Genesis 45:1-15
Matthew 15:10-20

The word Genesis means beginnings and the book of Genesis in the Bible is a book about beginnings--the beginning of the universe, the beginning of human beings, the beginning of people of Israel, and the explanation of how the Israelites came to live in Egypt.  All of these elements are part of the faith journey and development of the Hebrew people.  Reading and knowing their story helps us examine our stories better.  We gain insight about God, others, and ourselves through these stories and the intersection of these stories with our stories. 

Our text for today is an important part of the story.  The 45th chapter of Genesis portrays the primary resolution of the entire Joseph narrative which stretches from chapter 37 through chapter 50.  It is a lengthy, well thought out, well crafted story of a family's struggle and conflict that is reconciled in chapter 45.  Everything in chapters 37 through 44 leads up to the reconciliation in chapter 45.  Everything in chapter 46 through 50 is derived from the resolution of the conflict and the reconciliation that comes to the family. 

A brief review of Joseph's story may be helpful.  Last Sunday I focused on the adolescent years of Joseph’s life.  Today, I want to focus on the rest of the story.  Joseph was the youngest of twelve sons born to Jacob.  Jacob was a rogue, a trickster, a con artist who stole his brother's birthright, was the favorite son of his mother, was tricked by his uncle who eventually became his father-in-law.  Later, Jacob tricked his father-in-law and ran for his life.  Eventually, Jacob and his tribe of sons settled in the desert and herded sheep.  Having been favored as a child, Jacob repeated that mistake by favoring his baby boy Joseph because he was the son of his favorite wife, Rebecca.  To demonstrate his great affection for Joseph, Jacob gave him a coat of many colors, popularly known today as a result of a Broadway play as his Technicolor dream coat.  Joseph tended to flaunt his favored position when he would go to the fields to check on his brothers.  They seem to have done all the work and Joseph had all the fun.  Their anger and jealousy boiled over into resentment and envy.  One day they decided to get rid of Joseph.  As he came prancing across the sand, they grabbed him and threw him in a pit.  Their plans were to leave him there to die.  However, some traders came by and they decided he was worth more alive than dead.  They sold him to the traders, turned his multi-colored coat into a coat of one color--red from the blood of a goat, took it to their father, and said, "Joseph must be dead.  Here is all we have left of him, his blood soaked coat."  Jacob lost it.  This was his favorite son.  He acted like all of his sons had died.  I suspect this only angered the boys more.  They may have thought getting rid of Joseph would improve things for them, but in many ways it only made matters worse.  Now, all Dad could talk about was wonderful Joseph, my poor baby, what happened to Joseph, how can I go on without Joseph, Joseph this and Joseph that.  It made them sick. They thought they had gotten rid of Joseph.  Now, it seemed like Joseph was around more now than before they sold him to the traders. 

Joseph wound up a slave, was falsely accused by Potiphar's wife of trying to seduce her, imprisoned, gained attention by interpreting fellow prisoners' dreams, came to the attention of the king of Egypt, and eventually was named Secretary of the Egyptian Famine Relief Organization.  The Egyptians did an excellent job of planning for the famine as it evolved.  People from outlying areas began to come to Egypt requesting food.  Joseph's brothers were among those who came for food.  Joseph recognized them but they did not recognize him.  He asked questions to learn about his father and discovered he had a younger brother who now had become the favorite.  Coming from a family of tricksters, Joseph had a few tricks of his own. 

First, he promised to give them grain but he was going to hold one of the men hostage until the others returned with their youngest brother.  Simeon was kept as a hostage. Talk about playing with people's emotions.  Talk about pressuring people to do what you want them to do.  Why not just tell them right then who he was? 

The men returned to their father, with the required message they had to return with Benjamin in order to get more food and to release Simeon.  Then, they discovered that all their money had been returned in their bags of grain.  Now, they felt they were in grave danger certain they would be accused of stealing the money.  Jacob was especially angry.  Typical of a con artist, he put the blame on someone else.  He refused to let them take Benjamin.  However, the famine worsened.  Jacob tried to get his boys to go for more grain.  Notice how willing he was again to put his family in harms way.  They refused.  They knew the kind of person they were up against.  They used all the grain they had.  It was either take Benjamin and hope the Egyptian ruler did what he said or all of them would starve to death.  Jacob was in agony.  Finally, Judah said he would take full responsibility for Benjamin and if Benjamin did not return safe and sound, all the blame could be put on Judah.  Jacob sent them off with twice as much money because they had returned with the money from the first trip.  He also sent gifts. 
They arrived, bought grain, Simeon their brother was released, they headed for home, but were stopped along the way.  Joseph's silver cup was put in Benjamin's bag.  When that was discovered, oh were they in trouble.  They promised to become Joseph's slaves but he said that wasn't necessary.  The only slave he wanted to pay for the damage was Benjamin.  The rest of them were free to go.  They weren't free to go.  They could not face their father with this news.  Judah begged and pleaded with Joseph.  Knowing his father as he did, maybe Judah knew he was a dead man if he went home without Benjamin. 

How is all of this going to be resolved?  The part of the story I have told to this point leads to our text in chapter 45.  The tension of all that was taking place, the secretiveness and the tricks were mounting, the desire to see his father and to let his brothers know who he was got to Joseph.  He told his brothers who he was.  Were they excited?  Were they overjoyed?  Not on you life!  They were scared to death.  Suddenly, the one they thought they had disposed of years ago is standing in front of them alive, well, with power, holding their destiny and their lives in his hands.  What will he do?  Would anyone blame him for retaliating in some way? 

Joseph doesn't want to retaliate.  He wants his family to survive the famine.  He wants his family together.  He wants them to be reconciled to each other.  He wants them to return home, get their father and their herds and move to Goshen, a section in Egypt.  They can be together as a family and have food to eat and survive the famine.  They are still in shock.  Joseph hugs Benjamin and begins to cry.  Benjamin cries too.  Then, Joseph hugs and kisses each of his brothers and finally they begin to talk with him. 

And the rest of the story is that the brothers return, tell Jacob that Joseph is alive, pack their things and move to Goshen, live out the famine, and remain in Egypt for many years.  Eventually the Israelites became slaves but that's another story or another part of this story.

Now, Joseph had an interesting interpretation of what had happened to him.  Here is what he said to his brothers, "I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt.  Now do not be upset or blame yourselves because you sold me here.  It was really God who sent me ahead of you to save people's lives" (Gen. 45:4-5).  What do you think about that interpretation?  Because it is written in the book of Genesis does that mean that you accept that interpretation without question?  This is a fatalist perspective .

Does Joseph's interpretation raise any questions for you?  It does for me.  Was Joseph saying that God caused all of these events to happen so that Joseph would be in a position to help his starving family several years later?  If that is what Joseph is saying, what does that say about God?  If this is what Joseph is saying, then his brothers did the right thing by putting him in the pit and selling him to traders.  To attribute all that happened to Joseph as God causing it to happen is to say that his brothers, the traders, Potiphar’s wife and others were manipulated, had no minds or wills of their own and therefore are completely innocent of any wrong doing.  If this is true in Joseph’s situation, then, we can easily draw parallels to every horrible situation in anyone’s life and say that God caused the tragedy, the cancer, the violence, or the abuse.  

But when you read the part of the story about Joseph’s brothers selling him to traders, there is no indication that his brothers are doing the right thing.  Then, they lie to their father and cover up their actions for years.  Surely, Joseph is not suggesting that all of that was part of God's plan, that God is a manipulator of people's lives, that selling a person into slavery, and telling a man that his son has been killed and putting him through the agony of that grief are the right things to do.

I really think what Joseph is saying is that he and his brothers made a mess out of life.  They carried on in the family tradition of tricking and conning and hurting one another.  In spite of the shambles they made of life, God sought to work with them in the midst of it all to do something redemptive and to enable them to put the pieces of their lives together.  It is an early version of the Humpty Dumpty story.  Joseph's family had a great fall and all the kings horses and all the kings men could not put Joseph's family back together again, but God's redemptive love could bring meaning and value out of it all.  God did not cause or set up the series of events like dominos to fall one after another until the famine struck. 

No doubt while Joseph was in the pit, while he was traveling with the traders, while he was working in Potiphar's house, while he was in prison on false charges, he must have asked himself many times, "Why is this happening to me?"  And there was not an answer to that question.  There is never an answer to the anger caused by such events as these.  There is only anger.  Asking “why” is one way of expressing anger.  It is a natural response to the events that happened in Joseph’s life.  "Why" is a reactive question and a natural one to ask in such circumstances as Joseph was in.  There is no satisfactory answer to the “why” question.  Any answer to “why” is immediately followed by another “why.”  Eventually, Joseph worked through his anger enough to ask the reflective question, "What do I do now that this has happened to me?"  It was in wrestling with that question that Joseph began to find some meaning in his life, to discover that in spite of all that had happened to him, God had not abandoned him.  God had not caused what had happened.  It was not God's intent that these events happen to Joseph.  Because Joseph and his dad and his brothers were free human beings, each of them could use freedom in destructive ways.  Certainly, his dad had been abusive with his freedom tricking people and then making Joseph a special, favored child was its own kind of abuse.  Joseph flaunted his favored position and it made his brothers mad enough to want to kill him.  Joseph's brothers got so angry that they acted on emotion only and looked for a way to get rid of Joseph.  They used their freedom to abuse Joseph.  But God is not in all of that, doing any of that or manipulating the brothers, the traders, or Potiphar’s wife to put Joseph in difficult and trying circumstances.  Life happens and sometimes what happens has horrible, destructive results.  These actions are evil and it is blasphemous to attribute evil to God. 

These people made an absolute mess of their lives.  What is remarkable is that they discovered through their relationship with God that God could help them redeem their lives.  They discovered that God would help them pick up the shattered pieces and make something of their lives.  That’s what it means to refer to God as redeemer.  That's their story.  And that's God's story.  And that's our story.  The challenge is for us to identify where our stories and this story intersect.  Then, we need to stop at that intersection, look all around, and listen to determine how God will help us pick up the pieces of our lives and put them together again.  This is the story of reconciliation, a story we all need to hear, a story we all need to experience.