The Story - Chapter 3 - Joseph

I know Christians are supposed to be forgiving and all that, but I have to say there’s nothing I like better in a movie than when the baddies finally get their come-uppance.

All ideas of redemption go out of my head when I’m watching a film! NO grey areas – no nuances. I want to see the bullies get what’s coming to them and nothing pleases me more than when they get a taste of their own medicine.

Whether it’s the Prison Warden in the Shawshank Redemption, Scar in the Lion King or good old JR Ewing getting a bullet in the guts, we all like a bit of revenge now and then.

And if there were ever a story set up for a bit of revenge, it’s today’s instalment of the Story.

Years after he was beaten up, thrown into a pit and sold into slavery by his 'loving' brothers, Joseph now has them in the palm of his hand. Why doesn’t he just crush them and live out those revenge fantasies he must have nurtured over the years?

Answering that question is probably the most important work we can be doing this morning.

Joseph’s story begins with his family; and as we all know, family dynamics are rarely straightforward. Joseph was his father Jacob’s favourite son. And rather than be discreet about it, he singles Joseph out for special privileges – including the famous coat of many colours.

Joseph, being a young lad and rather full of himself, doesn’t understand why his brothers are so narked about this. Or why they get angry about these dreams he’s having, where the whole family end up bowing down to him in one form or another.

You might have thought that Jacob would have had more sense. But of course, he himself was a favourite son. And his father, Isaac, was a favourite son. For three generations, bad blood had been created by parents overtly showing favouritism to one child over another.

And as an aside, I don’t think that’s ever wise. Even if there is disparity in how you feel about your kids because of their temperament or behaviour, it’s not wise to show it. You can’t favour one all the time without drastically affecting how the others will think and feel. Parents, take note!

But what about these brothers? Were they any better? Getting irritated by the silly indulgence of an old man, and the immature boasting of an adolescent boy? Weren’t they bigger than that?

Well sadly, too often, we’re not bigger than that. We all know that we can let these little things fester ‘til they get all out of proportion and end up skewing our perspective.

How else can you explain Jacob’s sons turning on one of their own with a view to murder, and then thinking they’d been kind by only selling him off into slavery?

But that’s what they did; and just as Jacob deceived his father to gain his brother’s birthright, now his sons are deceiving him to hide their part in their brother’s disappearance. Happy families, eh?

And meanwhile, Joseph’s carried away on this rollercoaster ride that sees him taken from pit, to slave caravan, to auction – and then work in Potiphar’s estate. And just when things seem to be improving, there’s the harassment from his master’s wife ending in a false accusation, and two long years spent in prison for something he didn’t do.

Dreams of sun, moon and stars bowing down to him must have felt like a cruel joke by that stage.

If he were looking for outward signs of God’s blessing, he’d have been hard pressed to find them; all the signs suggested the very opposite – that God had abandoned him.

And yet nothing could have been further from the truth.

When we looked at the creation story a few weeks ago, I emphasised that the whole purpose behind it was that God might be with us, and that that desire of God hasn’t changed, despite the fall. He still wants to be with us, even in the middle of the mess that the Lower Story becomes sometimes.

Here, in Joseph’s story, at two of the worst points – when he’s sold into slavery and when he’s thrown into prison – we read these specific words – “the LORD was with him.” Interestingly, we don’t read them anywhere else in this chapter.

At the points when Joseph could have felt most abandoned, God was most with him – bringing hope and opportunity where Joseph had seen neither.

This painful journey from despised adolescent to revered Egyptian leader had taught Joseph that even when the Lower Story seems like an awful mess, God – in the Upper Story – is working things out on another level.

Joseph learned that the Lower Story isn’t the only story in town, even though at times it may feel like it. For the man or woman of faith, God is always doing something more.

Maybe now we’re in a place where we can understand why revenge wasn’t on the menu when years later his brothers came to beg for grain.

I’m not saying it was easy to forgive them. All the pantomime around giving them grain and planting their silver back in their saddlebags and keeping hostages suggests that Joseph was wrestling within himself about what to do.

But in the end, grace won. And it won because Joseph was now a man with sufficient God-given perspective to get some distance from everything that had gone before. He was going to define his life by what God was doing in the Upper Story, and not by what had happened in the Lower. From that wide, spacious place of God’s generosity, he found himself able to be generous towards his brothers.

And maybe that’s our word from God for today.

Are you stuck in the Lower story?

Has something that happened in the past come to define you, for the time being?

Some loss, or sadness, or fall-out?

Some injustice, or worry?

Is there some fear or situation that’s looming large in your imagination just now? Is it taking up more room in your heart and mind than it should?

Are you enmeshed in the painful complexity of family dynamics?

And do you find yourself wondering where God is, in all of this? Why a loving God would allow this to happen to you?

Know, first of all, that you are not alone in thinking that way. All of us have spells in our lives when we feel like that.

But know too, that the circumstances you’re experiencing aren’t the only story in town. God is always doing more than we can see or know and if we can find it within ourselves to stay open to him, we will know his help and guidance.

We will see that behind the challenges and disappointments of life, God is always working for the good of those who love him.

“Don’t be afraid” said Joseph to his brothers as they cowered at the foot of the dias. “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

Bad things happen in life – that’s part of living in a fallen world. But our God can bring good even out of the worst of circumstances.

And as I prepared for today, it struck me not only that the cross is the supreme example of that, but how readily these words spoken by Joseph could be found on the lips of the crucified Christ.

“Don’t be afraid. You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

Once again, in the story, we’re hearing an echo in the past of a Messiah who’s still to come.