How would you feel if your family and friends thought you were so
worthless that they threw you into a pit to die? We might safely assume
that this would never happen to any one of us, but it is true that
sometimes the people we love do harm us. As was true in the case of
Joseph, the eleventh son of Jacob and the first of Rachel, this can
happen.
This sermon is about Joseph. It is about his character and how he reacted
to the life which befell him. Examining the life of Joseph can teach
us many things about how the Lord leads each of our lives and about
human relationships. A few questions to ask ourselves are: Why do
people harm other people when it seems so contrary to a life of charity?
Why
does the Lord let evil things happen to us, or anybody for that matter?
How would and should we react if somebody hurts us? These questions
will be examined as we follow the life of Joseph.
Joseph was born while Jacob was still under the hand of his father-in-law,
Laban. As soon as Joseph was born, Jacob asked Laban to send himself
and his family away. It was almost as if this demand was a direct result
of Joseph’s birth. “And it came to pass, when Rachel had
born Joseph, that Jacob said to Laban, ‘Send me away, that I
may go to my own place and to my country’” (Genesis 30:25).
It seems that the Lord was already guiding the steps of Joseph so that
he could be near to Egypt in order to preserve his people. The truth
is that the Lord in His providence guides us from our birth continually
up to the end of our lives (see Divine Providence 333). He is forever
working to provide for our eternal life.
From Joseph’s birth in chapter 30, we don’t hear of him
again until chapter 37, when he and his family have left Laban and
are living in the land of Canaan. He is now seventeen years old and
spends some of his time feeding the flocks with his older brothers.
It was on these occasions with his brothers that Joseph fell into trouble.
Joseph was Jacob’s favorite son because he was born of Jacob’s
deep love for Rachel. In order to show his deep love for Joseph, Jacob
gave him a tunic of many colors. This caused his brothers to hate Joseph
so much that they could not speak peaceably to him. Then Joseph began
to have dreams which he shared with his brothers. They were dreams
showing representations of Joseph’s brothers and parents bowing
down to him and being subservient to him. These dreams only added to
the hatred and envy which the brothers had already felt toward Joseph.
How many of us can relate to the feelings which Joseph’s older
brothers had toward him? These feelings—jealousy, hatred, envy,
and contempt—spring up when we sense that we are not being treated
fairly or when we are not getting the recognition we think we deserve.
To illustrate, imagine a business person who works like mad to get
a promotion, only to have his associate receive it instead. Even if
he is able to swallow his pride and congratulate his colleague, he
may still be fighting a fierce battle within against contempt and hatred.
In his eyes his colleague now starts to look unworthy and lazy, or
underhanded in some way.
This is just an example of the many ways that the hells can turn our
closest friends into our most hated enemies, with even the smallest
dose of envy or loss of pride. We are vulnerable, even as Joseph’s
brothers were vulnerable. Nevertheless, we are in freedom to respond
with good or evil. It was not Joseph’s fault that he was the
object of his father’s love and the dreamer of unusual dreams.
Instead of trying to stifle others’ talents, we should be supportive
of them, unless they purposely show them off to make us feel cheapened
or less of a person.
In freedom, the brothers let their anger take control, and they responded
with evil; they desired to kill Joseph. But the Lord did not will that
Joseph should die. The Lord never wills that any evil should befall
anyone. However, because more than anything the Lord wants us to be
happy, thus in freedom, He permits evil to happen for the sake of a
good end. We are taught, “To leave a person from his own liberty
to do evil is permission” (New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly
Doctrine 170). And, “The permission of evil is for the sake of the end,
namely, salvation” (Divine Providence 281).
To preserve freedom, and for the sake of a good end, the Lord permitted
evil to befall Joseph. Yet in His providence the Lord moderated the
evil intention of Joseph’s brothers. In the story itself we
see the Lord’s providence acting to lead evil to break out
to a lesser intensity than the brothers would have wished. We see
Reuben suggest that they throw Joseph into an empty pit or cistern
to perish rather than spill his blood themselves. (Reuben was planning
to later remove him secretly.) They did this, but then saw Ishmaelite
traders coming and planned to sell Joseph to them to make some money.
Upon returning to the pit, Reuben discovered that Joseph had disappeared
and tore his clothes in anguish. The brothers told their father a
lie to conceal their own act of hatred toward Joseph. They took his
tunic, tore it and dipped it in blood so that their tale of Joseph’s
being destroyed by a wild beast would be believed by their father,
Jacob. We can see the contagious quality of evil: as covetousness
causes the brothers to attempt murder, which then turns them to bear
false witness to mask their deed.
Why was this evil allowed to happen? The Heavenly Doctrine tells
us why evil things are permitted to happen. One reason, already mentioned,
is for the sake of salvation, the end which the Lord desires and
provides for all who are willing. So we read that the Divine Providence “continually
grants permission for the sake of the end, and permits such things
as pertain to the end and no others; and the evils that proceed by
permission it continually keeps under view, separates and purifies,
sending away and removing by unknown ways whatever is not consistent
with the end” (Divine Providence 296).
Another reason evil is permitted is so that it may be exposed and
then shunned. If we cannot see the evil in ourselves, it cannot be
dealt with, and we cannot be led out of it toward what is good. We
read, “Evil cannot be taken away from anyone unless it appears,
is seen, and is acknowledged; it is like a wound which is not healed
unless it is opened” (Divine Providence 183). We are also taught
that with many people evil has to appear in actual act in order to
be seen. These teachings explain why so many evil deeds are wrought
by people. Unless a person sees his own hellish condition, he cannot
take steps to correct it. We are taught that a person “from birth
is like a little hell, between which and heaven there is perpetual
discord. No one can be withdrawn from his hell by the Lord unless he
sees that he is in hell and wishes to be led out; and this cannot be
done without permissions, the causes of which are laws of the Divine
Providence” (Divine Providence 251:2).
It is comforting to know that even when evil is upon us, the Lord
is still intimately involved, leading to good. In hindsight we can
see why Joseph’s brothers were permitted to harm him. One reason
was so that their own evil could be seen and thence dealt with. Another
was because good was able to come from it, as we will see.
After Joseph’s arrival in Egypt he was sold to Potiphar, an
officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard. In Potiphar’s house
Joseph was a very successful man. The Lord was with Joseph and made
all that Joseph did prosper in his hands. Yet, even in success, Joseph
was again the target for the outbreak of more evil. Joseph was a
handsome man, and Potiphar’s wife recognized this and wanted
him to lie with her. After many proposals, met with aversion by Joseph,
one day Potiphar’s wife grabbed Joseph’s garment and
again said, “Lie with me.” Joseph fled from the house
and left his garment in the hands of Potiphar’s wife. She used
it as evidence to bear false witness against Joseph, accusing him
of attempting to forcibly lie with her. Potiphar believed her, and
Joseph was cast into prison. Again, in Potiphar’s wife, we
see love turned to hate when she did not get her way.
And, again, in this evil desire and act, we see an outcome for good.
In the Lord’s providence, working through permission, Joseph
was cast into prison where he interpreted dreams for the baker and
butler of Pharaoh, who were also incarcerated. As Joseph had foretold,
the baker was hanged and the butler was restored to his position
in Pharaoh’s house. After two years, Pharaoh had two dreams
of his own, which no one could interpret. Upon hearing Pharaoh recount
his dreams, the butler finally remembered that Joseph had the gift
of interpreting dreams. So Pharaoh sent for Joseph from prison.
When asked to interpret the dreams Joseph replied, “It is not
in me; God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace.” Joseph first
gave God the glory, and then he proceeded to unfold the meaning of
Pharaoh’s dreams. The Lord gave Joseph the interpretation about
seven years of plenty followed by seven of famine, and Joseph then
gave Pharaoh some suggestions about how to manage the situation.
This advice was good in the eyes of Pharaoh, and he thought there
could be no better man to manage the storage and eventual distribution
of grain than Joseph. Within hours Joseph had risen from an imprisoned
slave to ruler over all of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh himself.
Surely the Lord meant the evil of Joseph’s brothers and of
Potiphar’s wife for good.
Thirteen years had passed since Joseph had been rejected by his brothers
and sold into Egypt. He was now thirty years old. Pharaoh gave Joseph
a wife who bore him two sons. Joseph called the first-born Manasseh,
saying “for God has made me forget all my toil and all my father’s
house.” Manasseh literally means “making forgetful.” Their
second son he called Ephraim, literally meaning “fruitfulness”—“for
God has caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction.” The
names of his two sons sum up the life of Joseph. Even though evil befell
him and he was made to suffer and toil for many years, the Lord had
caused him to forget all the pain and gave him great honor and fruitfulness.
We cannot leave the story of Joseph without examining the tender
story his reunion with his brothers, especially Benjamin. It brings
into fruition the foreseen use for which the Lord permitted evil
to happen to Joseph. Without a wise and just man to rule over the
storehouses of Egypt, the family of Israel could not have survived
the famine. So the Lord sent Joseph before his family into Egypt
to keep them alive, so that he could raise up an entire nation. In
doing this the Lord’s covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
would be fulfilled: the promise that their descendants would inherit
the land of Canaan and be numbered as the stars.
The first time the sons of Jacob went down into Egypt to buy grain,
Joseph recognized his brothers. He spoke harshly to them and accused
them of being spies. He did this to get them to go back and bring
down his brother Benjamin. They agreed to bring him next time, and
left Simeon bound in prison as collateral. As a result they realized
the gravity of their crime against Joseph, made themselves guilty,
and discerned that this must be a rightful form of punishment.
After dealing in such a harsh way with his brothers and secretly
listening to them shamefully confess their guilt, Joseph turned himself
away from them and wept. From this we can see a picture of what a
good person might feel if he has to deal harshly or even punish someone.
It’s like a loving parent punishing his child and saying, “This
is going to hurt me more than it does you.” This can be a true
statement. Here we see Joseph mercifully correcting his brothers,
but it grieves him to do it. We read, “And he turned himself
away from them and wept.” To weep in this instance, and the
others in this story, signifies the effect of mercy, or love grieving
for the object of its love.
Again we see the merciful nature of Joseph when the brothers returned to him
to buy grain for the second time, and Benjamin was with them. When Joseph learned
who Benjamin was, we read, “His heart yearned for his brother, so Joseph
made haste and sought somewhere to weep. And he went into his chamber and wept
there.” His mercy is again seen after his brothers leave for Canaan.
They do not return home, but are brought back before Joseph after his guards
plant and then find a stolen silver cup in Benjamin’s sack. Joseph hears
Judah explain how their one brother is dead and that their father will die
if Benjamin is not returned home safely. When he sees their protectiveness
for Benjamin, he can no longer restrain himself, but weeps aloud to his brothers: “I
am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. But now, do not therefore
be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent
me before you to preserve life.” Later he tells them, “You meant
evil against me, but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it
is this day, to save many people alive.”
In Joseph’s words we can see the deep trust that he had in the Lord,
and the tender forgiveness he held toward his brothers. Do we find it difficult
to forgive others when they have wronged us? When bad things happen to us do
we trust the Lord, as Joseph did, and not lose heart, trusting that He is forever
leading us to some good end? Civilly and morally we might have to correct someone’s
actions when he has done evil. But still, in our hearts we can forgive the
person and trust that the Lord is leading to good for all involved, whatever
may be the appearance of the means. The example of Joseph’s steadfastness
and forgiveness is one we should all contemplate and attempt to follow.
In closing, listen to the reassuring words of the thirty-seventh Psalm:
