Freedom and Prison

The setting has changed. Judah’s back story done. Now it’s Joseph’s turn. The faithful, wise Joseph suffers but his sufferings always bring blessings to others.

Joseph’s story reveals his integrity; what he has experienced has not changed him. Joseph’s story is not changing Joseph – not at his core. It is revealing what he always knew must happen.

Potiphar recognized this extraordinary capacity and put it to use. This is, of course, why the world tolerates faith. The possibility of man lies rooted in faith. As much as the one is detestable, it is also inseparable from the success we all crave.

Joseph was free to be present. Free to know and to value. He was free to act confidently and determinedly. He was free to relate to others, to see in them more than they even saw in themselves. An extraordinary character indeed, there is no one like him in the scripture.

It is fitting that he was imprisoned.

First Reconciliation

God has this plan. A community. We were meant to be a community. Sin, our individual and collective failure to enter our full possibility, has made authentic community elusive. We hang on our “rights” in order to abuse one another. We work tirelessly to get what we think we deserve, and even when we get it we work even more tirelessly to make sure no one can take it from us.

That’s Judah. That’s me.

Today, Judah forgave Tamar and acknowledged his own sin. He was reconciled to her. Although she bore him two sons, he regarded her rightly as his daughter-in-law. They were restored to their original, right relationship. Confession, forgiveness, reconciliation.

In their restoration is the hope of our collective restoration. The way of Judah was self-righteous defense of his rights. The way of Judah has become the way of givenness. Allowing each to be what it is without imputing worth solely on the basis of personal utility.

It’s a grand leap in a short paragraph for an obstinate and determined man. But this moment of change set Judah’s life in a totally new direction. In a moment Judah changed

Tamar

Judah the self-righteous. Still he is being led by fear. In his mind, it was appropriate and right that he should protect his last son from whatever evil Tamar was bringing to his household.

In sending Tamar away, he withheld from her the possibility children. For her, this was the possibility of entering into her potential – of achieving her life’s purpose. In denying Tamar, Judah abused a widow.

Then, in irrepressible irony, he became a widower. Alone and in search of affection and familiaty, he tasted what he had done to Tamar – just as he had tasted the thing that he had done to his father.

In this sense, Tamar is Judah’s match. Her deception was born out of an essential frustration. Judah was, on the other hand, trying not to lose. He had wrested leadership away from his rival Joseph – a desperate, despicable move. But he couldn’t enjoy his triumph as long as Jacob was alive. His last hope was to preserve the victory for his son – whose very existence he believed was threatened by Tamar. He felt very justified in his injustice toward her.

Tamar is the hero of this story. She risked everything to win her destiny. She will either win or die.

I wonder what if feels like to risk everything in a single moment- to not play it safe? Is God calling you today?

The Reversals of Judah

The irony of Judah. Things should have gotten better after he sold his despised brother as a slave. Instead, because he was the leader of the conspiracy, creating space away from his inconsolable father was understandably the only course that made sense.

It all happens in a couple sentences. Judah left. He married a Canaanite woman. Had three sons. They grew up. He found a wife for one – and this son died. And then the next one died for refusing his duty.

Suddenly Judah is a middle aged man apart from his own father and who has come to know the bitterness of losing his own children. He stole his father’s son and lost two sons of his own. God is working something in Judah.

How will he respond? How will I respond today?

You Decide

What difference would it have made if Jacob had not rushed to judgement? What if he had carefully questioned the brothers? Could their deception have withstood scrutiny?

In the grand scheme, Joseph was destined for Egypt and Pharaoh’s service. But one imagines this could have been achieved without the evil acts of the brothers.

For Jacob, it’s yet another disaster that he has to work through. It makes one wonder if he really wanted to know the truth…if he was willing to know that his sons had sold their brother into slavery – or had murdered him. What would he do if he confronted these possibilities?

The Brother’s Plot

Reuben failed to lead. It’s easy to say – someone failed to do this or that thing. But I’m caught up in thoughts of how incoherent and disunited these brothers really are.

Reuben was the first born; the “heir apparent” to the mantel of leadership. He was the de facto leader. However, he wasn’t really the leader. Otherwise he wouldn’t have begged the brothers to consider an alternative plan. He would have simply told them to stop their grudging talk and murderous conspiracy.

No one accepted his leadership.

He was disqualified because he laid with Bilhah, his father’s concubine. But it wasn’t just that he had done this wrong. Like their father, his brothers recognized and despised his weakness.

You can say a great leader is born charismatically. There are skills and gifts that cause a leader to be able to induce the followership of others – and that these can be used for good or for evil. But even Hitler, the poster child of such observations, could not have led the Nazi’s into a love for Jews. Moral weakness always makes impotent the possibility of real good.

Try not to forget this when you’re driven by the urge to eat that second pack of Twinkies. The world desperately needs the good possibility of your life-leadership.

Joseph’s Dreams

Joseph is hated for his integrity and his dreams. Everyone has an opinion on this. Even Jacob is offended.

What drives this offense? Is it the thought – the fear that somehow his story will make might story less?

May I receive others with joyful wonder and avoid the envy that will never actually thwart the grace God has in mind for the other, but threatens to wreck and destroy my capacity for the good God longs to bestow upon me.

Esau is a Nation

…in the land of their possession.

Esau is a nation.  It will live in the hills beside Israel.

The arc remains open.  The possibility of brothers living together in harmony has yet to be achieved.  The ancients have yet to figure this out.  They can’t seem to do it.  There remains something wanting.

It might be that the arc of Genesis is eventually closed and that this sort of harmony is eventually achieved.

But even so, thousands of years later, we find ourselves in largely the same place.  Ambitions and expectations blind me to the person standing only a few feet away, who really longs for harmony and collaboration.  Yet I am happy to remain justified in a spirit of competition and zero sum game.

It really doesn’t matter how much we know.  At some point knowledge must become action.

Edom’s Kings

Strong men, weak knowledge of God.

One interesting observation is how the scripture describes the ascension of kings in Edom long before the development of king and kingdom in Israel.

The splitting and separation always seem to be based on the rejection of relationship with God, either personally or as a community.

Holiness is a high standard. Actualization is a deep commitment from both the individual and the community in which we are formed.

My priest is no excuse for my sloth. My savior requires me to stand up for myself – to carry my own bed.

Esau to the Mountains

Once again, the brothers find that the land is not large enough for both of them. Like Lot and Abraham before them, Esau makes the final move out of the land to the hill country.

God gave Abraham the land for all of his descendants. There is a certain irony in the wealth of these two brothers extending so greatly that they had to separate.   They were not ready to live together in peace. Their culture was not formed well enough to receive the promises of God.

On Christian unity; should every disagreement lead to separation? I am guilty of wanting to be separate, but for no holy purpose. Like any divorce, it’s just easier this way.