You intended harm, but God intended it for Good

-And now, continuing this epic into Egypt, many years later with Joseph’s reunion with his brothers, we turn to Genesis 50: 15-21, on page 40 of your pew Bibles.
When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?” So they sent word to Joseph, saying, “Your father left these instructions before he died: ‘this is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.’ Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father.”
When their message came to him, Joseph wept.
His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. “We are your slaves,” they said.
But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.
-The word of the Lord.
-Thanks be to God.
Sermon
It has not taken me long to come to the conclusion that bad things do in fact happen to good people. While bad things also do happen to bad people, fair punishment is not the point of this morning’s scripture lesson(s). As in this morning’s scripture we step into a bizarre family drama, one where God’s will is not done because of the faithful, but despite the faithless, and so we enter a world that may seem much like our own. We come to know the brothers who out of jealousy threw their father’s favorite son into an empty well, then, rather than kill him as they had planned, sell him into slavery so that he is taken to Egypt. Such an act is simply horrible; worse than all kinds of things, certainly material too dysfunctional for even reality TV.
This morning we remember Joseph’s hardship, but we also look to events that occur years later, when Joseph meets his brothers, long after having been sold into slavery, finally seeing them face to face, he is finally given the opportunity to confront those who did him such harm.
Can you imagine the anger that must have built up inside of him? For while his brothers were safe at home, tending flocks that they had always tended, living life with the family they were born into, speaking the language they had always spoke, Joseph was a slave in a foreign land - his life in Egypt was no summer camp away from home, for aside from the obvious fear of living without his family in a region of the world he would have known little about, during his time in Egypt he worked without pay, was then framed by his owners wife, and imprisoned.
However, as Joseph meets his brothers, now as a powerful and trusted advisor to Pharaoh himself, he does not simply have his brothers killed, but chooses to forgive them.
It’s not clear whether these brothers were punished at all, in fact, Joseph seems to be completely unconcerned with their punishment saying, “Don’t be afraid.” And then asking, “Am I in the place of God?”
Such words seem so different from those of a rash and pompous child, one given a special coat, one who encouraged his brothers to bow down and worship him. The Joseph who the brothers meet years later, near the end of Genesis in chapter 50, is a very different person from the favored son who they threw into a well. This older Joseph speaks a different language, has asserted himself and risen in the ranks of Egyptian society, he has become a man shaped by his circumstance, a circumstance that would have been very different had he not been thrown into a well and sold into slavery.
As a powerful man in Egyptian society, he could have very easily had these brothers disposed of, their bodies thrown in the Nile; they could have been completely forgotten.
Completely forgotten, maybe by everyone but Joseph, as for Joseph their actions would not have been easily disposed of.
For the wrongs of his brothers were every where he turned. If it were not for their unfair actions, nothing in Joseph’s life would have been the same.
There would be no return to normality; their sins could not simply be washed away, for their sins had directed the course of his life completely.
For Joseph could simply not pretend that what happened didn’t happen. How could he forgive and forget as there would be no return to life before his brothers threw him into a well and sold him away to a foreign land.
For Joseph, forgiveness is possible though, but not because his brother’s actions could be undone, but because he has seen God’s purposes played out in the evil deeds of his brothers. To use Joseph’s words in Genesis chapter 50: “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”
This kind of acknowledgement offers distinctive theological depth to human life – especially to those people, who, like us, are constantly seeking a return to some kind of Eden, always looking for ways to start over, people looking inward, afraid to open our eyes to a world that seems to be going to the dogs.
For Joseph acknowledges that even in the worst circumstances, God has worked in his life, that even through those who wished him harm God’s mission to preserve the people has prevailed.
It is no easy statement – no simple theological claim – for it is so different from the pop religion that none of us can really escape. Joseph does not thank God for helping him avoid suffering, for Joseph has suffered. Joseph does not rejoice for he has been spared hardship; his faithfulness is not repaid by an easy life without violence. Rather, Joseph sees God’s hand at work, even through those who wished him harm.
Joseph does not claim that God threw him into a well, that God had him sold into slavery – but that God’s will has prevailed, that God’s will has been done, even at the hands of those who sought to do him harm.
From this perspective forgiveness is possible I think, but it is forgiveness with depth. It is not a forgiveness that offers a clean slate, not a forgiveness that allows anyone to turn over a new leaf, but a forgiveness that acknowledges there is more to life than sunny days, and that even at those times when we suffer; we are still being empowered to be the people of God.
Our hardships are not steps away from God’s plan, our mistakes do not throw us off the trail from grace, but every action, even the actions of those who wish us harm are all part of the victory of God taking place in our midst.
Such an outlook does not excuse, nor pretend that bad things did not happen, does not offer anyone blanket forgiveness for all that they have done, but calls us to see the greater scope of God’s purpose.
For too often we only seek to see what we presume is Godly, forgetting that it is our scars which give us the power to relate to the broken, that it is our experience with heartache that gives us the power to comfort the afflicted, that it is the knowledge of our own mistakes that give us the ability to forgive others.
For our God, is after all, the God who out of death brings us new life.
It is very different from the spirit of vengeance that surrounds us. For at this table it is the broken body that makes us whole.
Just as the evil deeds of Joseph’s brothers were the means by which God’s will was done – that it was the act of selling their brother into slavery that led to provision in a time of hunger – so at this table we are reminded that even in the death of Christ, God’s will for the salvation of this world is being made real.
It is this kind of theology of hope that closes the book of Genesis, and leads into the harsh slavery of the Exodus, for only such a theology can offer the perseverance needed to truly make it through hardship.
And it is only such a theology of hope that will offer us the sustenance to persevere when we are afraid, when we are in doubt, when we are angry, when we are lost, when we are faithless, when we face death – for even in such things we may take heart; that what may be “intended to harm you, God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don’t be afraid.” - Amen.