some way, Help us to learn to trust in that dream and to hold it with the care and the tenderness it deserves until it's ready. We want to hear your voice, but we also want to learn what it means to hold your words safe and close to our chest. And then, God, for those of us who feel like we haven't heard anything from you in a very long time, if ever, Give us ears to hear your voice in the myriad of ways that you speak to each of us. In teaching, in community, in poetry, in kind words, in that still small voice somewhere deep in our soul. Help us to trust that you are always deeply involved in each of our stories.
Speaker 1:We love you. And in the strong name of the risen Christ we pray. Amen. Okay. Today, we are going to talk about standing on shoulders, playing favorites, taking criticism, sharing dreams, and the wisdom in silence, and that's a lot to cover.
Speaker 1:But the story of Joseph starts in Genesis chapter 37. And remember all that stuff we did last week about fathers and families? Well, here's how chapter 37 begins. Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan. And this is the account of Jacob's family line.
Speaker 1:Joseph, a young man of 17, was tending the flocks with his brothers. Now, we'll go on and we will follow Joseph today, I promise. But notice this, Joseph's story starts with his father and his father's father. And that's because, once again, this is a family story. But there's something really interesting here.
Speaker 1:It says that Jacob lived on the land where his father had stayed, but literally in Hebrew, it says something more like Jacob sat where his father had walked. And some of this is Semitic idiom, absolutely. But the writer is also shaping something for us here. At first, Abraham's story was about leaving something behind to go somewhere new. Jacob's story was about learning how to stop running and settle down.
Speaker 1:Joseph's story is going to be about having your world turned upside down on you. And all of these stories, they build on each other. They depend on each other. And the writer's signaling that to us here. But more than that, to sit where your father has walked is to recognize that you necessarily stand on someone else's shoulders.
Speaker 1:And maybe for you that is a parent. Your mother, a grandfather, a family member who contributed in outsized ways to your story. It could just as easily be a mentor, a coach, a friend. It is all of the ways in which we acknowledge our debt to those who came before. And we love to celebrate self made entrepreneurs in our culture.
Speaker 1:Right? But the truth is that Jeff Beidos and Amazon don't happen without public roads that we all pay for to drive our deliveries on. And Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook don't happen without some academics creating the ARPANET in 1974 to share their research with each other. And Steve Jobs and Apple don't happen without stealing their best ideas from a tour of Xerox headquarters in 1979. All of those great stories, you should look them up, but everything comes from somewhere else.
Speaker 1:I mean, even here at Commons. It is great to tell the story of what has happened here in the last four years, but this story doesn't unfold in nearly the same way without Swedish immigrants starting a church in 1911 and then relocating it to Kensington in 1952 and then joining with commons in 2014. And part of what the Hebrews seemed to understand inherently was that a self made person doesn't exist. And I hope you do amazing things with your life, and I hope you get all of the credit you deserve. But wherever it is that you finally sit, it will be because someone walked there first.
Speaker 1:And when we remember that our story actually began somewhere long ago, And our story involves those who have shaped us and prayed for us and influenced us and broken ground for us in a thousand different ways. Well, then it will be all that much easier to live with the gratitude that our stories actually demand from us. So don't ever feel bad for sitting where your father walked. It's great. Just don't take it for granted either.
Speaker 1:Now, let's talk about Joseph here. Because we're gonna work through the first 11 verses of this chapter today. And, I'm gonna read and I'm gonna make some comments as we go and then we'll try to pull it all together at the end here. But, Joseph, a young man of 17, was attending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them. Now, couple things here.
Speaker 1:We are living in the days of patriarchy, both today and several thousand years ago. But in this story, we are firmly in the heart of a very patriarchal world. And so when the writer mentions the mothers of Joseph's brothers, that's because Jacob had a lot of different wives. And in fact, Bilhah and Zilpah are the handmaidens. That means essentially they were the slaves of Joseph's real wives or Jacob's real wives, Rachel and Leah.
Speaker 1:And Joseph is the son of Jacob's favorite wife, Rachel, and all of that is very uncomfortable. The bible is a history of how humans have approached the idea of God. And it is therefore full of the divine. But it is also full of our worst tendencies as human beings, and in particular, because we wrote the stories, our worst tendencies as men. Now the upside of patriarchy is that as men, we get a lot of characters that we can see ourselves in.
Speaker 1:The downside is that often these characters don't feel the need to hide some of their more shameful actions. However, let's note here that Bilhah and Zilpah are the mothers of Naftali, Dan, Asher, and Gad. And those sons go on to become the heads of four of the 12 tribes of Israel. And so when we see these women, slaves as they are, these are also the matriarchs of the Jewish people. And this is one of those beautifully subversive elements that are woven through the pages of our bible if we're willing to look for them.
Speaker 1:It's part of what points me to the Jesus who arrives to break down all of our assumptions about God. That these women would be named and honored and remembered as the matriarchs of a people that weren't theirs. Now, about this bad report. We don't get any more information about this. It's not brought up again, so we don't know if it was legit or petty or just a misunderstanding, but it does set the stage here.
Speaker 1:Because the writer wants to introduce Joseph as a tattle tale. In fact, more than that, the language here says that Joseph was tending the flocks with his brothers. But again, in Hebrew, it could also be read to say Joseph was tending the flocks and his brothers. And maybe that's because his dad put him in charge. Maybe it's just because he thinks he should be in charge.
Speaker 1:But a lot of scholars think that it was intentionally written this way so that it would hint at the underlying tension in the story. And a lot of us know what's coming here. Right? Joseph is gonna get picked on by his brothers and sold into slavery next week, and I don't think this is meant to make us feel sympathetic for his brothers. Selling your sibling is I think it's a pretty drastic move, and that's the sort of thing that's kind of right out if you're considering it.
Speaker 1:So put that away. But it is meant, I think, to demonstrate that relationships are complex. And everything in this opening scene is actually gonna have you leaning away from Joseph a bit, and that's kind of the point. That we need to learn how to empathize with those who rub us the wrong way. And we need to figure out actually how to lean into those relationships the right way that maybe we even need to learn to see ourselves in people and characters we don't like.
Speaker 1:Not just devise a plan to sell them to the nearest slave trader. But just as soon as Joseph brings this bad report, we read that Israel, now remember that's his father Jacob, loved Joseph more than any of his other sons. And Jacob loved him best because he had been born to him in his old age and he had made an ornate robe for him. So this is already a pretty unhealthy family situation. And this also is, of course, Joseph's technicolor dream coat we're reading about here.
Speaker 1:Now the language is a little bit vague. It's an ancient language after all. But it seems to point to the idea that this is either sort of a patchwork garment made of different fabrics or maybe that it has some kind of decorative needlework on it. We're not really sure. But either way, it is meant to describe some type of elaborate tunic that set him apart from his brothers.
Speaker 1:And this is just like, this is not good parenting here. Alright? I have one kid. And so I don't really know how to manage siblings at this point. But this does not seem like it.
Speaker 1:This is not where I will be taking cues in the future. Based on nothing more than my experience with a son and a dog, both of whom are very conscious about the attention that is paid to the other, this just seems ill advised. But you can see here. Right? The writer is building a compelling narrative.
Speaker 1:Joseph is an entitled tattletale, and his dad is either too aloof or obtuse or disconnected to care. And so, when his brother saw that their father loved him more than any of them, They hated him, and they could not speak a kind word to him. So, have you ever noticed that when you really dislike someone, they just get on your nerves and then your skin? Sometimes you can fake it and say nice things about them, but very rarely to them. Like IRL in the room, you can barely look them in the eye.
Speaker 1:But, if someone asks you, you're like, oh, yeah. I know they're pretty cool. Something like that is probably going on here. And when you notice yourself avoiding eye contact or when you notice yourself being oddly sharp for no reason, then maybe that's a sign just to sit and breathe and pause and ask yourself what's going on. Because sometimes it's them, and then sometimes it's you.
Speaker 1:Now, hold on to that because we're gonna come back to it. But Joseph had a dream. And when he told it to his brothers, they hated them all the more. He said to them, hey, guys. Listen to this dream I had.
Speaker 1:Oh, we were binding sheaves of grain out in the field one day when suddenly my sheave rose and stood upright and all of your sheaves gather around and bowed out to mine. What do you think of that, guys? Pretty good dream. Am I right? And this is where someone should have taken Joseph aside and said, listen, dude.
Speaker 1:Read the room. But instead, his brother said to him, do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us? And they hated him all the more because of his dream that he had and what he had said. Now, this is bad.
Speaker 1:It's gonna get worse. But the writer is doing some really neat things here to foreshadow what's coming. First, we got this buildup, and that's helping us to understand, not condone, but it's helping us to understand the drastic steps that his brothers are gonna take next week. But notice how subtly it builds. He's a tattletale.
Speaker 1:He thinks he's in charge. His father loves him the best. He has a fancy patchwork dreams of grandeur. So this is a kid who has had everything handed to him except any sense of self awareness, and that's a problem. But the writer's doing some very specific neat things here as well.
Speaker 1:First, the brothers say, do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us? Then the writer switches up the form of the verb here from malak to mashal as he goes. And Malak is the verb form of melek, which means king, and it means to be appointed over. Mashal, according to the medieval rabbi Ibn Ezra, suggests someone who usurps their power.
Speaker 1:Like, they grab it, more like a tyrant or an oppressor. And so what we have here is the brothers hearing Joseph's dream and then reading into it a bit. And what they say is something like, you think you will appointed over us, you will oppress us. And what's fascinating here is that this dream does come to pass at the end of the story. And the brothers do bow down before Joseph, but it's a very different Joseph they eventually bow down to.
Speaker 1:Because that Joseph, at the end of the story, after everything that he's gone through, he greets his brothers and when they bow down, he has them stand up. And he welcomes them in his presence, but this Joseph with no life experience who hasn't earned his destiny yet, this Joseph likely would have done exactly what his brothers feared. And there's something really important there for us about learning how to listen to how other people see us. Often, not always, but often, the criticism that we really don't want to hear actually reflects something we don't want to know about ourselves. And that's hard.
Speaker 1:But the beauty in this story is that the criticism here doesn't have to stay true. Look, his brothers aren't wrong. Joseph is a would be tyrant at this point in the story, but that doesn't mean they have to stay right either. And every bit of growth that I have made as a human being has come because I took someone else's words seriously. Now sometimes, it was because they named the best in me and I believed them.
Speaker 1:And then, sometimes, it was because I took their hard words to heart and I worked hard to make changes in my life. Now, you can't go through life trying to live up to what everyone else wants from you. That's not what I'm saying. That's not gonna work out for you. But sometimes, there is something very true in the stuff that we don't want to hear about ourselves.
Speaker 1:And it's important to listen. Now, second thing here that the writer does that's really neat is this phrase, they hated him all the more because it's like, it's just perfect. See, in Hebrew, Joseph is pronounced Yosef. And the phrase all the more is pronounced Yosefu. So it's a pun, but it's more than that too.
Speaker 1:Because there's this sense that the fact that they hated him is on them. That's their problem. But the all of them more is on Yosef. Look. Hating someone's always unhealthy.
Speaker 1:It's not gonna be good for you. We always have to take responsibility for our own disposition, and being bitter is not gonna make you better. But at the same time, we all know what to do to get under that person's skin. Right? Like that person who's upset with you and you know exactly how to make things worse if you want to, and you know just what to say in just the right moment to get them even more worked up and it's fun, but it's not good.
Speaker 1:Right? But I've been married for almost eighteen years now. I know exactly what buttons to push. And sometimes I will find myself playing with my son and doing it unconsciously, and my wife will just look at me and say, what are you doing? Why are you getting him worked up this way?
Speaker 1:And so when someone's upset and when someone has something against you, that's their issue. You can't fix it for them. I mean, unless you have done something wrong, then you can go and you can make amends. But assuming you haven't, it's their issue. You let them deal with it, but don't make it worse.
Speaker 1:And look, this goes for work. This goes for family. This goes for your partner, for your kids, for Twitter, for your dog. Save pushing buttons for when you're at the computer and preferably when you're not online. Alright?
Speaker 1:Now if we were done here, we might make it out of this without a situation, but we're not because Joseph had another dream. And so, of course, he tells it to his brothers. Having learned nothing from yesterday, he says to them, listen. And listen is pretty tame. The word here is actually hine in Hebrew, and usually we translate that behold in English, which at this point for Joseph, maybe that just seems expected.
Speaker 1:Like, this is par for the course. Behold, he said, I have had another dream. And if I ever start a conversation that way with you, then you are hereby tasked with giving me the biggest eye roll you can possibly muster. But he said, this time, the sun and the moon and the 11 stars were bowing down to me. Oh, this time, it's more than just his brothers.
Speaker 1:The 11 stars are his 11 brothers. But the sun and the moon, this is his mother and father. That's a little complicated because his mother Rachel died during childbirth when his younger brother Benjamin was born. And in a way, that makes all of this even more outrageous. His brothers bowed out.
Speaker 1:His father bows down. And now, even his mother from beyond the grave is gonna bow down before Joseph. And this is perhaps why his father is not impressed when he hears this. So when he tells Jacob, it says his father rebuked him and said, what is this dream that you've had? And, again, the word rebuked here is really not how we speak in English, but it's actually a pretty rare word in Hebrew in the bible too.
Speaker 1:It's the word Ga'ar. It's used a few times in the Psalms though. So for context, Psalm nine, God rebukes the nations and destroys the wicked. Psalm one zero six, God rebukes the Red Sea and dries it up. Psalm one nineteen, God rebukes the arrogant, those who are accursed.
Speaker 1:So this is some pretty strong language here from dad. This is when you test your dad and you push a little too far and all of a sudden you wish that you hadn't. But Jacob is not done. And so he continues, will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you? The implication being not likely.
Speaker 1:Then we read that his brothers were jealous and his father kept the matter in mind. And that's a good place for us to stop tonight. His father kept the matter in mind. Nahum Sarna, who is, I mean, one of the best Genesis scholars of the last few decades, writes about the Joseph narrative. And he says that the story of Joseph and his brothers differs markedly from the preceding patriarchal narratives.
Speaker 1:By far the longest and the most complete narrative in Genesis, it is set forth by a master storyteller who employs with consummate skill the novelistic techniques of character delineation, psychological manipulation, and dramatic suspense. And even in these opening sentences, we are seeing exactly what Sarna is talking about here. Right? The story's building. It's bubbling.
Speaker 1:The tension is rising consistently through all of these opening verses, and then there's it's like a pause. So there's this interesting interlude here, his father kept the matter in mind. And as I pointed out earlier, in about eight weeks at the end of the series when we finally get to the end of the story, we are gonna see Joseph's dreams come true. Now, they don't come true in the way we might expect, and they certainly don't come true in the way that Joseph seems to imagine they might. But the writer is obviously foreshadowing future events here.
Speaker 1:Jacob seems somehow to know that. And so I'm struck by this recognition of both the dream's significance partnered alongside a rebuke for its telling. Because this is really the crux of this opening story for me. Sometimes, some things are both true and inappropriate. You see, Joseph's father, Jacob, is this character who has an incredible story arc.
Speaker 1:He moves from this scoundrel who outwits those closest to him to get whatever he wants from them. He's smart and cunning and manipulative, and eventually he finds himself and lonely in the desert. And over time, through hard experiences and life choices, he becomes ashamed and then soft and then repentant and then loving. And his story is really one about moving from smart to wise. And there is wisdom here on offer for his son.
Speaker 1:Because sometimes, some things are meant only for some people. See, at this point in the story, all we know is that Joseph is an arrogant kid with big dreams. At no point has the writer told us that God sent these dreams, God's not even mentioned. And if you didn't already know the ending of the story, you probably wouldn't assume from here that these dreams represent anything but Joseph's outsized sense of self entitlement. But, of course, they are real and God is in them.
Speaker 1:So the problem isn't the dream, the problem is Joseph. Because sometimes, some things are meant for just us to hear and hold on to. And maybe you have had a dream somewhere along the line. And you shared it a little bit too soon with the wrong people. And you wanted to move forward in your life in some new way, but they got offended because they took it as a slight against them.
Speaker 1:And you didn't mean it that way. You never even thought of it that way. You were just so excited about what was happening in you that you didn't think about how it might impact or be heard by those near you. Or maybe you had a dream that you shared and it got shut down hard. Maybe you opened the door just a crack to let someone see what was there in your heart and they joked about it, or they ridiculed you, or for whatever reason, they just couldn't understand why this was so deeply important to you.
Speaker 1:And maybe because of that, you let it go. You see, some things are not meant for everyone. And if God is truly invested in you as an individual, then some of what God says to you is just for you. Now, this doesn't mean we're not open. It doesn't mean that we're not honest with each other.
Speaker 1:It means that we learn to choose our moments wisely. And I have to wrestle with this all the time because part of what I do professionally is I tell stories. And a lot of those stories are very personal to me and to my family. And I want to be transparent with my life and my journey. I wanna be open with my struggles and my doubts about faith.
Speaker 1:And I want what I go through to be useful for you somehow. But that means that I need to know that there are parts of my story that aren't for you. They're just for me. Because they're part of how I'm becoming slowly the person that God wants me to be, and they aren't ready for public consumption yet. Now, sometimes, that's because if you knew just how truly selfish and arrogant and dysfunctional I can be at home, you would never come back and listen to me again.
Speaker 1:But more importantly, it's because some things take time to germinate. And they need time to take root in us. And some things need time to be understood and metabolized and then properly incorporated into our imagination of the world before we can ever share them with anyone else. Because some of your dreams have to earn the right to go public. And sometimes I've done that well, sometimes I've done it poorly, sometimes I have needed people in my life to tell me, shh, just be quiet and wait for a bit.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I had to learn all of that the hard way, but maybe what you hear today, as you listen to Joseph's story, is that memory of a dream that you long ago buried in the ground and left behind because someone else got a hold of it a little bit too soon. And maybe you weren't wise about how you shared it. And maybe you didn't have that friend to tell you to be quiet for now, but maybe what you realize is that that dream is still real. And maybe in the beautiful mystery of these divine narratives, a story about a dream that got shut down hard and still found its way home might become a story that actually reignites a dream that you abandoned a really long long time ago. Because sometimes we are arrogant, sometimes we are foolish, and sometimes we say things when we should have held the matter in our mind.
Speaker 1:But this story is the reminder that even when we don't hold them well, God is still present in our dreams. So, may you dream well this week. And may you sit and ponder and hold the matter in your mind. May you search out safe places where you can share your story with the right people at the right time and when the timing is right. Might you pursue with courage wherever God calls you with everything that you have.
Speaker 1:Let's pray. God, as we attempt to find ourselves in these stories and we open these pages and we read about Joseph, would you remind us that you are speaking to us all the time? Sometimes it's dramatic like this story, but often it is small and quiet. And, it is our passion and excitement. It's the ways that you guide us into what gives us energy.
Speaker 1:But God for those times where we have heard that voice and been excited and shared it too soon. And maybe someone got offended or someone ridiculed us and we didn't know what to do with that. Maybe we thought the dream was wrong and we let it go. Would you rekindle and reignite that excitement again for what could be? That God, if we find ourselves at the front end of that story and we sense that maybe you are speaking something to us but we're not sure right now, then would you give us the patience to hold it in our mind, to sit with it, to ponder, to find the safe people that we can share things with so that we can know if this is where you're really calling us?
Speaker 1:And then, God, if we're ready, and there is something right on the horizon, our next step, would you grant us courage? To actually fearlessly pursue the passions that you have buried deep inside of us. Might you invite us to participate in your world, in your kingdom in ways that maybe we haven't even thought of yet. But might we, with our choices, our choice to sit and hold and ponder, and then when the time is right, our choice to pursue you, might we bring grace and peace to those around us. In the strong name of the risen Christ, pray.
Speaker 1:Amen.