“They hated him yet more for his dreams and for his words”
Lent is a serious season of focussed discipline which has its parallels in the traditions of the other world’s religions, like Ramadan, for example, in Islam. The term, Lent, derives from an old English word for the lengthening of the days, something which we have been seeing throughout February, especially with the increasing progress and power of the sun. Late March will bring us to the spring equinox in terms of the seasons of nature and to Holy Week and Easter in terms of the Christian faith.
In the Christian understanding, we are invited to “the observance of a Holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance, by prayer, fasting, and self-denial, and by reading and meditation upon God’s holy Word.” There are things which we learn about ourselves and one another as well as about God through the Scriptures. The Scriptures read in the Chapel, either from the Hebrew Scriptures which Christians know as the Old Testament or from the New Testament, challenge us about how we think about ourselves and one another and our relation to the world and God. They do so through a rich variety of literary forms of expression.
This Thursday and Friday we have embarked upon a brief consideration of a wonderful narrative sequence in the later chapters of The Book of Genesis. They are about Joseph and his brothers. They are the sons of Jacob, also known as Israel after his ‘wrestling’ with God (or an angel) and being renamed Israel. It means one who strives with God. Lent, too, is about our striving with God – not against God! I am aware of certain atheist groups (churches?!) that have Lenten programmes as well such as ‘giving up God for Lent’! But the story of Joseph and his brothers is a powerful story about the destructive nature of envy, about evil in the form of betrayal but even more about how conscience is convicted and about how good comes out of evil. The story as such has some interesting parallels to the story of Christ’s Passion. In both we confront the nature of human evil and the greater power of God’s truth and love.
These narratives serve as mirrors in which we see something about ourselves. Envy is one of the most destructive of the seven deadly sins in the Christian taxonomy of sin. What is it about? Joseph is the youngest son of his father, Jacob/Israel and the son whom Joseph, we are told, “loved the most”. Parents like to think that they love their children equally but the truth is that we love each child differently, though we hope in ways that are good for each child. Children don’t always see things that way. The story of Joseph begins with the envy and the hatred of Joseph’s brothers towards him, first, because of their father’s preferential love, and, secondly, because of two dreams about which Joseph tells his brothers and father. The dreams imply that his brothers and his family will bow down before him, that somehow he will come to reign over them.
Dreams are intriguing. What exactly do they mean? Here the two dreams excite more animosity, more hatred towards Joseph. Envy is about our refusal to accept the good of another because we want something for ourselves. Therein lies the contradiction. We want for ourselves exclusively what another seems to have. We are unable to rejoice in the good of another and therefore are unable to rejoice in the good itself. Envy leads to hate and destruction, even to schemes and plots to eradicate someone from life altogether. In the New Testament, envy is suggested as the cause of the first murder, the murder of Abel at the hand of Cain, his brother. We seek to annihilate. Envy in a community is a kind of spiritual cancer that eats away at our collective life. It poisons everyone who is drawn into its suasions.
At issue, ultimately, in the story of Joseph is how this cankerous and cancerous spirit can be overcome in us. The purpose in reading the story of Joseph and his brothers is to be drawn into an awareness of our evil and the ways of its overcoming. A compelling story beautifully told, it convicts our consciences and moves our hearts. It speaks beyond the confines of the biblical world to our world and to the conflicts between nations and peoples. It challenges us about the nature of our ethical relationships with one another, especially about seeking the good of one another without which there can be no good for ourselves. It counters the destructive force of envy but first through our awareness of it.
(Rev’d) David Curry
Chaplain, English & ToK teacher
Chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy