Genesis 45:3-11, 15 Commentary

It matters how you tell the story.  

After chapters and chapters of some narrator telling us Joseph’s story, with very few places where Joseph, himself, gives meaning to the unfolding events. After the most recent three chapters where we experience the brothers living out their story until, two weeks ago, Judah finally spilled the whole story from his vantage point. Finally, chapter 45. The part of the story we’ve been waiting for. Joseph lets his brothers know who he is. He tells his own story.

He could have told a story about a brother violently abused by his older brothers. About the experience of life in slavery. About dodging Potiphar’s wife’s advances, being wrongly accused and sent to prison. He could have told about years — YEARS — spent in jail.

He could have boasted of his own cleverness and how, even though he was a slave, Potiphar trusted him with his whole household. Even though he was in prison, he interpreted dreams for some high ranking officials. Even though he was a foreign nobody, he interpreted the Pharaoh’s dreams and became next-in-charge over all Egypt.

He could have let loose his anger. He could have boasted of his success as vindication. He could have told his brothers, “I told you so. Remember those dreams I had where you all were bowing down to me. Check it. I told you so.” It matters how you tell the story and Joseph could have — truthfully — told the story that way.

So it is remarkable that, once the story is in Joseph’s own words, he tells it this way. First, he drops his guard. Whereas in the past, he swallowed his sobs or excused himself from the room, this time he lets his tears overwhelm him. He orders everyone else out of the room and, rather than hiding behind his learned Egyptian culture and language, he speaks to his brothers in his native tongue. He tells them who he is and then he asks, “Is my dad still alive?” The vulnerable humility of a grown man still hoping his dad will find out he’s done all right and be proud of him. Then Joseph tells his brothers, “Come close to me.” He throws his arms around Benjamin, weeping and kissing him according to custom. He does the same with all his brothers.

The first thing he does is drop his guard. Then he works to bless his family. He offers them land on the outskirts of Egypt. “Come live with me and I’ll take care of you!” Pharaoh hears about it and sends carts and goods to go collect Jacob in Canaan. He tells his brothers to tell Jacob the good news — but, inherent in telling him the good news — they would also need to confess what they had done all those years before. The reconciliation couldn’t stay between brothers, it would need to restore every generation of the family.

First Joseph drops his guard and offers his vulnerability. Second, Joseph seeks to make things right not just with his brothers but pursues reconciliation through all generations. Finally, there is this: he speaks the truth, wrapped up in God’s loving intention. He tells his brothers not to be afraid. He doesn’t shy away from saying “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt!” That’s the truth part but then there’s this: “Do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you.”

“God sent me ahead of you.”

The truth: this has been difficult. It came about through harmful circumstances that you initiated. AND wrapped in God’s loving intention: all of this happened because “God sent me ahead of you.”

“God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.” All of the pain and the sorrow of the intervening 20 years have been for a reason, toward a purpose.  Joseph never says it wasn’t painful and sorrowful but he is able to put the pain and the sorrow in a context.

Joseph drops his guard, he works to make it right and he tells the truth wrapped in God’s loving intention. “God sent me ahead of you.”

God’s faithfulness to all generations is a story of God sending one generation ahead of another, ahead of another, ahead of another. “God sent me ahead of you.” And that is how the story is told. With vulnerability, with a desire to make things right and with the truth wrapped up in God’s loving intention.

Illustration:

It Matters How You Tell the Story

How you tell your story matters. Can we, like Joseph, tell our story such that (as one commentator put it) “The hand of God is seen, not only in clearly miraculous interventions and revelations, but also in the working out of the divine purposes through human agency, frail and broken as it is.” Can we, like Joseph tell the church’s story of faults, of failures, of faithfulness and opportunity and growth as a truth wrapped up in God’s loving intention. Can we celebrate all those God has sent ahead of us?

 “God sent _____ ahead of us.”

This text lends itself to a time of contemplation and remembrance.

• As the preacher, you could do this in the sermon, maybe sharing the story of this congregation or a few of the saints you share in common.
• A time of response after the sermon: inviting people to remember (write a name, light a candle, etc.) all the Josephs that God has sent ahead of us on our paths. Maybe the charter members of the church where you worship. Maybe grandparents or great-grandparents who have prayed for you and led by their example of steady faith your whole life long. Maybe the person who first shared the good news of Jesus Christ with you.

We have not come to faith — or persevered in the faith — by ourselves.