The Bigger Picture: Joseph 1

Joseph 1: ‘A Dysfunctional Family’
(preached April 18th, 2010)

This morning, we’re returning to our look at the bigger picture of the Bible after a break for Easter. Over the next year or so, we are going sequentially through God’s written word, The Bible, to get a clearer idea of His purposes for creation and of the story of His people.

For a while now, we have been working through the Book of Genesis, and, before Easter, we reached the account of how Abraham and Sarah were blessed with the birth of a son named Isaac. I want us to move on now to look at the family of Abraham’s grandson, Jacob; and, over the next few weeks, we’ll be focussing very specifically on how it was that Jacob’s son, Joseph, was used by God to save his family.

But, this morning, I want to start by taking a look at why, for so long, they were such a seriously dysfunctional family. And a seriously dysfunctional family they were! After all, it’s not every family in which one son is so highly favoured by his father that his brothers – born of several different mothers – attack him, sell him into slavery and then deceive their father into believing that he has been killed by a wild animal.

And yet I think the behaviour of the brothers isn’t just a one-off situation, but has its roots much earlier in the family history, even in the life of the man who is regarded with such reverence by Jewish and Christian people – Abraham!

Abraham’s deceit

No sooner had Abraham first received the call from God to leave his own country and begun the journey to a new home than there was a great famine in the region – a famine so severe that he had no choice but to go with Sarah to Egypt, where there would be food available. There’s only one problem: Abraham fears that, when they get there, the Egyptians will find Sarah so attractive that someone will do away with him in order to marry his wife. So Abraham instructs Sarah to tell the Egyptians that she is his sister, not his wife, so that they’ll treat him well and not kill him.

Later, in chapter 20, we find out that Sarah actually is Abraham’s half-sister – the daughter of his father, but not of his mother – so it isn’t a total lie, but it is a deception; and, as a result of that deception, Pharaoh takes Sarah as his wife and brings judgement upon himself and his household, before sending her and Abraham out of the country.

And, later, just before Isaac is conceived, unbelievably Abraham pulls the same trick again, when he and Sarah arrive at a place called Gerar, a city-state in the south-western corner of Canaan. This time it is the ruler of Gerar, Abimelech, who is deceived and takes Sarah to be his wife, only to be warned by God to give her back to Abraham. When he does so, disaster for himself and his household is avoided.

So, in spite of the reverence with which he is later held – just remember what Hebrews says about him – we see that Abraham is not a flawless individual, but is prepared to use deception to save his own skin, even when it means the dishonouring of his wife. And yet he is still used powerfully by God, he is still God’s chosen.

Isaac’s deceit

Then, we take a look at Isaac, his son, and see that he too deceived the people of Gerar. Like his father, he went to escape a famine and decided that the only way he would remain safe would be by telling everyone that his beautiful wife, Rebekah, was his sister. Can you believe it? He committed the same offence as his father, through deception he risked his beloved wife’s dignity and honour for the sake of his own safety. Of course, it is impossible to put ourselves into the shoes of Abraham or Isaac – they lived in a completely different culture and faced such circumstances as we are unlikely to face – so mustn’t be judgmental, but can you see how the moral legacy of the parents is often inherited by their children.

Of course, the moral legacy that Isaac inherited from Abraham was generally an excellent one, but we’ve seen that he, too, resorted to deception for his own purposes. And when we look at the story of one of his sons, Jacob, it would appear that the propensity to deceive was passed on to him, too. Let’s briefly take a look at how that was evident in Jacob’s life.

Jacob’s deceit

Jacob was born one of twins – his twin brother was Esau. The Bible tells us that they were very active in their mother’s womb and, while Esau was born first, Jacob came out, clutching the heel of his brother. Esau was so named, because right from birth he was very hairy (and, in Hebrew, that’s what ‘Esau’ means). ‘Jacob’, on the other hand, means ‘heel’ in Hebrew – but please note that it can also mean ‘deceiver’! How very apt.

As is common with siblings, there was occasionally tension between the two brothers. For example, once when elder brother Esau returned from a hunting expedition, feeling tired and very hungry, he demanded some of the stew that younger brother Jacob was cooking. But Jacob would only give him some, if he in return passed his birthright as the eldest son over to Jacob. A tricky customer was this Jacob.

Then years later, as blind Isaac is wondering how long he has to live, he announces his intention to pass his special blessing on to his favourite son, Esau. However, when she hears this, his wife Rebekah helps Jacob, her favourite son, to receive that blessing instead. With his mother’s assistance, Jacob tricks his father into thinking that he himself is Esau and, in so doing, he cheats his brother of the blessing that is rightfully his. Egged on by his mother, he lives up to that other meaning of his name, “The Deceiver” – so, you see, the legacy has again been passed on.

Later, when Jacob seeks a wife and falls in love with Rachel, his cousin, and works hard for seven years to win her hand in marriage, he himself is tricked by Laban, his uncle, and unwittingly marries Leah, Rachel’s elder sister, instead. In order to marry Rachel as well, he has to pledge to work for Laban for a further seven years. And so the Deceiver has been successfully deceived by another member of his family.

The deceit doesn’t end there, either. Fast forward some years and we see that, when their sister Dinah is raped by Shechem the Hivite, Jacob’s sons use trickery and deceit to exact their terrible revenge upon the Hivite people – you can read about that particular episode in Genesis, chapter 34.

This has been a very rapid review of 22 chapters of the Book of Genesis and, of course, I’ve only highlighted incidents of deception. I’m not in any way suggesting that this family were truly awful people – they weren’t at all – in fact, quite the opposite, because they were the chosen people of God and God doesn’t make mistakes in His choices. But our brief review of Genesis does reveal that there was a family tendency to resort to deceit in times of trouble – a tendency which will again be apparent as we study the story of Joseph in weeks to come.

Application

So, what lessons do we take from all this?

Well, some Christians speak of something they call ‘generational sin’ – sin which is passed down spiritually from parents to children, from one generation to another, thus bringing successive generations under God’s judgment. They point to scriptures like Exodus 34:6-7, where it says:

And God passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet He does not leave the guilty unpunished; He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation."

Now, I’m not sure that the Bible is suggesting that the sins of the fathers are passed down to their children in some sort of spiritual way, so that the children are punished for the sins of their parents; but, even today, we can see how sins and problems are passed on from one generation to another.

For example, it has been shown that the children of alcoholic parents are more likely to become alcoholics themselves; that the children of those who are involved in criminal activity often get drawn into it themselves; and that children who grow up with domestic violence are more likely to engage in it themselves in adult life. Of course, these are generalisations and there are plenty of children who don’t go on to become alcoholics, or criminals, or use domestic violence, even if their parents did.

But, undeniably, sin that is left unchecked and problems that are left unaddressed have a tendency to become entrenched and more likely to be passed down the generations to the detriment of all. The chain needs to be broken and I believe the Church of Jesus Christ can play an important role in breaking it. We can do that by connecting with families (both parents and children) and listening to their concerns and their problems, giving them space to share. We can do that by offering appropriate support when possible – for instance, by running parenting courses and marriage courses – and by pointing them in the direction of other agencies that might be able to help them. We can also do that by praying for specific families and for family life in general; and, of course, by being vigilant. Groups like Tots ‘n’ Toddlers, Girls’ Brigade, and Messy Church are really significant in doing these things, as, of course, is Barn-a-B’s Pre-School.

But the most important and significant thing we can do for any family or any individual locked into sin is to introduce them to Jesus, because when someone comes to Christ the chain of sin is broken. The Apostle Peter writes in his first letter:

“For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom He paid was not mere gold or silver. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God.”

Christ came to break the power of sin that bound us and, through His death and resurrection, all those who welcome Him as Lord are set free. You know, the most important, the most beautiful, the most liberating thing that we can ever do for families is to share with them the Good News of Jesus Christ.

As we come around the communion table again this morning, let us commit ourselves as individual Christians and as a church fellowship to helping others address the problem of sin in their lives and to introducing them to Christ the liberator.

Amen.