The Healing of Division

For the healing of division,
For the ceaseless voice of prayer,
For the power to love and witness,
For the peace beyond compare,
Come Holy Spirit, Come! 

May I speak in the name of the loving, liberating, life-giving God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

“Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly,” wrote Langston Hughes. 

Welcome to the family of Jacob in this morning’s reading from Genesis, in which Jacob’s youngest and most beloved child, Joseph, the youngest of eleven children, dreams of a time when the heavens and his brothers will bow down to him. 

In this dream the older brothers serve the younger. 

Favoritism has shown up before in the patriarchal families.

Remember that Isaac preferred Esau and his home-cooking, while his wife Rebekah preferred Jacob with his smooth skin.

Like so many families today, this one failed to learn from its painful mistakes.

The favoritism Jacob showed to Joseph created the atmosphere of jealousy and anger that led to Joseph’s first “pit-fall.” 

Scripture makes it clear that Joseph was a tattle-tell as well.

He spied on his brothers.

When they did not do something right with the flocks, he told his father.

We can only imagine how his brothers felt about this favorite son who didn’t have to work, but spent his time trying to catch them in mistakes.

Jealousy and greed are powerful motivators as any two year old already knows. 

Sometimes the father’s extraordinary love for the young Joseph the dreamer was too much to take. 

Is there a way to restore such terribly fractured relationships? 

As people called to act for a healed world, perhaps this is a moment to examine where we need to be reconciled and open to new possibilities. 

We encounter crisis after crisis, and yet, over and over God provides support as we gain perspective and new partners in pursuing the common good. 

Where are the places in your family and other relationships that healing needs to take place? 

How can we be reconciled to one another while nursing resentment and practicing hatred for one another? 

Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his daughter the Reverend Mpho Tutu have written a book called The Book of Forgiveness and in it he offers a four-fold process for healing ourselves, our relationships and the world.   

1.  Tell your story and tell it in its entirety. Often we tell only a piece of our story, for our protection or he protection of our children or loved ones. 

2.  Name your hurt. Do not minimize it. Speak it clearly.   

3. Offer forgiveness.     

4. Decide whether to retain or relinquish the relationship.  Just because you offered forgiveness there is no requirement that you retain the relationship. 

Imagine how different society would be if we could practice this four-fold way of healing ourselves and the world? 

We seek peace but do not know how to achieve it….

There will be no peace in the world until there is peace in our nation and no peace in the nation until there is peace in our communities and no peace in our communities until there is peace in our families and no peace in our families until there is peace within each of us.   

On this occasion, the brothers are tending the flocks near Shechem when Jacob sends Joseph to the brothers to see how things are going.

When Joseph arrives in Shechem, he cannot find his brothers.

He sees another man who tells him that his brothers had left earlier to go to Dothan.

Shepherds had to move often to find the best grass for their sheep.

So Joseph heads toward Dothan and danger.

His brothers look out across the fields and see Joseph coming.

His coat no doubt identifies him at a distance.

The brothers quickly put their heads together and come up with a plan to kill Joseph. One of the brothers, Reuben, convinces the brothers not to kill Joseph, but to put him in a pit in the ground.

“Here, let us throw him into a pit and see what becomes of his dream.” 

They strip him of his hated special coat, and then begin to debate their plan.

That’s when a caravan of Arab traders passes by on the major caravan route that went to Egypt, and a new idea strikes them.

They decide to sell Joseph as a slave to the traders and devise a cover story to tell their father.

They agreed to say that Joseph has been killed by wild animals.

We can only imagine what an impact this tragic turn of events had on Joseph.

Here he was a cocky young man, full of himself and convinced by his doting father that he was destined to be the head of the entire estate. 

But now this child of promise is betrayed by his own brothers.

He finds himself fearing for his life in the pit of despair.

Can you identify with this sudden turn of events? 

This is when we learn that it is when we are in the deepest despair, in what feels like the loneliest place, that God is most present. 

Even in the pit, Joseph feel the presence of God, and even in the pit he has a chance for quiet reflection.  

The world is so noisy and it is so difficult to find space for time with God. 

Sometimes it is just those times when we are most devestated that God gives us the gift of solitude.

A place and a time for reflection that finds us emerging stronger, more grounded, and ready to take in the world and its problems with new insight and new hope.    

And so today we give thanks for the life of Joseph and his family and for his experience of the pit, which helps us to know that we need not fear solitude and quiet. 

We will meet Joseph again next week and discover how he emerged stronger from his quiet time with God. 

Maya Angelou writes about overcoming the heritage of slavery and prejudice in her moving poem entitled, Still I Rise.

Her words could well have been written by Joseph, a slave in Egypt.

I wonder if you can face your own difficulties with this kind of confidence.

You may write me down in history.
With your bitter, twisted lies.
You may trod me in the very dirt.
But still, like dust, I’ll rise…
“You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness.
But still, like air, I’ll rise…
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise…
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise.
I rise.
I rise.

This poem seems to capture the spirit of Joseph. I wonder if you have that kind of confidence that you can rise in spite of the pitfalls of life.  

For the healing of division,
For the ceaseless voice of prayer,
For the power to love and witness,
For the peace beyond compare,
Come Holy Spirit, Come! 

Amen.