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Sunday, February 18, 2001
"Love After Rejection"
Rev. Linda Carder

Genesis 45:3-11, 15
Psalm 37:1-11
Luke 6:27-38 

I suspect that the Joseph story is a favorite for many of you. Perhaps you have warm memories of the story from childhood, hearing it at the knee of some special person or acting it out in some church pageant or play. In fact this story is one of the masterpieces of Hebrew narrative art and is even acknowledged as a masterpiece of world literature. It is complete with interesting character development, spirituality, symbolism, twists in the plot, family conflict and palace intrigue. I have seen some movies lately that could have done a far better job in several of those categories. They did not come close to the quality of the Joseph story.

Current scholarship claims this story, as we have it now, as a product of the court of Solomon. The theology of the story shows the influence of Wisdom thought, in that God acts providentially rather that through direct intervention or theophany. Human characters survive and prosper by their own wits, controlling their destiny by their natural gifts and superior ability. Also, Solomon was married to the daughter of a Pharaoh, which would explain the positive attitude toward Egypt in the narrative.

In order to understand some of the depth and the interplay going on in the story, it is necessary to remember some of the prior family story. Jacob, Joseph’s father, was the second son, albeit the second born twin, of a favorite wife. The very name "Jacob" means trickster, and he of course is the one who tricked his brother Esau out of the family heritage. Then, in one of two dreams, he was claimed by God, told he was to be the father of a great nation and was renamed Israel. So that thereafter, Israel may denote a person or a nation. Jacob worked 7 years for his uncle Leban for his beloved Rachel, only to be given Leah who was older. He worked seven more years for Leban and finally received Rachel’s hand in marriage. Jacob eventually took his two wives and a great deal of Leban’s livestock and ran off, making him a fugitive both from his brother Esau and his uncle. After a great deal of running and some prayer and introspection, all are finally reconciled.

When the Joseph story begins, Jacob’s family now consists of Leah and her six sons, the two slaves Bilah and Zilpah and their four sons and the beloved Rachel and her two beloved sons Joseph and Benjamin. In order to emphasize Jacob’s partiality, the story begins by introducing Jacob, then his son Joseph and then finally the other sons of Jacob. Later on in the story, the same order of introduction appears. This forecasts an impending crisis that will soon engage the whole family. Already subordinate to Joseph in their father’s affection, they are grammatically subordinate as well. I say already, because straight away we are told that Israel (Jacob) loved Joseph more that all his sons. Then immediately it states, their father loved him more that all his brothers. This is a skillful escalation and intensification of the situation. But this is but the beginning. Joseph brings to Jacob bad reports of the sons of Bilah and Zilpah. He tells his brothers of the dreams he has had about their eventual bowing down to them and him becoming ruler over them. Then he appears before these smelly hardworking shepherds all clean, shiny and smelling good in his new brilliantly colored robe given him by their father. And doesn’t it beat all; the robe has long sleeves! The robe is the garment of one who does not have to work for a living.

The hatred they felt for him was complete and bitter. It was so intense they could not even greet him with the word shalom! But the hatred was not only between brothers. Joseph is an agent of family discord, with wives fighting for position for themselves and their sons. All are caught up in the tragedy. All are implicated and none are innocent or outside the strife.

And so Joseph is thrown in the pit or the cistern by his brothers who then callously sit down to a meal, the beautiful robe is returned to the father with blood on it, and Jacob’s grief is overwhelming, further separating him from his other sons. Joseph is brought down to Egypt and becomes a slave in Potiphar’s court. Potiphar’s wife tries to seduce him and fails. She then accuses him of attacking her and Joseph is thrown into the pit a second time. This time the pit is a prison. Joseph is a model prisoner, wins the favor of the other prisoners and the prison guards by interpreting dreams. He interprets the Pharaoh’s dream about an impending famine and is put in charge of storing and then apportioning the grain. There is hunger not only in Egypt, but also in all the neighboring countries, and so Joseph’s brothers come to him for food. They do not recognize him; he speaks to them through an interpreter and inquires as to their father and asks if there are more brothers. They return home with their bags full of grain, the money they brought to pay for it, and stern instructions that they are not to return without Benjamin. Despite the father’s grave concerns for Benjamin, they do return to Egypt for more food, with Benjamin. Joseph weeps, identifies himself, and those who ate a meal after putting Joseph into the pit and leaving him for dead are now treated to a royal meal in which Joseph sends food from his own table to their table.

The reversal is complete. First, the man who was introduced to the reader in the beginning as a shepherd with his brothers has risen to become the shepherd of his people, their ruler and provisioner. This motif will reappear later in the stories of Moses and David. Second, the favoritism, anger and hatred in the family has been replaced by forgiveness, reconciliation, love and rejoicing. Reconciliation replaced anger, because Joseph was able to see God’s hand at work in all that had happened. He tells his brothers that they should not feel guilty because what they intended as evil was used by God for good. Joseph believed that God sent him to Egypt so that the nation of Israel would be saved through the famine. And so seeing things through new lenses brings about forgiveness and reconciliation.

It is so tempting to stay in the anger, to steep in either the pit of righteousness or the pit of despair. Often we hang onto one or the other of these as if we were to drown without them, yet they are often what are sucking us under. Seeing the bigger picture and even seeing God’s picture seems to threaten our existence, for the things we hang onto seem like life itself.

I heard a story the other evening told by a person who often consults with conflicted churches. She says she can finally get a church body to begin to work together when they can begin to imagine that there might be some place that is not totally right or totally wrong. That is, to see if they might come together in a place that is not steeped in either of their positions.

Joseph did that. He totally revisioned the situation so that forgiveness rather than retribution reigned. That is an extremely difficult task in this world, for we are inundated minute by minute by calls for vengeance, retribution, and punishment. We are told that only those things can bring about closure. In direct opposition to that stands Bishop Tutu. In his book entitled No Future Without Forgiveness Bishop Tutu talks about the metamorphosis, the extraordinary turnaround that took place because Nelson Mandela invited his white jailer to attend his inauguration as in honored guest. It was a breathtaking sign of magnanimity and a revisioning of the way we can be together. Later in the book, Tutu states that "to forgive is not just to be altruistic. It is the best form of self-interest. What dehumanizes you inexorably dehumanizes me. Forgiveness gives people resilience, enabling them to survive and emerge still human despite all efforts to dehumanize them." Still later in the book he develops a whole theology of forgiveness based on the understanding of God’s love for all people and especially the sinners or those who do evil things, offering forgiveness especially to them.

I had this sermon all prepared. When I opened the newspaper this morning, the story of Amy Biehl’s and her parents acts of forgiveness after her death grabbed my heart and caused tears to rush to my eyes. Here it was before me, the ultimate act of forgiveness: the parents of a woman murdered during the last of the racial strife in South Africa who now spend most of their time there creating and supporting development programs and being very good friends with those who killed their daughter. They were able to forgive.

We are coming into a time of Lent, a time of forgiveness and seeking to come closer to God. It is a time to look into our places of rejection and see how we can be agents of God’s love. It is a time to develop our own theologies of forgiveness and seek God’s new reality not based on retribution and vengeance. It is a time to look inside oneself, to meditate and pray. It is also a time to evaluate and struggle with how our government deals with these issues. As in the Joseph story and the Beihl story, personal and governmental issues of interrelationship, well being and survival are never separate. May you come closer to God this Lent and may you find and give the forgiveness that will allow love to rule over rejection, retribution and hatred.

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