More to the Story

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The First United Presbyterian Church

“More to the Story”

Rev. Amy Morgan

August 16, 2020

Gen. 37:1-4, 12-28; 45:1-15

Jacob settled in the land where his father had lived as an alien, the land of Canaan.

 2 This is the story of the family of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was shepherding the flock with his brothers; he was a helper to the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives; and Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father.

 3 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.

 4 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.

Now his brothers went to pasture their father's flock near Shechem.

 13 And Israel said to Joseph, "Are not your brothers pasturing the flock at Shechem? Come, I will send you to them." He answered, "Here I am."

 14 So he said to him, "Go now, see if it is well with your brothers and with the flock; and bring word back to me." So he sent him from the valley of Hebron. He came to Shechem,

 15 and a man found him wandering in the fields; the man asked him, "What are you seeking?"

 16 "I am seeking my brothers," he said; "tell me, please, where they are pasturing the flock."

 17 The man said, "They have gone away, for I heard them say, 'Let us go to Dothan.'" So Joseph went after his brothers, and found them at Dothan.

 18 They saw him from a distance, and before he came near to them, they conspired to kill him.

 19 They said to one another, "Here comes this dreamer.

 20 Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; then we shall say that a wild animal has devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams."

 21 But when Reuben heard it, he delivered him out of their hands, saying, "Let us not take his life."

 22 Reuben said to them, "Shed no blood; throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but lay no hand on him"-- that he might rescue him out of their hand and restore him to his father.

 23 So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the long robe with sleeves that he wore;

 24 and they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it.

 25 Then they sat down to eat; and looking up they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels carrying gum, balm, and resin, on their way to carry it down to Egypt.

 26 Then Judah said to his brothers, "What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood?

 27 Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and not lay our hands on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh." And his brothers agreed.

 28 When some Midianite traders passed by, they drew Joseph up, lifting him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. And they took Joseph to Egypt.

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.

 2 And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it.

 3 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.

 4 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.

 5 And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life.

 6 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.

 7 God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors.

 8 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.

 9 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.

 10 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.

 11 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.'

 12 And now your eyes and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see that it is my own mouth that speaks to you.

 13 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."

 14 Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck and wept, while Benjamin wept upon his neck.

 15 And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.

Cream faced loon. Lump of foul deformity. You have no more brain than I have in my elbows. Your face is not worth sun burning. You are unfit for any place but hell. 

If we are tempted to believe that public discourse has devolved to an all-time low, we can comfort ourselves with a quick review of Shakespearean insults. Shakespeare creatively employed virulent attacks on his character’s appearance, intelligence, and morality, some pulled off the streets and some invented in his mind. His plays are filled with enemies and lovers, strangers and families who cannot speak peaceably to one another and instead engage in entertaining put-downs and retorts. 

This kind of dialogue wasn’t invented by Shakespeare. Nor did it end with him. If we think political discourse in this country is ugly now, read a few letters from our Founding Fathers. John Adams declared that Thomas Paine’s publication, Common Sense, was “a poor, ignorant, malicious, crapulous mass,” and his epithets for Alexander Hamilton cannot be repeated in church. In the presidential election of 1800, Thomas Jefferson questioned the gender of his rival John Adams. Adams in return questioned Jefferson’s parentage. I won’t share quotes from this exchange in our polite company but suffice it to say it is not peaceable conversation. 

I do wish I could say we’ve evolved as a society to a point where low-blows, libelous accusations, and fierce feuding was no longer a part of our public discourse. But that is clearly not the case. Candidates spar on social media, opinion columns invent malicious rumors, and conspiracy websites perpetuate unfounded rumors. In everything we watch and read, it seems people cannot speak peaceably to one another. 

This was the problem faced by Joseph and his brothers at the beginning of our story today. I’m sure Joseph’s brothers had nasty nicknames and inventive insults for him. He was daddy’s favorite. And a tattle-tale. And a braggart. Truth be told, Joseph does not come across as very likeable early in this tale. His father sends him to spy on his brothers, and he loves to come back and recount what a terrible job they’re doing managing Jacob’s affairs. Not that Joseph is helping them. He’s just putting them down to dad. 

And so the scriptures say Joseph’s brothers “hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him.”

This hatred and inability to converse has tragic effects for Joseph. His brothers throw him in a pit, planning to leave him there to die. They instead sell him off into slavery, pocketing the cash and grieving their father. Because they can’t speak peaceably to each other, the family is broken up. Joseph is enslaved. A father loses his favorite son. 

Bad things happen when we can’t speak peaceably. Many of Shakespeare’s characters end up dying tragically. Mainly because those plays are tragedies. But the real-life feuds between our nation’s founders frequently ended in duels, some of the deadly. The distance between them eventually grew into a bloody civil war. 

And still the arguments, insults, and incivility continues. We cannot speak peaceably about politics, race, religion, gender, wealth, justice, and a host of other topics. These conversations quickly devolve into recounting resentments, tallying up our self-righteousness, and hurling invectives at one another. 

And this is putting dangerous distance between us. Clashes of armed factions of protestors, extremists with opposing agendas, police, and federal forces have incited warnings from analysts that a “street war” is brewing in our country. The politicization of public health has inhibited our ability to fight a deadly virus. Business owners and customers have been murdered over mask-wearing. A rally in Fort Collins meant to show support for police officers ended with rally participants and protestors physically brawling in a nearby neighborhood. We cannot speak peaceably to each other, and it is putting more distance between us than the six feet required to keep us safe from viruses. 

And the truth is, I don’t know if we can fix this. There are great organizations out there working to bridge all sorts of divides, trying to restore civil discourse, endeavoring to help us see we are more alike than different. But if the daily headlines are any indication, these efforts are not having enough of an impact to set us on a different trajectory. 

After Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers, I’m sure none of them imagined they would one day have a happy reunion. They could not have foreseen Joseph’s rise to power in Egypt, his careful planning and management of food resources, or his provision for his own starving family. If someone had told Joseph while he was being carted away by Ishmaelite traders that everything would work out fine, that God was doing this for his own good and for the salvation of many people during a future famine, I imagine he would have had some less-than-peaceful words for that person. 

It doesn’t help in the midst of the fight, the ugliness, the tragedy, and the struggle to say that God is going to work all this for good. It denies the pain of our current reality and robs us of what little sense of agency we may still have left. It also makes God look pretty terrible. Subjecting us to non-consensual suffering for a greater good we may or may not believe will be achieved is not a really cool thing for God to do. 

And, despite what Joseph says in his little speech exonerating his brothers, this isn’t really what God does with Joseph. God doesn’t cause Joseph to suffer, to be separated from his family, enslaved, and imprisoned SO THAT one day he can practically rule the world and save it from starvation. That’s not how it works. What God does is give Joseph visions. God shows Joseph in these visions that there is more to his story. His life doesn’t end in suffering and sorrow. Somewhere in his story, the tables are turned on his brothers. Somewhere in his story, he is exalted instead of oppressed. Pain and suffering, slavery and humiliation and incarceration did not get the final word in Joseph’s story. 

And after his life turned around and his dreams came true, Joseph was able to see, in retrospect, the hand of God at work. He was able to read back through the pages of his life and experience the narrative of God’s healing and saving purposes, not just for him individually, but for the whole world.

The work of God can often only be recognized in retrospect, when the suffering is behind us, when we have been redeemed and restored. So I can’t tell you that everything is going to be all right in the end. But I can tell you that this is not the end. God has given us a vision of a world made new, a new creation where our divisions are healed, our brokenness repaired, our relationships restored. The division, violence, and tragedy we are going through right now is not the end of our story. We may not be able to see exactly what the end looks like or how we will get there. But when God’s promises come true for us, we will be able to look back and see how God is at work, even now, bringing healing and hope and good out of the mess we’re in. 

When Joseph is reunited with his brothers, the vision God gave to Joseph is realized. And the final words of our reading are “and after that his brothers talked with him.” Finally, in the realized vision of God, the brothers who could not speak peaceably are able to talk with each other. And good things come from this. Joseph’s whole family is relocated to the best grazing land and is provided for in abundance through the remainder of the famine and beyond. Jacob is reunited with his beloved son and is able to bless his grandsons. The whole family is fruitful, and they live into ripe old age with joy and satisfaction. 

This is the story I want for us, that I trust God has promised us. Maybe not today. Maybe not in November, maybe not next year. Maybe not for a long time. But I am holding on to hope in God’s vision in Jesus Christ, in resurrection and life, in love and forgiveness, in healing and justice. Our story isn’t over yet. And even if this is a particularly dark turn in our narrative, it isn’t the overarching theme, and it certainly isn’t the conclusion. So keep reading. Keep living out the story. It gets better. God promises. 

To whom be all glory forever and ever. Amen.