Learning from Joseph
Rev. Lee Ann Bryce
Community Christian Church
August 21, 2011
Today we conclude our series on Joseph:
the favorite child of Jacob,the dreamer who flaunted his favored status to his brothers,
the object of privilege,
the teenager betrayed by his brothers and sold into slavery,
the honorable slave falsely accused and imprisoned,
the resourceful go-to guy,
the interpreter of dreams,
the patient prisoner,
the creative problem-solver,
the right-hand man to Pharoah,
the manager of food production during the famine,
the forgiver of his brothers,
the sustainer of his people.
Joseph, the resilient overcomer of adversity.
Through all the ups and downs of his life, Joseph managed to come out on the other side, moving in the right direction. Joseph’s story invites us to examine our own. We all have faced adversity, some more than others.
What is the cause of adversity in our lives? Sometimes, if we’re willing to self-reflect, we find that we have a hand in bringing about the adversity we face. Sometimes we mess up and we cause or at least contribute to the deep, dark hole we find ourselves in. Others times, adversity is caused by the actions of others. On purpose or accidentally, we are harmed because someone else did something that affects us. And still other times, the cause of the adversity we face isn’t clear.
In the story of Joseph, we see examples of all three scenarios. Joseph, himself, contributed to some of the earliest adversity he faced. As a teenager, he not only had dreams about being in a position of great power, including all of his brothers bowing down to him in subservience, but he flaunted those grandiose dreams to his brothers. Is it any wonder they hated him? They responded by throwing him in a pit and then selling him into slavery. Are their actions justified by Joseph’s bragging? No, of course not. But had Joseph demonstrated a spirit of humility, would things have turned out differently than they did?
Joseph asked for some of what he got. As you look back on your life, did you, even in some small way, contribute to the adversity you have faced?
Much of the adversity Joseph faced was due to the actions of others. His father, Jacob, gave Joseph a special coat to denote privilege so that while the other brothers were out working in the fields, Joseph didn’t wear the clothes of a working man. Jacob pampered Joseph. He treated him differently than his other children. His favoritism set him up to be the object of his brother’s wrath.
And later there were others who caused adversity for Joseph. In Egypt, Joseph was sold to his master, Potiphar. You’ll remember Potiphar’s wife falsely accused Joseph of sexual misconduct. Though Joseph was innocent and had acted honorably, he found himself thrown into prison in response to false accusations.
Again, looking back over your life, have you ever been faced with adversity from the false accusations of others? Have you ever felt set up in a way that invited trouble into your life?
So, sometimes the adversity in our lives is of our own making, sometimes the actions of others bring struggles into our lives, and sometimes, the cause of adversity just isn’t clear. One of the key factors in Joseph’s story is the famine that spread throughout the land, prompting his brothers to go to Egypt and beg for food. Why do crops fail? Why is rainfall either not enough or too much? Why do tsunamis and hurricanes and tornados devastate entire communities? If God is good and God is powerful, why do the innocent suffer? Why are tens of thousands of people dead today due to drought in Somalia? Why are the lives of half a million children threatened by malnutrition in the Horn of Africa? These are literal famines but why do some people experience famines of love, famines of acceptance, famines of support, famines of attention?
Reflect on your life. Have you faced adversity because of factors that were completely outside of your control; outside of anyone’s control?
The famine in the land prompted Jacob to send his sons into Egypt to beg for food. And, of course, it was their brother, Joseph, to whom they went though they did not recognize him. Joseph, who had found his way out of slavery, endured false accusations, and unwarranted imprisonment had come out on top, 2nd in command of all of Egypt. But there was one other adversity Joseph had to overcome: at the climax of this story, Joseph had to deal with his own family. Anyone out there ever had to deal with adversity within your own family? And in one of the most moving scenes in scripture, Joseph reveals his identity to his brothers and he forgives them for all they had done to him. Joseph did not allow the hurtful betrayal of his brothers to turn him into a bitter, cold person. Joseph was willing to forgive.
Throughout all the adversity he faced, Joseph was resilient. Where others might have been broken by any one of the obstacles he encountered, Joseph was steadfast. What can we learn from Joseph’s story that can help us to be steadfast and resilient in facing adversity in our lives?
We’ve already mentioned the value of cultivating a forgiving heart. Sometimes people say, “forgive and forget.” I’m not sure how emotionally healthy or even feasible at all it is to forget when someone has hurt you deeply. Forgetting does not necessarily go along with forgiving. I think forgiveness means the willingness to acknowledge the offense, to learn from the past, but then to make a conscious decision to leave it behind. Resilient people accept circumstances that cannot be changed and they resolve not to be bound by them.
Resilient people refrain from judging the experiences of their lives as good or bad. Joseph put it like this when he finally confronted his brothers, “You brothers meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” What seems to be bad, can turn out to be good. This is often true in our own lives. A devastating break-up becomes the invitation to deal with your own issues. The shocking job loss leads to a new job that is better suited. Or you make a lot of money in one job, lose it, get another with much lower pay and find you’re happier without the extravagant lifestyle to support. A health scare is a wake-up call that leads to a healthier, happier life.
Resilient people step back from judging experiences as good or bad, welcome or unwelcome. They simply embrace what is. There are times in our lives when taking a firm stance against something is appropriate, to claim our power and to use it. However, it seems Joseph might have cultivated a gift of powerlessness. Instead of bucking the flow of everything that happened to him, responding with righteous indignation, it seems he rolled with the punches. He accepted the twists and turns of his life and invested his energy in positive ways. In other words, he focused on doing the things he could to move forward, rather than be indignant about the limits that adversity had placed on him.
When we read Joseph’s story, all thirteen chapters of it, the overarching story of God at work through Joseph comes through loud and clear. It is because of Joseph that the ancient Hebrews did not perish off the face of the earth; that they didn’t starve to death. Because of Joseph’s generosity, our forebears survived. How willing are we to consider the overarching story of our own lives? Take a moment and think back over your life. What has been the story of your life? What themes have emerged? If you had to sum up your entire life in a few words, what would they be?
Ultimately, our lives amount to so much more than whatever today’s current struggle is. As we look back, often we can see God’s hand at work in the stories of our lives. We can see that mysterious dance that takes place between God’s freedom and our freedom, between God’s will and our own. In this dance, it is not God’s job to keep painful things from happening. They do happen. Brothers turn against brothers. People are bought and sold. Famine devastates the land. God’s job is not to prevent these things from happening. God’s job is to stay present in them and to keep on being God, creating whole worlds out of total chaos, breathing life into piles of dust, taking the unfathomable wreckage of our lives and making something fine out of them. That is what God does - sometimes with our help and sometimes in spite of us. That is who God is.
Joseph is our ancestor in the faith. My prayer for you today is that, like him, you may face your life bravely; that you may move past the pain others cause you; that you may embrace your live just as it is and listen to it rather than always resisting it. My prayer for you today is that you may be willing to forgive and that you may trust God at work in you. Amen.
