Sermon: Trusting God with Our Stories

Genesis 37:1-34

Trusting God with Our Stories

James Sledge                                                                           August 13, 2017

I’ve likely shared before how my father read Bible stories to me and my siblings when we were young. I can still see that big, Bible Story book with its colorful illustrations, including one from our reading for today. It showed Joseph in his “coat of many colors,”  translated a bit differently, a probably more accurately, in our verses.

(Genesis 37:1-4) Jacob settled in the land where his father had lived as an alien, the land of Canaan. ²This is the story of the family of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was shepherding the flock with his brothers; he was a helper to the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives; and Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. ³Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he had made him a long robe with sleeves. ⁴But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him.

In my childhood memories of the Joseph story, I had the impression of Joseph as a good kid mistreated by his mean, older brothers. I don’t know if the Bible Story book told it that way, or if I just assumed that Joseph, being the hero, had to be a good guy. But when you read the entire story, it’s obvious that Joseph’s brothers had good reason not to like him. And it was more than their father’s blatant favoritism, as the story makes clear.

(Genesis 37:5-8) Once Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers,  they hated him even more. ⁶He said to them, "Listen to this dream that I dreamed. ⁷There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright; then your sheaves gathered around it, and bowed down to my sheaf." ⁸His brothers said to him, "Are you indeed to reign over us? Are you indeed to have dominion over us?" So they hated him even more because of his dreams and his words.

If I had ten older brothers who already hated me, I think I’d have the good sense not to tell them such a dream. Surely Joseph had to know that this would only make them madder. Perhaps he figured they wouldn’t do anything to him because he was Daddy’s favorite. But why tell them at all. If the dream were really true, they would see it soon enough. No, Joseph must have enjoyed this. He was a total brat or cruel or, more likely, both. Which probably explains why he went and did the same thing again.

(Genesis 37:9-11) He had another dream, and told it to his brothers, saying,  "Look, I have had another dream: the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me." ¹⁰But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him, and said to him, "What kind of dream is this that you have had? Shall we indeed come, I and your mother and your brothers, and bow to the ground before you?" ¹¹So his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind. 

Now I’m not suggesting that Joseph deserves what happens next; nor am I excusing his brothers’ behavior, but the story we’re hearing today is not a story with heroes and villains. Up to this point, the story has not told us a single endearing detail about Joseph, nothing that would make us like him or root for him. He is a total cad from what little we’ve seen. And while what his brother do is condemnable, we should not be at all surprised when they jump at an opportunity to be rid of Joseph.

(Genesis 37:12-22) Now his brothers went to pasture their father’s flock near Shechem. ¹³And Israel said to Joseph, “Are not your brothers pasturing the flock at Shechem? Come, I will send you to them.” He answered, “Here I am.” ¹⁴So he said to him, “Go now, see if it is well with your brothers and with the flock; and bring word back to me.” So he sent him from the valley of Hebron.

He came to Shechem, ¹⁵and a man found him wandering in the fields; the man asked him, “What are you seeking?” ¹⁶“I am seeking my brothers,” he said; “tell me, please, where they are pasturing the flock.” ¹⁷The man said, “They have gone away, for I heard them say, ‘Let us go to Dothan.’” So Joseph went after his brothers, and found them at Dothan. ¹⁸They saw him from a distance, and before he came near to them, they conspired to kill him. ¹⁹They said to one another, “Here comes this dreamer. ²⁰Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; then we shall say that a wild animal has devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams.” ²¹But when Reuben heard it, he delivered him out of their hands, saying, “Let us not take his life.” ²²Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood; throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but lay no hand on him” — that he might rescue him out of their hand and restore him to his father.

Reuben is the eldest brother. Perhaps his age gives him a little more perspective. Perhaps he understands a bit more about the messiness of family dynamics. Regardless, he clearly knows that there is no point in trying to talk his brothers out of their anger toward Joseph.

(Genesis 37:23-28) So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the long robe with sleeves that he wore; ²⁴and they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it. ²⁵Then they sat down to eat; and looking up they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels carrying gum, balm, and resin, on their way to carry it down to Egypt. ²⁶Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? ²⁷Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and not lay our hands on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.” And his brothers agreed. ²⁸When some Midianite traders passed by, they drew Joseph up, lifting him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. And they took Joseph to Egypt.

The story does not say so, but apparently Reuben has left his brothers for a bit, perhaps to figure out how he will get Joseph away from them. But now he returns.

(Genesis 37:29-35) When Reuben returned to the pit and saw that Joseph was not in the pit, he tore his clothes. ³⁰He returned to his brothers, and said, "The boy is gone; and I, where can I turn?" ³¹Then they took Joseph's robe, slaughtered a goat, and dipped  the robe in the blood. ³²They had the long robe with sleeves taken to their father,  and they said, "This we have found; see now whether it is  your son's robe or not." ³³He recognized it, and said, "It is my son's robe! A wild animal has devoured him; Joseph is without doubt torn to  pieces." ³⁴Then Jacob tore his garments, and put sackcloth on his loins, and mourned for his son many days. ³⁵All his sons and all his daughters sought to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted, and said, "No, I shall go  down to Sheol to my son, mourning." Thus his father bewailed  him. ³⁶Meanwhile the Midianites had sold him in Egypt to Potiphar,  one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard. 

If you know the rest of Joseph’s story, forget, for the moment, what follows. Imagine that this is the end of the story. Jacob dies a heartbroken old man, still mourning his favorite child. Reuben is wracked with guilt but cannot bring himself to tell his father the truth. Finally, it is too much for him and he must leave. He departs and no one ever hears from him again. The secret about Joseph weighs on everyone, poisoning family relationships. As for Joseph himself, no one knows what happened to him.

Many of us personally know stories with just such endings, stories of loss and pain that leave people broken and bitter. Stories of broken relationships never restored. Stories that set in motion events that surely cannot lead to anything good, that are beyond redemption.

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As we have followed the stories of Jacob and Esau and Isaac and Rebekah and Laban and Leah and Rachel over the course of this summer, we have seen that horrible dysfunction, unsavory character, and moral failing do not prevent God from enlisting such folks in divine plans for blessing and hope and newness. But today’s story sets the stage for the even more improbable, seemingly impossible claim that no story, no matter how horrible or tragic, no matter how cruel or malevolent, so matter how hopeless, is beyond the power of God to turn it toward good and hope and life. There is nothing so evil or hopeless that God cannot, finally, bend it to the good.

That will be how the Joseph story will end, and such stories seem the norm with God. The story at the very heart of Christian faith is of horrible evil bent to the good. The execution of God’s love made flesh, Jesus’ horrific death on a cross, turns out to be not an end but a beginning.

There is something illogical and counterintuitive to the cross, and so, therefore, to Christian faith. No one watching Jesus die saw anything but pain, agony, terror, hopelessness, total and complete failure. How could such a story ever be bent to the good. And yet the Apostle Paul can later speak of Christ crucified as the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Some of us are caught up in personal stories that are tragic or frightening. The story of hate and terrorism helps shape the anxious world we live in. Just this past week, a story line of missiles and nuclear weapons leaped onto TV screens and headlines. And yesterday, America’s original sin of racism continued its brutal, hate-filled epic of evil.

At times it can feel like we’re caught up and swept along in a story that we don’t want to be part of, that is too big for us to do anything about. At times it seems difficult to imagine that God is doing anything to turn the story toward the good. At times it may be hard to imagine God at all.

But if you have ever felt the presence of the risen Christ, you have already been touched by God’s power to bend a terrible story to the good, bring hope out of hopelessness, life out of death. There’s nothing Pollyanna about that, no denial of real pain and loss and suffering. Jesus was denied justice, convicted in a sham of a trial, suffered and died. But Christian faith has experienced the love of God that will not let hate or injustice or terror or racism or war or even death itself be the final word. And we are called to become actors in that illogical, counter-intuitive story of love that bends even the most evil story toward the good.

The Apostle Paul became caught up in God’s incredible, life-giving story, living it even when he faced suffering, prison, and finally his own execution, and I’ll let him be this sermon’s last words.

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all  day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.