Genesis 47: 13-31 (but also other parts of Joseph’s life) Do not allow yourself to become Resentful, Deceitful or Arrogant
There are three things that will impact your life significantly. In fact, it is three things that impacted your life already in more ways you might be aware of. The first is nature. You and I were born into a material world and on a planet with a natural environment. This environment is the source of wonderful provision and great joy. Think about watermelons, berries and steaks but also about sunny days, water skiing and a walk outside. It is like nature is a caring mother. But nature is also the source of destruction and death. Think of earthquakes, Tsunami’s and Covid viruses. Then there is human nature. It has its pleasant sides but it also has its cruel side that shocks us. Sometimes the caring mother can be a cruel queen. It’s almost like she is bipolar! But regardless of whether she presents herself as caring mother or moody queen, nature has a profound impact on your movement and being for as long as you live.
The next one is culture. Culture is the way people do things where you live. The fact that there is such a thing as culture and cultures makes your life easier. You don’t always have to reinvent the wheel. There are rituals that makes it easier for you to make friends and live in community for instance. Culture could be like a wise king serving you with good, inside advice. But culture also has its downside. It could blind you to the wrong. The fact that the majority participates in something doesn’t necessarily mean that what the majority does, is the right thing to do. Ask former SS officers in Germany or somebody that lived on either side of Apartheid in South Africa. They will tell you culture can be an tyrant. But again, in both manifestations culture, both the broad one you live in and the sub-cultures you are influenced by had and will have a profound impact on who you are.
The third thing is chaos. One of the most common life experiences is that things happen that disturb the order of life that you like. I don’t even have to tell this to people who just lived through a pandemic. Neither to people who had a loved one pass away suddenly. When an unexpected disaster hits insurance companies calls it “An Act of God”. We are inclined to frame things that bring about chaos as bad things that should not have happened but maybe the insurance companies are on to something because sometimes disruptive events bring about much good. A bankruptcy could lead one to a new successful business venture. A pandemic closes some opportunities but also bring about many others. Opportunity often lurks in Chaos. Chaos could be a treasure, as much as it could be a dragon.
Even in the life of Joseph we see how these three elements shaped his story. Nature. His brothers worked hard to plant and provide whilst he had dreams about fame. The human nature of a lustful woman landed him in jail. The drought brought him and his brothers back together again. Culture. We read about his family culture, the strong work ethic of it but also the favoritism and jealousy in it. It shaped the course of his life profoundly. We also read how he had to adapt in a new culture. Chaos. Being sold off by your brothers to slave traders. Being falsely accused of sexual misconduct and sent to jail. Being confronted with a devastating drought and a potential diplomatic crisis. That is what anybody would call chaotic events.
What makes Joseph’s story unique is not that he was confronted with the dark sides of nature, culture and chaos. What makes his story worth telling is what he became throughout this. He ended up unlike how many people going through the same stuff, ends up. One would expect somebody whose brothers sold him off, to be resentful and in a position of power even to be vengeful. Joseph is caring and provides for his brothers. One would expect somebody who lived through false accusations and a huge drought to be cynical. Joseph seems full of gratitude and positivity about life. One would expect somebody who was confronted with so many chaotic turns to be hardened and bitter to the plight of others. Joseph is open hearted and goes out of his way to save his family from disaster.
You see what happens is we all hope for an experience of nature as just a caring mother, for culture as just a wise king and for chaos that just leads us to treasure. And all of us are shocked at times by the very opposite, by an event in nature that is that of a moody queen, by culture that sold us lies and deceived us into blindness and chaos that robs us rather than gives us. The blow is so hard that many people end up being bitter, cynical, vengeful, and disgruntled instead of upbeat, grateful, caring and forgiving.
But we read about Joseph and Jacob in this passage and see them ending well. Jacob, leaning on his walking stick, worships God. Joseph serves. At the end of you life, this is who you would want to be. Caring, open hearted and grateful. What was the secret of Joseph’s success? Faith, Truth and Mission
Faith
In the first part of Joseph’s story there is hardly any indication or mention of God. It is all Joseph, his clothes, and his dreams. He thought the world revolved around him. And it is only when suffering enters his story that we see God entering his story and his vocabulary. When he lands in Potiphar’s house we read in Gen 39: 2: “The Lord was with Joseph and he prospered.” God also entered his vocabulary. When the wife of Potiphar seduces him he goes: “How could I do such a thing!? I will sin against God!”. Can you see how deep his relationship with God went? To the point of realization that even in his smallest of conduct, he was accountable to God. When he gets sent to prison, we read: “But while Joseph was there in prison, the Lord was with him, he showed him kindness and granted him favour in the eyes of the prison warden”. When he reunites with his brothers and makes himself known to them, he relates his life story. This time it is not filled with dreams or “I told you so’s” but with a “But God” perspective.
So, it is clear that Joseph’s faith deepened. But how did this contribute to him ending up caring and grateful and full of grace for people who wanted to kill him. Well, when you bump into the bad side of nature, culture and chaos you feel like you are completely powerless against it’s onslaught. Like nobody cares. But faith balances your picture. It gives you the perspective than even though things are not under your control, it is still under God’s control. And He is good and He loves you. When you hang onto that, especially at your lowest, it gives you an enormous source of strength and encouragement.
If there is one thing you could be thankful for (and I specifically say thankful, not proud) it is that you have kept the faith throughout this pandemic. It carried you. By the grace of God we knew even if COVID should take our life, it will not get to have the last say. On America’s Got Talent a woman that goes by the name of “Nightbirde” touched hearts. She is 30 and has terminal cancer. She has kept the faith and do yourself a favour and go read a piece entitled: “God is one the bathroom floor”. Here is a short extract:
Even on days when I’m not so sick, sometimes I go lay on the mat in the afternoon light to listen for Him. I know it sounds crazy, and I can’t really explain it, but God is in there—even now. I have heard it said that some people can’t see God because they won’t look low enough, and it’s true. Look lower. God is on the bathroom floor
God is also on your bathroom floor. Pay attention to Him.
Truth
My School had a slogan that read: “Nothing is steadfast which is not truthful”. It is ever so true but it does not always seem like it. Because sometimes, to lie feels like an option that will save you and extend your life. I bet it must have felt to Joseph that had he fallen for the lie of love in an affair, he would have kept his job. He ended up in jail because he refused to sleep with that woman. Only that wasn’t the end. God had something even greater for him in mind.
One virtue Joseph had was truth telling. Even though the way in which he shared them wasn’t sensitive or well timed, he told the truth about his dreams. Even though the baker’s lot was not what he wanted to hear, he told him the truth. When his brother’s stood before him, he did not sugar-coat the reality and implications of the drought. It is like he got better and better at telling the truth the more he did it. With lies it works the other way around. The more we tell them, the worse they become. Lies is like playing Jenga. The more you pile up, the closer the time comes where everything falls apart.
We don’t just lie by what we say but also by what we do or do not do. There are lies of commission and omission. To do something wrong is to fall for a lie about God. When I steal money, I fall for the lie that God does not provide for me. When I stay silent when the rights of other’s are being trampled on, that is a lie of omission because I am saying with that inaction that God does not care and does not use people to answer prayers.
Some people get so good at lying that they begin to believe their own lies. Maybe I should say all of us have a lie we tell ourselves so often that we believe it. And it is these lies that makes us end up all bitter when the lie and we are exposed with it. Much better to go through the painful truth now than to nurture a lie that will be exposed when it is too late to remedy the inconvenient truth it hid.
Mission
The third reason Joseph did not end up bitter was because he was mission focused. He wanted to save his brothers and the Egyptians from starvation. People on a mission have no time to dwell on vengeance and ego. What makes this one special is that the young Joseph was the very opposite of the older Joseph. Young Joseph would not even help his brothers with farm work. The older one was actively involved in the affairs of the day. It makes one realize that the opposite of being on a mission is not to be mission-less but to be selfish. To be on a mission that is just about you. When Joseph reflects on the meaning of his life he specifically states that God has send him out before his brothers to save lives.
Life has to be about the well being of more people than yourself and your immediate circle. You are not short selling yourself or your immediate circle by having an eye and hand out for the well-being of others. Quite the contrary. Helping others in need is a tried and tested way to treat your own depression. It rates right up there with exercise and eating healthy in fighting melancholy.
Close
So, faith protects us from being cynical and arrogant. Truth protects from becoming resentful and mission keeps us away from selfishness. But what makes all this possible. Faith, truth and mission are stuff we can do but what do we need from God to get into it?
The answer is grace. And it is a theme throughout Joseph’s story. One particular incident one shouldn’t miss. Joseph was so arrogant that his brother could not stand him any longer. They plotted to kill him. One brother pleaded and convinced the others to save his life and rather sell him off into slavery…the brother whose name was Judah. If Joseph did not have one brother who had mercy and pleaded for him…
Jesus was born from the line of Judah. And he made us his brothers and sisters. He pleaded for us and sacrificed his own life for us.
If Jacob who had to go through his own share of mistakes, chaos, natural disasters and cultural clashes could end his life by leaning on his walking stick with a worship song on his lips in stead of resentment, arrogance and ingratitude, hoe much more reason we have to be grateful, caring generous and open hearted? If the arrogant Joseph who went through so much could end up as a man in service of his fellow man, how much more could we be generous and kind? Jesus pleads for us. He has sealed our destiny. Our story could also end in worship.
Amen