Pentecost + 14

Genesis 45:1-28
Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, “Send everyone away from me.” So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it. Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?” But his brothers could not answer him, so dismayed were they at his presence. Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come closer to me.” And they came closer. He said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, ‘Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not delay. You shall settle in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children, as well as your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. I will provide for you there—since there are five more years of famine to come—so that you and your household, and all that you have, will not come to poverty.’ And now your eyes and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see that it is my own mouth that speaks to you. You must tell my father how greatly I am honored in Egypt, and all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here.” Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, while Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.


When I was four or five years old, we lived in a house that had a basement. The basement stairs descended into the middle of the space, and there was an open passageway between one side of the room and the other. We stored boxes, my dad’s tools and scraps of wood, and toys in the basement, so my older sister and I would play down there, especially in the summer time or on Saturdays when we had lots of time to do whatever we wanted. Lots of funny family stories were born down there, like the time my sister and I played hide and seek, just the 2 of us, and she told me where to hide. She found me every time! One time she told me to hide in an old laundry hamper that was oval-shaped and had a lid. Once we shoved me down inside it, I couldn’t get out. That was no fun. Another time we decided to play with a pile of 2 x 4s that were just waiting for mischief in the basement. She thought it would be fun to build a little “jail” underneath the stairway by standing the 2 x 4s up like prison bars and inviting me to be the first prisoner. Remember that I was only 4 or 5 years old, and my playmate was my older sibling, and I never suspected that she would do anything that would hurt me. And she wouldn’t have, and wouldn’t to this day, nor I to her. But it’s often the first story that comes to my mind when I think of the story of Joseph and his brothers.

It’s the archetype story of sibling rivalry. There were 12 of them, so to be sure there were moments when one or 2 or 6 of them would gang up on the others. Fights must have broken out constantly when they were young. And they had a variety of mothers—undoubtedly a reason the rivalry was even stronger than anything we could imagine in our own experiences. The two youngest, Joseph and Benjamin, were the sons of Rachel, the true love of their father Jacob. You may remember the torment Jacob went through with Laban, Rachel and Leah’s father, when Jacob first came to ask for Rachel’s hand. When she is finally able to conceive and have a child, she names him Joseph, and he instantly becomes his father’s favorite, followed closely behind by his younger brother to come, Benjamin. Remember the amazing technicolor dream coat? It was a gift for Joseph from his father, and the other brothers hated it and they hated him for it. So, they tried to get rid of him by tossing him aside into a hole and letting him be sold into slavery in Egypt. And the people who took him away happened to be the relatives of their long lost uncle, Ishmael—their grandfather Isaac’s brother whom grandmother Sarah had sent away with his mother when Sarah became worried that her son Isaac was growing too close to his brother, Ishmael. Jealousy won out in the end of that part of the story: Ishmael and his mother were sent away to have their own life story away from Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, and eventually Jacob and his family, including Joseph. And considering in the anthropology of the Bible they and we are all descendents of Cain and Abel, sibling rivalry has been a part of our story since the beginning. Jealousy over abilities and affections has always plagued us, even us—the children of the God of generous benevolence, who shows no partiality and loved us enough to send God’s own Son to live, die, and be resurrected for our sake; to save us from living with the consequences of practicing jealousy and revenge on each other.

Look at the world we share: countries invading one another for power and political and monetary gain, nations overlooking one another’s pain and suffering in order stabilize their own power and political and monetary gain. Look at crime in our city, in our neighborhood: for every reason from boredom to resentment, homes are being burglarized and families are living in fear everywhere we look. Look at the people of faith across the world: the family of humanity which God created for relationship with God and with one another has split and faction-ed off and now threatens one another over property, authority, and Biblical interpretation. Look at our personal relationships with friends, family, co-workers: the people who surround us and with whom we live life, and the people who seem to hurt us the most when jealousy and rivalry get wrapped up in how we treat each other. It is as if we have forgotten that we were created by a loving God to love and care for each other, to offer each other forgiveness and mercy.

It is no longer our natural way to forgive others who do wrong to us. Even when we pronounce forgiveness with our words, our actions and our hearts often continue to hold onto the feelings of resentment that go along with injustice and malice. We feel vindicated when we can continue to show our enemy as the one in the wrong, when we can humiliate and shame them for the wrong that has been done to us. Somehow, that makes our hurt feel validated, and we trick ourselves into believing that there is good reason for us to hold onto our feelings of anger and bitterness. But Joseph’s story teaches us that God’s intention for us, even in the midst of our own destructive and hurtful behavior toward one another, is for us to live in peace, to forgive one another, and to offer one another grace in the way God offers it to us when we turn away from God’s love. Joseph is a model for forgiving AND forgetting. Not only does he forgive his brothers, he rescues his family from starvation by offering them food and shelter when they are in most need. It is the reunion which eventually means more to him than his own vindication.

How can we learn to practice this kind of forgiveness and reconciliation? Where are there relationships or experiences in your life which have hurt you but to which you continue to hold, unable to forgive and forget? Can we be moved by the passion and beauty of this story to understand that compassion is far more important and fruitful than resentment?

I had the privilege of studying with Archbishop Desmond Tutu while I was a student at Candler. Week after week I got to spend walking through the life experience of a man whose ministry has been bringing the people of God together after generations of unjust separation. Month after month he listened to the confessions of people who committed tragic crimes against his people in South Africa, and then he offered them not revenge but reconciliation and their victims reparation and rehabilitation. When Archbishop Tutu and the Black South Africans had every emotional right to exact revenge on the perpetrators of Apartheid, instead they offered reconciliation. It wasn’t free; but it was merciful.

The world’s eyes are on Beijing, China, as we watch who is winning gold medals in the 29th Olympic Games. Most of the world did not know that Georgia and Russia would be in the midst of war today when the 2 countries entered the walk of nations on August 8th. And now the world is asked to take sides as these two former soviet nations now battle for power. And in the backdrop for this conflict are the wars we have waged in Afghanistan and Iraq, tensions between Israel and Palestine, the atrocities of Darfur in Sudan, and the crisis in Zimbabwe. Where are we today? How have we forgotten that we are brothers and sisters, no matter how far apart we are in distance, policy, and world outlook? What stands between us and reconciliation?

One of the great lessons we can learn from God’s servant Joseph and the restoration of his family is what to do when we have wronged each other. Their story is not one of prevention but one of reconciliation after a terrible crime of jealousy has been committed against a member of the family. Long after it seems that the family will be brought back together, Joseph’s brothers appear at his door asking for relief from starvation and sustenance for the family. They don’t even know who he is when they arrive. This is not their first encounter with Joseph in Egypt, but it is the moment when his identity is revealed to them. No one is prepared for the reunion; feelings are raw and something like an apology for throwing Joseph into a whole all those years ago just doesn’t seem to do. But without seeking revenge on his brothers, Joseph offers them mercy and forgives them for how they hurt him all those years ago. He’s living a different life now, and so are they, and now they need him to survive. Even though they turned their backs on him and left him for dead, he will not do the same to them.

Do you have relationships in your life that need this kind of healing? Are you struggling with a brother or sister, with a spouse or partner, with a child or parent, with a friend? Watch the actions of Joseph—the great emotions through which he works so that he can get to the place where he can offer forgiveness to his brothers and really mean it. Listen to the words he speaks to them and take note of the way they are treated in their greatest hour of need by one from whom they attempted to take life itself.

He forgives them. Without apology, he forgives them and sees that what has taken place was what needed to happen so that now when his family finds itself in need, he can provide. His father’s favorite son will now be the one to save the whole family. The years of fighting, of hurting each other, of saying and doing things that cannot be taken back, of leaving each other for dead—both physically and emotionally—are all put behind them as Joseph demonstrates to his brothers the love of God that truly does surpass all of our human understanding and reaches beyond the limits of revenge and retribution or payback. The love of God for us—for you and me and for the people who have hurt us, like the love of Joseph for his brothers—is limitless.

Can we practice that kind of love, that kind of forgiveness? Can we set as a goal the kind of reconciliation modeled for us in this story of faith? Can we accept apologies when they are offered and move forward with forgiveness? Can we find ways to set our relationships right when they become estranged?

Joseph said to his brothers, “And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life.” Brothers and sisters, let us be sent by God to preserve life, love, relationship, and forgiveness. Let us practice extraordinary, generous, and unexplainable grace with one another.

May it be. Amen.