Then
Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood by him, and
he cried out, “Send everyone away from me.” So no one stayed with him when
Joseph made himself known to his brothers. And he wept so loudly that the
Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it. Joseph said to his
brothers, “I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?” But his brothers could not
answer him, so dismayed were they at his presence. Then Joseph said to his
brothers, “Come closer to me.” And they came closer.
He
said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be
distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me
before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two
years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither plowing nor
harvest. 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. Hurry and go up to my father and
say to him, ‘Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt; come
down to me, do not delay. You shall settle in the land of Goshen,
and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children,
as well as your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. I will provide for
you there—since there are five more years of famine to come—so that you and
your household, and all that you have, will not come to poverty.’ And now your
eyes and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see that it is my own mouth that
speaks to you. You must tell my father how greatly I am honored in Egypt, and all
that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here.”
Then
he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, while Benjamin wept upon his
neck. And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his
brothers talked with him.
***
If
life were fair, if life were even, it wouldn’t look like this. It would look a
little more like Ferguson, Missouri, a place of deception and secrets,
and fighting an eye for an eye. If life were fair, if life were even, it would
look a little more like one race car driver hitting another and then the other
hitting the first, road rage at merely faster speeds. If life were fair, if
life were even, it would look a little more like a victim’s family watching
lethal injection for their loved one’s murderer. If life were fair, if life were
even, it would look a little more like a political race when one insult is
returned by another. If life were fair, if life were even, even, it would look
a little more like getting even.
If
life were fair, if life were even, it would look a lot more like Joseph
returning blow for blow, conspiring to kill his brothers, as they did him,
throwing them in a pit as they did him, selling them into slavery as they did
him, and telling their father, with evidence of a bloody coat of many colors,
that yet another son had died, as they him. If life were even it might look a
little more like this, a little more fair. It wouldn’t look like this, like
Joseph turning the other cheek, conspiring to save his brothers from famine -
unlike they did him, pulling them out of the pit of poverty - unlike they did
him, lavishing them with gifts - when they stripped him, and asking first, if
their father is alive, the opposite of what they him.
Some
may say, that Joseph gives his brother’s so much, simply because he has been given
so much, that Joseph is making things even, but even doesn’t look like this, it
is a much sadder story of counting out rights and wrongs, and this is a story
of righting wrongs, Joseph righting his brothers’ wrongs, and I think
when one has been a Joseph, there is a deep desire not to get even, not even to
make things fair, but instead to make things better, in hopes that life might
one day be good.
It
is the desire of an abuse victim that the perpetrator realizes their wrongs and
is somehow able to change, and that in telling the story, the victim hopes the
system also begins to change. It is the desire of a divorcee when all they hope
is for healing and happiness for the other and themselves, and that the their
challenges like addiction and enabling, and mental illness would some day be
healed for all who struggle. It is the loved ones and community of Sandy Hook recently creating the strongest gun control
laws in the country. It is thousands of children fleeing gangs and drug
violence in central America and lining up at our border rather than joining in
to fight. It is Luke, having traveled to Israel
and Palestine and though feeling strongly
against Israel,
reaching out with questions and openness to his closest, respected Jewish
friend. It is the old woman in apartheid South Africa having watched Mr. Van
der Broek come into her home and brutally murder her son and husband, stand in
the courtroom during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings and say,
“"My husband and son were my only family. I want, therefore, for Mr. Van
der Broek to become my son. I would like for him to come twice a month to the
ghetto and spend a day with me so that I can pour out on him whatever love I
still have remaining within me." It is Joseph, a victim of violence and
systems of abuse, recognizing that, “God sent me before you to preserve life,
to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many
survivors.”
Joseph
is a survivor, and to survive is to respond beyond one’s victimhood, to have
seen life anew, and respond with the hope of life preserved. Joseph has seen
what it is to survive. He was not killed when his brothers first conspired, has
was pulled out of a deadly pit, freed from jail, and made ruler over all the Land of Egypt. I wonder if the families of Sandy Hook walked by a playground and heard the
exuberant cacophony and found themselves smiling, and knowing that
life was what mattered. I imagine the elderly woman of apartheid sitting at
table with son’s murderer who was now her murderous son, and finding ways the
one reminded her of the other, and knowing life was indeed preserved. In my own
life, after a time of victimhood, I remember being surprised by the sound of my
own laughter, and that seeds I planted actually grew into flowers and fruit,
and I began to feel again what it was to be alive, and to survive, and I knew
getting even was no longer the point, and I didn’t want life to be fair. I
wanted life to be full of laughter, and flowers, and fruit, living was the
point. God had given me life, and life again. Over and over God gave Joseph
life and life again. And when you been touched so deep by the pain of life, and
by the gift of life, you realize that there is more than fair, there is more
than even. That life can look like this, like Joseph and his brothers,
survivors of a life preserved.
