Sermon For August 8, 1999
Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
HEBREW TESTAMENT: “12 Brothers + 1 Coat = BIG TROUBLE” ~ Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28
My name is Reuben, and I am Jacob’s eldest. If anyone had a reason to hate Joseph, it was me. When Joseph came along, the first child of Rachel, he became my father’s whole world. The rest of us became nothing but servants, and everything was Joseph. Maybe because I was so much older, it didn’t affect me like it affected my brothers.
I could see that there was something special about Joseph. Some reason that he caught my father’s eye. From the time that he was a young baby, he sparkled with a personality that is seldom seen. So I watched, with some amusement, with some jealousy, as he grew. I saw those traits that had first peeked through as a baby develop as he grew older. Yet I understood my brothers, and as each year passed their dislike, in fact, their hatred of Joseph grew stronger and stronger. Joseph was not an easy person to bear. Despite his gifts he seemed to be careless in the way he related to people.
This is best understood when you think about the way he related his dreams that he was always having. There was one day he marched into the tent and said, “I had a dream last night. I dreamt that we were all out in the field working.” Each of my brothers snickered to himself, because they couldn’t remember the last time Joseph was in the field working. But Joseph said, “We were all binding together our sheaves of grain and then mine stood off to the side and all 11 of yours bowed down to mine.” It was all I could do to keep my brothers from taking him outside and giving him a good thrashing. Another time he told of his dream. He said there was the sun, and the moon and eleven stars. And the sun and the moon and the stars all acknowledged Joseph. Even my father was not quite sure of that one. He said, “The sun and the moon? You mean your mother and me?” But he didn’t push it. He let it go.
And so the days went by and my father kept Joseph with him while we were out in the fields. He told him stories and taught him about the family. Then the day came when he gave Joseph a special gift. A coat. Not just any coat. Not just a finely tailored coat, but a long coat, with long sleeves like those who are rich wear. Like those who never have to do physical labor, are able to wear. So our little lord Joseph had his fine robe, and my brothers seethed with anger.
When Joseph was seventeen the day came when my father decided to sent him out, to check on us. He was always checking on us. Taking stories back to our father about what we had been doing wrong. But this time father sent him a long way, for we had been searching for good fields for the flocks. I’m not sure what Joseph thought that day, for he was going to be gone longer than he had ever been gone from his father. He was going to be meeting us in Shechem. Where my brothers and I had destroyed those who had done wrong to our sister Dinah.
Joseph set out. By the time he got to Shechem we had moved on, but he got directions, and we saw him coming from a distance. My brothers wanted to grab him and kill him right there, but being the oldest I had responsibility over all of my brothers. I talked with them, “Don’t let Joseph’s blood be on your hands. Let’s take him and put him down in a pit, and let him die there. Then it will not be from our hands.” My words were convincing. My secret plan was to remove Joseph later in the day to return him to our father. So they grabbed Joseph and tore his coat from him and set him down in the pit. I could only imagine what it was like for him to sit there huddled in the corner and listen to his brothers talk about killing him.
I should have known better, but I needed to attend to an injured sheep. I left for a couple of hours. When I returned, I went to check on Joseph, but he wasn’t there. I asked the rest what had happened. They said that Ishmaelite traders had come by. They decided that this was the perfect solution. They had sold him as a slave. In my grief I tore my own coat. I said, “What will we tell father?” “We’ve already arranged that.” They showed me Joseph’s coat, now torn to shreds, splattered with blood from a goat. “We will tell father that we have found this coat.” Let me tell you that Jacob’s grief was beyond bearing when they laid this coat at his feet. The sorrow in my own heart was almost too great to bear.
The dreamer, my brothers always called him. They were angered by the way that he bragged about his dreams. I never really saw it that way. In fact it seemed to me that Joseph really had no choice in the matter. It seemed as if he had to tell his brothers of his dreams. His dreams were part of a far greater reality, that were drawing him somewhere into the future. Now I don’t know what that future could be. I don’t know if we will ever see Joseph again.