Morning Prayer: Tom Lyda Choral Amen Hymn of Reconciliation *Let There Be Peace on Earth* Witness of Scripture: Genesis 45: 1-15 Anthem *Glorious is the Lord Almighty* Joseph Hydn. FCC Chancel Choir Sermon *When the Coat is Shed* David Spain
Recorded on August 20, 2023
For reasons that are not entirely clear, we each have particular stories that draw us in—stories or poems that no matter how many times we have heard them or read them, are still compelling, so much so that we read them again. Or perhaps it is a movie or a show or a song that we will watch or sing repeatedly because it touches something deep within us. Sometimes, even a story from the Bible will do that, a story like Joseph and his family, a story so engaging that Andrew Lloyd Webber set it to music and a hit Broadway production—Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat which debuted 50 years ago, not counting its debut in the book of Genesis.
What is it about Joseph that is so engaging, a story so powerful that it is the focus of the last one-fourth of Genesis. Maybe it is this—the story of Joseph and his family is the story of humanity at its deceptive and degenerating worst; and it is the story of humanity at its redemptive and restoring best. And perhaps most significantly, the story invites us to consider the ways in which God is present through all this intrigue. Contrary to earlier stories from Genesis and subsequent Biblical stories, God’s voice is not directly heard when Genesis tells of Joseph and his brothers.This does not mean God is absent; it only means that God is to be denied or discerned; rejected or revered. With all respect for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s magnificent production, which follows the Genesis telling with little literary license taken, its wonderfully creative title is not really the story. The technicolor dream coat is the problem, but it is not the story. The story is what happens when the coat is shed—which might get by as a sermon title but would fall flat on 42nd and Broadway.
The dream coat is the problem…or perhaps the better way to say it is, the dream coat reveals the problem. In the brilliance of how this story is written, Genesis gives us the problem only three verses in. “Now Jacob loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he had made him a long robe with sleeves,” or as it is also described, “a coat of many colors.” Ah-oh! If you have been part of any family anywhere including even the human family, favoritism can be a problem. The irony here is that Jacob knew about favoritism—he was raised in a family where the father was drawn to his brother and the mother was drawn to him. Jacob was unabashed in his favoritism. This story could have been entitled “Everybody Loves Joseph.”Except of course, everybody did not, and Genesis makes that clear only one verse later--“When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated Joseph.” Is anybody uncomfortable yet? Is anybody thinking of a sibling, or a colleague, or a club, or a religion, or a culture? Or maybe you are the favored one in the eyes of others. We know in the healthiest of relationships that people are not loved the same but are loved particularly and uniquely. No doubt it is a difficult dynamic to balance. No problem in Jacob’s family…he doesn’t even pretend to be unbiased. He loved Joseph best.
It wasn’t only Joseph’s brothers who knew of their father’s favoritism. Joseph knew it also, and at 17 years old—which is where Genesis begins the story—Joseph worked that favoritism so effectively that even Narcissus was envious. Only 17 and his young mind is still developing, so perhaps he could be forgiven for his fits of grandiosity; but Joseph was hard to take at times. Already feeling like they lived in his shadow, Joseph did not endear himself to his brothers when he shared his dream that as they were working in the field, his bundle of wheat stood taller than all theirs, which circled around his and bowed down. Later, Joseph shared another dream that the sun, moon and stars bowed to him, which even old Jacob found to be a bit much. “You think you are God,” said Jacob to Joseph which perhaps he didn’t but he still considered himself the center of their universe if not the universe.We ponder the too often tempting lure to be placed in that same position, no matter one’s age, especially in a “Bachelor/Bachlorette, American Idol, Kardashian, social media culture of self-promoting individualism.
Understandably if not sympathetically, Joseph’s brothers knit a plot to be done with him. One day, Jacob mindlessly sends Joseph to check on his brothers working in a far field, and even more mindlessly Joseph wears his coat. The brothers seize the opportunity, jump him and toss him into a pit with plans to kill him. The oldest Judah convinces the brothers that rather than doing away with his flesh they exact a pound of flesh by selling Joseph to a passing caravan headed to Egypt, which they agree to do because something is better than nothing and they can be done with him without his blood on their hands. However, before any money changes hands, the brothers take Joseph’s coat, douse it with goat’s blood, and take it back to dear old Dad who jumps to the conclusion that Joseph was jumped not by his brothers but by a wild animal. He is distraught and refuses to be consoled.It’s hard to know who to root for here; there is enough dysfunction to deform the whole cast. And by the way, is there any word from the Lord? At this point, no word at all. We remember that after the flood God had pledged that never again would God use violence to redeem. It is the hope to hold, because the story makes clear that human destructivity—by deception, arrogance, or aggression—has no redemptive outcome.
Once Joseph is in Egypt, there are a series of twists and turns, many of them more fitting for late night viewing than Sunday morning preaching. But Joseph prevails—in spite of the lies, in spite of the temptations—he does not succumb to the sirens of self-satisfaction, which is the first sign that Joseph is growing up, understanding that he is not the center of the universe. He is humbled by his suffering, humbled by what is done to him, and Genesis says that in that humility and in that distress, God is with him. It is a clue, it is a hint of the presence of God who is never absent but is realized when Joseph makes room for something more than himself, when the orbit of his life is centered in something other than himself.
To make a long story short, Joseph and his dreams move beyond himself. He envisions that a famine is coming, gains the ear and the trust of the Pharoah, and lands a position as minister of agriculture, during which he prepares Egypt for the dry days coming. But here’s the wonder of it—Joseph does not prepare Egypt only for its own survival. Egypt will also be a source and a resource for the neighboring hungering nations.Stephen Shoemaker writes, “This is the way of the righteous nation whose leaders rule with God’s justice. That is the way the biblical God uses the nations God blesses and blesses the nations God uses—the strong to bless the weak, the rich to bless the poor, the smart to bless the simple.” (GodStories, p. 64).Ironic isn’t it that from the land of Pharoah comes the mercy of God. Years later that Spirit would be retracted by a future Pharoah who demanded more bricks for less food; but for now and thanks to Joseph’s abundant compassion, we can hear a word from the Lord.
Compassion is the word Joseph’s brothers hear, as we heard in the 45th chapter of Genesis. His brothers, famished by the famine, ask Joseph for grain. For whatever reason, Joseph’s brothers do not recognize him even though he recognizes them. Will Joseph leave them in the pit of despair, as he was left several decades before?When the brothers bow down to Joseph, Genesis says he remembered his teenage dreams. But Joseph has grown up—Joseph is no longer the envy of Narcissus; instead, he is the embodiment of mercy. He has come to see his life as more than self-absorption and his losses as more than opportunity for revenge. His response is not the divisive rhetoric of grievance but the compassionate nurture of community. Joseph has shed the coat of many colors and wears instead the mantle of God’s reconciliation, God’s forgiveness, God kindness. He embodies what the prophet Micah would later summarize as God’s will for humanity—"to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.” (Micah 6: 8)
Close to the end of Joseph’s story, we see the full shedding of his coat of privilege and arrogance. The family has been reunited, saved from the famine thanks to Joseph’s foresight and the Egyptian gift of neighborliness. Father Jacob has died, which kindles the brothers’ fears that now Joseph will exact his revenge. Instead, what we hear is the cornucopia of grace poured out from brother to brother, as it is also poured from this Table of grain and grapes. As his brothers lay bare their deepest angst and shed their last defense, Joseph likewise sheds the last threads of any pretense or any retribution. Joseph has learned who truly lives at the center of the universe, and to whom he and his brothers are to bow down. “‘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…so have no fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.’ In this way Joseph reassured them, speaking kindly to them.” (Genesis 50: 19-21) When the coat is shed, there is room for the voice of the Lord, both to speak it and to hear it.
The book of Genesis, that early on included the wily manipulations of a snake in the grass, now concludes with the shedding of cloaks that conceal the ways of God. The story invites us to ponder the workings of God amidst human deceit. The story asks us to ponder the possibility that God is ever working toward redemption, even as God invites us to be part of that work.We know this is not an easy story; instead, this is the story of God’s steadfast faithfulness that can transform even the likes of Joseph and his brothers. Thanks be to God, Genesis tells us about what can happen when the technicolor dream coat is shed.