Just a Name? (Genesis 45:1-15)

Divine Disappearing Act

Have you ever wondered, “Why doesn’t God show up in my life the way that God seems to show up in the Bible?” Some religious traditions have developed explanations for God’s apparent absence in the modern world, suggesting, for example, that we live in an age when God has hidden himself but all will be resolved when Jesus comes back in unmistakable power and glory.

But I think the Bible is wise to our experience. I think, like us, the writers of the Bible wrestled with the question, “Where is God?” In fact, the book of Genesis itself can be read as an eloquent response to this question. Some commentators have pointed out that if you read Genesis carefully from start to finish, paying attention to the character of God, what you get is a gradual disappearing act.

Think about it for a moment. The story begins with only one character, God. God does everything, creating land and sky, vegetation and creatures, and of course, Adam and Eve. At first, God is a constant presence in this new creation, strolling through the garden where Adam and Eve live, disciplining Adam and Eve and then their son Cain, intervening with a flood when humanity has degenerated into violence, scattering humanity at Babel and giving them different languages. God is the main player in the first act.

But in the next act, featuring Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel, things change. When God calls Abraham to leave his home and bless all the world, God is effectively deputizing him, entrusting him with God’s own work. From here on out, humans will become more prominent characters, their personalities more developed, their responsibility for outcomes more pronounced. Conversely, God will diminish as a character. We can trace God’s diminishing involvement through each generation. With Abraham, God is an occasional conversation partner. They talk to each other from time to time, even argue with each other. With Isaac, God makes a couple appearances, but there is no sustained back-and-forth dialogue. With Jacob, God visits only in dreams and in the night. In fact, the iconic scene in which Jacob wrestles with God at night symbolizes a turning point; its evocative imagery of God’s hands on Jacob suggest that this wrestling match is in fact a laying on of hands, a bequeathal of responsibility. God is handing over the reins.

For in the final act of Genesis, the story of Joseph, God is no longer a player on the scene who does things,[1] but only an object of human characters’ speech. To put this another way, we don’t see God as an actor on the stage anymore. We only hear God-talk from the human characters. God has migrated from being an actor to being only a name on the lips of human characters. In today’s scripture, God is just a name on Joseph’s lips. He declares to his brothers, “You sold me here…[But] it was not you who sent me here, but God” (Gen 45:5, 8). Earlier in the story, when the brothers have left Egypt for the first time and find the money that Joseph has secretly placed in their sacks, God is just a name on their lips. Fearing that their sin has caught up with them and that they will be punished for stealing, they exclaim, “What is this God has done to us?” (Gen 42:28). Later, when Judah stands before Joseph and owns up to the brothers’ wrongdoing, God is just a name on his lips. He says, “God has found the guilt of your servants” (Gen 44:16).

In this final act of Genesis, we arrive in a world that resembles our own, a world where God is not walking about in plain sight but is only talked about. In a way, Joseph’s story validates my experience and helps me to be honest. Joseph’s story invites me to ask in all seriousness, Is God here? If so, how?

Words

As children we may have learned, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” But of course our experience has taught us the exact opposite. Words have incredible power. A child who is bullied regularly by his peers, or a child who is constantly shamed by her parents, knows that words can reach deeper than any stick or stone and can cripple the soul. Conversely, words have the power to build up. A child who is bathed in words of encouragement and admiration, or a child who frequently hears the language of gratitude and hope, knows deep down that they do not face the world alone but in the company and help of loved ones.

In fact, it is our faith that words are the most powerful thing in the world. After all, they are how God creates the world, according to Genesis. God is the word, according to the gospel  of John. It really is a paradox. Words cannot touch us, yet they move us. Words cannot be seen, yet they reveal the most important things. A mystic might say both that words can’t change a darned thing, and also that they’re the only thing that can really change the world. In one sense, they’re powerless. And yet they reach into the heart, which is the most powerful place of all, which is where all true change happens.

From Cause to Call

Readers have commonly interpreted the Joseph story as an illustration of God’s masterful design. Although God is not present as a character on the stage, they discern God’s fingerprints all over the story. They read the story as an illustration of providence. God knew that there would be a famine in all the land, and he had to get Joseph into position as the Pharaoh’s second-in-command, where he could plan for the famine. So God began pulling all the strings. Joseph’s brothers’ selling him into slavery? That was God. Potiphar’s wife’s accusing him and getting him thrown into prison? That was God. And so on. But I must be honest. This kind of interpretation makes me uncomfortable because it risks absolving the characters of any responsibility. I don’t believe it is ever God’s will for brothers to hate one another. I don’t believe it is ever God’s will that people plot evil against one another.

Personally, I don’t see God as a divine puppeteer in the Joseph story. All I see is God as a name on the lips of the characters. Just a word. And yet this is precisely where I see God’s incredible power. God’s name is not “just” a name. (If we remembered the power of words, we would never say something is “just” a word.) God’s name is a word filled with stories, memories, dreams, a word that contains within it an uncontainable power, which is love. It is precisely through God’s name that I see hearts changed. When Joseph’s brothers exclaim, “What is this God has done to us?” (Gen 42:28), and when Judah declares, “God has found the guilt of your servants” (Gen 44:16), they are effectively expressing confession and repentance. God’s name infiltrates their hearts and haunts them and nudges them to take responsibility for the wrongdoing of their past. Likewise, when Joseph announces, “You sold me here…[But] it was not you who sent me here, but God” (Gen 45:5, 8), he is effectively proclaiming his forgiveness and making possible the redemption of a tragic story. God’s name inhabits Joseph and stirs him to let go of resentment and to reconcile. God’s name is the most powerful and decisive element in the story. Think about it for a moment. Even if God had been acting all along as a puppeteer, subtly moving characters to and fro, ultimately bringing Joseph and his brothers to this very moment, it would mean nothing if Joseph was not moved to forgiveness. Joseph could have held on to his resentment and not revealed his identity. He could have sent his brothers packing without provisions for the famine. The most critical moment in the story is a spiritual moment, a moment that can’t be captured on a camera because it happens in the heart. God’s name moves Joseph to see the possibility of forgiveness and reconciliation and redemption.

As a discrete character in the Joseph story, God does nothing. Yet everything good that happens, happens in God’s name. In God’s name are all the decisive moments of the story: the brothers’ confession and repentance, Joseph’s forgiveness and reconciliation, and the redemption of a tragic history. I don’t know about you, but I grew up thinking about God as the cause of things. Today’s story invites me to think instead of God as the call in things. The name of God is a call in our hearts. It is up to us, the faithful, to give flesh to God’s call.

Prayer 

Impending God,
Whose love will not leave us alone,
But is ever seeking to become a reality—
We see in Joseph’s story your invisible power,
Which moves people to be honest, to forgive, to reconcile,
To bring good from evil.
Therefore we entrust to you the difficulties of our lives
…
May your name be sweet to us,
Your call be what moves us,
And your story be our salvation.
In Christ, the Word made flesh: Amen.

---

[1] There are handful of references to the presence and blessing of the Lord in Genesis 39 (vv. 2, 5, 21, 23), but in contrast to previous divine interventions God does not speak to the human characters or engage them in a distinct, tangible manner.