September 27th, 2020
Devotional
“God Works through Joseph” - Genesis 37:3-8, 17b-22, 26-34; 50:15-21
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Monday: “Loved Jospeh More” - Genesis 37: 3-4
Jacob ran away to a different part in the land after deceiving his father into giving him his brother Esau’s birthright, but that is another story of family drama for a different day. He ran to the land of his uncle Laban where he fell in love with Laban’s daughter Rachel. Where we pick up in the narrative today, Laban is asking Jacob what he would like his wage to be for working for him on his land. Jacob pledges to work seven years for Rachel’s hand in marriage. But while Laban agreed at first he later schemed and gave Jacob his other daughter Leah to marry instead. Eventually Jacob takes both women and their maid’s as his wives. The result was twelve sons and a daughter who got into a lot of fights and trouble, along with their mothers fighting as well. Jacob understood family drama.
But family isn’t just drama, it is also a bond of unconditional love. Something that Jacob seemed to be missing with any of his wives other than Rachel. In fact Leah declares that she is bearing so many children because the Lord has opened her womb because he has heard that she is hated. When we declare that we are family, we aren’t just saying that we know about all of the drama, but that we accept each other in the deepest form of love anyway.
What does make someone family? One could declare that Jacob, Rachel, Leah, and their children were all family. And in the biological scene this is very true. But Jacob loved Rachel best. And he loved the two sons she bore, Joseph and Benjamin, more than the others. Leah knew that she wasn’t loved. She saw how Jacob treated her. Maybe she even heard her husband declaring to Laban that he had deceived him, as if he wanted to exchange Leah in for her sister. She was so despised that the Lord could see that she was unloved. Is this really family?
In Jacob’s history what do we discover in his pattern of loving some people more?
Prayer: Lord Jesus, all too often we lord our love over one another. We say or treat some people like we love others more. Love others the best. But Lord, we see in the story of Jacob that this is not a reflection of your love. Forgive us, we pray. Amen.
Tuesday: “Dream” - Genesis 37: 5-8
Joseph gathers his brothers around him one day and says, “Listen. I’ve just had this amazing dream. When we were binding stalks of grain in the field, my stalk got up and stood upright, while your stalks gathered around it and bowed down to my stalk.” And incase the brothers missed the not so subtle meaning of that particular dream, he gathers them together a second time and says “I’ve just dreamed again, and this time the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”
Oh Joseph. Not your finest moment. No wonder the brothers got mad at him. Now by no means does their anger justify what happens next, but his brothers think about killing him. But decided, ultimately, that they could make more money if they sold him into slavery, so that’s what they did. They sold Jospeh off to Egyptians, and then lied to their father, Jacob, saying that Joseph had been killed by a wild animal.
How would your characterize Jospeh’s words and actions in this section of Genesis 37?
Prayer: Lord, sometimes as we look at Joseph it is as if we are looking at ourselves in a mirror. We see the lack of humility. The lack of appreciation for other people. The arrogance. Forgive us, O Lord, we pray. Amen.
Wednesday: “Conspired” - Genesis 37: 17-22
The musical Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat by Andrew Lloyd Webber tells the story of Joseph, especially from the chapters that we are reading this week and beyond. One of the scenes the struck me the most the first time I saw it was from a song entitled, “Poor, Poor Joseph” which tells of how his brothers conspired to kill him. In both the lyrics they sing and the acting on the stage you could feel in a palpable sense, their anger with Joseph.
Lyrics such as, “Let us grab him now, Do him in, while weave got the time”
It is hard to sympathize with the brothers in this moment, but in a lot of ways it is equally hard to sympathize with Joseph. Which leads the narrator to ask, "Poor, poor Joseph, what'cha gonna do? Things look bad for you, hey, what'cha gonna do?”
Of course, one brother who stands out is Reuben, who tried to trick his other brothers into putting Jospeh in a pit, so he could come back to rescue him.
In reading this particular section of Scripture who do you associate with the most and why?
Prayer: Lord, when we set aside our prior readings of the story of Joseph and see it with new eyes, we see so many wrongs being committed at once. So much harm that has been done. Lord, shape and transform us we pray, so we live as people of love and not as people or hate or disdain. Amen.
Thursday: “Profit” - Genesis 37: 26-34
Joseph seemed to be fairing okay, all things considered at first in Egypt. He was taken in by Potiphar, a chief official of the Pharaoh. Until one day Potiphar’s wife tried to suduce Joseph, and when she couldn’t, she had him thrown in jail. While in prison, it became known that Jospeh could interpret dreams, only this time they weren’t about his brothers bowing down to him, but instead were about the fate of other people. After a long time in jail, one of the folks who had his dreams interpreted by Joseph, the cup bearer for the Pharaoh, told the Pharaoh all about Jospeh when he himself was having dreams that terrified him. Joseph was able to interpret those dreams to help preserve Egypt during a famine that was on the horizon.
Joseph’s brothers didn’t weather the famine as well as he did in Egypt. They traveled there to beg someone to have mercy on them and let them buy food - and who should they run into but Joseph. Only they didn’t recognize him. He finally cried out to them “It’s me! It’s Joseph” and started immediately asking about their family.
How can you see God’s hand at work in Joseph’s life over the years?
Prayer: Lord, while it is sometimes hard to see your hand at work in our own lives, especially during difficult times, it helps for us to look at examples such as Joseph and see how you were at work in his life. Through his story may we recognize your hand and presence with us, whatever we may face. Amen.
Friday: “Forgiveness - Genesis 50: 15-21
If anyone had a right to be angry at his brothers, Joseph did. In fact, I’m sure during those countless years in jail he thought about them from time to time with anger and disdain. Only when the time came, he didn’t seek their harm, but forgave them and sought their prosperity - inviting them to move to Egypt and be part of what God was doing in and through his life. Jospeh showed so much love and charity as he told his brothers - “Now, don’t be upset and don’t be angry with yourselves that you sold me here. Actually, God sent me before you to save lives.” In other translations it says “What you intended for harm, God intended for good”. Joseph was brought to tears by the reunion with his brothers.
Sometimes we screw up. Sometimes we don’t get it right. Sometimes we don’t have the right attitude wondering why we should change for “those people” - the people who are not yet here amongst us. We begin to have doubts and can get so caught up in ourselves, that we can be like Joesph’s brothers, missing what is right in front of us.
Other times, we miss out on God’s vision, because we are so caught up in our own emotions - guilt, anger, shame, that we can’t take a risk to join in what God is doing for the Kingdom. Joseph could have spent a lot of time, friends, thinking about how things should have been or once where, instead of living into the circumstances he found himself in. Then what? An entire generation would have wasted away in starvation. We need to look to God’s vision, not of how we want things to be based on the past, but firmly rooted in who God is calling us to be today for the future.
Who do you feel God calling you to forgive in your life?
Prayer: Lord, we come before you today and we admit that forgiveness is hard. We admit that we do not always get it right. Yet, O Lord, we want to be a people marked by your forgiveness towards us who extend this gift towards others. Mold us and use us, we pray. Amen.
Saturday: Preparing for the Word
You are invited to read and pray this week’s text and topic: “The Promise of Passover” - Exodus 12:1-13; 13:1-8
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