Intending Good

All of us love a good transformation story. The troubled teenager who turns her life around and makes good. The man who is destructive to himself and others who confronts his issues and builds a new life. The rundown neighborhood filled with crime and broken windows that is redone and renewed. We live for those kind of stories.

So let me tell you the story of Joseph and his brothers, but let me warn you before we start that, if it's a story of transformation, it's an incomplete story. There is more reconciliation to be done.

It's a great story, though. The last chapters of the book of Genesis form one big cycle of stories around the figure of Joseph and it is a heck of a story. Even Andrew Lloyd Webber recognizes that. He turned it into a musical called Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. But one thing you might ask as you watch that play or as you read this story is - where is God? What is God up to in this story? The people in the story will sometimes try to interpret for us what God is up to, but they're not always reliable. So we need to be asking, what is God doing?

We're picking the story up in chapter 45 of Genesis, so if you want to follow along in your Bible or a pew Bible I invite you to turn there with me. But by the time we get to this chapter we're getting near the end of the story. So maybe we need a little recap on the characters in this story.

The father who is mentioned in this story is Jacob, also known as Israel because of a little wrestling match he had one night with a man whom he took to be God and who gave him that name. And what do we know about Jacob? He began his life in a struggle with his twin brother Esau. Tricked his brother out of his birthright and his father's blessing. Ran for his life after Esau threatened to kill him. Was blessed by God in a dream where he saw a ladder reaching up to heaven. Travelled to his mother's far-off homeland where he fell in love with the beautiful Rachel. Worked seven years for her and was tricked by his father-in-law into marrying Rachel's sister, Leah. Worked seven more years so that he could marry Rachel as well. Tricked his father-in-law out of the best of his flocks. Scurried back to Canaan where he had a tearful reunion with Esau and then had a very large family.

What do we know about Jacob's family? He had twelve sons and at least one daughter. He loved the children of his wife, Rachel, more than the sons of Leah, or the maidservants with whom he also had children. And he loved Joseph best of all. So much so that he gave Joseph a special coat to well - that fabled coat of many colors.

The relationship between Joseph and his brothers? What do we know about that? Not that good, right? The ten brothers who were older than Joseph hated him. He was daddy's favorite. He was a tattletale. He was arrogant. He had these dreams. Once he was out in the fields and he said to his brothers, "Hey, guys, I had a dream. In my dream we were out binding sheaves in the field and then, all of a sudden, my bundle of grain stood up and all of your bundles came and bowed down to it. What do you think that means?"

Another time he was out in the fields and he said to his eleven brothers, "Hey, guys, I had a dream. In my dream the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing to me. Weird, huh? What do you think it means?"

Well, what it meant was that the brothers were going to try to get rid of him. The next time he came out to the fields they made plans to do him in. They were going to kill him, but one of the brothers, Rueben, intervened and instead they stripped off his fancy coat and threw him in a pit. When some passing slave traders came by, they sold Joseph to them for twenty pieces of silver and went back home to Jacob with the sad tale of how Joseph had been eaten by wild animals.

They thought it was the end of the story, but it wasn't. Joseph ended up in Egypt as the slave to a high Egyptian official. Eventually he ended up as the right hand man to the king of Egypt himself, the Pharaoh. It was his ability to interpret dreams that got him into this position. He knew that a famine was coming to the land following seven years of plenty and he was given charge of a grain storage and distribution program.

It was the famine that brought the brothers back into Joseph's life. Jacob sends the brothers from Canaan to see if they can get some grain. He sends them all except Benjamin, who has now become the favorite since Joseph's loss.

The brothers go to Egypt and they appear before Joseph, but they don't recognize him because he is made up like a mighty Egyptian. Besides, they thought he was long gone. Joseph doesn't tell them it's him, either. He toys with them. Demands that one of them go back to Canaan and get Benjamin. Eventually settles for keeping one of them in prison while the rest go back.

They come back with Benjamin and Joseph still doesn't let on who he is. He sends them off again and puts his silver cup in one of their sacks of grain. Joseph gives them a little headstart, then sends a servant after them and accuses them of theft. They deny it, but, wouldn't you know it, the silver cup is found in the bag of Benjamin.

Benjamin is arrested and brought back. The brothers plead for Benjamin's life. They know their father will never survive the loss of another favorite son. One of the brothers offers himself as a replacement.

This is where we pick up the story today. Joseph has ratcheted up the anxiety so much that even he can't take it anymore. So verse one tells us that he could not restrain himself in front of all the people in the room. So he sends the other members of the court out. Joseph seems to be concerned with how this is going to look. He's concerned for his appearance. But he's not very successful because verse 2 tells us that the Egyptians could hear him wailing in the next room.

Now pay attention to a couple of things here as we read on. Pay attention to who cries and how many times Joseph refers to himself. Verse 3 is where he finally makes the big reveal. "I am Joseph," he says. "How is my father?"

At this point, he hasn't offered a big reunion. He hasn't said, "All is forgiven. Come on over and give me a hug." He has just laid the bombshell on them that he is Joseph. So the brothers don't answer. They are scared. They don't know what Joseph might do to them.

In verse 4 Joseph says, "Come over here." And they come. He's decreasing the distance between them. Not using his elevated status as a barrier. But he's still not telling them what he's going to do. In fact, he begins by reminding them that he is their brother and they sold him to the Egyptians. He's naming the wound. He's pointing to the act that has dominated all of their lives. The thing that needs to be healed.

In verse 5 he says, "Don't be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me into slavery." Joseph thinks he knows how they're feeling. But do we know that's how these brothers feel? We've seen how they are kind of protective of their father but not a whole lot of grief and self-loathing.

In verse 7 Joseph goes on to interpret the situation. "God sent me ahead to preserve our lives. God sent me to preserve your future." Verse 8: "You didn't sent me. God sent me and made me a father to Pharaoh and lord of all his house and a ruler over all Egypt." Three times he repeats it - God sent me. It's all about him. In fact, Joseph seems to deny that the brothers had any hand in this at all. The emphasis is on God and Joseph. Joseph is the object of God's favor. Joseph is the one who was the focus of those dreams he shared in the field with them so long ago. Now Joseph's dreams have come true. His brothers have come to bow down before him.

Then in verse 9 he uses his position to give the brothers a command. "Go back to my father and tell him that his son, Joseph, says, 'God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to live with me, you and your children and all of your possessions. I will support you through the famine.'" The brothers will be taken care of, but primarily because of Joseph's concern for his father.

Then by verse 14 he gets around to the hugs. He starts with Benjamin. No surprise. Then he turns to his brothers and weeps over them. But notice that the Bible never says whether they join in the weeping.

Now what do we say about a story like this. I love the stories from Genesis because they are so honest and they give us real people who act like the real people we know. They make big mistakes and they have big character flaws and despite all that they end up being claimed by God. That's hopeful for us.

There is reconciliation in this story, too. A dark chapter in this family's history is beginning to be closed. And when we see it played out on the stage or in retellings, this scene is lifted up as the happy ending.

But is there something missing here? It's an imperfect reunion, isn't it? Joseph gets a chance to be magnanimous and to embrace his brothers. He can find comfort in the dreams and visions that tell him that he stands within the realm of God's favor. But the brothers don't have that assurance. They can't be sure of any favor, not even their father's. What they desperately need is a blessing, a healing, a word, an act that will help them know that they too are recipients of grace.

The brothers kind of disappear in Joseph's story. As he tells it they don't even get credit for their sin. God is working it all out and it's not their crime but God's plan that sends Joseph to Egypt. If they don't get a chance to confess their sin and to own it, they don't have the chance for absolution and healing. We rejoice when we see people who have been estranged from each other embracing, but what we want even more is transformation.

You know from your own life how distorting sin can be. You know how it turns us in on ourselves...keeps us from living open, joyful lives...keeps us from experiencing the life God intends for us. Sin is the thing Jesus went to the cross for. Sin is the thing that God says 'No' to. Sin is the thing God did not create and the thing that God cannot tolerate in the restored creation. Sin is the one thing in the universe that is truly ours as human beings. It is an impossibility for God but it is all too real in our lives. How does God deal with sin?

One time a professor was going to share with his class an image for the atonement. The atonement is the word we use for talking about how God reconciles us with God through the cross. God reconciles us through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus. The professor held up a glass and it was a dirty glass. Smudged and covered with dirt. He said, "This glass is us and the dirt on the glass is the sin that has marred our lives. God hates the sin of our lives. God's justice demands that it be dealt with."

The professor set the glass down on the table and held up a hammer. "This hammer is God's justice which will come down with full force on the sin of the world." He raised the hammer up over the glass and began to bring it down and at the last minute he put a metal pan between the hammer and the glass so that the pan took the force of the blow with a mighty crash. "That pan," the professor said, "is the self-giving love of God which interposes itself on our behalf, preventing us from getting what we deserve for the sin in our lives. It is Jesus' death on the cross."*

It's a dramatic image, but something is wrong with the way that story is told. The glass remains unchanged. It's still dirty. To extend the analogy, Jesus' death may give us a different status with God, but we are still not transformed. And what we desperately want to know is that we can be changed.

This is where Methodists want to talk about the power of God's sanctifying grace. God's justifying grace is powerful...amazing. It opens the door for all people to come before God boldly...to know that because of the work of Jesus Christ we can have a place in the reign of God. But there is more. Now that we have come in, we want to be changed.

So we open our lives to fellow Christians in small groups. We know that we can't see all the problems in our lives on our own. None of us is that self-aware. We need others who will listen to our struggles, ask us about our spiritual journey, support us in our failures, and confront us in our stubbornness. If you are not in a small group that does these things you are not yet fully immersed in Christian community. Talk to me and we'll hook you up.

Where is God in this story of Joseph? What is God up to? Joseph says that God is taking evil intent and using it for good. God is doing that. But something more happens in real reconciliation. God is not just redirecting events, God is transforming people. God is taking us sinners and restoring us to health.

We know this because we have seen God in Jesus Christ. In Jesus God was reconciling all the world to God's own self. That's what 2 Corinthians tells us. God became incarnate, became human, became one of us, so that we could see what true humanity looks like. And ultimately so that we could be truly human ourselves.

Ask yourself - is Joseph really the pinnacle of what humans can be? Or is there something more? Don't we want a deeper experience of transformation for ourselves and for the world?

Do you remember the story of Allison Jolly? The district ministry to migrant peoples here on the Shore grew up in an old gas station in Wachapreague named the Allison Jolly Casa de Esperanza. Allison Jolly was a young woman who was killed by a Mexican migrant worker here on the Shore. It was a horrible crime. It could have led to a lifetime of bitterness and hatred.

Allison's father was devastated. Who would have asked him to seek reconciliation with the man who killed his daughter? If he never reached out to the migrant community, who would have batted an eye?

But he did reach out. He wrote the man in prison and offered his forgiveness for what the murderer had done. He gave the building in Wachapreague to Carmen Colona for use as a food and clothes pantry for migrant peoples in our midst. He took the evil that had been done and sought out God's intent to make it good.

Don't tell me that reconciliation isn't a powerful thing. In our stumbling, imperfect reunions there is a distant echo in heaven where the reconciling God is still reaching out to us. We live with imperfection and we long for something more. We see our world wounded and scarred. We see our lives imprisoned by old wounds and bad habits. We see huge divides and rifts between us and those we would love.

But God...God sees brothers and sisters reunited, long lost children, prodigals even, returning home, orphans given new homes, and communities where all share in God's abundance. God sees the world as it should be and as it will be and as it already is, if we will open our hearts and eyes and hands to do the sanctifying work of grace. How good and pleasant it is when we dwell together in unity. Thanks be to God!

*Shirley C. Guthrie, Jr., Christian Doctrine, [Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1968], p. 242-3. Story adapted.