Part 3 in our 3 part series on Joseph
READINGS: Luke 15:11-32 Genesis 43:1-5; 45:1-18
SERMON
Let’s pray: may the words of my mouth and the thoughts of all our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen
It started with a 17 year old dreamer.
A lad who seemed a little too full of himself;
a lad who enjoyed the favour of his father,
but who endured the hatred of his brothers.
Family relationships were tense.
Actually, family relationships were beyond that:
they were broken, fractured.
The selling of their brother Joseph
demonstrated that in a major way.
Joseph’s dream seemed to have become a waking, walking nightmare.
We followed his story – a story that took him to Egypt,
where he served as a slave to Potiphar.
Things initially went well – but life can turn on a knife’s-edge:
a false accusation from Potiphar’s wife, and Joseph was thrown into prison.
Opportunities came his way –
guards and prisoners alike respected him, trusted him.
In the prisons of Pharaoh, Joseph did a lot of growing up.
He also met two men from the Palace who had been having dreams –
dreams feature big in the story of Joseph.
Having interpreted their dreams,
Joseph spends another two years in prison until...
there’s someone else who’s had some dreams.
That’s where we were, last week:
thirteen years after having been sold by his brothers, Joseph finds himself in front of Pharaoh –
a Pharaoh who’s been having dreams...
who needs Joseph, the dreamer, and the interpreter of dreams, to help him.
When we last left Joseph, he had indeed interpreted the dreams,
and having done so, was amply rewarded by Pharaoh –
from languishing in prison,
Joseph was made the most powerful man in Egypt second only to Pharaoh himself.
Tasked with the great responsibility to prepare for famine while still
in the time of plenty, Joseph excelled at his job.
In his personal life, the family he’d lost had been replaced by a family of his making –
a wife and two sons.
His work saw an overflowing of grain in the grainstores –
and when the famine came, so Egypt was more than prepared –
able to feed its population, and, with enough to spare,
so that it could sell to other nations and people living near Egypt.
Just before our reading begins today,
like so many others caught up in the famine,
Jacob has sent his sons off to Egypt to buy grain.
A steady stream of human traffic moves to and from that great land –
the land that holds the promise of food and survival.
Arriving, they go to the distribution centre.
Joseph is there, ever-diligent, overseeing the work.
And then his whole world turns upside down:
he recognises his brothers.
What to do?
In another story, we might expect sudden and violent retribution:
Joseph avenging himself after the mistreatment of his brothers.
‘An eye for an eye,’ and all of that.
Expressing that very human feeling of:
‘you hurt me, so now I’m going to hurt you.’
Except, that doesn’t happen.
Mind, he doesn’t let the off scot-free:
he does test them.
‘You’re spies’ he claims.
They protest their innocence.
And so, to prove they’re telling the truth he asks them to go home and get the
young brother who is still there if they ever want any more grain again –
while leaving one of their number in Egypt as surety.
Laden with grain they head off with heavy hearts –
their father Jacob will never agree to this.
And he doesn’t.
With brother Simeon festering in Egypt,
the family works its way through the whole of the grain supplies.
Only when they’re running low, is the matter of returning to Egypt raised once more.
What to do?
And that’s where we join our story once more.
Hard decisions.
Jacob finally gives in, after much protesting –
sending not only Benjamin, but gifts of honey, fruit, balm –
hoping to find favour from this powerful man in Egypt.
And so, in search of grain, they head off once more to Egypt.
They are taken to see Joseph:
and what awaits them is something entirely unexpected:
Joseph quizzes them about home,
about their father,
and finds himself overwhelmed when he sees young Benjamin.
He leaves for a moment to compose himself, comes back,
and then a great feast is served.
To their astonishment, they realise that they have been seated in order according to age –
how could this Egyptian have known this?
And then they find out.
The truth is told – and Joseph claims his brothers:
the ones who had sold him –
the ones who had planned to kill him.
And, instead of retribution,
he reaches out his hands in reconciliation:
forgiven.
He has seen how they care for young Benjamin,
seen how they can’t bear to cause their father distress;
seen how, not only has he been transformed over these long years,
but so have they:
regrets have haunted them ever since that fateful day thirteen years before.
They have lived with the shadow of what they’ve done ever since –
no peace, but carrying plenty of guilt.
And it’s Joseph who releases them through the power –
not of his position as Pharaoh’s second-in-command –
but through the power of being the one who’s been wronged.
It’s Joseph who can see the light of hope
within what had been a dark, dark place –
for Joseph, God had rescued the situation.
And here, now, was a chance for a new beginning,
an opportunity for healing old wounds,
mending fences,
a chance to be reconciled and restored as a family.
Looking for light in the darkness, Joseph found it,
and so was able to let go of his hurt, his anger, any bitterness...
and in turn, was offering this gift of letting go to his brothers.
With the gift of forgiveness came the gift of a new life –
Pharaoh, genuinely pleased for Joseph,
invites the whole family to come to Egypt to live off the fat of the land –
to be blessed, just as Joseph had been a blessing upon Egypt.
It’s a story of a family who,
having been at loggerheads,
having been jockeying for power,
having been... thoroughly dysfunctional,
are now whole.
We also heard another story about a family earlier –
the well-known story of the prodigal son.
Two stories of two families;
two stories about younger sons –
two sons who had each lost their family:
one through the cruelty of his brothers,
the other, through his own choice –
he was bored, didn’t want to stay on the farm,
wanted to go and explore the world,
and in the doing of it, caused his father to break up the farm:
land and families and inheritance –
always a difficult combination.
Two stories with a twist in the tale, and in the twist,
becoming two stories with happy outcomes:
families restored and made whole once more –
rejoicing;
living off the fat of the land,
or feasting on the fatted calf.
In Joseph’s story, it is he who offers forgiveness;
it is he who stretches out his arms to his family.
In the prodigal’s story, it is the Father’s forgiveness
that enables the son to come home again.
From Genesis to the Gospels, through to Revelation,
God’s story has always been one of offering forgiveness and friendship to humanity;
of letting go of hurt and pain and bitterness –
of being faithful to the promise made with Noah:
that, tempting as it might be at times to smite the whole of humanity,
there would be no more vengeance,
no more destruction and retaliation.
For God is in the business of reconciliation –
of restoring, of making whole,
of healing hurts
and mending the broken...
In both the stories –
of Joseph
and of the prodigal,
we see a loss of love;
a walking away,
that brings near potential destruction.
In the story of God’s relationship with us –
God has never stopped loving,
has never stopped calling us:
to let go the regrets,
to start truly living...
freely, fully, wholly;
to find our home in him.
He offers us welcome, freely given,
he loves us for who we truly are,
he desires us to walk in the knowledge
that as much as we are his...
he is ours.
His is a love that will never let go;
and as we’ve seen in Joseph’s story,
his is a love that finds a way, even in the darkest places;
his is a love that has no conditions placed on it –
no strings attached...
Like Joseph’s family,
like the young prodigal,
all we have to do
is let go of the regrets,
the self-recriminations,
and let God be...
to let God in,
and, in so doing,
to experience the grace of transformation that only God’s love can bring.
For, where there is forgiveness,
there love can be found,
and from there, a new beginning...
for ourselves,
our families,
our neighbours,
and for the world. Amen.
