Joseph: A journey from envy to balance
Hespeler, 26 February, 2017 ©
Scott McAndless
Genesis 37:1-11, Genesis 45:1-8, 1
Peter 2:1-10
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ifferent people are driven by
different things on their path through this life. I think we all recognize
that. Some people are driven by ambition or pride. Others are motivated by
greed or envy or lust. But there are some people for whom all of that really
means very little. There is really only one thing that matters to them: that
they are unique and special.
Now, I realize
that we are all, in our own ways, special. We are all individuals who have a
unique makeup of habits, traits and interests. So, in a way, these people aren’t
any more unique than anyone else. It is more a matter of how such people want
to be seen and treated. They want everyone to see and notice how unique they
are. They need to stand out from the crowd in some significant way.
If you want to
compliment such a person – I mean, give them a compliment that will actually
mean something to them – do not bother saying things like, “You look nice,” or “You
did a great job.” They will hardly hear compliments like that. But if you say
to them, “Wow, I’ve never seen anybody pull off a look quite like that before,”
or “I didn’t even think that anyone could do that like you did it,” they will
likely go away very happy and remember you fondly.
There are not
necessarily a high proportion of such people in any given group because most
groups can only tolerate so many people who grab all of the attention. But I
imagine that you have known some. When they are around, after all, you can
hardly help but notice them. They are brightly dressed, doing something weird
and probably making a lot of noise doing it.
The great
Biblical example of such a person is the patriarch Joseph, the son of Jacob.
Throughout his long story, as told in the Book of Genesis, Joseph goes through
many ups and downs. He goes from favoured son to slave to prisoner to prince.
But at every point in his story, both in times of good fortune and of bad, you
can always say one thing about him: he somehow always manages to stand out and
get noticed.
There are
probably some people here who are like Joseph. There are others who may have a
Joseph in their life or in their family. And there are still others who have a
little bit of Joseph in them. I think I have a little bit. Somewhere deep down
inside, I do struggle with that desire to be recognized to be special and
unique and I certainly have done some things in my life to get noticed for
being different (and, no, I am not going to tell you what they were right now.)
So I think it is worthwhile spending some time talking about Joseph and his
incredible journey. God did something in his life – brought about a maturity in
him over time that we should pay heed to and aspire to.
We first meet
Joseph as a very young man. He is one of the youngest children of his father
but he is also his father’s favourite. And right away Joseph stands out as
special and unique. Now, it may seem at first that this is not something that
Joseph wants for himself but that it is rather something that his father does
to him. After all, it is his father who gives him the rather unique coat. In
some ancient manuscripts is described as having fancy sleeves while in others
to be made of many colours, but clearly, however it had been made, it
definitely stood out from the ordinary.
But that was
dad’s idea, not Joseph’s. Maybe that is how it all started with Jacob treating
his son as special, but at some point Joseph clearly internalised that message.
We see it coming out in his dreams. Joseph’s dreams are not hard to interpret
at all. Unlike some of the other dreams in Joseph’s story that take a real
expert to interpret them, the meaning of his dreams are immediately obvious to
everyone. Joseph is having dreams that mark him as being extraordinarily
special and unique – so much so that everyone else is bowing down before him.
I know that
dreams mean a great deal in this story of Joseph. They are generally understood
as being key indicators of future events. These dreams of Joseph do indeed
predict the future events of the story as, before the end of it, Joseph will be
a powerful ruler in Egypt and the members of his family will literally bow down
before him. But I don’t think that it is a stretch to say that these dreams are
also an indication of Joseph’s internal psychology. They are about how he is
coming to see himself.
But even as
Joseph begins to understand himself and what really matters to him, we realize
that there is a negative side to being like him. It inspires envy in the people
around him. His brothers start to hate him and even his father, who loves him,
becomes concerned. Envy is, in fact, the big issue that people like Joseph will
run into. They easily inspire it in others who can quickly get tired of them
always stealing the spotlight.
But the really
deep secret of the Josephs is that they tend to struggle with envy within their
own soul. You can maybe understand why. The problem with wanting to be
different and unique is that there is always the potential that there is
somebody else out there who has something that you haven’t. And so Josephs are constantly
on the watch for anybody who might just be getting too much attention or
praise. The deep, dark secret of the Josephs is that, even as they suffer as
victims of envy (which Joseph certainly does) they may harbour more of it in
their heart than anybody else. Envy is, in fact, the sin that lies at the heart
of a Joseph and, if redemption is not found for that sin, they will never be
the person that God created them to be.
The entire
story of Joseph, therefore, is the story of how God worked in Joseph’s life to
bring about redemption, renewal and change. In the beginning, Joseph is an
unredeemed Joseph. We see that in the way that he deals with his dreams. He is
driven by envy of his brothers (who are all bigger and more important
culturally than him) to boast of the contents of his dreams. And of course, his
brothers are all very wrong in how they respond to this boasting. They plot to
kill him and then tone down their response to merely selling him off into
slavery! We, of course, condemn them for what they do. But at the same time, if
Joseph had dealt with his envy differently, maybe they wouldn’t have reacted as
they did.
Now the work
that God did in Joseph’s life took many steps. I cannot do his story justice in
a brief summary and you really do need to read his story for yourself. It is
one of the most accessible stories in the entire Bible – it almost reads like
an ancient novel – so I would definitely suggest that you take the time to read
it in Genesis 37-46.
There are many
ups and downs as Joseph deals with slavery (during which he stands out among
all the other slaves in the household and ends up running it) and then becomes
a prisoner (during which he stands out from the others in the prison population
and ends up running the prison) and then becomes the Pharaoh’s advisor (where
he stands out from all of the other advisors and ends up running the country).
There is obviously a very clear pattern in all of this. God may be at work in
Joseph’s life and taking him through some very serious ups and downs but God
clearly isn’t taking away anything that makes Joseph special and unique and
very much in the habit of standing out in any crowd. God, I believe, is not at
all interested in taking away the things that make you uniquely you.
But, at the
same time, God is working on Joseph’s life and working, in particular on that
venomous envy that coils at the root of Joseph’s life. We discover this near
the end of the story when the dream that Joseph had at the beginning is finally
fulfilled and Joseph, ruler in Egypt, reveals himself to his brothers and they
bow down before him. This is Joseph’s moment of triumph – that moment we all
hope for when we get to say, “I told you so.”
But
surprisingly, and seemingly uncharacteristically, Joseph doesn’t do that. Here
is what Joseph says to his brothers at this key moment: “God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to
keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God;
he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over
all the land of Egypt.”
Compare that
to the way that Joseph described his dreams to his brothers at the beginning of
the story. Back then it was all about “me” and how everyone would give
attention to “me.” Now when he speaks about everything that has happened and even
as everyone is actually giving all of that attention to him, he is not at all
interested in revelling in that attention. God has given a new perspective. Now
Joseph is able to see and speak of God’s presence and God’s action in and
through everything that has happened to him.
Now, of
course, what Joseph says does not exclude consideration of himself and his part
in everything that has taken place. He says, “God sent me before you to preserve life.” He recognizes, to a
certain extent that he had unique talents and insights and abilities that meant
that he was maybe even the only person who could have played a part in what
God’s intentions were. Joseph is still special and he still knows it. This is
such an important part of his personality that God is not interested in taking
it away from him.
But what
Joseph has gained is an incredible insight into how he, in his uniqueness, can
be an essential part of what it is that God is doing in the world. This allows
him to give all glory and praise to God when he sees God working in and through
his life.
This is, in
fact, the special gift that a mature and redeemed Joseph – a mature person who
is motivated by that need to be unique – can offer to the church and to the
world. When they finally get to that point in their life when God has worked on
them enough to purge away their envy, they are uniquely able to see where they can
fit in with God’s plan. Unfortunately a lot of us (who are not like Joseph) can
miss that and wander through life with no clear vision of how we can be a part
of what it is that God is doing in the world. The incredibly valuable gift that
the Josephs give us is a new vision of how each one of us can be an essential
part of the work of God’s kingdom on earth. And honestly, if we don’t have
that, we will never reach our full potential as the church in this world.
What are some
practical applications of Joseph’s story therefore? Well, first of all, it can
teach us, when we come across people like Joseph (people who seem to have this
deep need to be recognized and valued for being unique) in life or in the
church, we can value them for who they are and for the insight they can give
us. And if, as must be the case for some of us, you recognize some of Joseph’s
traits in you, it can teach you to be open to allow God to work on the envy
that may very well be hidden deep in your life so that you may become truly
open to see how you can work together with God to see transformation for good
in this world.
140CharacterSermon Joseph
was unique & stood out. He struggled with envy. God redeemed him &
showed he could be part of what God was doing.
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