2020.08.16 | Game Changers
“Game Changers”
Rev. Dr. Arlene K. Nehring
Baby, it’s hot out there! This kind of weather reminds me of Iowa. If I had wanted to live in this kind of weather, I would have stayed in Iowa, where I come from. But it isn’t all bad. This time of year is when the bounty of the garden can best be enjoyed. It is State Fair time, and it is the time for family reunions.
My mother loves this time of year, except for the heat and humidity. She especially loves fresh sweet corn and tomatoes from the garden, and family reunions. Mom looks forward to family reunions more than birthdays and Christmas. She loves the home cooked ethnic delicacies that the older generations prepare and share. She loves connecting with distant cousins and hearing what’s new. As the family genealogist, she loves getting new intel for updating her family history books.
We’ve all heard of people who are famous for closing bars. My mother is famous for closing family reunions.
As a child, I loved family reunions, too. I haven’t been to one in a while, and we won’t be having any this year. Musty shelter houses aside, I enjoyed the food, seeing my cousins, and playing an old European immigrants’ card game called “Pepper.”
As an adult, I came to realize that some people don’t care for family reunions. In fact, reuniting with family feels like a fate worse than death for some.
From the insights that the later chapters of Genesis provide for us, it’s very clear that the children of Jacob dreaded family reunions. Genesis 45 is a case in point.
II
The patriarch Jacob had twelve sons. The eleventh of his sons, and the first son of him and his wife Rachel, was named Joseph. The oldest boy was Reuben, and the youngest was Benjamin. The others are nameless in Genesis 45.
Joseph was presumed by his brothers to be their father’s favorite, and destined to receive the birthright that by tradition was owed to his eldest, Reuben.
As the story goes, favoritism led to jealousy which begot hate. The elder brothers threw Joseph into a cistern and sold him to Arab traders for a bag of silver. The traders took Joseph to Egypt and sold him to Pharaoh. Joseph found favor with Pharaoh because he was able to interpret his dreams.
Joseph’s brothers, meanwhile, returned to their father carrying their brother’s coat, which they stole from him and soiled with goat’s blood, and told their father that Joseph had been devoured by wolves while they were out tending their father’s sheep.
Fast forward a generation to Genesis 45, and we learn that familine has come upon the land, so that Joseph’s brothers have fled to Egypt and offered to sell themselves into slavery if Pharaoh will feed them.
Rather than returning evil for evil, Joseph offers his brothers respite and food to take back to Hebron (a region located in the southern part of Israel), and an invitation to settle in the land of Goshen (an eastern province of Egypt).
Joseph’s brothers returned to their father in Hebron, gathered up their parents and relations, and brought the entire entourage back to Goshen, where they took sanctuary from the famine.
This was the family’s first reunion since Joseph’s brothers had thrown him in the cistern, sold him to the traders, stolen his coat, and told their father that he was dead. Who would have wanted to go to that family reunion? No one.
Joseph had every reason to deny his brothers food and shelter, and to do to them what they had done to him. After all, Ancient Hebrew law allowed “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” but Joseph chose a different option. Instead of revenge, he chose to welcome them and he wept.
We never learn much about Joseph’s inner thoughts. All we know is how he responded to these circumstances. Joseph wept, he hugged his brothers, he gave them food and shelter, he sent them home to fetch their father and extended family, he welcomed them back to Egypt, and he provided them with a place to start over.
According to Genesis, the elder sons of Jacob did not recognize Joseph when they first encountered him; but Joseph recognized them. Joseph explained that he was the one whom they had sold into slavery. The brothers were shocked by the pronouncement. They could not even summon an apology.
So Joseph broke the ice and explained that God used their jealousies and hatred for a higher and better purpose—to preserve their lives and the entire Hebrew nation. Joseph explained further that unless he had been sold to the Arab traders, and resold to Pharaoh, his brothers—and their entire nation—would have perished.
III
The issues that we encounter here in the lives of Jacob’s family are formidable. This realization may surprise many of us, because we may have been led to believe that people described in the Bible, or church members, are perfect and they have perfect families.
But, the opposite couldn’t be more true. As the former “first-lady” of Eden Church (Eleanor Norberg) famously said, “You couldn’t make this stuff up.” You couldn’t make up the events that occurred in the patriarchs’ families. Their lives were as colorful and complicated—maybe even more so—than ours.
What’s remarkable about the lives of the patriarchs, then, isn’t that they were perfect, but rather that some of them were occasionally able to resolve their differences in a manner that brought a healthier resolution to their conflicts.
IV
Consider for a moment the question, “What can we learn from Jacob’s family reunion described in Genesis 45?”
One lesson that we can learn is the importance of looking at “the big picture.” In the big picture, Joseph realized that his family was starving and that his father was still alive, and that while he had a million legitimate reasons to hold a grudge against his brothers, and to pay them back for what they had done to him, Joseph gave his brothers what they needed. He granted them grace, and he gave them food and shelter. He was reunited with his family and the familiar things from his home culture again.
A second lesson that we can learn from Joseph is to focus on the future, rather than dwell on the past. In particular, we can learn how to focus on the future that God envisions for us, rather than the past which cannot be changed. Focusing on the future does not mean that we forget the past. It does not mean that we forgive without being asked for forgiveness, or without our treaspasors exhibiting amendment of life. Instead, focusing on the future means keeping our eyes on the prize, keeping our eyes on the upward call of Christ (Phil. 3:4). Focusing on the future reminds us that we have been called to a life of repentance and reconciliation, rather than rage and revenge.
Focusing on the big picture, and focusing on the future, means that Joseph (and all of us) can create a new dynamic, rather than repeating an old one. I am reminded by Joseph’s story of a declaration that my mother often made to my sister and me on the occasions when we would really get into it with each other. Both of us would try to explain that the other was at fault for starting the fight. Mom didn’t even listen to our arguments. She simply said, “I don’t care who started this fight. I only want to know who’s going to end it.”
What we learn in Genesis 45 is that Joseph chose to finish the fight regardless of whoever started it.
When we think about our own families, regardless of how “happy” we may be, there have likely been or will be occasions when we have to choose between whether we will perpetuate an unhealthy family dynamic, or put it to rest. Maybe the time is now to put it to rest.
Joseph’s example invites us to do our part in putting to rest dysfunctional and destructive family patterns of behavior. Joseph’s story reminds us that even victims can be in the driver's seat, and bring about needed change. We can be the ones to stop destructive dynamics. We can be the game changers. We can look at the big picture. We can take the long view. We can change the dynamic from shame and blame to truth and reconciliation that is grounded in confession, contrition, forgiveness, and absolution.
Thanks be to God who puts the ball in our hands and gives us the opportunity to be the gamechangers that the world needs. Amen.