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.
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