The Goodness of God: Toward the Skeptical and the Faithful

***This is a sermon I wrote for a summer class I'm taking on the Torah (first 5 books of the Hebrew Bible). It's the first time I've written something on spirituality that's non-academic, so it's a little raw. I did receive an A for it, though, so it probably won't be the worst thing you've ever spent 10 minutes reading***

The Genesis account of Joseph is a story that reminds us of timeless human conditions and relationship challenges we all deal with, every day.

At first glance, it’s easy to side with Joseph, the protagonist in the story. He is faithful to God, who is faithful to him. And he is even faithful to his family, who abuse and betray him.

But the more I meditate on the text, the more I feel compelled to confess that it is Joseph’s brothers I most readily identify with:

I find it painful trying to “measure up” to others who seem to have it easy.

I have a hard time trusting others to be true and faithful.

I struggle with believing that God is always good.

As we approach this story together, I hope we can all find a little bit of ourselves in unexpected places…

Realizing that their father was dead, Joseph’s brothers said, “What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the wrong that we did to him? So they approached Joseph, saying, “Your father gave this instruction before he died, “Say to Joseph: I beg you, forgive the crime of your brothers and the wrong they did in harming you. Now therefore please forgive the crime of the servants of the God of your father.” Joseph wept when they spoke to him. Then his brothers also wept, fell down before him, and said, “We are here as your slaves.” But Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God? Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today. So have no fear; I myself will provide for you and your little ones.” In this way he reassured them, speaking kindly to them. {Genesis 50.15-21 NRSV}

At the end of Genesis we find this narrative account of a dialogue between Joseph and his brothers that presents us with the thesis of the Joseph story.

The brothers are engaged in behavior that has been typical of them throughout the narrative – they are scheming, just as they were at the beginning of the story (in Genesis 37) when they threw Joseph into the pit. At this point in the text, Joseph and his brothers have finished mourning for and burying their father Jacob, and it occurs to the brothers that Joseph may have been previously generous to them because of Jacob. Prior to Jacob’s death, the brothers were bound together by a common interest – love for their father. Now that Jacob has died, can Joseph be trusted? Is his love faithful?

In Genesis 50, it seems that the brothers have devised yet another plan. The narrative does not record Jacob requesting Joseph to forgive the crimes of his brothers. Yet the brothers recount the supposed words of Jacob, “Say to Joseph: I beg you, forgive the crime of your brothers and the wrong they did in harming you.” Of course, the lack of this conversation in the text certainly does not mean it didn’t or couldn’t have happened. It just means that if this conversation occurred, the reader is not privy to it. Are we to trust the brothers, or is there reason to doubt the authenticity of the conversation recounted?

The second half of the verse records their own request, “Now therefore please forgive the crime of the servants of the God of your father.” The brothers fall before Joseph – for the first time willingly subjecting themselves to Joseph’s earlier vision and fulfilling the vision of the first dream from Genesis 37:5-7, “…There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Suddenly my sheath rose and stood upright; then your sheaves gathered around it, and bowed down to my sheaf.” Characterizing themselves first as slaves of God, and then as slaves of Joseph (we are here as your slaves), the brothers essentially equate Joseph to God.

But Joseph refutes this characterization, “Am I in the place of God?” Joseph’s response to his brothers confirms his love for them and his desire for reconciliation with the siblings who abandoned him. The true meaning of the dream that Joseph so boldly shared in Genesis 37 has been revealed. As he has already done before in the story, Joseph again explains the character of God to his brothers, “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today.” The point of God’s movement was not in forcing the brothers to bow before Joseph, but to move Joseph into a position that allowed him to provide for his family.

The stories of each of the Patriarchs in Genesis show the arc of God’s movement – the gradual revelation of a plan that transforms the descendants of Abraham into the people of God. Although God seems more distant in the Joseph story than in the narratives of Abraham and Isaac, nowhere is the theme of divine providence more apparent. In the story of Joseph, God is clearly at work behind the scenes, working in spite of and actually transforming the evil intentions of men into ultimate good.

Joseph’s response to his brothers isn’t a simple summation of divine providence. Instead, he extends himself to them once again, binding himself to his family as he has already done in Genesis 45. Joseph’s response in Genesis 50 is essentially a paraphrase of what he has pledged earlier in the narrative, when he first revealed himself to his brothers. In Genesis 45, Joseph insists that God (not the brother’s bad conduct) sent him to Egypt, in order to preserve them. Joseph promises to care and provide for them. Yet, five chapters later, the distrust of the brothers requires Joseph to pledge his love another time.

There is a multiplicity of observations we could take away from these six verses. I’d like to focus on three observations regarding the characters we’re presented with: a thought about God, a thought about the brothers, and a thought about Joseph.

Throughout the history of the Patriarchs, God is portrayed as being completely faithful to the promises and covenant he establishes. When the Patriarchs are deceptive, when they are uncompassionate, and when they’re disobedient, God blesses them; renewing, and even expanding covenants. From the beginning, the promise to Abraham is established upon God’s divine will – not dependant on human action. In the Joseph story, this characteristic of God becomes penetratingly apparent. Regardless of human intention or interaction, divine providence prevails. The God of Genesis intends to act for the good of humankind … “God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today.”

The character of the brothers reveals something I think is true of us all. They begin to doubt Joseph’s good intentions. They demand further proof of his love and intent to reconcile. I most easily identify with Joseph’s brothers. They’re scared and selfish and in the midst of their fear reveal how vulnerable they feel. More often than I care to admit, I stand in the place of the brothers. In my fear, in the face of my own self-interests, in my inability to truly grasp hold of the love and reconciliation extended to me, I ask for further proof. I’m not interested in condemning the brothers for asking this, because I understand it all too well. Just as they failed to understand how they really stood in relationship with Joseph, so I fail to understand how I stand in relationship to those who really love me; this is especially true of my relationship to God. All too easily, I forget the bond of love between myself and the creator, a covenant based simply on God’s love for me, a relationship in which I will resort to my own selfishness and fear over and over again, but God will continue to be faithful (as he was to Joseph).

God will continue in faithfulness because God is unchanging. We embrace the belief that God is the same as God has always been. That means that our God is the same God who engaged in covenant with Abraham, expanded and renewed promises when disobedience occurred, took the evil intentions of Joseph’s brothers and ultimately shaped them into a plan of preservation. It strikes me as noteworthy that Joseph’s “preservation” of his family initiates what becomes the oppression of his people. Joseph is even indirectly responsible for making slaves of the people living in Egypt, for the interests of Pharaoh. Yet oppression is crucial to their ultimate deliverance, too. In enabling the taxation of his family, Joseph initiates the plan for deliverance.
God’s unchanging nature does not mean that our circumstances will always be pleasant. It means that God’s will toward us is good. Always. Even when we’ve been abandoned in the desert or find ourselves enslaved to something or someone more powerful than ourselves.

Rather than growing frustrated at his brother’s continued scheming and narcissism (after all, their concerns revolve around their own well-being), Joseph extends generosity. The text reveals that Joseph spoke kindly to them, he assured them. Joseph patiently reiterates God’s plan for their good and pledges to provide for them. Similar to the promise God makes to Abraham, the promise Joseph makes to his brothers is conditional on nothing. Joseph’s response is a model I certainly aspire to, but I am only rarely secure enough with myself to respond with the kindness and generosity Joseph demonstrates.

Genesis 50:15-21 reiterates the theme central to the Joseph story – divine providence – but it also reveals the vulnerability of the brothers, the grace of Joseph, and the faithfulness of God. It might be tempting to feel discouraged if you, like me, find it easy to relate to the brothers but more difficult relating to Joseph – and even more difficult to embrace this text’s portrayal of God. But let’s note that this Joseph is not the Joseph we encounter in the beginning of the story. In Genesis 37, Joseph is a tattletale, and in revealing his dream to his brothers he sounds just a little narcissistic. Yet Joseph emerges as the gracious leader at the end of Genesis 50 because of the hardship he faced, experiences that ultimately led to his maturation. Can’t we all say that the most difficult experiences in life have often formed us into people a little more kind, a little more gracious, a little more mature? If you, like me, find it difficult to trust that God’s purposes are always good, that God’s covenant with humankind has always been rooted in God’s love for us, then I would encourage you to explore the God of Genesis. This is the God the author seems to experience, and wants to convey to us. This God has clearly bound himself to his people simply because he loved them, regardless of their behavior.

But, God’s desire for our good does not mean that only good will occur. Take the stories of the Patriarchs in Genesis, for example. Unfortunately, we see the powerless becoming more and more marginalized in the text (Abraham and Isaac both endanger their wives, Hagar is abandoned and God seems to favor Sarah, Esau is humiliated by Jacob, Dinah is raped, Tamar is denied her legal rights, Joseph is left to die in the desert). But this is certainly no different from our modern-day context, where the powerful gain more power at the expense of the oppressed, and injustice is simply a fact of life. God does not always appear to be at work. But while my response is to shake my fist in the sky and ask where God is, the Patriarchs are drawn to God as their greatest good – even in the midst of tragedy and pain. They believe God to be with them in the darkness. They experience the God who demands the sacrifice of a child, as well as the God who intoxicates them with divine presence (the Patriarchs may have been more comfortable with paradox than we are).

How does this God compare to the God you embrace? I confess that I am uneasy with the paradox expressed in Genesis, but I am open to learning to embrace the mystery of God, the darkness of God’s light. I am willing to spend time sitting with the God Joseph expresses in these verses – the God who has always been at work, weaving the difficulty and pain of my experiences into good.

Are you struggling to feel worthy of relationship with God? Perhaps the Genesis God could ease your distress; this God loves humanity simply because humanity is. This God does not love humans because of what they do or do not do. This God is ultimately committed to fulfilling promises and covenants of good toward the people of Israel. Perhaps this is the same God we enter into relationship with today. If, after all, God remains unchanging.

So what have we learned from and about the characters of this story? That God actively intervenes for the sake of goodness? Or that we are all narcissists like Joseph’s brothers? Or that we are like a young, brash Joseph? Or that we will be blessed to see the positive fulfillment of heartache and pain? Absolutely not. The observations we’ve made in the text show that the God of Genesis is faithful to the promises he makes, not that he circumvents the struggle, heartache and pain of our journey. And it’s not a failure to admit that we’re a little like Joseph’s brothers; it isn’t easy for us to accept that God can or will have our best intentions at heart… so we must remember to extend grace to ourselves and each other, knowing that we’ll ask for renewed promises of love and reconciliation from God, and from those we’re in community with. And we’ll try to hold our doubt and fear in tension with the God of Genesis (and the God of today) who invites us into relationship that is sometimes a mystery, sometimes a paradox, but is always in movement toward something good.