(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on August 20, 2017, Proper 15)
From Feud to Funny Story: The Great Wall of
Pillows
Much of the Old
Testament is about kings and foreign nations, imperial intrigue and war, which
are all very fascinating but are also things that I’ve never experienced in my
life. One of the reasons I love
Genesis is that it’s on my level.
It’s the story of a family.
Fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, arguments and roadtrips. Love and loss and new life. I can understand Genesis.
Growing up, my
brother and I would occasionally have to share a bed. It would usually be at one of those little motels. They were all the same: white, starchy
sheets and two pillows per head.
Neither my brother nor I needed the extra pillow. So instead we put them to good
use. To ensure that neither of us
encroached on the other’s space, we each contributed a pillow to what became
known as The Great Wall of Pillows.
There in the middle of the bed, we built a wall. It was a diplomatic masterpiece,
guaranteeing equal space and a sleep free from flailing arms.
The Great Wall
of Pillows kept the peace between us brothers. Until one morning, when it did not. The Great Wall protected us in the
middle, but it could not protect us at the head or foot of the bed. And that’s where the trouble
happened. One of us had gotten
turned around in the middle of the night.
I don’t know how. All I
remember is my brother crying out in the morning: “Get your feet out of my face!” To which I responded: “Get your face
out of my feet!”
Parental
arbitration did little to resolve the conflict. We were fuming for minutes. It was not until a half-hour later, when we had made our way
through the motel’s cereal bar and were forced to sit at the same table, that
peace returned and the feet-in-face skirmish was put behind us.
In fact, in the
days and years to follow, that incident took on an entirely different tone and
meaning. It became a joke, part of
the family mythology, a tale told to kindle laughter and good cheer.
A Forgiveness That Takes Time and Tears
Today’s
scripture is also a tale of brotherly conflict and reconciliation. But here the conflict is not simply a
matter of sleeping space and feet-in-face. It is a matter of one brother whose self-important dreams
are a kick in the face of the other brothers, who hit back by selling him into
slavery. And here the
reconciliation is not a matter of minutes but of years. The reunion happens not over cereal but
over hugs and wordless tears.
If you remember
the story, after Joseph goes to Egypt as a slave, he rises from rags to
riches. He becomes a governor of
Egypt. Then, twenty-three years
after his brothers sold him into slavery, they encounter one another
again. A famine has driven the
brothers down to Egypt to seek food.
They do not recognize Joseph, but he recognizes them. He does not, however, reveal himself
immediately. Several times we are
told that Joseph cannot keep from weeping and must remove himself from their
company.[1] He clearly is torn. Part of him must want to reveal
himself. But another part
resists. Why open the lid on a
painful past? Why revisit such a
hurtful history?
When he does
finally reveal himself, we see that his brothers are similarly
conflicted—confused. How could
this possibly be the brother they left for dead? More importantly, how can they trust his goodwill? The story tells us that initially they
cannot even answer him, so stunned are they. According to the storyteller, only after Joseph has wept and
embraced them can they talk to him (cf. 45:14-15).
In other words, this isn’t a simple
end to a brotherly squabble, the easy half-hour resolution to a sitcom
drama. Forgiveness sometimes takes
a whole lot more than cereal. In
the story of Joseph, forgiveness takes time, and it takes tears. Joseph does not simply reconcile with
the brothers who left him for dead.
It takes him months to open himself up to them. And likewise, the brothers do not
simply receive his forgiveness and carry on like their offense never
happened. It takes tears and hugs
to liberate them from the past.[2]
Traditionally a Tale of Divine Providence
Traditionally
the story of Joseph is read as a tale of divine providence. As Joseph himself says, “Do not be
distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me
before you to preserve life” (45:5).
In other words, you thought you were selling me, but really God was
sending me. To many readers, these
words suggest the image of a divine puppeteer hidden behind the clouds,
imperceptibly directing the drama toward survival. Everything that has happened—their father’s lopsided love,
Joseph’s self-important dreams, the brothers’ hate, Joseph’s slavery, his
rags-to-riches glory in Egypt—all of this has been invisibly choreographed by a
divine director. God orchestrated
Joseph’s roller-coaster journey so that he would end up as governor of Egypt,
where he could then provide food for his famine-stricken family. That, according to many readers, is the
miracle in Joseph’s story.
But what good would it have been—all the
twisted events of Joseph’s journey—if at the final moment he and his brothers
had not reconciled? Imagine for a
moment that Joseph didn’t reveal himself, but instead simply gave his brothers
food and sent them on their way.
They would have returned home to a father still grieving the mysterious
loss of his son. They would have
returned home still broken themselves, restless with the guilt of the
past. And Joseph would have
remained in Egypt, confused and teary-eyed. What sort of life would that have been?
What Really Saved Their Lives?
The question I want to ask, then, is what
really saved the lives of Joseph and his brothers? Was it a hand in the sky, orchestrating events just for
them? Is that really where God’s
power lies?
When Joseph says
to his brothers, “Do not be distressed…because you sold me here; for God sent
me before you to preserve life,” I don’t think he’s theologizing. I think he’s forgiving. I don’t think he’s theorizing about God
and providence and omnipotence, I think he’s liberating his brothers and
himself from the past.
Normally there
are deeds and there are consequences.
Normally the past determines the future. But forgiveness disrupts the normal order of time. Forgiveness throws a wrench inside the
gears and chains of time, separating deed from consequence, crime from guilt,
wrongdoing from revenge. Forgiveness
means that our story can be changed.
Forgiveness is the way our story gets edited. You can never erase what happened, but you can cross through it and write in a new meaning. That’s precisely what Joseph does. Listen again to what he says: “Do not
be distressed…because you sold me here”—in other words, you sold me here, but let’s
cross through the original meaning of wrongdoing and guilt—“for God sent me
before you to preserve life”—which is to say, let’s put a twist on the story
(45:5). I will not hold your crime
against you. Quite the opposite, I
will seek instead the opportunities that it has offered, which include not only
saving the famine-stricken lives of many but also reconciling with you.
What really
saved the lives of Joseph and his brothers? Was it the food Joseph provided? That gave them biological life, for sure, but just because a
heart pumps blood doesn’t mean it pumps love and life. In my eyes, what really saved
everyone’s life—the real miracle of the story—is not the fortuitous twist of
events that put Joseph into power and his brothers back in his presence. What really saved their lives is
forgiveness. It is the twist that
Joseph puts on the past, which gives him and his brothers their lives back.
The Miracle That Gives the Past a New Meaning
In the case of
my brother and me, forgiveness transformed a fraternal feud of feet-versus-face
into a tale of laughter and good cheer.
In the case of Joseph and his brothers, forgiveness turned a hateful
conflict into an opportunity for saving the lives of not only the hungry but
also the heartbroken.
I wonder about
today. Our nation bears many wounds wrought by a hurtful past. These wounds cannot be undone. But they can be healed. The past cannot be erased, but it can
be edited. History cannot be
unwritten, but it can be overwritten with a new meaning. The power of God is not the power of an
omnipotent puppeteer. It is the
power of the heart, the miracle of forgiveness, the only thing that can
transform a hurtful past into a healthy future.
But here’s the
difficult thing. Who forgives
whom? Normally we would read
today’s scripture and say, Okay, I need to forgive others. Normally as Christ-followers, we think
of ourselves as the agents of forgiveness. But for myself, I wonder if this time I’m not on the other
side of the fence.
I’m not the
wounded one. I’m the one who went
from strength to strength, unimpeded by poverty or a broken home or underfunded
education or inadequate transportation or student loans or the prejudices of
people who give grants and scholarship and jobs to people who look and talk
like them. I’m the one who has
lived as if there’s no problem, the one who’s said, “Peace, peace,” when there
is no peace. I’m the one who has
been complicit, and by complicit, I mean not asking questions and not seeking
answers; I mean wanting to turn the news off before I hear about someone else
who has been hurt by a culture that has never really hurt me. I’m not the wounded one. I’ve been the one who wants to pretend
like there’s no wound. I’m the one
who needs the miracle of forgiveness.
Only then could there be true reconciliation like there was between
Joseph and his brothers, or my brother and me.
Forgiveness can overwrite
a hurtful history with a new meaning.
But it must begin with the hurtful history. How can there be forgiveness where we do not confess our
sins? In Montgomery, Alabama,
which used to be one of the busiest slave ports in the US, there are 59 markers
that commemorate and celebrate the Confederacy but not a single marker that
acknowledges slavery. How can
there be forgiveness where we do not confess our sins? “It took only ten years to erect a
memorial to the victims of September 11,” but “to this day there is no national
monument to slavery.” How can
there be forgiveness where we do not confess our sins?[3]
Forgiveness is
neither simple nor easy. Today’s
scripture shows that plainly enough.
To confront the sin of the past takes time, and it takes tears.
Mark Heyer, the
father of the young woman whose life was taken by a white supremacist, recently
spoke about forgiveness. He had
tears in his eyes. He had a long,
slow future in his eyes. “I hope all this stuff that’s come out,” he said,
“isn’t twisted into something negative but there comes a positive change in
people’s hearts, in their thinking, in their understanding of their neighbor.”[4]
I hope so too. I hope that forgiveness can cross
through the hurt of history and write in a new meaning. It is the only hope we have for the
future. What has happened—last
weekend, these last five hundred years—cannot be undone. But it can be healed.
Prayer
Christ,
Whose power is not of the fist
But of the heart,
Whose forgiveness
Writes a new story:
Humble us
To walk the long, tearful path
Of forgiveness,
With those we have wounded
And those who have wounded us.
We trust that new life
Can come from anywhere,
Even a cross,
Even a grave.
Amen.
[1] Gen 42:24;
43:30; 45:1-2.
[2] In fact, it
takes years too. After their
father dies, they become frightened again that Joseph will turn on them. Joseph must repeat his forgiveness (cf.
50:15-21).
[3] This
analysis comes from D. L. Mayfield’s excellent essay, “Facing Our Legacy of
Lynching,” http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2017/september/legacy-lynching-america-christians-repentance.html,
accessed August 19, 2017.
[4] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/charlottesville-protests-latest-heather-heyer-father-mark-forgives-james-fields-killing-his-daughter-a7894996.html,
accessed August 16, 2017.
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