Pentecost 10A

They probably didn’t know what was going through his head.  They don’t recognize their own brother even when he’s two feet away from them. And Joseph stands in front of his brothers, who have no clue who he is, wondering what he should say.

It had been decades since his brothers’ jealousy had driven them to sell Joseph into slavery. He was their father’s favourite. He had privileges that they were denied.  And he rubbed their noses in it.



When they were out in the fields, working their fingers to the bone under the scorching Canaanite sun, Joseph was inside reading books, learning languages, being taught skills that his brothers wouldn’t dream of having, preparing him for a life that would not be available to them.

So, to get back at him, Joseph’s brothers picked up some beer money by selling him to the Ishmaelites, who then auction him off to an Egyptian military officer named Potiphar.



And those familiar with the story know that Joseph, as a slave, worked his way through the ranks of his master Potiphar’s household until Potiphar’s wife tried unsuccessfully to seduce him.  She accuses him of trying to attack her, and Joseph is thrown in prison for seven years.

Even though Joseph gets out of jail, and had risen to highest position anyone could attain in Egypt except for Pharaoh, I would guess that his mind occasionally turned back toward Canaan, his home. He missed his father Jacob, whom he loved deeply. But I can only guess the level of hatred he felt for his brothers.

As Joseph’s thoughts turned toward Canaan, he probably assumed that he’d never see his father again. After all, Jacob was already pretty old when Joseph last saw him.

And he also probably assumed that he’d never see his brothers again. He’d never have the opportunity to get back at the brothers who took everything from him.

But that life was a million years behind him. Or at least it seemed like it. Joseph had a new life. He had a wife and family. And he had an important job saving Egypt from starving to death. 


He was successful beyond anything that anyone could hope or imagine. He was living a good life doing meaningful work with people who loved him.

So, when Joseph saw his brothers appear at his door asking for food, all his comfort and success suddenly meant nothing. All the memories of betrayal and abuse came flooding back.

Why did they have to appear in his life again and open old wounds? Why did they have to come and remind him of everything he had lost? Why did they have to knock on his door and bring with them the ghosts of the past?

As Joseph stood there, looking into his brothers’ eyes, he probably wondered what to do next. His mind probably leaped to the moment so many years ago when the looks on his brothers’ faces told him that they were no longer his family but his enemies. 



His mind probably leaped to that day when he was staring up from the pit where his brothers dumped him. His mind probably leaped to that moment when his hands and feet were in shackles and he was sold to the highest bidder.

His mind probably leaped to the humiliation of forced servitude, the rage over wasted years in prison, the despair of losing everything he had, home, family, a future that was of his own making, not a life thrown upon him.

His mind probably leaped to the injustice and the betrayal of his past.

Joseph probably fantasized of this moment, the moment when he could take from his brothers everything they had taken from him.

What would the revenge be? Would he provide a quick ending to their betraying little lives. Or would he draw out the pain over time, allowing their cries of agony to nestle warmly in his vengeful ears?

As Joseph stood there, all the anger and hatred of his past came flooding into his present. His was a story of jealousy and betrayal. Of family dysfunction and sibling rivalry. It was a story that he thought he had left behind.



But at that moment as he looked into his brothers’ eyes, that story, the story of his past, was all he could see. Everything else; success, fame, prosperity, love, all disappeared. And all that remained was rage.

He’s not alone. The stories of the past are hard to escape. In my job I see this all the time. I hear lots of stories. Most of them of painful pasts that accompany people into the present.

I hear stories of abuse, be it physical, verbal, sexual, or spiritual abuse. I hear stories of grief. Stories of rejection, of loss, of failure, of violation, of guilt, and of shame.

And when I hear those stories, it’s not the painful experiences or traumatic events themselves that strike me. 

But what strikes me is how those injustices follow people throughout their lives. They’re like shadows hovering over people’s relationships, people’s choices, even people’s physical health.

People then become defined by their pain. Their identity is overwhelmed by the trauma of the past. They feel shackled by their guilt or the harm they experienced. They feel trapped in a cage of suffering, from which they don’t know how to escape.

It’s something we ALL struggle with. We all struggle with past suffering. We all hear voices of earlier loss or rejection or failure or pain. 

And we call carry within us, the burden of bearing someone else’s painful past. So that their story becomes our story, which we then share with others. It becomes lodged in our DNA, which we unwittingly then pass on to the next generation.

No matter how much you try to hide it, no matter how much you try to tell yourself the past is behind you, no matter how much you ignore it, it’s there.

Your past is there in the way you misconstrue a simple comment made by friend.

Your past is there in how you overreact to bad news.

Your past is there in your tears after someone criticizes you.

Your past is there when you ignore wonderful opportunities lying at your feet.

Your past is there you meet accomplishment and success with guilt and shame rather than with joy and celebration.

Your past this there when you greet other people’s wins with jealousy and anger rather than praise and admiration.

Your past is there when you look in the mirror, and all you can see is someone else’s negative opinion of you.

Your past is there when the power of the previous years engulf the possibilities you see for the future.

As Joseph’s feet were fixed in place, and he was looking into his brothers’ unknowing eyes, I can only assume that his first, gut reaction, was to reach for his sword and cut them down where they stood.

But first reactions aren’t always the best reactions. And Joseph realized that no matter what they did to him, he did NOT want to give them any more power over his life. 

He did NOT want THEIR actions to define who HE was. He did NOT want anger and bitterness to control his behaviour. 


If he gave into revenge, if he resorted to violence born from rage to exact his justice, he’d be no better than they were, he’d be allowing their actions to diminish him.  He would become one of them. And they would, once again, victimize him. And he was no one’s victim.

His brothers may have been responsible for his past. But they will NOT be responsible for his future. He would NOT give them that power.

I would imagine that that moment with his brothers was the hardest moment of his life. The moment he turned from angry victim to forgiving brother. And at that moment of forgiveness, he got his family back. He got himself back.

I say that this moment was probably one of the hardest of his life because, too often, the anger and bitterness of past injustices that you hold on to do more harm than the injustices themselves. The voices of pain, suffering, abuse, failure, and grief caused by others can be like voices shouting in our ears, drowning out any word of healing that you want to hear.

The story of guilt and shame, abuse and rejection, betrayal and loss, can overwhelm you, and wonder if your life will ever be any different.

But this is when Joseph realized that the story CAN change and DOES change, and IS changing. He realized that his story and his brother’s story wasn’t the only story. There is also God’s story. And that is the story that Joseph realized he wanted to live. It was the story that grabbed hold of his life, and helped him see the world with fresh eyes.

The story that Joseph was now living is a story of creation rather than destruction. It is a story of mercy and forgiveness rather than anger and revenge. 

It is a story of hope for tomorrow, peace between enemies, and strength in adversity. It is a story of abundant tomorrows. It is a story of life rather than death.

Joseph realized that God’s story was already working within him. He saw that God’s story is stronger and bigger than any other of their stories. 

God had brought Joseph and his brothers back together so they could live as a family and learn something about themselves and about God. God brought them together so that they could see the world refreshed by the story that is being lived out in their lives. 



God wouldn’t allow any injustice to define them. God wouldn’t allow any betrayal from keeping them from being who God wanted them to be. God wouldn’t allow any anger or bitterness or abuse to keep them from living the vision that God had for them.

God was bigger than their past. God was bigger than their betrayal. God was bigger than their pain. God was bigger than their anger.

And today God knows your past. God knows what has been done to you. God knows the pain, the injustice, the abuse, the grief, the rejection, the failure, and the loss.

And today God is saying that your past does NOT control your future. God is saying that the story of your painful yesterday is not the story of your healthy tomorrow. God is telling a different story in your life. God is telling a story of of healing, of forgiveness, of peace, and of joy.

God is telling a story of possibility, of hopefulness, of second chances, of open doors, and pregnant futures.


Your future is before you. And it’s not just your future. It’s God’s future. Your story isn’t finished. The pain of your past does NOT have power over your tomorrow. Your future belongs to God.

Someone else’s opinion of you is NOT your reality. God decides who you are, and God has declared you to be a beloved, forgiven, beautiful, and free child of God.

Your future will not be perfect. Your future will not be without pain or illness or failure or grief. But God has given you power over anything that life throws at you. 



God has given you power over any betrayal, over any injustice, and over any loss. God has given you power over any rejection, over any defeat, over any conflict, and over any abuse.

God has given you this power, the power of the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of Life, because you belong to God. God is writing the story of your life.

And God’s great and glorious future, where the ending meets us in eternity, rests inside of you and in front of you, greeting you with love. 

May this be so among us. Amen.

Pentecost 9A

Where does your life and faith connect? Is your faith something that you reflect upon only at church? Is your religious activity limited only to these four walls? How does what we do “here” impact what you do out “there?” Or even, more to the point, where is God’s best work being done?

In this story from the Old Testament, known as the “Joseph saga” (Most of you know it as “Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”) the line between the earthly world and God’s world mists over to the point of being indistinguishable. God seems freer than what we might previously have imagined. Which makes me wonder where God best work is accomplished.

On the surface this looks like a story of hard work paying off, with a little forgiveness and reconciliation thrown in to jerk a few tears. The stuff of good novels and snappy musicals.

But we have to look deeply into the details to see what God might be saying to us.

It starts with Joseph.

Joseph was the guy you hated in high school. You know the one I mean. The Golden Boy, the Favoured One, who was good at everything. He was captain of the football team and he dated the head cheerleader.

He won math awards, edited the school newspaper, played Hamlet in community theatre, sang solos at Christmas, and couldn’t decide whether he’d be a brain surgeon or a rocket scientist when he grew up, so he decided to do both. And you just knew he could pull it off.

You couldn’t stand him. Not just because he was better at everything than you were. You didn’t like him because he liked himself so much. His arrogance was breathtaking.

And he enjoyed showing off. But his emotional maturity. hovered around Justin Bieber levels.

Joseph was oblivious to his brothers’ scowls. He didn’t notice their clenched jaws and furrowed brows. He simply didn’t see how badly his self-centredness made his brothers wanted to smack that arrogant smirk right off his conceited mug.

It’s no wonder that his brothers wanted to get rid of him. Joseph made them look bad. Really bad. And he flashed his egotistical white teeth while doing so.

Even his fantastical dreams stroked his ego. Some said his dreams were God’s dreams that lived inside him. Others believed he simply dreamt what he wanted his life to be. Maybe it was both.

You couldn’t accuse Joseph of putting on a show. He knew himself. He knew he was talented. He sensed his inspiration. He knew that he could succeed at anything he put his mind to.

It didn’t help that their father Jacob didn’t hide the fact that Joseph was his favourite. And gave him a expense cloak to prove it, a coat in which Joseph rubbed his brothers’ noses.

But Joseph also knew what his values were. He may have been a conceited jerk but he knew what was expected of him.

When his brothers betrayed him and sold him into slavery, he worked hard in his master’s house, being promoted again and again until he ran the whole household, landing a fancy-schmancy new royal suit to wear. As far as slaves went, he reached the top.

But he knew that success in an imperial household meant less than the values his parents taught him about God.

So, when his master’s wife tried to seduce him, trying to use her power to fulfill her lustful desire, she can only grab his royal clothes, ripping them from his body, but leaving empty-handed. The clothes do not make this man. It is God’s dream living inside him that makes him who he is. And no earthly power can take that from him.

When he’s thrown in jail on the trumped-up charge of attempted rape, he takes charge of the prison, tending to other prisoners’ needs, telling them God’s future for their lives. Good and bad.

And when Pharaoh’s nightmares taunted him, displaying a vision of both abundance and famine, Pharaoh’s own imperial priests are stymied.

So Pharaoh was forced to turn to the prisoner Joseph to tell him God’s future. Joseph told Pharaoh what the dream meant: that there would be seven years of prosperity followed by seven years of famine.

Apparently, Pharaoh was impressed. The criminal becomes the ruler. Second in command. Only Pharaoh is greater. He is no longer Joseph. His name is now Zaphenath – paneah meaning “revealer of secrets” Or some say it means “God speaks: he lives!”

Zaphenath – paneah gets a shiny new chariot and a wife out of the deal. Not to mention a really cool job: saving the world’s only remaining superpower from starving to death.

This is where the line between God’s people and the rest of the world blurs. Joseph doesn’t just get a great job with excellent benefits. He joins the inner-circle of the power elite.

He exchanges his Hebrew name for an pagan Egyptian one. And to keep his job he at least needs to pay lip service or ceremonial tribute to Pharaoh being some kind of divine being, if not a god. A definite no-no he learned in Canaanite Sunday School.

When Pharaoh’s dream comes true, and the economy takes a dive because of a famine, Joseph’s brothers come looking for food. Those who’ve seen the musical know what happens next.

Without revealing his identity, Joseph accuses his brothers of spying and stealing. He demands to see his younger brother, whom he has never met, but whom they produce.

When Joseph finally reveals himself to his brothers, it’s interesting what he DOESN’T say. He doesn’t say “I am Zaphenath – paneah. The prince formerly known as Joseph.” He doesn’t say, “I used to be one of you puny little people. Now look at what I’ve become. You’ll suffer for what you did to me.”

Joseph isn’t hung up on titles or royalty. He knows who he REALLY is. Status means nothing to him. He’s bigger than that.

To identify himself to his brothers he uses his plain, simple, bare, peasant, Hebrew name. “I am Joseph,” he says. They thought he was dead. But he’s alive and saving the world through his work in Egypt.

His brothers were surprised. Not just because their brother is alive and successful in Egypt. But because of what God allowed to happen in order to keep the world from starving to death.

God wasn’t afraid to use Joseph to help save pagan Egypt from famine, and through Egypt, the whole world known to them. God wasn’t afraid to let Joseph become everything God despised in order to make it happen.

God wasn’t afraid of the cruelty of betrayal or the injustice of false imprisonment.

God wasn’t afraid of the pompousness of royalty, or the abuses of empire, or the idolatry of the Egyptian religions.

God’s only priority was rescuing people from being destroyed. And God trusted Joseph to do the rescuing because that’s who God chose to do that job.

God chose Joseph even if Joseph blurred the lines between faithful obedience and rank idolatry. God chose Joseph to help save a people who would not recognize God as God, a people who still maintained their own idolatrous religious practices, a people who ignored the massive miracle that God worked among them.

God chose Joseph because God trusted Joseph to use his gifts for God’s saving purposes.

And God trusts YOU. God trusts YOU to use YOUR gifts for God’s what God is doing within and among us.

When you are at work, at school, sipping coffee at Tim Horton’s, making decisions at the board meeting, hustling on the soccer field or skating at the hockey rink, or worshipping at church, God trusts that YOU know who YOU are, and that you’ll be able to use your gifts for the life of the world.

God trusts that God’s dream lives inside of YOU, and you will live God’s dream with faithfulness.

In your everyday, moment-by-moment encounters with life; at work, at school, with friends, among family, God trusts that YOU will use your gifts and live your faith in all that you do.

Even when others don’t recognize it. Even when you fail. God trusts you enough to pick you back up and use your failures for God’s gracious purposes, to minister to others in every corner of your life.

Me, I’ve got it easy. I can always hide behind my robes and job title, and people know what to expect from me. Whenever I’m tempted by the world I can simply put on my church clothes as a shield against those things that threaten to diminish me as a Christian. I can clothe myself with the institution, and hide within the safety of the church’s four walls.

You don’t have that option. You are Joseph. Yours is the greater witness. You’ve got the hard job. You have to walk through those doors, then tightrope the fine line between working with culture and not letting it define you. You have to work in a “me-first” world without submitting to its selfish temptations.

And it’s not easy. Because sometimes that misty line between God and world disappears completely.

But while you have to live in the tension between God’s world and our world, you also get to see where God is doing things, you get to see where life, joy, beauty, justice, and compassion are lived and celebrated. You get to see where the free and active God is working outside the safety of church walls.

You get to see what God is up to because you are making it happen. You are God’s hands, feet, voice, and heart,

Your life is your Christian mission. Your ministry starts just as soon as you walk out the door and into the rest of the world. We gather here together to remember who we are, to remember our story, so we can live that story in our lives.

You’re already living your Christian mission. In your everyday encounters. In the way you use your gifts to enhance the life of those around you. In the small occasions of grace where words of hope and healing are heard and received.

That’s YOUR mission. That’s where God’s best work is being done. And that work continues.

May this be so among us. Amen.