May 29, 2016
Joseph | Genesis 37:1-11
- Genesis 37:1-11
- Rev. Dr. Jerry Deck
So, summer is finally upon us. The heat has begun to crank up, Memorial Day is on the ‘morrow, the big race is this afternoon, swimming pools are opening up and, of course, most kids in our area are out of school now or will be next week. I went home to greet Shaughnessy’s bus on her last day of school and was remembering that elated feeling I had when I was in school. It’s such a great feeling of relief and freedom to know that for three months you don’t have school, don’t have an alarm going off and, most importantly, don’t have homework. The point is that kids and summertime seem to go hand-in-hand.
That’s a part of the reason why I thought it would be good to look at the story of Joseph this summer, because this is a great story for kids. There’s good reason why kids love this story. It has young people in it, which always helps to pique their interest. There are dreams and colorful coats and a caravan of traveling merchants which, for some reason, always really intrigued me as a kid. (I think I thought it was like a traveling circus or something.) There’s a jail which is always interesting and more dreams and then, of course, a king (or pharaoh) who comes on the scene and what kid doesn’t love thinking of palaces and kings and whatnot.
Of course, the other thing about this story that even young kids understand are the family dynamics. There’s sibling rivalry and, unless you happen to be an only child, that is something to which most kids can relate. It didn’t take long after our 2nd child, Adelie, was born for her older sister to realize that her life had just changed dramatically and it probably took even less time for Adelie to understand how things had changed when the 3rd was born. There is a sense of competition that erupts when other siblings come on the scene and that rivalry just seems to grow as they get older. Our kids are always more than happy to point out when one of their sisters has done something wrong. Sibling rivalry is not something you teach them it simply exists and so while most siblings do not consider killing their brother or sister as we have in this story, there is certainly a fair amount of antipathy that exists which most kids, or adults, can relate to.
There’s also favoritism that clearly abounds in the story of Joseph and, again, this is something that the vast majority of us understand. Now most parents would tell you that they don’t have a favorite child and perhaps that is the case, however, I bet your children wouldn’t agree and, if you asked them, they’d be more than happy to tell you who they think your favorite is. My sister has always accused me of being my parent’s favorite to which I’ve always said, “Who can blame them?!” Again though, even kids as young as those our age already ask questions like, “Why does she get to sit there,” or “Why did she get to eat that,” to which we reply, “Oh, because we like them a little more than you.” The point is that it is not surprising that kids are drawn to this story.
I have to admit that I think probably the kids that most enjoy this story are those who are younger brothers. For me, as a younger brother, Joseph has always been my patron saint. Being a younger brother is not always an easy thing and so you have to do whatever you can to grab some attention, to stand out. Of course, the best way to do that is to annoy your older siblings. When Joseph tells the story of his dreams people oftentimes think one of two things about him. They either ignore the way that Joseph is rubbing the dreams in his brother’s faces because they think that Joseph must be perfect if he’s in the Bible or on the other extreme they end up thinking that he’s a real arrogant jerk. I would suggest that perhaps he is neither perfect nor arrogant he is simply, an annoying little brother. I feel like I know exactly how he tells them the story about his dreams because it’s how I would have told a story like this to my older sister.
“C’mon guys, come here I have a great story to tell you. You’re going to love it. No, not so close you might mess up this great jacket dad got me. Where’s your coat? Oh yeah, that’s right, dad didn’t get you one. Anyway, let me tell you about this cool dream I had. There we were, binding sheaves together, when all of a sudden mine rose and stood up and you all gathered around it and bowed down to it. How cool is that!” Am I right?” Now, surprise of all surprises, the brothers weren’t overly excited about this, in fact, the narrator tells us twice more in this small section of the story that they hated him. Even more now, because of his dreams and his words.
But little brothers really don’t care that much if their older siblings like what they say or not. In fact, I’ve discovered that most younger siblings don’t really think about the consequences at all about what they say or do to their older siblings until it’s too late and they’re figuratively or literally running for their lives. Which is why, of course, he decides to call them in together again. “Wait, Wait, you won’t believe that I had another dream. C’mon dad, you come around for this one because it includes you as well. This time the sun, moon and eleven stars (in case y’all are wondering that means you) are all bowing down around me. How great is that?! This time, even his father Jacob couldn’t quite swallow what Joseph is saying because he rebukes him by asking whether or not the whole family will bow down before him. So clearly, the rest of the family is not as keen on Joseph’s dreams.
Now I also want to be clear about something which is that when I said that younger brothers don’t care about the consequences or what comes after they annoy their older siblings, I don’t mean they don’t care about what happens in the future. In fact, I think younger brothers (and probably sisters as well) often spend a fair amount of their time thinking about the future. They’re waiting impatiently for the time when things can be different and when they aren’t in the shadow of their older siblings. What Joseph is doing here in his dreams is imagining a different way in the future. In other words, he’s dreaming about whether or not, just because things have always been this way, or because they are the way they are now, means that they have to stay that same way forever. Is it possible that there could be a new way?
Which, not surprisingly, is what bothers the older brothers so much. It isn’t just the sibling rivalry nor just the fact that Joseph is clearly the favorite child, it’s the fact that he’s dreaming of a way that changes everything. The older brothers seem very comfortable with the way things are—they know what to expect, what their role is. The older brothers, in many ways, represent what is the safe and risk-free way of doing things. It’s comfortable, practical, predictable. Dreams are too squishy, too ripe for failure, too scary, too unsettling. Whenever you have someone who dreams there are always older brothers around to try and squelch that dream, to tell you why it can’t happen.
It’s also incredibly interesting to look at the reaction of Joseph’s father. Much like the older brothers he is also a bit offended by Joseph’s dreams. He rebukes Joseph and asks, almost incredulously, whether or not all of them should bow down to him. But then, almost like a throw away line, we are told that Jacob “kept the matter in mind.” He kept the matter in mind. I wonder if that sounds familiar to you? If it does, it may be because it is remarkably close to what Mary says after the shepherds have visited baby Jesus. Mary may not have completely understood what all of this meant right then, but she also couldn’t dismiss it because something rang true about what the shepherds had said. And so likewise, Jacob, while he may not have completely understood what these dreams meant right then, he also couldn’t dismiss it outright because something rang true about what Joseph had said.
And what was it that rang true? Why couldn’t he dismiss it outright, no matter how outlandish it sounded, no matter how much it went against the way things were normally done? Well, because of course, Jacob had done the exact same thing when he was a young man to his older brother. In another great story from most of our childhoods, we heard about Jacob, the younger twin brother who, though born only seconds behind his older brother, should have been subservient to him. And yet, through his own cunning and trickery, Jacob, the younger brother ends up with the birthright and the family inheritance. And then, while Jacob was fleeing from his brother Esau, guess what happened to him? Yes, he had a dream where God told him that he would take care of him and then God makes this great promise of what he was going to give him in the future. Why does Jacob think that what Joseph is saying, what he is dreaming, may not be so outlandish? Because Jacob had gone through the same thing. In fact, as Walter Brueggemann so poignantly puts it, “The father had formed a son to dream.”
Surely, these were the kinds of stories that Joseph heard growing up. About how his father, though younger, had received the inheritance. About how Jacob was alone and afraid when he had this incredible dream where God gave him his call in life, a call that was beyond what he could ever have imagined. This notion that things did not always have to follow a status quo, that God could work through you despite of how the world around you said things should work, that dreams are not something to just easily be dismissed as childish experiences. These things were cultivated by Jacob himself and little Joseph had listened well. He had listened so well that he actually began to believe it.
So, what does this story have to say to us today? I think one of the simple, but important messages of this part of Joseph’s story, it seems to me, is the question of whether or not you are listening to God in such a way that you are open to the new things he is wanting to do through you? From time to time it’s always important for us to ask that question because inevitably the older brothers around us and oftentimes within us, will be there to inhibit our dreaming, our visions of what might be. This doesn’t mean, of course, that we need to be having dreams where people will bow down to us, nor does it mean that every time we follow a dream we think God has given to us that it will be wildly successful (as we’ll see in Joseph’s life his dreams were on the cusp of crumbling many times), but it does mean that we need to be open to how God might be wanting to use us and we need to be convinced that God does want to do something through us.
Many of us have perhaps not been in environments that cultivate dreaming and hoping and visioning something new. Perhaps we’ve been surrounded by those who keep saying no or maybe we have fallen so many times that we’re afraid to get back up, but this part of Joseph’s story is a great reminder that God loves doing new things through us. Of course, this could be almost anything. Sometimes it’s something like a new career that God may be calling us to or maybe it’s a tug that you’ve been feeling to volunteer here or someplace else, but you just keep putting it off. Maybe it’s something radical like moving across the globe or maybe it’s something as simple as walking across the street to meet the neighbor that God has been calling you to meet for at least the last 7 weeks! My guess is that I don’t have to keep naming off things because when I say something like a dream you have or something new you think God is calling you to that most of you know exactly what I’m saying. Maybe this summer is the time for you to try out that dream or at least to give voice to it to someone and let them come alongside of you.
Of course, this is also true of the church as a community. Last week I mentioned how much I appreciate the fact that ZPCers are a people who have real hope that God is at work in their midst and will continue to do so. One of the things, as a younger brother, that I am so joyful of is the fact that many of those who are here at ZPC and a generation ahead of me are those who, like Jacob, had dreams about what God could do through them even when those things were outlandish. Sometimes older generations are accused of not wanting to do anything new or holding up new ideas, but one of the things I am deeply appreciative of us is the many older folks in our congregation who both enjoy reflecting on the things that God has done through them and through the life of ZPC in the past and are also excited about what God can do in the future through them and through ZPC. There is not, in other words, a great fear about what new thing God is going to do
We have to continue to be a place that is not afraid to dream of what new thing God is calling us to. It’s easy for churches to get stuck in ruts or to be afraid of taking chances, but I think God is always wanting us to dream about the new ways that we can love, that we can reach out, that we can help bring God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. I love thinking about this as experiments that we try to see what new thing we can do. Sometimes the experiments will thrive and sometimes we’ll fall flat on our faces. What’s important is not that we succeed every time, but that we are not afraid to dream, not afraid to say what those dreams are and not afraid to try them, no matter what the older brothers might say. As I shared briefly at the congregational meeting we had a few months back we have a couple of teams that are beginning to dream about what God might be calling us to here on the property and out in the community. Who knows what will come of it, but I do know that when we are in the middle of dreaming what God wants us to do then we are right where God wants us to be.
It’s easy, of course, for us to want to hurry on in the story of Joseph and see what happens next, but I think it’s good for us this week to simply ask the question of whether we are in a place to see and hear the dreams that God has in store for us. To ask whether we’ve grown too comfortable to try something new or to afraid to branch into the unknown. My hope and prayer is that just as this has been a place in the past that cultivates dreams of what new things God might do, that we will continue to be a place that encourages you to look for God’s vision in your life and that we will be a community that keeps dreaming, even when we have no idea where those dreams may take us or what it’ll take for us to get there. May we be little brothers and be confident that God has something new in store. May it be so. Amen.