KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 20 February
Two vast and spacious things
The Book of Genesis is a rich theological text. It is foundational for the scriptural and philosophical traditions of Judaism and Christianity especially. It is not a scientific treatise nor a collection of fables and myths haphazardly thrown together. It is theology, a commentary on the overarching justice or righteousness of God in creation and human experience despite the repeated and constant failings of our humanity. As the theologian and novelist Marilynne Robinson notes it is really “a theodicy, a meditation on the problem of evil” that “acknowledge[s] in a meaningful way the darkest aspects of the reality we experience” and undertakes to “reconcile them with the goodness of God and Being itself against which the darkness of our world stands out so sharply.”
Much of Genesis is the story of sibling rivalry, a story of brothers. There is the story of Abraham and Lot, the story of Isaac and Ishmael, of the sisters Leah and Rachel, of Jacob and Esau, all of which ultimately culminate in the story of Joseph and his brothers. The tensions and divisions that these stories present are the setting through which God’s goodness and will, his purpose and patience, are glimpsed and known. It is all the grace of providence at work in and through our sins and failings. The first story after the fall of our humanity from Paradise is the story of Cain and Abel, the first murder. The last story of Joseph and his brothers, so beautifully and movingly told, is about forgiveness and reconciliation. Ultimately, it is the overcoming of the resentments and envy, and even violence that are so often a feature of sibling rivalry.
Joseph is the youngest son and the so-called favourite of his father, Jacob, of which the coat given to him by his father is the constant reminder, it seems. This excites the hatred of his brothers towards him especially when he tells them his dreams which they think proclaim his superiority over his older brothers. They conspire to kill him and throw him into one of the pits in the wilderness near Shechem and to tell their father that a wild beast has devoured him. Only Reuben intervenes to prevent them from killing him, planning to “rescue him out of their hand, to restore him to his father,” as the text puts it.
Joseph is left in an empty and waterless pit only to be found by Midianite traders who sell him to the Ishmaelites, in one version, or to an Egyptian officer of Pharaoh, Potiphar, in another. In any event, he is not killed but instead rises to prominence in Egypt through an intriguing set of events related again to his dreams which are really about prophetic insight.