I preached this sermon at St. Lydia's on Sunday, July 22 on the story of Joseph. It's part of our exploratin of the stories of our ancestors recorded in Genesis. Click here to read the text, Genesis 37.
Joseph is not entirely likable.
When we meet him at the beginning of our story,
he’s seventeen years old,
he’s his dad’s favorite,
he’s a narc,
and he has a special coat that he’s always prancing around in.
He also doesn’t seem to learn.
Ever.
After a predictably poor response to the story he told his family
about that dream he had where they were all bowing down to him,
a little while later,
he’s telling them another story,
about a dream he had where they’re all bowing down to him.
I have to say, that,
as uncomfortable as it is to admit,
I see myself in Joseph.
I wasn’t the second youngest of twelve brothers,
but as an only child,
and one who tended to be a fairly high achiever,
I was the apple of my parents’ eye.
I grew up in a public school where a good portion of the kids
came from low-income families,
and some of those kids,
as a result of all those symptoms that come along with poverty,
carried a feeling of neglect around them.
It became clear to me,
(apparently earlier than it did to Joseph)
that, while I was petted and praised,
many of my peers were forgotten and neglected.
You could tell who they were
because they had a kind of starved, self sufficient look in their eyes,
like they had figured out how to take care of themselves pretty early on.
I realized that they would hate me
because I was loved
and they were not.
And so I downplayed my belovedness.
Perhaps the sons of Zilpah and Bilhah were well cared for
and loved by their mother,
but you can bet they knew from an early age
that Jacob would never look at them they way he looked at Joseph.
They hated him because he was loved
and they were not.
Joseph, the favored one,
petted and praised,
is not only the apple of his father’s eye --
he is also a dreamer.
And it is his dreams that set our plot in motion.
The story of Jospeh is actually laden with irony,
because, in responding to Joseph’s dream that they will one day bow down before him,
Joseph’s brother’s sell him into slavery,
unknowingly setting into motion the very chain of events
that will lead to them bowing down before him:
They sell him into slavery,
which sends Joseph to Egypt,
where he manages to climb up the ladder
to become Pharaoh's chief advisor.
And when his brothers are driven to Egypt to ask for food,
they find themselves bowing at the feet of their brother,
just as his dream predicted.
And it’s all their fault.
The line when they decide to throw him the pit
captures all of this wonderfully:
they say, ominously,
“We shall see what becomes of his dreams,”
and through their very actions, his dreams become.
Joseph may be favored, but he is not wise.
He’s seventeen.
He’s presumptuous and oblivious.
He can’t even figure out how to keep from pissing his brothers off,
much less becoming so great that they would bow down before him.
His dream is too big for him --
he’s like a little kid in a grown man’s football uniform.
He’s going to have to grow into his dream.
Perhaps that is another reason that I identify so keenly with Joseph,
because,
like him,
I have dreamed dreams that were much too big for me.
I imagine that you have too.
They come in lots of different ways.
A sudden vision, like Joseph’s.
An insistent nudge that just won’t seem to go away.
We ignore them or laugh them off
or remind ourselves that they’re impossible.
But God’s dream for our lives
have a funny way of sticking around.
Christians have this idea of calling, or vocation --
that each of us is born with particular gifts
that God has given us,
and that we have the opportunity in our lives
to direct that set of gifts toward something that God is calling us to do.
That there’s some way that our giftedness meets the need of the world.
Some way that we’re called to build a piece of God’s realm here on earth.
*
When St. Lydia’s first started off,
like Joseph,
I was filled with the dream.
Overcome with the excitement and possibility of it.
And then, about nine months in or so,
I felt dwarfed by its hugeness.
What on earth was I trying to do?
And what made me think that I had the right,
or the ability,
or the skills to do it?
It was as if Joseph’s brothers suddenly moved into my brain,
and all I could think about
was everything I wasn’t.
Just like Joseph,
we grow into our dreams.
We may be born with gifts
but we’re not born wise.
A big dream can have a way of making a person
feel suddenly very small.
For a while, I thought that following the dream,
achieving the dream,
was about being good...
about being smarter
or kinder
or better
or faster.
But I learned that it didn’t have a whole lot to do with me.
God was growing me into my dream,
slowly but surely.
I didn’t have to be smarter
or kinder
or better
or faster...
It was a lot less about what I was gonna do,
and a lot more about what God was gonna do with me.
Just like Joseph,
we grow into our dreams.
It’s a process of becoming.
Not geared toward perfection,
but toward fullness.
*
Listen to this dream that I dreamed,
Jospeh tells his brothers.
He is seventeen.
Presumptuous, yes.
Oblivious, yes.
He’s naive enough not to know any better.
His dream is to big for him:
he’s a kid drowning in a football uniform.
But the dream,
the dream is real, and true.
The dream is God’s dream for him,
And God will work on Joseph,
He will grow into his dreams.
Listen to this dream I dreamed.
What is God’s dream for your life?
And what is God’s dream for our collective life together?
What is God’s dream for this church?
I want you to be like Joseph.
I want you to be presumptuous and oblivious.
I want you to be naive enough not to know any better.
God’s dreams for us
are not always practical or realistic.
In fact they can be crazy, or nonsensical.
Just like Joseph,
they can land us in the bottom of a pit that doesn’t have any water.
Perhaps God’s dreams require the verve and recklessness
of a seventeen year old.
They certainly require some fumbling and bumbling
as we make our way into them,
as we stumble along the path of becoming
and find, one day that in some small way,
we have become wise.
Listen to this dream I dreamed.
Comments