There are times when the problems of this world just seem a bit too overwhelming.
Natural disasters and political turmoil, military threats and economic uncertainties, stresses in relationships and in workplaces, concerns about our health, our well-being, our employment, our future.
In these, and in so many ways, the problems of life can sometimes seem just a bit too overwhelming.
We all know that the church tries to proclaim a word of good news, even in spite of all of these overwhelming challenges – a word of good news about God’s desire to establish a new community of love and peace and justice, a reign of divine love in which all are treated with dignity, all are respected, all are fed, all are set free of the pain of death and sorrow, all animosities are forgiven, all estrangements are reconciled, all sickness and suffering is healed…
But the gap – the chasm – between that lovely vision, and the reality of the world seems too large to bridge sometimes. And the chasm can be a challenge to our faith.
Today’s suggested reading from the 50th chapter of Genesis invites us to ponder one of the final scenes in the story of Joseph and his brothers – and to ponder a profoundly intriguing assertion of faith in a world such as this.
“Do not be afraid!” Joseph told his brothers. “Am I in the place of God? Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerour people, as he is doing today.”
Joseph’s words to his brothers are seemingly kind and gracious words, yet the full impact of them, and the complexity of them, only begins to emerge when we keep these words in the wider context of the story of his life.
And what a life it had been.
The first thing that we learn about him was that he was his father Jacob’s only child. Jacob, who was also known as Israel, had many children but, as we read in Genesis 37 “now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he had made him a long robe with sleeves. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him.”
Joseph’s other “claim to fame” was an uncanny ability to interpret the meaning of dreams. While this was a gift, it was not a gift that always served him well, including the time when he proudly informed his brothers that one of his dreams informed him that all of his brothers would one day bow down before him. In Joseph’s time, as in our own, such announcements are not always guaranteed to seem particularly endearing to one’s siblings.
And so, the brothers devised a plan to rid themselves of their arrogant, pesky, spoiled little brother. When Joseph came to visit his brothers, while they were tending their father’s flocks, far from home, the brothers captured him, made it look as if he had been killed, and then sold him into slavery. The young Joseph had been trafficked, by a group of Ishmaelite traders, down into Egypt and into the household of a highly placed official named Potiphar.
And things only got worse from there.
Potiphar’s wife attempted to seduce the young Joseph, and when he refused her advances she, in turn, accused him of attacking her, and had him thrown into prison. All must have seemed lost.
What was not lost, however, was his ability to interpret dreams. While in prison, Joseph was consulted by two of the workers in the Pharaoh’s court, who had also been placed in prison. The Pharaoh’s chief baker and his cup-bearer had run afoul of the Egyptian ruler and, while in prison, had dreams that Joseph offered to interpret for them.
On the basis of their dreams, Joseph predicted that the cup-bearer would soon be set free from prison and restored to his position in the Egyptian court; while the chief baker’s dream indicated that he was about to be executed.
Both of the dreams came true – the baker was killed, and the cup-bearer set free.
At the time of the cup-bearer’s release, Joseph asked the man to try to do what he could to effect Joseph’s release once he was back in the Pharaoh’s court. The man agreed to help him…but then promptly forgot about his commitment upon his release.
So Joseph continued to languish in prison for a number of years.
We skip over these scenes without much serious thought about the experiences that they recount. But take a moment to imagine how desperate, how lonely, how hopeless Joseph must have felt. Betrayed by his own brothers, cut off from his beloved father, his land and his family, sold into slavery in a foreign land, lied about, falsely accused of a crime that he did not commit, and then imprisoned, for years, all the while unable to contact anyone who knew him – and then forgotten about by the only person who might have some ability to help.
It all must have seemed a bit overwhelming.
But his story was not yet finished. Years later, the Pharaoh himself had some strange dreams, which prompted the cupbearer to suddenly remember the strange interpretive abilities of the young man that he had met in prison who had demonstrated such an uncanny ability to divine the meaning of dreams. Joseph was summoned, he interpreted the Pharaoh’s dream, and because of that ability, was soon elevated into an incredibly powerful position in the Egyptian government, where he oversaw a multi-year project to help the country to prepare for an impending time of famine.
It is quite fascinating to read the entirety of these chapters — particularly for those of us who first learned the story of Joseph as children.
In Sunday School, after all, most of us probably learned that Joseph had used his power to generously help the Egyptian people – and eventually his own family — to survive the famine. It sounds like Joseph, in spite of all that had happened to him, demonstrated such generosity, such foresight, such compassion – such noble and exemplary qualities.
The only problem, of course, is that this is not what the text states. Rather, the texts suggest that Joseph, during the plentiful years, stored up a lot of the surplus. But rather than generously distributing it to the starving Egyptians during their times of famine, the text actually states that Joseph used the extra produce and seed that had been collected, during the plentiful years, to orchestrate the acquisition of massive portions of the land of Egypt, for the Pharaoh, as well as the enslavement of the people of Egypt.
As the famine went on, the people of Egypt were forced to offer their horses, their livestock, their cattle, their land – and eventually themselves, in exchange for the seed. As we read in chapter 47 verse 20, “so Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh. All the Egyptians sold their fields, because the famine was severe upon them; and the land became Pharaoh’s. As for the people, he made slaves of them from one end of Egypt to the other.”
Yes, the people of Egypt were saved, but in the process the Pharaoh became very powerful, very rich, and very dependent upon slave labour. All thanks to Joseph.
It is not entirely wise to read these texts from Genesis as a literal or absolutely historical account – in fact, to do so may undermine some of the power of these narratives. The stories are formed and fashioned with very specific intentions.
And it is when we realize that these are carefully shaped narratives that we begin to catch a glimpse of the complex dynamics that are at play in today’s reading.
Joseph’s plan had been so successful that people from the neighbouring nations began coming to Egypt to purchase food to help them, and their peoples, to survive — which is what brought Joseph back into contact with his brothers. Although they did not recognize him at first, Joseph eventually revealed himself to his brothers, and they and their families – and their father Jacob moved down into Egypt to escape the devastating effects of the famine.
And, while in Egypt, the elderly Jacob died.
Which caused a significant degree of apprehension amongst Joseph’s brothers. After all, they knew that they had betrayed Joseph, all those years earlier, by selling him into slavery. Perhaps Joseph had been withholding his vengeance out of respect for their father’s presence – but now that their father had died, Joseph would finally get his revenge. He certainly had the power to do so.
And they knew that Joseph was not always a pleasant, or compassionate, or generous man. He had been arrogant, he had manipulated situations, and now wielded incredible power in the court of the Pharaoh, and had used that power not only to consolidate the Pharaoh’s power over the land of Egypt, but also to drive the Egyptian people, themselves, into slavery.
He was a man to be feared. And Joseph’s brothers were now at his mercy. As the passage states, “Joseph’s brothers said, ‘What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the wrong that we did to him?’”
And so, once again, the brothers hatched a plan. Let’s make up a story about what Dad said just before he died. Let’s tell Joseph that Dad really wanted him to forgive us.
Not much had changed. Years before, they had lied to their father about what had happened to Joseph. Now, they lied to Joseph about what their father had said before he died.
Quite a family.
Betrayals, deceit, lies, manipulations of people and situations, human trafficking, mistrust, fear, tensions, resentment, rivalries, murderous plots, enslavement.
And those were the good guys.
But then we come to Joseph’s response to his brothers.
“Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God? Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good…”
In the end, with the benefit of hindsight, Joseph came to realize that God had been at work all the while; and that the God before whom they bowed was able to take the worst, most overwhelming situations in life – brokenness, pain, estrangement, suffering, loneliness, betrayal, deceit, fear, resentment…and still do something good with it all.
God’s purposes could not, and would not be undermined by the sins and failures of humans, nor the struggles of existence, nor natural disasters such as famines.
It was an assertion that was not confined to the stories of Genesis – rather, throughout the biblical narrative, this same conviction was woven through so many parts of the story.
In spite of idolatries and injustices; through years of wilderness wandering and decades of crushing exile; through the lamentations of despairing prophets and the transgressions of corrupt kings; and, ultimately, on a crude wooden cross, the purposes of God would not – and could not — be undermined by human brokenness.
Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good.
May we have such faith – a faith that gives us the strength to endure and persevere in the overwhelming times so that – as God’s purposes become clear – we can join with Joseph, and the people of Israel, and Jesus, and the faithful of all of the ages, to declare with reverence, with joy, with praise, and with hindsight — that God’s purposes and power were able to weave it all together.
For good.
