September 27, 2020
Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS
Everyone I talk to lately seems to be struggling a bit to find balance. Living through a pandemic is no joke. Doing it in a major election year is no joke. I know so many of you are people with compassionate hearts and a deep thirst for justice and peace. And so you do your best to stay informed, stay engaged with the world around you. You get up each day and try to figure out how you can make a difference in your corner of the world. Thank you.
Often, the relentless news cycle makes it hard to find balance, though, doesn’t it? How much information is the right amount of information to make us useful? When does it tip over into overwhelm and cause us to shut down? How can we sit with the heaviness we feel when we contemplate the immensity of over 200,000 lives lost in the United States alone in just the past six months?
It’s a catastrophe that’s hard to fathom.
Our hearts break and we cry out, “God, have mercy. God, be with us. God, help us.”
One of the things I find helpful is to balance my consumption of current events with older stories. Poetry, art, music, ancient stories that have been passed down from generation to generation ground me. They feel as though they are somehow etched into our DNA. These older stories can sometimes provide the anchoring we need in the midst of a non-stop news cycle. These old, old stories remind us that now is not forever and that we are not the first ones to deal with many of the issues plaguing us today. Within their lines and songs are deep truths about what it means to be human - the unending cycle of tragedy and triumph, sin and repentance, division and reconciliation, slavery and freedom.
Can I tell you an old story this morning? Can we let the urgency of today slip away for just a few brief moments? Not that today’s stories don’t matter - they do, of course. But it is good to remember the old stories, too. To be anchored in deep truths so that we can have the stamina and courage we need to meet the stories of today.
Today I’d like to tell you the story of a man named Joseph.
Joseph has 11 brothers and one sister. And It turns out that Joseph and his brothers don’t get along because Joseph is their father, Jacob’s, favorite son and gets special treatment. Like, you know, that awesome coat there’s a whole musical about.
Joseph also has dreams and he’s kind of an oversharer. Perhaps the right word is “precocious.” In his dreams he is always the special one and he tells his brothers about these dreams. They get pretty tired of it and eventually they plot to kill Joseph. But Reuben, the eldest brother, intervenes and decides it would be better to just steal his special coat and throw him into a pit.
While he’s in the pit, the brothers sit down to have their lunch and they hatch a new plan. They can sell Joseph into slavery and make a little money. Plus, they’ll be rid of him for good. Joseph is taken to Egypt, enslaved, and the brothers tell their father Joseph has mysteriously died.
Years pass and Joseph rises to prominence in Egypt. He is still a dreamer and he has found favor with the elites by interpreting their dreams. He helps the Pharaoh plan for an upcoming famine because he sees it coming in the dreams. When the famine arrives, the Egyptians - thanks to Joseph - have rationed food so that they will have enough in the lean years.
People in surrounding areas who have not planned ahead flock to Egypt for help. And that is how Joseph, having last seen the faces of his brothers jeering at him as he stumbled away with his captors, comes face-to-face with ten of his brothers once again. Only this time the roles are reversed.
Just as he had dreamed as a child, Joseph is finally lording over his brothers, quite literally. As the second-most-powerful man in all of Egypt, his brothers do not recognize their baby brother. My guess is he was long-thought to be dead and mostly forgotten.
But not forgotten by his father, Jacob, who still lives in the land of Canaan and still hopes against hope that his favorite son might still be alive. And not forgotten by God, who was quietly working in and through Joseph’s life in ways that even Joseph doesn’t quite understand.
Joseph recognizes his brothers immediately and decides to have some fun at their expense. If you’ve ever had a hard time forgiving someone for the pain they’ve inflicted upon you….if you’ve ever dreamed of revenge, well, know you’re not alone. Just look at what Joseph does.
He accuses them of being spies. And when he learns that his father is still living and his younger brother Benjamin, his only connection to his deceased mother, is still alive, he concocts a plan that will both punish his other brothers and reunite him with his father and Benjamin. He throws the whole lot of brothers, all ten of them, in jail for three days. And then he releases 9 of them - all but Simeon, who he keeps as collateral. “Bring me your little brother Benjamin,” he says, “And I’ll return Simeon to you.”
The brothers weep and moan. Surely they are being punished for their ancient sin of selling the long-lost Joseph into slavery. Joseph, overhearing their struggle, turns his face and weeps - ancient wounds reopened, fantasies of what his life might have been if that one moment had just got differently.
Before they return to Canaan, Joseph has their bags filled with grain. And then, just to mess with their heads and make sure they’re good and scared, he has the money they brought with them to buy the grain placed on top. When they return home they discover it and are terrified. Now they’re really going to be in trouble when they return.
The brothers try to explain the situation to their dad, who - having lost one son already, is not too pleased that Simeon is missing. The brothers say that they have to return with Benjamin but Jacob is not having it. Finally, they convince him to let Benjamin go...but only because the grain has run out, everyone is starving, and Judah pledges his own life as surety for Benjamin’s. He promises Benjamin will return.
Back to Egypt they go. Again, they encounter the mighty Joseph-that-they-don’t-know-is-Joseph. Joseph is thrilled to see Benjamin but does his best to conceal it. A big party is thrown and everyone feasts together. Joseph orders their sacks to be filled with grain once again and that they should not only be given their money back but extra.
Overcome with a desperate need to keep Benjamin close, he does the only thing he can think of. Joseph frames his little brother - placing a silver cup inside his bag - and then sends his stewards to go and confront him, telling the men that Benjamin will have to be returned to Egypt - permanently.
Well, this will not do. Judah, after all, made a promise to his father that Benjamin would return. He explains as much to Joseph. Judah pleads to give himself in exchange for Benjamin. “If Benjamin does not return to our father,” he explains, “It will kill him.”
Joseph, perhaps hearing the desperation in Judah’s voice, cannot keep up the ruse any longer. He sends everyone except his brothers away and reveals his true identity. The years of pain and grief and anger and anguish have caught up with him and he says, quite simply, “I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?”
So many things that could be said. But he says the two things that really matter to him. First, that he is still Joseph. That has not changed despite years of distance, years of estrangement in another land. And secondly, “Is my father still alive?” No longer a child, but a grown man, he still yearns with hope for that one thing: his father’s arms.
Once Joseph finally calms down enough to begin to explain all that has transpired he does something that I’ve always found fascinating. He tells the deepest truth of his soul - the thing that has allowed him to keep going all these years in the face of great adversity. Joseph says that it is his belief that it wasn’t really his brothers who were responsible for his life, but God. That in the midst of all this pain and agony, God has been working to guide Joseph and use even the painful parts of his life for good.
Now that all the secrets have come out, and meaning has been made, there’s just one thing that remains: Joseph must be reunited with his father. When Joseph and Jacob are reunited - well, you already know what it looks like, right? Two big guys falling on each other’s necks and weeping. Finally, Jacob lets go and looks full into his beloved son’s face, saying, “I can die now, having seen for myself that you are still alive.”
And that seems like a good place to stop, but, honestly? It’s hard to know exactly where the story ends. Because there’s more. More tragedy and more triumph, more pain and more reconciliation. That’s what it means to be human and living in the ever-encircling embrace of God, right? That there’s always more. Our stories intertwine and echo down through the generations, going on and on.
I love how Joseph’s story points to The More in several spots:
When Jacob is on his deathbed he calls Joseph to his side and demands that he bring along his two sons. His vision dimmed by his old age, Jacob kisses and embraces his two grandsons. And Jacob says to Joseph, “I did not expect I’d ever see YOU again….and, look here, God has also let me see the faces of your children as well.”
Amen.
And then, at the very end of the book of Genesis, we are told that Joseph lives to the ripe age of 110 and lives to see several generations come after him. On his deathbed, he said to his brothers, “I am about to die. But God is not done with us yet. I believe - I know, in my heart of hearts - that one day our people will leave Egypt again. We will be brought out of this place and brought up into the land that the God of our ancestors promised to Abraham and Sarah, to Isaac and Rebekah, and to our own parents. Our people will be brought into that land flowing with milk and honey. God will not forget his promises to us. And when that day comes, you will carry up my bones from here. My bones will also travel that freedom road.”
Which leaves me, of course, thumbing ahead in my Bible to the book of Exodus to see what’s next. Is Joseph right? Do his bones really travel with the Israelites when they leave Egypt? What’s the next part of the story? Is there More?
And so the cycle continues….on and on….tragedy and triumph, sin and repentance, division and reconciliation, slavery and freedom. It’s a story of more...and more...and more. And God is with us through it all, weaving our stories together in love, traveling with us through the past, the present, the future.
Love without end.
Amen.
