The Whole Story Has a Happy Ending
The Old Testament reading for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost is the dramatic climax of the Joseph saga (Genesis 45:1-15). Here it is in a nutshell: Joseph’s brothers were jealous of their father’s favoring Joseph. One day they conspired against him. They left Jospeh to die in a pit in the wilderness. Jospeh was rescued by traveling traders who sold him into slavery in Egypt. Joseph faced many more trials and tribulations. Then he earned the favor of Pharaoh, who gave him great authority over the land and its people. Joseph’s foresight and leadership helped the Egyptians to flourish in spite of crop failures, which brought a severe famine over the region.
When we pick up with the story, Jospeh’s brothers have traveled to Egypt in the hope of securing food to feed their families. To their shock and amazement, the mighty Egyptian Lord to whom they have appealed for food declares that he is their long-lost brother:
“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.”
It is a resurrection story; the dead man suddenly appears to those who have wronged him. Instead of retribution, they are offered forgiveness and reconciliation.
This Easter story is the conclusion to Genesis. It sets up the Book of Exodus and everything that follows. Ultimately, it leads us to the good news of Jesus Christ the Son of God.
I love the Joseph story for many reasons, but especially because it shows how God works over the long course of history and through suffering and injustice. God is at work even in situations when God is seemingly absent (this is the first mention of God in the entire Joseph saga). God’s great purpose is bringing humanity—indeed, the entirety of creation—into unity and wholeness. Jospeh’s saga is only an early act in the “divine comedy.”
As I contemplate the long history of Church Hill and St. John’s, I wonder how the story will end. I’m curious about how God might have been at work in every decade and season, right up to the present. What will be our part in the story? How can the church participate and witness to God’s work of healing and reconciling what is broken and divided?
We will need the Joseph story and all our stories to tutor our imaginations and help us to discern what might God be doing in our present struggles and challenges, and how our own stories might fit into the divine comedy.
Faithfully in Christ,
Greg+
The Reverend Gregory Bezilla
Interim Rector
