The 10th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 15
August 17, 2014
Genesis 44: 18a, 33-34, 45:1-15
To truly rejoice with this reconciliation between brothers, to make this reconciliation our own, we need to go to the bottom with them. We need to go to the depth of the sin and alienation that went back all the way to the beginning.
We have followed the alienation in this family from Abraham nearly killing his son Isaac, to the rivalry between Jacob and Esau, or “Hairy and the Heel,” down to Joseph and his brothers. But the sin and alienation really go all the way back to that first man and woman in the garden who had the freedom to decide whether to trust their creator or not. Having failed to trust their creator, they could no longer trust each other. Your desire will be against your husband, God had said to the woman after they had both eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. You shall seek to manipulate him. But in the struggle for control, he will rule over you. That’s not how it’s supposed to be between man and woman. That’s how sin and alienation twist our relationship with each other. Then the alienation spread to the first two brothers, Cain and Abel, and led to the first murder in the Bible. Out of pity for Cain, God promised that any harm done to him would lead to a sevenfold vengeance. But then his great great great grandson Lamech claimed a seventy seven fold vengeance.
Before long, God decided that they had had enough of human beings, for “every idea their minds thought up was always completely evil.” But that was in chapter 6 of Genesis. In chapter 8, after God had led Noah’s family and all the animals to dry land, God said that never again would they send a flood on the earth, “since the ideas of the human mind are evil from their youth.” In other words, the reason that God decided to destroy the human race in a flood becomes the very reason why God will never do it again. God decided that from now on their goal would be to save the human race, not wipe it out and start over again.
And so God started with one man and one woman and gave them a promise and a goal: “All the families of the earth will be blessed because of you.” And all we have heard these last several weeks has been about whether this family would become the model of reconciliation for all the families of the earth to pattern themselves after. Unfortunately, most of what we’ve seen is dysfunctional relationships, starting with Abraham, Sarah and Hagar, Isaac and Ishmael. Then we saw how Jacob got over-attached to Esau, while Rebekah got over-attached to Jacob. Then we saw Jacob get over-attached to Rachel and Rachel’s children, while alienating Leah and Leah’s sons.
The story leading up to today’s reading is familiar to most of us. Either you know it from the Bible, or also from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Joseph with his amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat boasts about his dreams of his brothers bowing down to him. They throw him in a well, and then sell him into slavery in Egypt. But because of his ability to interpret dreams, Joseph is able to warn the Egyptian Pharaoh of the coming famine, and becomes the second most powerful man in Egypt. He marries, and has a son whom he names Manasseh because, he said, “God has helped me forget all of my troubles and everyone in my father’s household.” Now that would be nice, if it were true.
And then, who should appear before him but his brothers in need of food, and bowing before him just as Joseph dreamed. But was that really the point of the vision God had given him all those years earlier? Perhaps there is a chance that the cycle of over-attachment and alienation, handed down through three generations, can be broken. But to do that, Joseph and his brothers must replay the painful events that led them here. The brothers must face up to the wrong they did and change their hearts and lives, or repent. And Joseph must replay the pain he suffered, and how he contributed to the bad feelings between himself and his brothers. Then he has to choose to forgive.
So first; Joseph verbally abuses them, and takes one of the brothers as a hostage. He sends the rest back with food, but demands that they return with Benjamin, the youngest son of Rachel, whom Jacob clings to for fear that he will be killed as he was led to believe that Joseph was. But eventually, with the famine continuing and the food running out, Jacob lets the brothers return to Egypt with Benjamin. Joseph arranges to have a silver cup placed in Benjamin’s sack, and then accuses him and is ready to make him a slave. And in comes Judah, who originally proposed selling Joseph into slavery, but who has been prepared for this moment.
A few chapters earlier in Genesis was the story of Judah and Tamar, one of the “Bad Girls of the Bible.” I’m indebted to Rabbi Jonathan Sacks*, probably the leading rabbi in Great Britain, for understanding why this story is so important in the Bible. Judah had three sons. The oldest married Tamar, but died. As was the custom, and Tamar’s right, the second son of Judah married her but then he died as well. Then Judah dragged his feet on marrying his third son to Tamar. So, one day as Judah was traveling between his home and the next town, Tamar set up a tent by the side of the road and veiled herself, so that in the dark tent, Judah wouldn’t know it was her. How will you pay me, Tamar asked when Judah, now a widower, expressed an interest. How about a goat, Judah replied, in this age of barter. How do I know you’ll pay me, Tamar asked, what’s your collateral? Here is my personal seal with its cord attached, answered Judah.
Three months later, when Tamar is clearly pregnant, Judah is about to have her stoned for her extramarital activity; when Tamar pulls out the seal and its cord and says, this belongs to the father of my child. To which Judah replies, “She’s more righteous than I am, because I didn’t allow her to marry my son.” And as Rabbi Sacks points out, this is the first confession in the Bible, the first time that anyone has been willing to admit that they were wrong. And having been so prepared by his experience of confession; now before his brother Joseph, Judah has another first. He is the first human being to offer himself in exchange for another.
Some might think that Joseph has been cruel in the way he manipulated them. And as he sees the change in the hearts and lives of his brothers, Joseph changes his heart as well. “Don’t be angry with yourselves that you sold me here,” Joseph pleads with them. “Actually, God sent me before you to save lives.” Through the years of bitter struggle, shame, and guilt, God has watched, and opened the doors for Joseph and his brothers to walk through, if they were brave enough to replay the pain and evil of the past, trusting that instead of leading to further alienation, this time it would lead to reconciliation.
And so the generational cycle of alienation is broken in this family. And just in time. The people of Jacob, also known as Israel, will need to stick together. Eventually, a new Pharaoh will forget how Joseph saved the Egyptians from starvation. And for 400 years, the Israelites will suffer the toil of slavery, until Moses comes. But that’s a story for another time.
This day, the question is where are we as a church in this continuing story, with our mission to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ? In a world divided by resentment festering into rage and hatred, 8,000 miles away or 200 miles away, can we at least be a community willing to say where we might be wrong? Can we be a community that seeks unity with each other amid our diversity of opinions? And more personally, what alienation and bitterness do you need to stop avoiding? What reconciliation do you hope and pray for? I pray that we may hear this 4,000 year old story of alienation, and reconciliation, and make it our own.
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