I am always amused when someone suggests that we could remedy the problems today’s families face by returning to the pattern for family life we find in the Bible. Really, my friend, have you actually read the Bible?! The families we meet in the Bible are as dysfunctional, if not more so, than families today. Our lesson this morning from Genesis demonstrates this very clearly.

As our story begins, we meet Joseph who is an arrogant, pampered, infuriating, teen- aged, know-it-all. His father, Jacob, loves him more than his older brothers. Jacob even gives him a beautiful coat which he had made with his own hands, a coat with long sleeves, the coat of many colors. His brothers only have rough work clothes to wear when they go to work with flocks and fields. Meanwhile, Joseph stays home in ease and luxury.

And then there were those dreams, dreams where Joseph sees himself bowed down to by his father and mother and brothers. Even his doting father is upset by that.

Finally, it got to be too much for the brothers. They stage an accidental death for Joseph, pretending he has been killed by a wild animal. To get rid of him for good, they sell him to Mid- ianite slave traders on their way to Egypt. There Joseph is sold to one of Pharaoh’s court, a man named Potiphar. But it seems the things that have happened to Joseph have helped him grow up and Potiphar trusts him more and more. But Potiphar’s young wife “has an eye” for Joseph and tries to seduce him. When Joseph refuses her advances, she persuades Potiphar to throw Joseph in jail. But in another dramatic turn of fortune, Joseph’s ability to find the deeper meaning in the dreams of those imprisoned with him brings him to the attention of Pharaoh. When Joseph interprets Pharaoh’s dreams about the coming seven years of plenty and seven years of famine, Pharaoh appoints him prime minister. If we were looking for a title for the biography of Joseph, we could name it, “From the Pit to the Palace!”

Then comes the most amazing irony of all: Joseph’s brothers came to Egypt seeking food, years after they threw him into a pit to leave for dead, years after they pulled him out of that terrifying pit to sell him as a slave. Joseph is only too happy to see the faces of his evil brothers again. They come to him in Egypt, hats in hand as it were, to beg for grain to feed their starving people back home in Canaan. They do not know that the all-powerful representative of Pharaoh to whom they address their request is none other than the very brother they had left for dead so many years ago, the living death of slavery.

Seeing his brothers in front of him, wouldn’t Joseph have been justified in taking cruel revenge? But that’s not what happened, was it? On one level, our passage celebrates something very unusual in the life of this peculiar family. On another level, it celebrates something much bigger, standing as a sign of God’s loving grace that until that day had been only a dream in the mind of a slave boy in the Pharaoh’s employ. After all the teasing and testing (most of which we did not get to read between Genesis Chapter 37 and today’s portion of the story from Chapter 45), the moment came when Joseph’s brothers appear before their former victim in a scene rich with irony and ripe for revenge. Joseph’s brothers suddenly knew to their horror who it was that stands before them clothed with the authority of Pharaoh. This one they believed was long dead by their own action now stands before them with the power of life and death. In that moment, Joseph does an unexpected thing, the sort of unpredictable thing that makes for a story which would be remembered for 40 centuries. He does not pull out a sword. He does not call down the guards on his hapless former tormentors. He simply cries out to them, “Come closer to me!”

He lays aside the marks of his office, his royal authority, his golden robe, and his magnifi- cent turban. In their place he reclaims the office which he had craved ever since he last laid eyes on them, the role of son to his father and brother to his siblings: “I am Joseph, your brother! Is my father still alive?” Old Jacob, who got this whole story rolling, was he still alive? It was a way of asking “Is there still a family in which I may be a brother, a son again?

When I was a Boy Scout, I once found myself on a long hike with some of my Scouting friends. The talk turned to another Scout who was not walking with us, Pete, the son of our pas- tor, my friend. But because others started bad-mouthing him, I joined right in. I found myself going on the way gossips do when the person whose character they are assassinating isn’t with- in earshot. I said something like “He thinks he’s too good for us because his father is the minis- ter,” when who should step out from behind a tree just ahead of us but Pete! I was mortified, but only for an instant.

Without missing a beat, Pete – a mature 13-year-old to my young 12 – said, “Aw, Dave, you don’t mean any of that,” and put his arm around my shoulder as we walked on. It was a moment of grace I never forgot and never shall.

My comments had been intended to do hurt and harm but my friend Pete absorbed them in his goodness. Probably part of my penance was that I should one day become a minister my- self! In that moment, Pete became a Christ figure for me.

In many ways, Joseph did the same thing for his brothers. Joseph prefigures the work of Jesus in this incredibly important way. Think about it: in Jesus’ earthly ministry, God set aside divinity and took up humanity. In Christ God set aside righteous vengeance toward those who had done wrong and took up forgiveness and reconciliation instead.

My friends, God in Christ loves us with absolute acceptance and forgiveness. Do you believe that?” It is what Christianity is all about. So can you imagine what God feels when we refuse to forgive those who have hurt us? When we choose vengeance, revenge, pay-back? That is what is tearing our country and our world apart today. But notice this: when we seek revenge on someone for what they have done to us, we wound ourselves even more. Lack of forgiveness poisons us. It causes a soul sickness unto death. That’s the real tragedy when we don’t forgive.

Life, real life, full life, abundant life grows within us when we forgive what others have done to us. The anger, hurt and pain begins to heal. Do you need that healing today as much as I do? Then God help us to forgive!