It’s been twenty years or more since Joseph last saw his family – that fateful day when his brothers sold him into slavery. In that time, a lot has happened for Joseph. He’s become an important man, second only to Pharoah himself. He has his own slaves working for him now, as he governs Egypt on behalf of Pharoah.
Meanwhile, not a lot has changed for his family, still herding livestock around the region – that is until recently. Now this drought has gone on for a few years, and we know here in Australia the damage that drought can do. The livestock are mostly gone, and Joseph’s family are probably getting desperate. But they’ve heard word that Egypt has grain for sale.
So now the brothers head to Egypt; the tables have turned, and they need Joseph’s help. These same brothers who sold Jospeh into slavery don’t recognise the man he has become, the important official standing before them. And so Jospeh hatches a plan. First of all, Joseph wants to see his younger brother, Benjamin, the only brother who wasn’t part of the slavery plot many years prior, and Joseph’s only full-blood brother, Rachel’s other son. So, Joseph schemes a way for Benjamin to come to Egypt.
But then once he’s there, Joseph also plots for a way to make Benjamin look guilty. He wants to see if his older brothers will abandon Benjamin as easily as they abandoned Joseph. He wants to see them fight for the life of their youngest brother the way they should have fought for Joseph all those years ago.
And they do. When Joseph threatens to make Benjamin a slave, Judah speaks up and offers himself into slavery in place of Benjamin. It’s at that point that Joseph reveals who he is and the brothers are reconciled.
That’s what our story for today is about (Genesis 45:1-15). It’s a story of reconciliation between brothers. It’s a story of reconciliation after many years of separation caused by abuse and violence. And in that reconciliation, a family is reunited, and it becomes a story of great joy and also great prosperity.
But there’s a few things I notice about this story. The first is that Joseph has been the governor of Egypt for about ten years or so at this point. He has had a position of wealth and authority for quite some time. He has easily had the capacity to find out what’s been happening with his family, to let them know that he’s alive and well, to seek reconciliation. But he doesn’t. It seems he has decided to put his family out of his mind entirely after what his older brothers did to him. And then, when he does see them again, he comes up with these schemes, to push them into defending their younger brother, the way older brothers are supposed to.
I wonder what would have happened if they hadn’t. I wonder if Jospeh would have kept Benjamin in Egypt and let the rest of family starve. Maybe. After what his older brothers did to him, we can probably understand if he’d chosen that path. After all, it’s very human to make reconciliation conditional. I can’t forgive them unless they make amends. I can’t forgive them until they admit what they’ve done.
There was a case in the US back in the 90s where a drunk driver caused a car accident that killed a girl. The parents offered a settlement of $1 every week for the 18 years in the form of a cheque, with the girl’s name written at the bottom of the cheque. They wanted this drunk driver to remember. After a few years, it became too much for the young man, being reminded of his guilt on a weekly basis, and he stopped paying, offering instead a payout of the amount. But the family took him back to court. They wanted him to remember every day what he’d done just as they remembered their loss every day. Their reconciliation had strong conditions attached.
Conversely, when we talk about the historical damage that was done to the indigenous people of this land, we might sometimes be tempted to say, “That happened in the past. Can’t we move on?” But it’s natural though for people who have been wronged to expect an apology, and some form of making amends, to put conditions around reconciliation.
So who decides when it is enough? Should it be like in the story of the drunk driver, that reconciliation should happen once the driver feels he has given as much as he can give to make amends? Or should it be like the family of the victim, deciding when the offender has made amends enough to satisfy their hurt and pain?
It is only natural to expect some sort of recompense, some show of restitution, some making amends, before forgiveness and restitution can take place. In the Catholic Church, there is the concept of Penance. It’s the idea that one must say certain prayers or do certain things before God can forgive them. For many people in the Catholic Church, this makes sense. It fits with their natural sense of justice. It makes God’s forgiveness more real. Conversely, I’ve heard some Protestant friends say that they can’t believe that God could forgive what they’ve done. There’s this inherent sense of justice that says that forgiveness is impossible without some sort of recompense, without some making amends.
We see this in our Bible story. Joseph needs to see his brothers fight for their younger brother, be willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of a younger brother, before he can forgive them, before we get our happy ending.
When we compare this to the gospels, it’s what makes the story of Jesus so mind blowing, so incredible, so full of wonder. After our prayer of confession earlier, we heard the words from John’s gospel: Christ came not to condemn the world but to save it. In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he says that God demonstrates his own love for us in this, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. A few chapters later, Paul reminds his readers that nothing we can say or do can ever separate us from the love of God.
It’s like in the story of Mr Gumpy’s Outing that Susan read to us earlier (the story can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqICulEBUwA). In the story, they squabbled and bleated and teased and chased and kicked and flapped about and they all ended up tipping the whole boat over. But does Mr Gumpy berate them or punish them or demand that they make amends? No, he invites into a sacred meal and then he invites them back out onto the boat once more.
In the same way, God calls us to not squabble or flap about, but to be good and loving and gentle with each other. But when we’re not, when we get it all wrong and even when we completely stuff it all up, God still forgives us, still invites us in, still calls us back out onto the boat.
When we have wronged someone else, it’s not our place to say when we have made amends enough. But when we have wronged God, there is no need for making restitution. God will continue to love us and forgive us no matter what. And that is almost too wonderful to comprehend.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.