Joseph and his brothers

A sermon for St Luke’s Church, Oxford, 11th September 2023

Readings: Genesis 45: 1-15, Matthew 5: 38-48

This is the start of a sermon series on characters in the Old Testament and how they dealt with the situations they found themselves in.  Today we will be looking at Joseph.

But before doing so – and as a general introduction to the series – there would seem to me to me some basic questions to answer when looking at stories in the Bible. 

Firstly why are the stories there?  There is never any simple answer to this question.  There are always multiple reasons.   Many of the stories are described as if they are historical accounts of real events but some are clearly fictional such as the Parables Jesus told and dare I say it some of the stories in the Old Testament which look like history.  Does it really matter whether a story actually happened or not?   Not really in my view.  It is what they teach us that matters most.  

Secondly are we supposed to follow the example of the hero or heroine of the story?  Not all Biblical characters are perfect by any means.   There are goodies and baddies.   In this series we will be looking at some of the goodies.   But there are no absolute goodies in the Bible except Jesus.   All the heroes and heroines of the Bible turn out to be flawed in some way.  

Noah might have been righteous enough for God to rescue him from the Flood while allowing the rest of humanity to perish for their wickedness but in his old age Noah gets drunk and is found unconscious and naked by his sons.   David might have been Israel’s greatest king but David has an affair with a married woman and then contrives to have her husband killed.  What about Joseph?  Was he a goodie or a baddie or perhaps a bit of both?

Given that there are no absolute goodies except Jesus, I don’t think it is just a matter of following the example of the goodies indiscriminately, nor do I think we can just condemn out of hand the behaviour of the baddies.  But I do think we can learn important truths from what Biblical characters do and what happens to them.     

Thirdly how can we work out what these stories are telling us?  One obvious approach to this is to look at what God does in the story..  God makes a few physical appearances to humans in the Old Testament as when, walking in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the evening, God spoke directly to Adam and Eve, or when God –in the form of three angelic visitors - spoke to Abraham about what was going to happen to him and his ancestors.   In the later books of the Old Testament, God speaks though the prophets.  

But in many stories in the Old Testament God does not make an obvious appearance or speak directly or even indirectly.  In the Book of Ruth which we have studied recently at St Luke’s, God is hardly mentioned, let alone make an appearance. Written at a time when people might look for God to be active through a judge or king, the book of Ruth tells us a story of God instead working through the lives of ordinary people.   So what about the story of Joseph?  Where does God figure in that?

And fourthly, whether God is or is not obviously present in the stories, what do the stories tell us about ourselves and how we should behave towards God and interact with one another?   The Bible provides quite a few instructions from the most basic: ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength’ and ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’, through to the 10 Commandments and on to the laws in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy – not to mention those laws as interpreted and amplified by Jesus.  Many Biblical stories, I would suggest illustrate people following and not following those laws and the consequences.  The story of Ruth, for example is, at least partly, an illustration of the laws about how people are to behave towards foreigners,

So let us ask these four questions of the story of Joseph in turn.   I am rather hoping that most of you will have heard it before or at least seen the Musical by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber – Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat - or read the 1207 page novel by Thomas Mann called Joseph and His Brothers.  There is also an interesting version of the story in the Koran –the Twelfth Surah, the Yusuf Surah–which is shorter than the account we have in the Bible.  The Biblical account is found in Genesis Chapter 37 to 46 and the bit of the story we heard just now comes from near the end where Joseph is at last reconciled with his brothers.  You’ll remember that they had sold him into slavery in Egypt but Joseph – after various adventures – had risen to become Pharaoh’s right hand man and they – driven by a famine – had come to Egypt to buy food.

So firstly why is the story there?  Well one obvious reason is to explain how God’s people – the people of Israel - end up in Egypt as slaves to be rescued by God some 400 years after Joseph’s death when Moses was their leader.  After the reconciliation, Joseph invites – or more accurately commands - his father and brothers to join him in Egypt.  But this story of a clearly dysfunctional family, paternal favouritism, brotherly love and brotherly rivalry, of interpretation of dreams (six in all) of rises and falls in fortune, etc. is too complicated a story to be just providing a reason for the Exodus.

So secondly, is the story about a person or people that the writers think are worth emulating?  The hero of the story is Joseph.   So are we supposed to follow his example?   Joseph is clearly not a particularly admirable character.  You may remember that at the start of the story in Genesis Chapter 37 Joseph tells his brothers of a dream he has just had:  He says to them ‘We were binding sheaves in the field. All of a sudden my sheaf rose up and stood upright, and your sheaves stood around it and bowed down to my sheaf.”  Now this is at best tactless (he is after all only 17 at this point) but at worst it is malevolent because it exacerbates an already difficult family situation where Jacob the father obviously regards Joseph as his favourite.  Joseph then compounds his error by recounting a similar dream.  

Joseph surely bears some responsibility for his brothers’ behaviour towards him even if that gets out of hand.  Joseph is clearly prone to thinking a lot of himself and this is reflected in other parts of the story. It is his self-confidence which leads Joseph, in effect, to abandon his Israelite roots – even when free to do so he doesn’t return to Canaan - if only to reassure hiss supposedly beloved father who thinks he is dead.  Instead Joseph become an Egyptian prince: he even claims to be the father of Pharaohs at one point which would make him a god since Pharaohs were regarded as gods.  In all of this I am not sure we need to emulate Joseph.

But at the climax of the story – the bit of the story that we heard just now  -Joseph forgives his brothers for selling him into slavery in Egypt all those years ago.  He tells them ‘And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you’, reflecting his role in saving the Egyptians, and now the Israelites, from famine.   And in this tale of brotherly rivalry and love ii is Joseph taking the path of forgiveness rather than of revenge that, I think, is being held up for us to emulate.   

But Joseph is not the only son of Jacob that behaves well in this story.  Indeed, it might be said that it is Judah that persuades Joseph to forgive his bothers when Joseph hadn’t decided quite what to do when they make a reappearance in his life.  

Just before the bit of the story we heard just now Judah asks for a word with Joseph in private.  This is in response to Joseph’s trick on his brothers in putting a cup in the luggage of their brother Benjamin and then falsely accusing them of theft.   Judah first pleads for forgiveness for a crime that hasn’t been committed.  Joseph is only demanding recompense from Benjamin on this trumped up charge – he is to remain as Joseph’s slave.

Remember Judah doesn’t apparently know at this point know who he is talking to though perhaps he has guessed by now   Judah then explains that if they were to return to Jacob without Benjamin it would break their father’s heart, as had happened before with another favourite son, and then offers to become Joseph’s slave in exchange.  It seems it is this demonstration that Judah is really sorry for his former involvement in selling Joseph into slavery and that this time when a favourite son of Jacob is in danger he is prepared to sacrifice all for the sake of that brother and his father,  It's this that persuades Joseph to reveal who he really is and tell them that the brothers are forgiven.  

So yes the story does suggest that the actions of characters in the story are worth emulating.  In this case Joseph’s forgiveness of his brother but also Judah stepping up to offer up his freedom for the sake of his brothers and his father.

Now thirdly what is God doing in this story: he doesn’t speak and he doesn’t intervene or at least obviously so.  There are no miracles here.  Even the interpretation of dreams on the part of Joseph seem more common sense than supernatural – though Joseph does claim God’s help in dream interpretation. [Genesis 40: 8].

The narrator of the story – clearly a fan – but not an uncritical fan of Joseph – claims God is with Joseph – even in the bad times.  When Joseph is in gaol (you’ll remember he was there because of being falsely accused of having sex with the wife of a man called Potiphar) the narrator tells us that ‘while Joseph was there in the prison, the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden’.  [39: 22]

And Joseph himself clearly attributes virtually everything that happens to him to God: even to the point of attributing his brothers’ actions in selling him into slavery to God's action.  He tells them ‘God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God; [45: 7]   Do we believe him?   What happens to Joseph leads eventually to the Israelites becoming slaves to the Egyptians.  Was that the work of God?    God’s action in the world is always difficult to discern and it is too simplistic in my view to say that God has helped someone when things seem to going well for them.  God is with us whether things are going well or badly.   But we are also assured by Paul that ‘We know that all things work together for good for those who love God.’ [Romans 8: 28]

This isn’t a story which suggests that if we are good – as Joseph seems to have been once he had arrived in Egypt - things will go well for us.  

So fourthly what do we think the story is mainly about and what can it teach us   I said earlier that stories in the Bible often illustrate God’s instructions for us, in other words God’s way of doing things.  Many of the parables Jesus tells begin with the words: 'The Kingdom of God is like a…'  So I think the story of Joseph is about choosing forgiveness rather than revenge.  Exodus records God telling Moses [Exodus 21: 23-25] ‘If any harm follows [an incident] then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.’   And this principle – known as the Lex Tallionis – is common to all legal systems to this day.   It’s the principle that goal sentences should be longer for more serious crimes, that the punishment should fit the crime. 

But Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount ‘You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.   Joseph working under the old law is surely right to ignore the instruction to take an eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth, or in his case the enslavement of one of the brothers because of his own enslavement at their hands.   He is surely right to take the better path of forgiveness and not go down the path of demanding recompense.

But remember that Joseph first does play tricks on his brothers before he forgives them – by not instantly revealing who he is and then with the cup incident - seemingly to test them to see whether they are worthy of his forgiveness.  Judah, at least, demonstrates that he is.  Forgiveness is never simple and is often costly.  It is a two way process between the forgiver and the forgiven.      

Now recompense and forgiveness are themes that run throughout the Bible.   The story of Jesus shows us that God forgives us for our sins and doesn’t require any recompense: he has paid that already.   And of course the story of Joseph fore-shadows that greater story.