The Bigger Picture: Joseph 2

Joseph 2: Dream-killers?
(preached April 28th, 2010)


I say to you today, my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.


I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." ...


I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day ... one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

In April 1968, an assassin killed the dreamer – Martin Luther King – and the world waited to see if the dream was dead, too. But it wasn’t, because the dream was even bigger than the dreamer, and America is a much different place now to what it was just over 40 years ago.

This morning, we’re taking a look at another dreamer and considering how his brothers planned to kill his dreams by disposing of him. Of course, I’m talking of Joseph, son of Jacob.

But first, I want us to remember how, last week, we started to identify a certain dysfunctionality within the family, a problem that went back generations. We saw how Abraham had deceived Pharaoh in Egypt and Abimelech, the king of Gerar; how Isaac had done the same thing to Abimelech years later; and how Jacob was involved in a series of family deceptions. They were the chosen family of God, but they weren’t without their shortcomings.

This week, we start reading chapter 37 of the Book of Genesis and what do we see? Trouble, that’s what we see. What we have to understand is that Jacob had a huge family, but his children were born to four different mothers: Leah – the wife Jacob was tricked into marrying – was the mother of Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulun; Rachel’s maid, Bilhah, bore two sons – Dan and Naphtali – for Jacob, because Rachel thought she herself couldn’t have children; Zilpah, Leah’s maid, bore another two sons – Gad and Asher – for Abraham, when Leah thought her own child-bearing days were over; and, finally, Rachel did have two sons, after all – Joseph and Benjamin. Oh, what a tangled web we weave ... !

The rivalry between Leah and Rachel was intense – and no doubt Bilhah and Zilpah regularly came into the equation, too. The rivalry between the mothers must inevitably have been taken on by their sons and daughters (we know there was at least one daughter, Dinah, who was born to Leah). The point is that all was not sweetness and light within the family. So, when Jacob quite clearly favours Joseph, the elder son of his favourite wife Rachel, by giving him a beautiful robe, it’s a recipe for disaster. And Joseph himself doesn’t really help matters, either – verse 2 tells us that “Joseph reported to his father some of the bad things his brothers were doing.”

It all results in Joseph’s half-brothers despising him – we’re told that “they couldn’t say a kind word to him.” What a sad, sad situation for any family – and, eventually, something just has to give. The final straw is when Joseph tells his half-brothers about some dreams he’s been having.

Actually, I had a dream this week, too, and it involved all of you. Would you like to hear it? Well, we were all out on a ramble, walking across a lovely green field, talking and enjoying ourselves, when we all suddenly stopped and you formed a semi-circle around me. You all got down on one knee and bowed your head before me. I looked around and noticed that even the sun and the sheep in an adjoining field were bowing down to me. Wasn’t that a truly wonderful dream? No?

Maybe now you can imagine how the brothers felt when Joseph told them that, in one dream, all their sheaves of wheat bowed before his sheaf and, in another, the sun, moon and stars paid him homage. You see, the dreams were provocative – they clearly placed Joseph in a superior position to his brothers and his parents, without providing a clear explanation for why that should be. We who know the full story will, of course, realise that, in time, Joseph will be in charge of Egypt’s stores of grain and be in a position of power over the rest of the family. But they had no way of knowing that then, and there’s no suggestion that Joseph knew, either.

Notice though that, while the brothers seethe with jealousy and anger, Jacob has some inkling that there is a much deeper meaning to them. After all, he himself was a dreamer – he had dreamt at Bethel of a ladder with angels ascending and descending and of a blessing from God ... it was a God-dream. And now we must become aware that these were God’s dreams, not Joseph’s. They may have been entrusted to Joseph, but they didn’t originate from him. They weren’t his property, but they were his destiny. And, because they were God’s dreams, they couldn’t die, no matter what the dreamer has to go through because of them.

And go through it, he does. When he is sent out by his father to check on how his brothers are looking after the sheep, his brothers see him coming from afar off. “Here comes the dreamer!” they say and quickly plan to rid themselves of both the dreamer and the dreams. They sincerely believe that they have the power to achieve all that, little knowing that, ultimately, the dreams are more powerful than they.

But, if these dreams are God’s dreams and the brothers are powerless to prevent them from coming to fruition, does it mean that God engineers all the circumstances? Does it mean that, from the beginning, God arranged it that the brothers would be angry with Joseph and throw him into a waterhole? Does it mean God pre-ordained it that he would be sold to Midianite traders, who would in turn sell him to Potiphar, an official of Pharaoh’s, in Egypt?

You could read Joseph’s story like that – it’s quite possible. But wouldn’t that be a case of God treating the human beings concerned like puppets? Wouldn’t it amount to a denial of human freewill? I think, on reflection, that it probably would.

Perhaps, instead, it is the case that God has an end in view, an end which is for the benefit of humanity, and that He is able to ensure human sinfulness doesn’t prevent that end from being achieved. You see, it is completely inconceivable that God would cause the brothers to sin in such a way – God and sin do not go together. It is man that always takes the “sin initiative”; and then God works it around, so that His will is fulfilled. He may well be aware of how things will occur, but there’s a very definite difference between that and making things happen that way.

So, here in Genesis, when they decide not to kill Joseph themselves or to leave him to die in the cistern, but instead to sell him to the Midianite traders, the brothers actually enable the dream to become a reality – ironic, eh?

Earlier on, we also read some verses from the very end of the Book of Revelation. They describe a vision given to the apostle John of how all things will conclude:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was gone. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

It goes on to describe how God’s people will dwell with Him forever and there will be no need for lamps or sun, because the Lord God Himself will shine upon them.

A dream, you may say, John’s dream. But just as Joseph’s dream was God’s dream and just had to become reality, John’s dream or vision is God’s dream and it will happen – nothing can stop it. The Devil will do his utmost – particularly by attempting to stop us believing in the dream – but nothing can stop it. The purposes of God will be fulfilled; His will will be done. So, take strength and courage from that – strength and courage that will keep you going on your journey.

Of course, the funny thing about the beginning of the story of Joseph is that God isn’t mentioned once, and yet we know that He is there. We know that, unseen, His hand is very much on the situation, because it is His dream that must be fulfilled. And, today, God isn’t always recognised as we look around us, we don’t often hear Him mentioned; yet His hand is very much upon our situations, very much active in the world, bringing that vision of a new heaven and a new earth, a new heavenly city, to fruition.

Let’s trust in Him to do that and let us be the dreamers who share our dreams with a sceptical and sometimes punishing world.

Amen.