THE PROTAGONIST 3: JOSEPH
March 15, 2015
On this day 2,069 years ago, a mob formed, and they did the unthinkable. They killed the leader of the known world. On this day, the Ides of March, over two millennia ago, Julius Caesar was slain by a mob. Through the course of human history, mobs have done what individuals had previously considered unthinkable. Something happens when mobs show up; individual restraint disappears and individual ethics dissipate. There is a strange kinetic energy in mobs as they become a single organism with a power for great destruction.
Harper Lee painted a scary snapshot of a mob in To Kill a Mockingbird. In a racially divided southern town in the 1930’s, an African American man named Tom Robinson is accused of a heinous crime against a white woman. Before Tom Robinson is even tried, a mob arrives at his jail cell to act as judge, jury and executioner. It’s scary and it’s sad. The question really becomes, what do you do with a mob? How do you stop the mob mentality of a group of previously reasonable folks who are collectively bent on trouble?
Some of you have considered that same question when you have been on the wrong side of a mob, be it big or small; a mob of lawmakers who are intent on forcing their ideologies upon our country, a mob of family members who have taken sides and fractured a family or a mob of co-workers who have turned against you and are unjustly slandering your good name. What do you do with a mob? Julius Caesar wondered that. Tom Robinson wondered that. You might be wondering that, and Joseph, son of Jacob, definitely wondered that.
If you are new with us or if you haven’t been here in awhile, we are taking a few weeks leading up to Easter to track God’s big story. The metanarrative of what God is doing in this world in and through his people. Through the course of this series, we are looking at some of the most well known characters and stories of the Old Testament and zooming out to see how they fit into God’s big story. We are calling this series, The Protagonist, because we are looking for the true hero of God’s big story.
On the road to Emmaus after his resurrection, Jesus talked to two men and showed them how the stories of the Hebrew Bible were foreshadowing, prophesying and promising the coming messiah. In that famous exchange, Jesus says that all of these things were “written of me.” Not me-the reader, but me-Jesus. This is an important interpretive note since it is easy to try to make the Old Testament stories about me. How can I be more like Abraham and have faith like he did? How can I be brave like David? How can I be faithful like Ruth? That is okay…it is okay to be encouraged by our brothers and sisters who have gone before us, but if Jesus is the protagonist and he was correct when he said, “All of these stories are about me,” then it should change the way we read the Old Testament. If we can find Jesus in the Old Testament, it gives fuller meaning to the big story. The stories happened at a point in time and had significant meaning for those involved, but each of these stories also acts as building blocks in the metanarrative, the big story of God’s plan of salvation for all humanity.
In our first week, we saw Jesus in the life of Abraham. In Genesis 22, the story of Abraham and Isaac is potent on its own. We see a man of faith who is willing to lay everything down before his maker. Bigger than that, we saw a foreshadowing of a son who would be sacrificed, a sacrificial lamb that would be sacrificed for us. Last week, we looked at the life of Jacob. Over the course of Genesis, we noted the seemingly simple sometimes silly way that the family of God was formed, often bypassing the first-born. A closer inspection of the big story showed us the cross-handed blessing of God. That God’s subversive, unexpected, topsy-turvy bestowal of grace was a foreshadowing of the inverted Kingdom of Christ. A prodigal God who would welcome home wayward children and bestow grace where none was deserved.
This week, we look at the life of Joseph. The story of Joseph is really a huge chunk of the book of Genesis, and we can’t read it all today. Chapters 37-50 follow the story of a last-born son who becomes the second most powerful man in the known world. It is the circuitous story of God’s providence that when God makes promises, he keeps them despite our perception of the circumstances. It is the story that God’s will prevails despite the evil of the world around us. That is a great lesson to learn. Today, I want to zoom out and see the big story, and it has everything to do with the mob mentality. Before we read the story of Joseph, I want to remind you about the promises made to his father, Jacob.
Genesis 35: 9-12
This is a reaffirmation of the promise made to Jacob’s grandfather, Abraham. God promised to make a great nation of his offspring. His offspring would bless all of the nations of the world. This seems to reiterate that and get more specific; God renames Jacob as Israel, “one who wrestles with God.” He says, great nations will emerge from your sons; kings will emerge from your sons.
How lofty. How grandiose. What great sons this man must be producing? Then we get our first introduction to this mob of sons. Israel and his mob of sons are introduced in Genesis 37, and we are quickly introduced to the boy, Joseph. Some might call him precocious. His brothers probably called him arrogant. Joseph has dreams that he tells his brothers and his father about. The dreams prophecy that one day this young son will be the greatest of sons, all of his older brothers will bow down to him.
This is every younger brother’s dream. One day, he will be bigger and stronger than his older brothers. I have two older brothers. One is six and a half years older and the other is older by three and a half years. I often dreamed of getting bigger than them and lording over them, but those dreams were accompanied by me getting pinned down, noogied out, pushed through walls, put down and cast out. Now then, decades later, God is on my side, because I am 6’3” and my brothers are both 5’9”. Although, come to think of it, I am not sure I would want to test it. My oldest brother is a military man, so I am sure he knows a few moves. My next older brother is quick and shifty, and I am sure he has a few moves himself.
Every younger brother dreams of a day when he is the one on top, but you don’t rub it in your brothers’ faces, especially in this culture where birth order was not just about your disposition but about power and money. You didn’t upset the apple cart, but Joseph did. He said things to those whom society deemed above him that no one else dared say. He heard from God and plainly told what God had said, and it was sure to get him in trouble. We pick up the narrative in Genesis 37: 12-18.
The mob begins to form. What had been jealousy and a feeling of disrespect quickly escalates to murderous intentions. This favored son who said things to them that they did not want to hear is being targeted for death. The brothers see him at a distance and an idea from one individual blossoms into action for a mob.
Genesis 37:19-24
The mob starts with big talk, but a wiser head prevails. Reuben steps up and says, “Guys we can’t do this. Let’s just chuck him in the cistern. Let’s teach the younger brother a lesson. Put him in his place. Do what big brothers do and play a prank on him by throwing him in the well.”
Genesis 37: 25-28
The mob takes over again. Judah, one of the sons of Israel, suggests they make it a more elaborate prank, actually more than a prank, “We don’t gain anything by killing this annoying little punk…but we could sell him as a slave. Get him out of our lives and make a little money on the side.”
What can you say to a mob? You imagine that Joseph is yelling…maybe crying in the well. He had a plan for how his life was going to go, and it didn’t include this. God showed him in a dream that he would be great, that he would be elevated. Now at the hands of a mob, he is in a hole that he can’t crawl out of. You have to imagine Joseph, in between yelling and crying, is listening as they hatch their plans, listening as his fate is being discussed.
Then in horror he is listening as shekels of silver clank together into the hands of Judah. His brother, the one he has shared a table with, and loved, is selling him out for a handful of silver. You have to imagine his sadness as he is bound up and carried away. The mob has won, and he is being carted away to an uncertain future.
Does any of this sound familiar?
A lowly brother who speaks to those who seemingly had more power and influence. A lowly brother who speaks what God told him to speak and is accosted and insulted. A lowly brother who is threatened with death and then betrayed by a brother for a handful of silver?
Does any of this sound familiar?
A young Jewish man being carried away by a mob? The name Judah is actually the same name as Judas. Same name just a slight difference in rendering like Jonathan and Johnny. A young brother betrayed by Judas for a handful of silver. This is a foreshadowing of Jesus.
Over the next few chapters, Joseph travels an unlikely story. He rises in power from a slave, but then he falls to great depths. He rises in the house of Potiphar only to be thrown in jail to languish there. Through an unlikely series of events, Joseph’s dreams are resurrected, and he rises to the place of a king.
After this story had played out, Joseph and his resurrected dream are reunited with his brothers. After figuring out that this is their long lost brother, the older brothers repent and cry out in shame and ask for forgiveness. And we see this:
Genesis 45: 4-7
Then he says something like this again later in Genesis 50:18-21, “God sent me ahead of you to save many lives. What looked like death for me has led to life for you. What you intended for evil, God has used for good.” The mob mentality of my brothers led to pain, heartache and loss, and yet God redeemed it. He redeemed what looked like an impossible situation to bring salvation.
In a similar fashion, Jesus grows in notoriety, fame and accolades, but then is killed as a traitor. He died a horrid death on a Roman cross; for all intents and purposes, the dream was dead.
The dream that Israel would be redeemed, the dream that Jesus was the messiah and the long-promised king, the dream that reconciliation might come and hope might be restored all died when he was crucified, but he rose on the third day.
The mob took his life, but God gave it back. What mankind intended for evil, God turned for good. Some people really balk at the idea of Jesus’ death and resurrection. What does it all mean? This is especially pertinent leading up to Easter. If you can get to a place where, by faith, you believe this crucified carpenter was brought back from the dead…you must now ask, what does this mean for me?
That brings us back to our original question. What do you do with a mob, the mobs of people and problems that confront you in this life?
John 18:1-11
Jesus stares down the mob and then he submits to his father. Here’s why he knows God will redeem it. If God can redeem a heinous death on the cross for the greatest good, then what can he do with your current issues? Many times in their respective lives, Joseph and Jesus were confronted with the opportunity for a shortcut, a chance to do things their own way without giving thought to integrity or God. Joseph could have slept with Potiphar’s wife, and that would mean he never would have been fired from his job. He would never have been thrown in jail. Jail is how he ended up getting connected to Pharaoh. His refusal to shortcut God’s plan lead to the greatest redemption.
In a similar fashion, Jesus prayed in the garden for another way out. Was it possible for the cup to pass and God to use another means of redemption? He went into the well for you and for me. He was sold for you and for me. He died for you and for me. He didn’t submit to the mob, but he did submit to his father.
This is the heart of the Christian life. The cross life. The cruciform life. When Jesus said to take up your cross and follow him, I think a lot of people have misunderstood that. On one end of the spectrum, people have a gospel of self-flagellation. They almost seek out suffering. They stand on the precipices of the world’s cisterns hoping a strong push or a light gust of air pushes them in. They will fall in the hole for anyone at anytime because the Christian life is the cross life and that means suffering. On the other end of the spectrum, a very western version of this is that I will protect my agenda and myself at all costs, and if God wants to use what I am doing, then he can. This type of person refuses to be taken advantage of, refuses to serve and refuses to be lower than his peers. If one end of the spectrum is obsessed with suffering, the other is obsessed with self-preservation.
The way of the cross is not about seeking out pain and suffering, nor is it triumphalistically forcing all others to submit to the cross. The way of the cross is about facing down mobs knowing that our father is in complete control, that he redeems all things, that he uses all things.
Sarah put her faith in God when her husband came up with the cretinous idea of claiming to be siblings so he could save his own hide in the face of a lecherous pharaoh. David put his faith in God when Saul was out to kill him, yet he refused to retaliate or assassinate Saul since that would not have been congruent with God’s will. Steven allowed the stones to rain down upon him after preaching a sermon and his story served to propel the church out of Jerusalem to Judea and to the whole world.
In all of these instances, the mobs or the people who represented the mob seem to have won, and yet in each case, God worked his purposes. God’s design prevailed. God’s goodness showed through the evil intents of the wicked. This is the new economy of the cross. When you recognize that God can reconcile and redeem something so horrific, then you realize any mob you currently are facing is smaller. In fact Jesus’ victory on the cross showed that all mobs including death have been conquered. There is nothing left to fear. God is in control even when it doesn’t feel like it, and he is going to work all things for his good purposes.