Joseph was a dreamer. He had dreams, which he then interpreted. These dreams had meaning. The dreams he had of his brothers indicated that he (Joseph) had a special status among them, despite being one of the younger brothers.
His brothers did not like Joseph’s dreams.
Joseph was Jacob’s favorite son. Joseph was the son of Jacob’s favorite wife, Rachel; and, perhaps, Joseph also reminded Jacob of himself when he was younger.
Remember how Jacob was different from other boys? How he liked to stay among the tents with the women, rather than go out hunting with the men?
Joseph was similar. When Joseph’s brothers went out to pasture their flock, Joseph stayed behind. Joseph’s brothers resented him for being different, but their father took delight in it.
Jacob made for Joseph a special garment, a long flowing robe with long sleeves. It was not an outfit for working. You can’t tend crops or herd sheep in an outfit like that.
The translators don’t quite know what to call this garment. I know I’ve talked about this before. Is it an ornamented robe? Is it a coat of many colors?
The only other place in the Bible where such a garment appears is in 2 Samuel 13, and there, in 2 Samuel, it is described as the type of garment that the daughters of the king wore.
A princess dress, in other words.
Well, I maybe modern translators are too timid to call it that. So they’ve come up with other ways to describe it.
Whatever it was, Joseph’s brothers didn’t like it.
Joseph is described in Genesis 39 as beautiful. He wasn’t rugged, or rough, like his brothers who spent so much of their time working in the field, and rough-housing with each other. Joseph seems to have had a smoother, less-aggressive disposition.
Yet throughout the story, he was true to himself, and true to the God who made him… Just like Moses, and Jeremiah, and David, and Jacob, who I’ve talked about in previous weeks.
So: A dreamer who likes to wear clothes that don’t conform to what society expects. There are a lot of dreamers like that today, artists… and their mere existence is often upsetting to some people, especially when they insist on living authentically, being the person they believe God made them to be.
That was Joseph. And his brothers didn’t like it.
So, as we heard, they planned to kill him. Harsh, I know!
But then Reuben—dear, sweet Reuben, the oldest of all the brothers—convinced the rest to not kill Joseph, but to simply throw him into a pit, and leave him there.
Reuben planned to return later on his own, and rescue Joseph from the pit.
******So that’s what the brothers did. They threw Joseph into the pit, then went off and sat down to eat.
They pulled out from their sacks some bread; some figs; some grapes. They broke the bread, and perhaps even offered up a prayer of thanks to God.
Imagine, praying to God, feigning innocence, when you’ve just thrown your brother into a pit, and left him there to die!
They passed the bread around, along with the fruit.
They laughed. They celebrated. Finally, they were rid of that obnoxious dreamer!
In Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, there is an omniscient narrator, who interacts with the characters in the musical. The narrator says to the brothers, at this point, “how could you? How could you stoop so low?”
I want to ask the brothers the same question myself. How could you do such an evil thing to your own brother? And then, how could you sit down and eat, as if you’d done nothing wrong?
I want to ask similar questions to so many people today… especially those who are in positions of authority, whose decisions affect the lives of many, and make decisions that harm so many;
…yet who feast sumptuously, never going hungry themselves, perhaps even offering a prayer of thanks to God before they eat, yet never feeling remorse for the evil they themselves commit.
So maybe the brother’s actions in this story aren’t too hard to imagine after all.
But I do take comfort in knowing about Reuben. Reuben didn’t want to leave Joseph in the pit; but he also didn’t want to confront his brothers. Maybe he feared that if he sided with Joseph openly, that they’d throw him into the pit with Joseph.
Imagine what Reuben was thinking as he ate with his brothers. Imagine how he might have acted.
I imagine that Reuben kept quiet, as he tried to figure out how and when to go back for Joseph. And when the brothers were laughing and enjoying their meal, Reuben continued his silence. He was too intimidated to object, and too distraught to laugh.
Perhaps one of the brothers said to Reuben:
Come on, Reuben; lighten up!
Ha ha ha. Reuben tried to laugh. But while they were eating, Reuben was waiting for the moment when he could sneak back to Joseph, and rescue him.
But then, while they were eating, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites, making their way toward Egypt.
Judah said, “Hey! What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him, for… he is our brother, our own flesh."
Ha ha ha.
****** The brothers agreed. They pulled Joseph out of the pit. They sold him to the Ishmaelites. And then they laughed all the way back home.
If you were there, among the brothers, how would you have reacted? (Do keep in mind just how annoying Joseph was, with his talk of dreams, and how different Joseph was…)
If you were Reuben, what would you have done? Would you have objected more loudly to the brothers’ plan of action?
Everytime I read a Bible story, something new always stands out. This time, for me, it is Reuben.
I get that he didn’t object to the brother’s plan. Brothers can be intimidating, especially when it’s 10-against-1.
I get that he kept quiet, but hoped to be able to rescue Joseph secretly. It’s probably what I would have done. I hope. I think. I dunno.
I wonder: was Reuben plagued by regret, thoughts that what he did wasn’t enough, that he should have done more?
I hear a lot of talk about how we should respond to all the injustice and all the evil being committed in the world today. Stand up and fight! Make your voice heard! Take to the streets!
And I’m often reluctant to take any action that draws too much attention to myself. That’s just not who I am.
And I think: am I doing enough, to fight against evil, and right all the wrongs in this world? Am I following the example of people like MLK—am I doing what Jesus would want me to do to overcome injustice?
But then I remember that everyone is created differently, with different gifts, and different ways of using those gifts.
Sometimes that’s hard to remember—even when that’s pretty much been the theme of my own preaching for several weeks in a row!
But it’s true.
I don’t necessarily need to respond the same way as others do. I don’t need to act the same way as others do.
As long as I’m doing something, working for justice the best way I know how…
Like Reuben.
Now, you may say: But Reuben didn’t succeed. He wasn’t able to rescue his brother Joseph. Joseph got taken away to Egypt as a slave.
Yes. Reuben’s plan failed. Our plans don’t always succeed. Despite our best intentions, and despite our best efforts… we still sometimes fail.
After the brothers sold Joseph to the slave traders, Reuben went back to rescue Joseph, but Joseph wasn’t there. This is another one of those disjointed parts of the story. Didn’t Reuben see his brothers sell Joseph to the slave traders?
Apparently not.
And Reuben was upset when he saw that Joseph wasn’t there, and he grieved that he wasn’t able to rescue Joseph.
And this would be a very sad ending to the story, if it were the end. Joseph taken off into slavery. Reuben, weeping over the brother he tried, and failed, to save.
But if you know the end of the story, you know that all things work out for good. God is with Joseph, and Joseph eventually—through a series of miraculous events—ends up saving his family and many others from starvation in a great famine that, here in chapter 37, is still many years in the future.
So don’t underestimate the ways that you yourself are able to work on behalf of the kingdom of God…
Some speak with a strong voice.
Some are quiet, but act in ways that foster justice.
Some write letters, to prisoners, to elected leaders, to newspaper editors.
Some are persistent in prayer.
And it often seems that, despite our efforts, evil wins. Injustice wins.
But there’s an old saying that goes: “everything works out in the end. If things haven’t worked out, then it’s not the end.”
A quick google search shows that the origin of that quote can’t be determined,
But here’s a similar quote that we do know where it came from:
“The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
That quote, by MLK, means basically the same thing.
In the struggle for justice and for good, there will be setbacks and failures. And it may even seem that that’s how things will end.
But the movement toward justice, toward what is right and good, continues, and will not stop, until things have been set right.
That’s kind of how it goes in the story of Joseph.
And that’s a message I hope Reuben can hear and appreciate. In his grief over how things have turned out, and in his guilt over wondering if, perhaps, he didn’t do enough, that he should have done more…
Can he know that what he did was enough, that it did make a difference, and that Joseph—who would not even be alive were it not for Reuben—would go on to save not only his family, but ensure that the nation of Israel would live on and prosper…
I wish the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat gave Reuben a bigger role, and that it explored Reuben’s conflicting emotions at this moment.
But it’s not really that type of play.
Maybe Reuben needs his own musical, one in which we experience the story from his point of view; his hopes, his struggle to protect his brother Joseph while at the same time keeping his other brothers calm, trying to balance his loyalty to them as well as his loyalty to their father, trying his best to be the big brother to them all, guiding them in wisdom, and the weight of all that on his shoulders…
And then failing to do the one thing he felt was his biggest responsibility: protecting his brothers. Making sure that they ALL stayed safe…That they ALL returned home.
As it is, in JATATD, Reuben leads the brothers in deceiving their father about Joseph’s demise. It is Reuben who sings “There’s one more Angel in heaven,” as the brothers lie to their father and claim that Joseph was attacked and killed by a wild beast.
I’m not sure I like this portrayal of Reuben.
Then again, maybe this is Reuben trying yet again to protect his brothers…the ten that are left… Maybe this is him trying to protect his brothers as older brothers are supposed to do, this time from whatever punishment their father Jacob might inflict on them, if they had told Jacob the truth.
*******
Have I given you something to think about today? Do you, like me, sympathize with and perhaps even identify with Reuben?
More importantly,
Can you trust that your best efforts are in fact enough, even when it seems they end in failure? Can you trust in God to carry through, to take the baton when you yourself have run your part of the race?
Because the work you’ve done, and the struggles you’ve endured, for what is right and for what is just, are not in vain. God can use whatever it is you can offer, for the healing and restoration of the world.
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