What Was Meant for Evil: Faith, Grace, and the Middle Chapters

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wUUC7Rk9LE

In the name of the God of Joseph and his brothers. Amen.

So if you were here last week, you know that we left Joseph at the lowest point imaginable: a seventeen-year-old boy stripped of his colorful coat—perhaps even princess dress—cast into a dry cistern in the desert, and sold away by his own flesh and blood for twenty pieces of silver. We watched his brothers dip the garment in goat’s blood and carry it back to Israel, formerly known as Jacob, and break Joseph’s father’s heart. And I think if we were making a film, the screen would have faded slowly into black right there in the dust of Dothan at their house.

And then today, we listen to the lesson from Genesis 45. Suddenly, Joseph is no longer a terrified teenager in a pit. He is second-in-command of Egypt, draped in royal linen and gold, once again standing in a palace.

Before we look at this breathtaking reunion in chapter 45, we need to know a little bit of what happened in the silence of those missing years. Because the lectionary has us go from the pit in chapter 37 directly to the palace of chapter 45. Yet in between those lies over two decades of waiting, of weeping, of wondering if God had forgotten His promises to Joseph. And so we need to look at that time from chapter 37 to chapter 44, because the story of Joseph takes up a great deal of the Book of Genesis.

How did Joseph get from chains in Canaan to the right hand of Pharaoh? Well, it was not on a red carpet, I can tell you that. It was through more like a furnace.

In chapter 39, we have Joseph as a slave, sold by his brothers. And yet, even in servitude, God’s favor rests upon him, and he rises to oversee the household—until Potiphar’s wife, his master’s wife, falsely accuses him because he refuses to compromise his integrity. And so doing the right thing lands Joseph in a dungeon.

Then in chapter 40, we hear about how he is in prison. Even while in prison, Joseph faithfully serves and interprets the dreams of Pharaoh’s cupbearer and baker. Joseph asks only one favor: “Remember me when it is well with you.” But the cupbearer forgets him. Two more years tick by in this dark, dingy dungeon.

Then we have chapter 41. In chapter 41, Pharaoh has troubling dreams of seven fat cows swallowed by seven lean cows—this would be troubling to me too—and seven healthy heads of grain devoured by seven scorched heads. The cupbearer finally remembers Joseph—because it’s convenient to him, mind you—and Joseph is summoned. He interprets the coming seven years of abundance followed by seven years of famine, and, of course, gives God the glory. Pharaoh instantly recognizes the Spirit of God within Joseph and appoints him second-in-command over all of Egypt.

And that brings us to the famine. Because there were seven years of abundance followed by seven years of famine, the famine did strike, and it struck the entire known world. Back in Canaan, Jacob’s family is literally starving. The ten brothers travel south to Egypt to buy grain, and when they bow before the Egyptian ruler, they don’t recognize their little brother, who is now an adult and speaking Egyptian. No, they don’t recognize him.

Joseph puts them through a series of searching tests—not necessarily to take revenge, although I think maybe his mind was a little bit there, but more to see if their hearts had changed.

The climax arrives when Judah—the very brother who once proposed selling Joseph for silver instead of killing him—steps forward and offers to become a slave himself so that their youngest brother, Benjamin, can go free and spare their father’s life. Joseph sees that the men who once traded a brother for pocket money are now willing to lay down their lives for one another.

And so this brings us to our text today, where we heard:

Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood by him. He cried, “Make everyone go out from me.” So that no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. And Joseph wept aloud so that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh even heard his crying.

Imagine the sheer terror in that room right then. The doors have closed, the royal attendants have left, and the towering Egyptian ruler breaks down into uncontrollable sobs, wipes away his tears, and then speaks to them in their native Hebrew: “I am Joseph. Is my father still living?”

The text tells us the brothers were dismayed, and their words were taken from them. Their knees likely buckled, I would think, because their deepest, darkest secret—the crime they had hidden for twenty-two years—was suddenly staring them in the face, armed with absolute power, armed with the power to even send them to execution.

Look at how Joseph responds. He does not reach for the sword; rather, he opens his arms. “Come closer to me,” he says. And then he utters words that belong in a hall of holy wonder, because he says:

“Do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. It was not you who sent me here, but God.”

Note that Joseph is not pretending that the sin did not happen. He says plainly, “You sold me.” But he views his pain through the lens of the Divine One and sees that, miraculously, what was meant for evil, God wielded for good.

Then we look at the Gospel. We see Jesus challenging the religious leaders about what truly defiles a person. Jesus tells the crowd: “It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this is what defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.”

All those years earlier in Dothan, out of the brothers’ envious hearts came deceit, betrayal, and violence. They concealed their sin under layers and layers of outward respectability, but their hearts were carrying poison.

Immediately after this teaching in the Gospel, Jesus encounters a Canaanite woman crying out for mercy for her suffering daughter. At first, Jesus’s words sound severe and testing, much like Joseph testing his brothers. But when her persistent, humble faith cries out, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table,” Jesus marvels at her faith and grants her request with boundless mercy.

Here is where these two stories meet today. Both Joseph and Jesus reveal that true righteousness is not about outward appearances or keeping up facades. God pierces past our defenses to test and heal what is broken deep within our hearts. When we come to the end of ourselves—when Judah offers his own life, when the Canaanite woman asks merely for crumbs, when we bring our unvarnished failures to God—we do not meet a vengeful tyrant. We meet a Savior who weeps over us, pulls us close, and sets a table for our very survival.

So what does this mean for us here today in Harrison?

First, God works in the middle chapters. Between Genesis 37 and 45, there were years and years of confusion—twenty-two years passed. If you find yourself currently in your own chapter 39, 40, or 41—feeling forgotten in a prison of circumstance, misunderstood, or waiting on a promise—know this: the silence of God is not the absence of God. God was preparing Joseph for the palace while he was still in the pit. God was preparing Joseph for the palace even when he was receiving his coat of many colors, which also translates to "princess dress."

Second, we have to reframe our wounds through God’s lens—through that lens of the Divine One, looking from outside ourselves. Joseph could have spent his entire life nursing bitterness; I might have. He had every right by human standards to demand retribution, and when he met his brothers again, he had every power to make it so. But instead, he looked through God’s eyes that see a larger tapestry. Forgiveness does not mean minimizing the wrong done to us—not at all. But it means trusting that God is powerful enough to bring life even out of the graves dug by other people’s sins.

And finally, grace will always invite us closer to each other. When the brothers realized who Joseph was, they pulled back in shame and fear for their lives. And yet Joseph’s response was, “Come close to me. Come close to me.” Whatever secrets we may be carrying, whatever failures we may think have disqualified us from love, Christ says no. Christ does not stand over us to destroy us for our sins, but rather invites us to His table to be fed, forgiven, and restored. Christ looks at us and asks us to come and see.

As we go about this week, I hope and pray that we are all able to have the courage, the mercy, and the faith to rewrite our own stories with God: to take what was meant for evil and use it for good, and for God’s glory.

Amen.