What Are You Seeking?

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August 10, 2014

Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28

¹Jacob settled in the land where his father had lived as an alien, the land of Canaan. ²This is the story of the family of Jacob.

Joseph, being seventeen years old, was shepherding the flock with his brothers; he was a helper to the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives; and Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. ³Now Israel 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. ⁴But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him.

¹²Now his brothers went to pasture their father’s flock near Shechem. ¹³And Israel said to Joseph, “Are not your brothers pasturing the flock at Shechem? Come, I will send you to them.” He answered, “Here I am.” ¹⁴So he said to him, “Go now, see if it is well with your brothers and with the flock; and bring word back to me.” So he sent him from the valley of Hebron.

He came to Shechem, ¹⁵and a man found him wandering in the fields; the man asked him, “What are you seeking?” ¹⁶“I am seeking my brothers,” he said; “tell me, please, where they are pasturing the flock.” ¹⁷The man said, “They have gone away, for I heard them say, ‘Let us go to Dothan.’” So Joseph went after his brothers, and found them at Dothan. ¹⁸They saw him from a distance, and before he came near to them, they conspired to kill him. ¹⁹They said to one another, “Here comes this dreamer. ²⁰Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; then we shall say that a wild animal has devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams.” ²¹But when Reuben heard it, he delivered him out of their hands, saying, “Let us not take his life.” ²²Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood; throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but lay no hand on him” — that he might rescue him out of their hand and restore him to his father. ²³So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the long robe with sleeves that he wore; ²⁴and they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it.

²⁵Then they sat down to eat; and looking up they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels carrying gum, balm, and resin, on their way to carry it down to Egypt. ²⁶Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? ²⁷Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and not lay our hands on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.” And his brothers agreed. ²⁸When some Midianite traders passed by, they drew Joseph up, lifting him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. And they took Joseph to Egypt.

Sermon: “What are you seeking?”

I have relived that day numerous times in my mind.  It’s not unusual for a person to ask for directions.  And it’s not unusual to tell them the way to go.  What is unusual is when telling them gets them thrown in a pit and then sold into slavery.

But I’m getting ahead of myself – I haven’t even told you who I am.  I’m the old shepherd fella who was working in Shechem the day that Joseph got lost looking for his brothers.  Of course I knew who he was before he even spoke – that colorful robe of his wasn’t exactly wallflower apparel.  I also knew a bit about his family.  Now, no family is perfect, we all know this.  But those brothers seemed to always be at odds. 

I’d heard that Joseph was, in a word, strange. 

He had an air of superiority about him.  He was a bit of a dreamer, too, and his dreams always seemed to make him come out on top and his brothers seem foolish.  And, perhaps he was a few crayons short of a box, because he actually told his brothers about his dreams.  They didn’t like them one bit.  And then, again perhaps he was a few fries short of a Happy Meal, because he didn’t work as hard as his brothers, but reported to his dad Jacob about how they didn’t work hard enough.  He was particularly tough on his half-brothers Dan, Naphtali, Gad and Asher. 

So, everyone in the area knew of these strapping young brothers, and of the tension between them.  But all families have tension, like I said.  I never knew it would turn violent.  If I had, I certainly would have told Joseph in his fancy robe to go another way.  Hindsight is 20/20, I suppose.

I told Joseph that his brothers had mentioned something about going to Dotham, some 13 miles away.  And off he went.  I never saw the poor boy again.  But of course, news travels pretty fast, and I heard what happened.

Joseph did find his brothers.  He was a dreamer, but his dreams didn’t prepare him for what happened next.  They wiped that persistent smug smirk off his face, ripped his resplendent robe off of him and were going to kill him.  Reuben spoke up with a word of mercy – if you can call being thrown into a pit mercy.  They threw him in a pit and were going to leave him for dead. 

You can tell how much these brothers acted on pure angry emotion, because they kept changing their mind on what to do to him.  Some Midianite traders passed by and Judah convinced his brothers to sell him into slavery instead.  What’s worse: being left in a pit all alone or being sold by your family as a belonging for the rest of your life to a taskmaster?  I don’t know.  But the latter was Joseph’s fate, and he was taken down into Egypt. 

Oh and the story of Joseph in Egypt goes on in amazing ways, but I don’t want to talk to y’all about that today.  We all want to skip to the happy endings of stories, don’t we?  We’d rather gloss over the troubling details on the way to happily ever after.  Not today. 

Today, I want to think about what could cause brothers to hate each other so much.  Was it jealousy that made Joseph’s brothers sell him into slavery?  Many have said so.  But I think that answer is just too simple.  Jealousy isn’t a strong enough feeling to cause someone to wish another person, especially someone of your own flesh and blood, dead, in my book.  But fear?  Oh fear can be just that destructive. 

I don’t think Joseph’s brothers acted out of jealousy; I think they acted out of fear.  They were afraid his dreams would come true, and they would have to bow down to him like sheaves of grain bowing down to a greater stalk.  They were afraid his smooth-talking ways would make him wealthy and prosperous, while all they had to look forward to was a life of sheep herding.  But mostly, I think they were afraid that their dad loved him more.

When a child doesn’t feel loved, they are capable of all sorts of destructive behaviors.  I’m not making excuses for Joe’s brothers, I’m just saying how things are.  If a child doesn’t feel loved, they have very little to lose.  They might try to distract themselves from that emptiness with amusing addictions.  They might try to prove their invincibility to themselves by bullying and tearing others down.  They might try to create a world where love doesn’t exist, so they don’t feel they’re missing anything.

Add that to the pack mentality that happens when people in a group feel threatened and afraid, and you have a recipe for disaster.  And that same disaster doesn’t just play out in families like Joseph’s.  The same dynamics -- of not feeling loved by anyone, of letting fear guide actions and reactions – play out on a national and global scale of “get them before they get you.”

I know I’m just an old shepherd in Shechem, but I’ve seen this same dynamic play out again and again.  Of course I wish I’d given Joseph the wrong directions and maybe he would have been spared from his suffering.  But in reality, his brothers were always going to retaliate against him, and nothing I could have done would have stopped it.  They didn’t feel loved.  They were afraid of his strangeness.  And they acted as a pack, whipped into a frenzy by that fear.

But I have to believe that such a cycle of violence can be stopped.  I have to believe in a world where brothers and sisters will seek each other’s shalom – wellbeing – above their own, even if that kindness isn’t reciprocated.  I have to believe that God did not create human beings to fear and tear down one another, but to be a global family. 

We’ll never be a perfect family, and we’ll always be seduced by pack mentalities driven by fear, but I hope that we will figure out how to belong to each other.  I hope we will figure out how to love even if we don’t feel loved.  I hope we will figure out that people who are different – just as Joseph was – are not a threat to those of us who think ourselves “normal.”  I hope we will figure out that revenge never really makes anything better.

These are just the musings of an old shepherd.  But I do thank you for listening.  In the end, yes, it didn’t really matter which directions I gave Joseph to find his brothers.  But what matters is the direction we give all of our children. 

There really are only two paths, two ways to go:  we either move towards our fellow sisters and brothers in this human family, seeking their welfare and shalom, or we move away from them, letting fear and division dictate our actions in violent ways.  Left or right.  Towards one another (and thus towards God) or away from each other.  Perhaps I’m just a shepherd who’s a few sheep short of a flock, but I think in life it is actually that simple.  Which way will we chose to go?

Amen.