Families Huh?
Today's first reading is absolutely stonkering. It’s not just stonkering in its content but chiefly because of its authenticity. It is about a family who makes the most understandable and repeatable mistakes. The story is also about the consequences of those mistakes and the pain that must follow and must be felt.
Israel is the Dad of this not-so-happy family. He has several sons from different wives but there is one son who in the language of the classics, is ‘the son of his old age’ Israel loved this boy, Joseph, more than the others.
In understandable naivety, he displays His biased affection to one and all in the outward symbol of a tailored made coat. It’s a real fashion statement.
So the first glitch in this family is Israel’s unabashed and flagrant favouritism. This is dangerous territory for any parent and the hidden wisdom is that you just don’t go there. You just don’t. It can only end in tears.
Every time Joseph slips into this colourful garment you can imagine how it rankles with his siblings.
Further, in the verses that are omitted in the lectionary Joseph has two dreams where his brothers and father all bow down to him. Now rather than keep these dreams discreetly to himself and save any jealousy and family squabbles, Joseph proudly tells his brothers and father all about them.
This is not a good career move for Joseph.
But there’s more! When you read the lesson carefully you discover that far from being the junior apprentice trainee farm hand, Joseph the youngest son, is actually the foreman. The supervisor. So in verse 14, when Israel sends Joseph to find his brothers and the flock,
“Go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks, and bring word back to me.”,
he’s not sending Jospeh as the lacky with freshly cut sandwiches, a skin of wine and to bathe his brothers feet. Dad has sent Joseph as the 2IC to check up on his brothers and make sure that they are doing their job right. To make sure that the key performance indicators are all OK and productivity is ticking over as it should.
The brothers spot Joseph from a long way off and the air is thick, humid and rancid with jealousy and retaliation. I’m sure none of these sorts of things ever happened in any of your families, but you can see what is unfolding here.
“The brothers saw Jospeh in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.
“Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other.“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.”
I do understand their animosity… truly… but to do away with Joseph is not exactly going to help the situation. It might make them feel better, but the long term wisdom of this plan is to say the least questionable. That’s me dressing it up and trying to be polite and demur.
The violence in the next few verses is difficult to read. They rip his coat from him, the symbol of his fathers’ favour, and throw him in a cistern, a large bottle-shaped cutout in the earth in which seasonal rains would collect water for use in dry seasons.
And then they sit down to eat their food. The cold-heartedness of this act shows how little they care for their brother and it’s left to Reuben to try and save the day. Which he does … sort of.
It’s hard to say if it gets better or worse for Joseph; his brothers spot a chance to profit and get rid of him. They sell him to some cash converters for 20 pieces of silver and send him off to Egypt, in their minds, never to see him again.
Families Huh?
And it doesn’t matter if it's our own nuclear family, our Parish family, our diocesan family, the Victorian State family, our national family of Australia or our Planet earth family.
We are all accountable to Our heavenly Father. We are all accountable to ourselves. We are all responsible for each other and for ourselves and that is a weighty, heartwarming, undeserved and rich vocation.
One more thing to draw out of this story. Perhaps the most important thing.
You and I know how the story of Joseph ends.
Joseph rises through the ranks of the Egyptian hierarchy and in turn he has authority over his brothers without them realising it. Joseph forgives, weeps openly all over his brothers and all is forgiven. At last, all is right with the world and the church of God is finally sorted out. Well maybe not the Church of God bit.
You and I look back on this story through the lens of hindsight. But when Joseph was in the cistern fearing for his life, with a bunch of very furious brothers calmly eating their lunch above him, it must have seemed as though all was irretrievably lost. That the situation was hope less.