Staring at a camel's butt

This is a spin-off movie – where the main character, Jacob, is lying low. Joseph’s not one of the ‘founding fathers’ of Israel. Continuation from Jacob story – the narrative of the people of Israel. An explanation of why the Israelites ended up in Egypt.

Three weeks to divide up the story. Many of us will know it pretty well, or at least think we do, thanks to ALW. Joseph tunes stuck in my head for weeks. Played ad nauseum on the tape deck on family road trips. Mark of triumph if you can follow through with all the colours in the coat.

Continuation of the epic family drama.

Across the next three weeks we’re going to see some themes emerge:

· family favourites – generational pattern of behaviour

· what it means to use your blessing for others

· growing up

· see God playing the long game for the survival of his people

· Where Jesus is - Richard talked about the way that the whole picture of the Bible points forwards to Jesus, and then we see in Jesus’ life the outworking of those themes.

Because it’s a great story, let’s get cracking by following the start of the narrative through and see what emerges.

[Slide 1: Genesis 37:1-4]

Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan. This is the account of Jacob’s family line.

Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them.

Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made an ornate robe for him. 4 When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him. (Genesis 37:1-4)

Here’s Joseph. He’s 17 and he’s a babe. I can say that because the Bible says so itself at the start of chapter 39 which we’ll see in a bit.

He’s living off the back of the favouritism which his father Jacob shows him because he’s the son of Jacob’s favourite wife, Rachel. Which given Jacob’s background you’d think he would be aware of the risks of. But as we know this is a family which is hardly blessed with huge amounts of self-awareness.

So, Joseph’s out taking up the family business of shepherding with his brothers, but he snitches on them to Dad. It doesn’t even say what the brothers did wrong, if anything. If anyone has had siblings you’ll know that ratting on them to Mum and Dad is hardly behaviour to win your sibling over.

Here’s what happens next: Jacob gives Joseph a coat. This coat is a blinging coat: translated as long, or long-sleeved, or multi-coloured. However it looked, it’s what it means that’s more important. It means that Joseph is clearly Jacob’s favourite, but more than that, it also means that Joseph is exempt from the hard work of the family business.

You’d think that this would mean Joseph might sense he needed to tread a bit carefully around his brothers. But no. Here’s what happens next:

[Slide 2: Genesis 37:5-11]

5 Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. 6 He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: 7 We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.”

8 His brothers said to him, “Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said.

9 Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. “Listen,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”

10 When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, “What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?” 11 His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.

Commentator Joyce Baldwin describes Joseph’s personality as ‘remarkably resilient’ which I think is a great euphemism. To be honest he just comes across as a bit of an egg. We’ve all met people who say or behave in the dumbest ways that makes those around them dislike them. Who seem completely oblivious to the fact that their behaviour alienates them. The first dream is probably quite enough, but in the second Joseph takes it to a cosmic level: quite literally the whole universe is revolving around me. Even his Dad is annoyed at this.

So although Joseph doesn’t deserve what happens next, you can see why it played out. Jacob sends Joseph off to check on his brothers who are with their flocks about 80 kilometres away from home base. Let’s see what happens when the brothers see him coming:

[Slide 3: Genesis 37: 18-24]

18 But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.

19 “Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other. 20 “Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.”

21 When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. “Let’s not take his life,” he said. 22 “Don’t shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.” Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father.

23 So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the ornate robe he was wearing— 24 and they took him and threw him into the cistern. The cistern was empty; there was no water in it.

And we know what happens next. Midianite merchants came part on their way to Egypt, complete with camels loaded with goods for trade. Fourth brother Judah suggests that instead of leaving Joseph to die, they sell him as a slave – for 20 pieces of silver – the going rate for an adult male slave.

And in a moment which deserves an Oscar, they return to Jacob at Hebron, with Joseph’s robe strategically dipped in goat’s blood. Jacob who once wore furs to trick his father is now in turn tricked by his sons. And the brothers don’t even need to say that Joseph is dead; only to suggest it:

[Slide 4: Genesis 38: 32-36

They took the ornate robe back to their father and said, “We found this. Examine it to see whether it is your son’s robe.”

33 He recognized it and said, “It is my son’s robe! Some ferocious animal has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces.”

34 Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days. 35 All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. “No,” he said, “I will continue to mourn until I join my son in the grave.” So his father wept for him.

36 Meanwhile, the Midianites[c] sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard.]

But as it turns out, it’s not all bad. Despite no evidence to the contrary so far, Joseph turns out to be alright. Maybe it’s the short, sharp shock of realisation. He’s actually quite competent, and develops a strong moral character.

And he appears to have had a bit of an enlightenment. There’s something (or someone) extremely fundamental missing from this story so far. You might have spotted it already. Let’s carry on and see if it emerges.

[Slide 5: Genesis 39: 2-6]

2 The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. 3 When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, 4 Joseph found favour in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. 5 From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. 6 So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph’s care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.

And of course, what comes next is a bit x-rated. Potiphar’s wife is attracted to Joseph’s general babe-ness, but at every turn he refuses her advances. Finally out of spite she accuses him of the very thing she’s tried to do to him. And again it’s clothing that is used as evidence: she steals his cloak and claims he left it in her bedroom.

An outraged Potiphar comes down on her side – perhaps though, he has a kernel of suspicion that Joseph is innocent because Joseph is not executed, but rather held indefinitely in the royal prison. Even there, he’s considered competent and trustworthy and put in charge of the other prisoners.

Did anyone spot what, or rather, who, has finally turned up in the story now?

And there we leave Joseph for this week.

So poor old Joseph. He’s had two dreams, two betrayals, two lost cloaks, two imprisonments. To wrap up, let’s just take a look at what God’s invitation might be for us today to learn from the main events in Joseph’s life so far and what Joseph’s learnt on the way.

[table]

There’s lots you can draw from young Joseph. Like how you can be really talented; have great leadership potential or a prophetic gift like Joseph, but it doesn’t mean you don’t need to work on your character and empty yourself for the needs of others. You can be good at something and still behave like an egg. It’s the deep work that God invites us to do – to bring the gifts he’s given us to maturity – to learn how to feed on spiritual food instead of milk – which we do through the practices of discipleship in our lives.

Hebrews 5: 11 - Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

There’s the realisation that sometimes we only turn to God, or realise God’s there, when things are going really badly. It takes Joseph a trip down the well and several days staring at a camel’s butt before he starts to realise that God might just be in the picture. Do we believe that God is trustworthy in the good times and the bad? Do we act consistently in good times, bad times, and everything in between? Do we believe that ‘all things work together for good’?

There’s the realisation that often we are bound by the stories we have inherited from the generations before us. Sometimes that’s great – the promise of God to Abraham of generations of God’s people as countless as heaven’s stars. Sometimes it sucks like the family legacy of deviousness and duplicity that Jacob passes on. What are the generational lies we need to break? What behaviours, attitudes have we inherited that we don’t need to hold?

And then there’s identity. I think this is at the crux of early Joseph.

Jeremiah 29:11 the Lord says:

For I know the plans I have for you,” “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

It strikes me that Joseph’s early behaviour come from a deep insecurity about his identity. He’s been told he’s the bees knees, and he’s sure he’s been gifted thanks to some crazy dreams, but he has no framework for what to do with this. He’s on a journey of understanding that God sees who he is, he is made for a purpose, that God actually has got his back. That’s the reality the world needs to hear too.

Identity is something that’s such a contested space in our world today. We are given messages that we can do anything, we can be anything - but I don’t think that has ended up with a bunch of people who are arrogant, like young Joseph.

I think rather it’s ended up with a society which is deeply insecure; of people who wonder why they don’t feel like they have it all; who live with an unsettled but maybe unarticulated sense of failure, who expected much from life but are left feeling hollow; who worry that they won’t be able to outwork the future they hope for; who compare themselves to others and feel like they always come up wanting.

In the Barbie movie that I saw last week with Edie and Diana, both Barbie and Ken wrestle with their identity. (Side shout: it’s a really great film to go with a Jesus lens – it’s not perfect – but good opportunity to go and think what smells like the gospel, and what doesn’t?). Ken, who in Barbieland always feels sidelined and ignored, goes on his own inner journey. This hoodie probably sums up where he lands:

Ken and his Technicolour Dream-Hoodie

Good for Ken. But ultimately Ken (and us) need to keep hearing that message which we see in Joseph - that we need to surrender our sense of self-worth, whether that’s good or bad, to God’s grace and remind ourselves that we are God’s children, made in God’s image. That reminder that we are actually, not enough – by ourselves. We are made for relationship and connection and we are enough - through the grace of God in Jesus.

‘’let yourself be loved. Hear him say that you’re enough” [Mercy Me]

What would happen if we truly let ourselves be loved?