Jacob settled in the land where his father had lived as an alien, the land of Canaan. These are the descendants of Jacob.
Genesis 37:1-4,12-28
Joseph, being seventeen years old, was shepherding the flock with his brothers; he was a helper to the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives, and Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children because he was the son of his old age, and he made him an ornamented robe. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peaceably to him.
Now his brothers went to pasture their father’s flock near Shechem. And Israel said to Joseph, “Are not your brothers pasturing the flock at Shechem? Come, I will send you to them.” He answered, “Here I am.” So he said to him, “Go now, see if it is well with your brothers and with the flock, and bring word back to me.” So he sent him from the valley of Hebron.
He came to Shechem, and a man found him wandering in the fields; the man asked him, “What are you seeking?” “I am seeking my brothers,” he said; “tell me, please, where they are pasturing the flock.” The man said, “They have gone away, for I heard them say, ‘Let us go to Dothan.’ ” So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan. They saw him from a distance, and before he came near to them they conspired to kill him. They said to one another, “Here comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; then we shall say that a wild animal has devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams.” But when Reuben heard it, he delivered him out of their hands, saying, “Let us not take his life.” Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood; throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but lay no hand on him”—that he might rescue him out of their hand and restore him to his father. So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the ornamented robe that he wore, and they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it.
Then they sat down to eat, and looking up they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels carrying gum, balm, and resin, on their way to carry it down to Egypt. Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.” And his brothers agreed. When some Midianite traders passed by, they drew Joseph up, lifting him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. And they took Joseph to Egypt.
My sermon from the 11th Sunday after Pentecost Sunday (August 13, 2023) on Genesis 37:1-4,12-28.
Professor Amey Adkins-Jones, in her commentary on our first reading from the book of Genesis, asked a compelling question: “is it possible for these brothers to be completely and terribly wrong, without being all bad?” That question isn’t easy to answer but it is one we hope would be asked about us when we’re the problem in any particular situation or experience. To answer that question truthfully, we need to bring nuance into our reading of this story. By examining the context, the situation, and the meaning within its words, we invite this story from the past to reveal who we are today. And when we do that work well, we grow into the new life Jesus has already given to us.
Now our reading begins many years after the story we heard last week where Jacob wrestled with the “man” at the Jabbok river. For decades, Jacob’s behavior of recognizing and manipulating other people for his own benefit had bred success. But, at Jabbok, everything finally caught up with him. His twin brother Esau was coming to see him and, it was assumed, he would try and get revenge on the one who cheated him out of his birthright. Jacob did everything he could to delay the violence he thought was coming his way. And when he was at his most vulnerable, God showed up and, in a wrestling match, changed Jacob’s name to Israel. When Esau finally arrived, he and Jacob were reconciled and we’d expect that such a life-affirming moment would encourage Jacob to reflect on why things turned out the way they did. But when we finally meet his son Joseph, we notice how old family behaviors had returned. Way back in chapter 32 when we first met Jacob and Esau, we saw how they weren’t only competitive against each other but that each one was also a parents’ favorite. Issac, their father, preferred Esau because Esau was a hunter who kept the dinner table full of meat. Rebecca, their mother, preferred Jacob but we’re not told exactly why that was. This favoritism was more than one parent simply being more comfortable with one son rather than the other. It, instead, grew to the point where all of them manipulated each other so that one child’s future came at the expense of the other. These behaviors and actions shaped who Jacob and Esau knew themselves to be. And as they grew older, the trauma they were given became a template for parenthood that they used with their children. Years later, Jacob copied his parents by picking a favorite. Like his mother and father, the reason for it is pretty thin since Benjamin, not Joseph, was actually his youngest child. But regardless of the reason for Jacob’s favoritism, its consequences were very real. And this trauma he inherited was lived out through his children.
When we meet Joseph, the first thing we learn about him is he’s a bit of a tattletale. He’s also, as we hear later in the story, a dreamer but not necessarily in a good way. In the part of the story we didn’t read out loud, Joseph shared with his brothers two dreams. These dreams, unlike the previous ones described in the book of Genesis, were not labeled as visions from God that anyone could understand. These dreams required interpretation and Joseph assumed he was going to be the hero of it all. He described dreams that glorified him at the expense of his brothers and his parents. And he had internalized his father’s favoritism to the point where he couldn’t see how these dreams also revealed his own hidden desires. The dreams, his need to keep sharing them, and his status as the most preferred child through the gift of a special jacket, made his brothers pretty resentful. It wasn’t long before the brothers’ jealousy consumed them and they looked for an opportunity to end Joseph’s story.
Now I’m not trying to let these brothers off the hook or to cut them some slack since their trauma does not justify the violence they chose to inflict on their brother. But I wonder if by noticing the intergenerational trauma within the story, we can better notice what this word from God reveals about us. It isn’t difficult to make Joseph a hero, his brothers the villains, and turn the horrors of the rest of Joseph’ story – including the slavery, the famine, the betrayal, and many incidents of violence, into a good that we label as “God’s plan.” But what if we, instead, borrowed words from Prof. Adkins-Jones and “cast his brothers not as evil people but as hurt people?” How would our lives be changed if we chose to recognize the hurt in our own lives while refusing to pretend as if the consequences of this inherited trauma are, so how, not real? This isn’t about seeking blame or labeling ourselves as victims or even trying to push aside all the good that has been a part of our lives. Rather, it’s about choosing to not let any story – even a family story – get in the way of who we truly are through the birth, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. It’s difficult to be a beloved child of God when we have absorbed and put into practice old traumas we did not create on our own. To move through this past, we sometimes have to do what we don’t want to do: such as naming the different ways our parents and guardians were unable to fully live into the vocation of parenthood God gave them. We would also, in the same breath, recognize how we – through our own vocations as grandparents, uncles, aunts, friends, neighbors, church members, and even children – have failed to live into those vocations too. It’s okay, I think, to admit that our parents and guardians weren’t perfect and that the phrase “that’s just how it was” isn’t always an excuse for behaviors that perpetuate hurt and harm. We, instead, can be brave and courageous by noticing the ways we have been a Jacob or a Joseph or even one of the brothers. It’s easier to say this than to actually do it and I’ll admit it is weird to talk about this while knowing I’ve already probably passed on to my own children some intergenerational trauma too. I hope that when they have the courage to tell me how off I was that I won’t get defensive or turn into a worse version of myself. I pray I’ll be able to recognize that this challenge is one of the ways we learn how to wrestle with – and not against – our neighbors, our family, our friends, and our God. And how it is through this kind of struggle that we learn how “[fairness, equality, and favor isn’t about] by everyone getting the same thing” but by helping people get what they need so they can feel like they truly belong. The work of working through intergenerational trauma enables us to stop defining favor and blessing as a competition that forces us against each other but that we are truly part of God’s vision where greatness and wholeness does not come at “the expense of others.” This kind of work is hard and it feels as impossible as walking on water because we’re human and we never know how emotional, spiritual, and faithful this whole thing will turn out. But it is, I think, something God trusts us to do because we have a Jesus who has done this work too. Jesus didn’t let the story of the disciples, their families, their fear, their worry, their sin, or even their unfaithful actions during his earthly ministry to be all they could become. Instead, he reached out, grabbed them by the hand, and promised that – through it all – they would never sink. Your story is, even now, wrapped up in God and Jesus promises that our defensiveness, our worry, our shame, or our need to always come out on top, will not be the limit of who we get to be. Instead, because of baptism and through the gift of faith, you are more than you once were because Jesus has you and will help you become so much more.
Amen.