Will Alignment (1 Sam 1:9-11, 19-20; 2:1-10)

The Power of Purr

Have you heard the gospel according to cats? Purr changes things! (I know you don’t come here for the jokes.)

Today’s scripture would certainly seem to support the sentiment, though. Prayer does change things. But lest we jump too quickly to any conclusions, I would like to keep one question open. What, exactly, does prayer change?

Not a Transaction

It is one of the most beloved storylines in ancient Israelite tradition. A barren woman miraculously gives birth to a child. What better story to illustrate grace, the giftedness of life, the goodness that is not of our own making but from God the Giver of good gifts? 

In today’s iteration of the story, Hannah “pours out her soul before the Lord,” the Lord “remembers” her, and she “conceives and bears a son” (1 Sam 1:16, 19-20). It seems like a cut-and-dried case of prayers being answered. The priest Eli suggests as much when he says, “May the God of Israel grant the petition you have made to him” (1 Sam 1:17).

But this straightforward interpretation of “prayers answered” does not rest easy with me. For one thing, scripture itself is curiously reticent to attribute Hannah’s pregnancy directly to God. Whereas in previous cases (such as the matriarchs Sarah and Rebekah and Leah and Rachel), scripture designates God as responsible for the barren woman’s conceiving and bearing a child, saying something like, “God opened her womb” (e.g., Gen 30:22), in today’s passage the narrator simply says “the Lord remembered her” (1 Sam 1:19). Perhaps we’re meant to connect the dots and assume that God’s remembering Hannah led straight to God’s opening her womb. But we could also interpret God’s remembering Hannah as a simple expression of God’s companionship and care. God heard her prayer, and God will not leave her side in the midst of her travails.

This interpretation—that God hears and cares but does not necessarily wave the magic wand—recommends itself to me on one simple basis: reality. That is, I know several individuals who have been desperate for a child, whose prayers have not been answered in such direct fashion. More generally, I think we are all familiar with the experience of praying desperately for something—a cure, perhaps, or a reconciliation, or a windfall—and it never comes.

To me, it seems that an oversimplified reading of Hannah’s story as “prayers answered” founders on the rocks of reality, on the stony shoreline of our own actual experience. We have all learned the hard way this lesson: whatever prayer is, it is not a transaction. It is not a straightforward matter of getting what we ask for.

Getting Honest with God

Perhaps part of what inclines us toward reading Hannah’s prayer as transactional is that we read it as one single, decisive prayer. But in fact, the surrounding verses make it clear that this particular prayer is one among many. Year after year, Hannah has gone up to the temple with her husband Elkanah, and every year it ends in tears (cf. 1 Sam 1:7). Why? Elkanah’s other wife, Penninah, “provokes her severely” because she has no children (1 Sam 1:6). I imagine Penninah doing this in the most infuriating way. You know, never saying anything directly, but rather complaining about all the “problems” of having children. “Oh, what am I going to do this year? My boys and girls have outgrown their best clothes—what will they possibly wear to the temple?” Or, “I wish my babies would stop crying in the middle of worship—it’s so embarrassing.” And yet she says it all with a smile. “The gall of that woman,” Hannah would have thought to herself, “to talk about the blessing of children as a burden. What I wouldn’t do for her ‘burden’!"

For his part, Elkanah tries to reassure Hannah. He gives her twice the sacrificial meat that he gives to Penninah and his children. He tells her the truth: she is his favorite. He prefers her to Penninah. “Why is your heart sad?” he asks. “Am I not more to you than ten sons?” (1 Sam 1:5, 8).

And yet Hannah cries. Every year, she cries. We don’t know the particular words that she prays the previous years, but we do not need to know the particular words. The tears tell us all we need to know. Hannah is getting honest with God. She is praying her heart. Maybe it is anger and resentment toward Peninnah. Maybe like the psalmist, she prays, “Such are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches. All in vain I have kept my heart clean…. For all day long I have been plagued, and am punished every morning” (Ps 73:12-14). Maybe her prayer is more inclined toward despair and self-pity, as when the psalmist prays, “I say to God, my rock, ‘Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppressed me?’ As with a deadly wound in my body, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me continually, ‘Where is your God?’” (Ps 42:9-10). 

Whatever the content of her prayers, it is perhaps the simple fact that she even prays in the first place that is most instructive. Most people in Hannah’s situation would likely be tempted to look for their identity in their achievements and in what others think of them. In the case of barrenness, which was looked upon in ancient Israelite culture as a grave failure at best or God’s judgment at worst, a woman might do as the matriarchs Sarah and Rachel do, and try to find a surrogate mother. A son to their name was better than no son at all. Or another woman might find security and satisfaction in her husband’s love and favoritism. She might even occasionally flaunt her husband’s love and favoritism in the face of her rival (not unlike the way Joseph flaunts Jacob’s favoritism in front of his brothers). 

But Hannah does neither of these things. She does not look for her identity and worth in either her achievements or what others think of her. Instead, she places herself before God and expresses her honest, messy feelings. Year after year, she turns toward God. 

A Desert Interlude: Getting Closer to God

And here is my suspicion. Here is my interpretation. Year after year, through one honest, messy prayer after another—there is change. But it is not Hannah wearing God down, like water on stone. It is God slowly transforming Hannah’s heart. 

I’m reminded here of a couple of anecdotes that come from the Desert Mothers and Fathers (those Christ-followers who retreated to the wilderness once Christianity had become the official religion of the Roman Empire and the church started feeling more like a tool of Caesar than the body of Christ).

The first anecdote is just a saying attributed to Abba Ammonas, “I have spent fourteen years [here] asking God night and day to grant me the victory over anger.” Fourteen years. That is not the kind of testimonial for prayer that you would hear from a televangelist. Who wants to wait around fourteen years to get what they ask for?

The second anecdote comes from Amma Syncletica, who explains that enjoying the presence of God involves prayer and tears. “There is struggling and toil at first for all those advancing toward God; but afterward, my children, inexpressible joy. Indeed, just as those seeking to light a fire at first are engulfed in smoke and teary-eyed, thus they obtain what they seek…. So, we ought to kindle the Divine Fire in ourselves with tears and toil.”

Tears and toil. Again, not a very attractive testimonial for prayer. But what strikes me about Amma Syncletica’s teaching is that she frames the object of prayer not as getting what you want, but as getting close to God (“advancing toward God”). And that, she says, is “inexpressible joy.”

Not Mine, but Yours 

The only prayer of Hannah’s that we actually get to hear is the last one, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence. In her final prayer, we see the fruit of her years of prayer. We see her transformation. If originally her honest prayers were for a son that would bring her personal fulfillment, her final prayer makes clear that it is no longer a matter of personal fulfillment. She lets go of her son before she ever comes to hold him and effectively tells God, “He will not be mine; he will be yours.” Which, perhaps, is the difficult truth of all parenthood. Perhaps Hannah is only accepting the reality of her situation, whether she has a child or not, and entrusting God with whatever happens.

I’m reminded of Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane: “If it is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not what I want but what you want” (Matt 26:39). Jesus’ prayer follows a remarkably similar arc to Hannah’s. First there is honesty. For Jesus, the honesty of wanting something other than a cross. For Hannah, the honesty of wanting a child so she can be seen as normal, complete, a respectable Israelite woman. But then this honesty, which may begin as messy and even selfish, naturally opens up and matures into a desire for God’s will. This honesty grows into the awareness that God’s will is in fact what is best for us. And therefore it becomes our will too.

When Hannah leaves her son Samuel at the temple, probably around the age of three, she prays one more time. It is not a tearful prayer, although I would be surprised if there weren’t some tears in her eyes. Instead it is a triumphant prayer, glorifying not only what God has done in Hannah’s particular situation, but what God is doing throughout the world: breaking the power of the prideful, guarding the faithful, lifting up the lowly. In other words, it is not a selfish prayer but selfless, celebrating what God is doing all over the world. And, for me, the key to the prayer is toward the end: “For not by might does one prevail” (1 Sam 2:9). How does one prevail? Through honest, messy prayer. Prayer that slowly changes us, maybe through years and tears and trials, gradually aligning our will with God’s will. It is, as Amma Syncletica says, “an inexpressible joy”—not to get what we first want, but ultimately to be with God and to give flesh to God’s goodness in our world.

Prayer

Compassionate God,

Who is always with us in prayer—

May Hannah’s example inspire us

To be courageous and honest with you,

To pray messy prayers,

To be changed according to your will.

In Christ, who prayed, “Your will be done.” Amen.

God's Long Nose (Exodus 32:1-14)

Not What I Expected

I was at that age when mowing the lawn had not yet become a chore. It was still a thrill to start an engine by the strength of my arm, to see the immediate results of my labor, to feel like I was useful. To feel like I was an adult.

We were visiting my grandparents. Granddad had recently purchased a semi-self-propelled lawnmower. As the grass was getting long, I volunteered to cut it. The lawnmower’s self-propulsion just added to my excitement. I would race around his lawn and be done in no time.

Perhaps I was mowing in haste. As I neared the house, I did not account for the protective plastic guard on one of the basement shelf windows and—crack! I had run straight into it, making a large and visible hole. As I finished what remained of the lawn, I sank ever deeper into a state of worry. I’d never seen Granddad angry at anyone, much less me, but that didn’t stop my imagination. I envisioned a host of scenarios: Granddad quiet and crestfallen, sorry that he had entrusted his grandson with this responsibility; or Granddad with eyes wide open in disbelief and breathing heavy sighs of frustration; or Granddad with pursed lips and contemplating matters of punishment or repayment.

Perhaps you’re familiar with the acronym F.E.A.R? “False expectations appearing real”? That certainly proved true in this case. Granddad probably saw the fear on my face. He just gave me a big hug and said, “Oh, that’s an easy fix. I’m just grateful I don’t have to mow the lawn!” And that was that. As I remember, we went out later that night and played putt-putt.

An Impatient People, an Impatient God

Moses has been away on the mountain for forty days, and the people of Israel are getting impatient. If the golden calf is a symbol of Israel’s infidelity, then it must be remembered that their infidelity is a symptom of their impatience. Only after forty days have passed and they’ve heard nothing from Moses or God do they cry out to Aaron to fashion some gods to replace Moses. Aaron’s proposal that they make sacrifices before these gods as part of a “festival to the Lord” suggests that these gods are more of a visual stand-in for Moses than an actual replacement for God (Ex 32:5). The people are impatient to have a figurehead, an intermediary, someone or something that can assure them of their relationship with God. 

We might be conditioned against speaking ill of God, but allow me to call it like I see it. God is just as impatient and reactive as his own people. It’s like looking into a mirror. God has an extraordinarily short fuse here. He tells Moses, “Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them”—or as it says in the Hebrew (and this is crucial, remember this!): “So that my nose may burn hot against them” (Ex 32:10).

This impatient, violent God is very much in keeping with the other gods of the ancient Near East. You might find it interesting to know that Israel’s neighbors had their own version of the flood story, but with some key differences. Most salient among these differences is the reason for the flood. The humans on earth are making too much of a racket, and the gods cannot get any sleep. So finally they settle on a solution: let’s flood the earth! All for the sake of catching a few winks…. It’s not unlike what we see in today’s scripture, where God nearly goes nuclear on Israel within moments.

The Evolution of “God”

Only because of Moses do the people of Israel live to see another day. In today’s scripture, Moses behaves more like God than God behaves like God. He pleads with God to have some patience: “Turn from your fierce wrath,” or literally, “Turn from the burning of your nose” (remember this odd expression!). “Change  your mind!” Moses implores (Ex 32:12). And then, lo and behold! “The Lord changed his mind” (Ex 32:14). 

I don’t know what’s more troubling in this passage. That God initially has the patience of a four year old, or that God’s plans and purposes change in the blink of an eye. Either way, this is not a God I would feel very safe with. [I wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving my nephews in his care.]

I wonder, though, if something else isn’t going on in today’s passage. The resemblance that God initially bears to the gods of Israel’s neighbors, gods who would kill for a wink of sleep, gods who look an awful lot like oversized humans—perhaps this resemblance represents Israel’s expectation. Just as I imagined that Granddad would be upset with me, so Israel imagines a God who operates the way their world operates, with impatience, with vengeance. And just as my expectations were met with the opposite reality, so too were Israel’s. 

One way of reading today’s story is that it shows us not an evolution in God’s character but an evolution in the way Israel thinks about God. The story begins with Israel’s fear of a god who looks a lot like us, all-too-human, impatient and wrathful. But the story’s conclusion reveals a very different God. When we hear at the story’s end, “The Lord changed his mind” (Ex 32:14), what we’re really hearing is that Israel changed its mind about the Lord. It is not God who repents from his impatient wrath, but Israel who begins to repent (i.e., change its mind) from such an image of God. Israel is catching a glimpse of God’s true character, which is not an eye for an eye, not evil for evil.

“Long of Nose”

A little while later in the story, when God renews the covenant with Israel and makes new tablets to replace the ones that Moses broke, God passes directly before Moses, and Moses hears a declaration of God’s character: “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Ex 34:6). “Slow to anger” translates literally to “long of nose,” which is a sort of repudiation of what we saw earlier, when God’s nose burned immediately against Israel. “Long of nose” was the Hebrew way of saying you had a long fuse—your nose didn’t burn so quickly!

I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that this revelation of God’s “long nose” is a pivotal moment in Israel’s evolving faith. Israel discovered that their God was strikingly different from the gods of the world in this particular way: God had a long nose! God was patient! People like to draw a contrast between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament, saying the Old Testament God is violent and vengeful, and the New Testament God is peaceful and forgiving. But the truth is more complicated. All of the peaceful and forgiving representations of God that we see in the New Testament—they do not appear out of thin air. They come from the Old Testament. 

Jesus frequently cites scripture, and one of the books that he draws from most often is Isaiah. I don’t think this is a coincidence. Isaiah seems to have an especially acute sense for the peculiarity of God’s patience. It is Isaiah who anticipates the covenant of love that Jesus will embody (cf. Isa 55), and in this passage he proclaims: “Let [the wicked] return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them…For ‘my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways,’ says the Lord” (Isa 55:7-8). In other words, the human inclination is to return like for like, to reward good with good, and return evil with evil. But God’s thoughts are not ours, nor God’s way ours. God is patient. God is merciful.

A Patient God, a Patient People

The earliest followers of Christ understood patience to be part of their unique heritage and witness. The first virtue that received the treatment of an entire book? Patience. The distinctive behavior that drew the attention and curiosity of outsiders? Patience. Justin Martyr, writing in the 2nd century CE, observes that the “strange patience” of Christ-followers who had been injured by others or who were doing business with others, was uniquely attractive. Perhaps they were forgiving debts, or not collecting with interest, or not seeking charges against their wrongdoers—we don’t know the specifics. All we know is that their patience marked them as different than everyone else.

And it all comes back to our long-nosed God, I think. They say you become what you worship. If you worship power, the world becomes a battlefield. If you worship money, the world becomes a marketplace. If you worship a God of steadfast and patient love, the world becomes a community, a family. 

This World Communion Sunday, when we celebrate the universal invitation and welcome of our Lord’s table, it is fitting that we remember our long-nosed God. Jesus models for us the patience of our father in his table manners. Eating with tax collectors and sinners, kneeling down and serving others, Jesus shows us that the point is not being in control and achieving certain results, but about caring for others and trusting in the power of God’s love to heal and transform. 

At the table, Jesus holds out hope that one day we will all be gathered together at the great family reunion of God’s love.

Prayer

Patient God,

Whose kindness opens the door

To repentance and new life:

Change our minds about you

And make our hearts like yours,

Hopeful, open, and strong

…

Instruct us in the ways of your patience

That we might be saltier, brighter witnesses,

To your kingdom of love.

In Christ, the patience of God incarnate: Amen.

"What the Lord Did for Me" (Ex 12:1-13; 13:1-8)

A Bad Dream

“I wanted it all,” the middle-aged man confessed, his hands open wide, his head pointed down and shaking. “I wanted a super ethical job, so that I could feel like I was making a real difference in the world. And I also wanted to be super rich; I wanted to make more money than all my friends and be at the top of the ladder. I wanted a loving wife who was faithful to me. And I also wanted the freedom to…you know, meet other people. I wanted the comforts of a quiet home in the suburbs, where I could play catch with my son in the backyard. And I also wanted the thrills of nights on the town and flights to tourist hotspots across the world.

“I wanted everything. I guess that’s the American dream, right? Freedom and the pursuit of happiness? But for me, it was a bad dream. A nightmare. The more I pursued happiness, the more I unraveled. I became a master manipulator, but that meant I was always hiding something, always lying about something, always treating other people as objects or obstacles. It was exhausting. I was running myself ragged. And it was deeply unsatisfying—like trying to quench your thirst with salt water.

“Today, things are different. I learned through hard experience that life is actually richer within limits. Before, I chased what I didn’t have, and I couldn’t keep up with what I’d ‘got.’ I didn’t know who I was. Now, I’m walking only one path instead of four or five. And the great thing is, I feel free.”

“The Gods of Egypt”

When I read our scripture for today earlier this week, something jumped out at me that I had never considered before. We typically tell the story of the Israelites in Egypt as a tale of slaves and oppressors. And we’re not wrong. This is effectively how Moses commands the people to remember the story: “Remember this day on which you came out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Ex 13:3). But the way God tells the story suggests an additional dimension that is often overlooked: “For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and…on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments” (Ex 12:12). In other words, God is ultimately fighting not against the “flesh and blood” of the Egyptian oppressors, but against the “gods of Egypt”—or as Paul would later put it, “against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil” (Eph 6:12).

By highlighting this spiritual dimension of the story, I do not mean to dismiss or diminish the horrors of physical enslavement (whether of the Israelites or any other person or people). I mean only to point out and remember that the real roots of these horrors are spiritual, and therefore the real struggle is ultimately spiritual, as Paul said.

What I realized this time when I read the story is that the Israelites are not the only people who are enslaved. What enslaved the Israelites, enslaved their oppressors too: the gods of Egypt. 

And what were the gods of Egypt? I imagine they are the same gods who afflicted the man whose confession we heard earlier, gods like Greed, Impatience, Lust, and Anger. I imagine the devil doesn’t discriminate between nations or flags and that the gods of Egypt are not too different from the gods of the “American Dream.” We may have done away here with the “peculiar institution” as it was once obliquely called, but the god of greed that protected that brutality for centuries is still worshiped here. And the other gods? Anger and Hatred are worshiped daily at the altar of partisan politics, transforming the ballot box into a battleground. Lust is routinely worshiped at the altar of the screen, which is everywhere, even in our hands, always multiplying our desires. Impatience gathers devotees at the altar of technology, where we are conditioned to expect instant gratification and solutions to every problem.

“Remember!”

How exactly does God execute judgment against “the gods of Egypt”? I suppose this question is open for debate. Some people might read the story at face value and say that the plagues and the drowning of the Egyptian army in the sea are God’s judgment. But it’s difficult for me to read these experiences as God’s judgment, because it’s difficult for me to see Jesus in them. I have trouble envisioning Jesus afflicting a people with plague after plague and then massacring them at the sea. I believe that Jesus is what God looks like (cf. John 1; Col 1:15)—or  that, as Paul said, “in [Jesus] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things” (Col 1:20). So, if I have trouble seeing Jesus in something, I have trouble seeing God there too.

I’m more inclined to read God’s judgment against “the gods of Egypt” along the lines of Paul’s insistence that “our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against…the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil” (Eph 6:12). And God’s first line of attack in this spiritual struggle seems clear to me: “Remember!” God says in our scripture, again and again, in so many ways. It is God’s battle cry, we might say. “Remember!” 

To begin, God commands the Israelites to remember their deliverance from slavery by setting their calendars and their clocks by it. “This month,” God tells Moses, “shall mark for you the beginning of months.” In other words, for the Israelites, the new year wasn’t a time to say “good riddance” to the old year. It was a time to remember God’s liberating love, to trust that God would liberate in the year to come as God had done in years past. Elsewhere in scripture, God likewise commands the Israelites to keep the Sabbath day holy and to remember that they were slaves and God delivered them (Deut 5:12-15). So, week after week, year after year, the Israelites are remembering that they were once slaves but no more—God’s love has liberated them from the gods that had enslaved them.

God amplifies this call to remember by prescribing specific ritual observances, such as preparing the Passover lamb and unleavened bread and eating them in symbolic haste, all of which invite the participants to relive the story and to claim it as their own. Yes, God liberated Moses and the people in the past, but it wasn’t a one-time thing. God is always liberating, again and again. This is why, centuries later, when the child asks, “Why are we eating unleavened bread?” the parent can respond, “It is because of what the Lord did for me”—not Moses and our ancestors, but me—“when I came out of Egypt” (Ex 13:8). We all have our own Egypts and our own stories of salvation. 

I wonder if God puts such an emphasis on memory because God knows that, although the Israelites will leave Egypt in body, they will always be able to return in their hearts. In the wilderness, they will cry out that life was better for them in Egypt and long for a return. Later, the prophets will warn them that their waywardness is in fact a spiritual return to the misery of Egypt (e.g., Hos 8:13), that in their greed and impatience and anger, they risk becoming enslaved again. To remember, week in, week out, that they were once slaves of these powers but God loved them and liberated them, is a powerful assault on the gods of Egypt.

“What We Used to Be Like, What Happened, and What We Are Like Now”

If you think about it, this remembering resembles the tactic employed in the confession we heard earlier. I withheld an important piece of information when I first shared the confession. It is actually a story I heard once in a twelve-step meeting, where sharing is invited according to the following guideline: “Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now.” 

What is so powerful in this practice, is that the memory is never just a ritual. It is concretely connected to a person’s life—to an Egypt; to certain gods, such as greed and impatience; and ultimately to a salvation that they can point to and say, “This is what the Lord did for me.”

The early followers of Christ quickly developed their own habit of remembering, particularly at tables, where broken bread and a shared cup reminded them of the body and blood and love of their lord and savior. Some of them noticed that the Last Supper itself happened at the time of Passover. How fitting! they thought. What God had done in the past in Egypt, God was doing for them right then in Christ. They each had their own story, of course. They each could say, in different ways, “This is what the Lord did for me.”

As we gather at the table this week, I’d invite you to remember how the love of Christ has rescued you. This means remembering what life used to be like under the gods that enslaved you, what happened in Christ, and what you are like now. And it might mean recognizing that there are other gods threatening to enslave you still, and that we stand ever needful of God’s love. 

Prayer

In the place of my prayer, I’d invite you to join me in a short, simple, prayerful exercise of reflection:

Remember what life was like—is like—under the slavery of the gods of this world. Remember the cycle of hurt and disappointment. 

…

Remember how Christ changed—is changing—your life. Remember the giftedness of your freedom, the grace of it, how Christ has done for you what you could not do for yourself. 

…

Remember the freedom of life you have enjoyed in Christ. Remember the peace, the security, the hope, even in trials and difficulties.

…

Remember that Christ is with you always, and no gods of this world can separate you from him.

…

Amen.

Good for Evil (Gen 37:3-8, 17b-22, 26-34; 50:15-21)

Preface

I imagine you’re familiar with those lists of infelicitous church bulletin bloopers—you know, like “Don’t let worry kill you, let the church help!” or the announcement that a minister had recovered from illness, which said, “God is good! Our minister is better.” Perhaps you’re wondering if today’s sermon title is worthy of joining their ranks. “Good for evil”? To the unsuspecting ear, it might sound a bit like saying, “Hooray for evil!” Rest assured, that is not what I intend to say at all. But rather than clear up the meaning straightaway, I’d like to preserve an element of suspense a bit longer. My hope is that by the end of my message, the meaning will be unmistakable.

Special

If there’s one thing I learned in Sunday School about Joseph, it’s that Joseph is special. He’s Jacob’s miracle child, the unexpected son of Jacob’s beloved, late wife Rachel. He wears a special robe that his father gives him, a robe that singles him out as his father’s favorite son. But perhaps most special of all is his gift of dream interpretation. If Joseph is the eventual hero of the story, then dream-telling is his special power.

All of this is true, and yet it is only the superficial truth. If this is how we see Joseph, then we see no deeper than the robe that he wears. Joseph is special–but not only because of his father’s favor, not only because of his special ability. More than any of that, Joseph is special because he is born in the image of God. The divine breath fills his lungs. Which is all to say, Joseph is just as special as you or me or any one of his brothers. The danger of a Sunday School reading is that Joseph’s special robe and special gift of dream-telling cover up this deeper truth. Joseph is special because he is a child of God.

Evil for Evil

And here’s why this deeper truth matters. If Joseph is a child of God, he certainly doesn’t act like it at the beginning of the story. To start, he lords his favored status over his brothers, repeatedly bragging about dreams in which they bow down to him (Gen 37:5-10). A superficial interpretation might point out that Joseph’s dreams come true. But the deeper irony is that they come true not because of Joseph’s character but in spite of it. In other words, the eventual happy ending results not from Joseph’s boastful character but from a gradual transformation of character wrought by God’s patient grace (which we’ll explore in a moment). 

In the middle of the story (which our scripture selection omits), after Joseph has been sold into slavery by his brothers and endured thirteen dark years of servitude and prison and nine more years of life away from home, he finds himself suddenly and unexpectedly with the upper hand over his brothers. They have come to Egypt looking for food, and Joseph, who has risen through the ranks to become Pharaoh’s second-in-command, meets them. They do not recognize him, but he sure recognizes them. And he puts them to the test, speaking harshly to them, subjecting them to false accusation and imprisonment. Some biblical commentators make the case that he effectively makes them endure all the hardships that he has had to endure as a result of their original mistreatment. In other words, he responds “an eye for an eye.” He returns evil for evil.

Conformed to the World

I don’t mean to judge Joseph. On the contrary, I can sympathize with his motivations. After years of suffering at the hands of his brothers, uncertain if they have changed and can be trusted, Joseph makes what many of us might consider to be a pragmatic response. I only mean to observe that, according to Jesus’ insistence that God is “kind to the ungrateful and the wicked,” Joseph here does not resemble the child of God that he is (Luke 6:35). He is not merciful like his heavenly father (Luke 6:36).

We might say instead that Joseph is, to use Paul’s language, “conformed to the world” (Rom 12:2). That is, he’s following suit. He’s behaving according to the pattern passed on to him by his parents and grandparents and prior generations all the way back to Cain and Abel. One way to read the book of Genesis is as one long history of fraternal rivalry and violence. It seems that no family is big enough for even two brothers. Cain and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, Esau and Jacob. The details of each episode differ, but the larger pattern holds. Insecurity, envy, and competition erupt into a violent anger that destroys the relationship, if not mortally then emotionally. No two of these brothers end up living in the same land.

Transformed

But if Joseph is conformed to this pattern initially, something changes along the way. Because he and his brothers do reconcile and end up living together, miraculously reversing the pattern of their ancestors. I am particularly struck by how, in their final scene together, Joseph’s brothers approach him as the prodigal son approaches his father. Both the prodigal son and Joseph’s brothers feel the full weight of their guilt and shame. They expect some sort of recrimination and therefore throw themselves on the ground as slaves. But just as the loving father receives the prodigal son, Joseph brushes aside his brothers’ groveling and gladly receives them as the family that they are.

Of course, in Jesus’ parable, the loving father is actually a model for God. Which is to say, whereas before Joseph returned evil for evil and did not resemble his father in heaven, here he has become like God. He resembles his father in heaven, who is kind to the wicked (Luke 6:35), who returns good for evil (Rom 12:21). There is a subtle little bookend that poignantly highlights Joseph’s returning good for evil. At the start of the story, we’re told that the brothers cannot “speak peaceably to him” (Gen 37:4). But at the story’s end, we find Joseph nonetheless “speaking kindly to them” (Gen 50:21).

Joseph is special. Not just because of the coat or the dreams. He is special most of all because he is a child of God, born in God’s image, filled with God’s spirit. At the beginning of the story, it was hard to see, as Joseph had been conformed to the pattern of the world, the pattern of an eye for an eye, evil for evil. But over the course of the story, he is, to use Paul’s language, “transformed by the renewing of his mind,” so that his will becomes aligned with God’s will (Rom 12:2). He begins to live like the child of God that he is; his mercy resembles the mercy of his father in heaven (Luke 6:35-36).

Acting Like God

“How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity” (Ps 133:1). So the psalmist declares, having caught a glimpse of God’s grand reconciliation project, which Jesus called the kingdom of God. In today’s scripture, we catch a glimpse of this ourselves. God’s reconciliation happens when people imitate their father in heaven and return good for evil. Of course, we see this most fully in Jesus. But it’s encouraging for me to see echoes of it elsewhere, to see that we can indeed be transformed from our patterned, kneejerk reactions of an eye for an eye, evil for evil.

In fact, what may be most encouraging for me in today’s story is that there is no obvious, pivotal moment of transformation in Joseph. Rather it seems to have been a process. But there is one constant across the Joseph story that I think is fundamental to Joseph’s transformation. Periodically the narrator stops and mentions that God was with Joseph. I think that through the course of his travails, Joseph gradually wakes up to the reality of God’s presence. And as he increasingly puts his trust in the God who is with him, he becomes secure. The fraternal competition and revenge that previously fueled his eye-for-an-eye, evil-for-evil behavior no longer makes sense. He finds his security not in personal victories and control, but in God. Which is a great thing by itself, but even greater because it enables Joseph to begin acting like God himself. With no need to win or prove a point, he can open his arms in embrace—like the father of the prodigal son, like God Godself. He can return good for evil. A child of his father in heaven, he can be a part of God’s grand reconciliation project, the kingdom of God.

Prayer

Merciful God,

Whose patient love is working in us and in our world,

Reversing generations of trauma

And centuries of hurt:

Ground us, like Joseph, like Jesus,

In the assurance of your steadfast presence,

So that we might become more like you

And faithfully bear your image in our world.

Encourage us and guide us

To be ambassadors of your reconciliation.

In Christ, who returns good for evil: Amen.