Books of the Bible - Old Testament
The Story of Joseph 



Epiphany 7, Old Testament Series     Genesis 43:3-11, 15;  Luke 6:27-38

(This is an example of a dialog sermon and can be watched on video after reading the sermon, if one so desires. The dialog is between the two pastors at Grace Lutheran Church, Ed Markquart and John O’Neal.)

Ed: 
Grace to you and peace from God our Father,

John:
And our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Both:
Amen.

Ed:
Today, John and I are doing a dialogue sermon. That means, we studied the text together, we asked what it meant for the two of us, and we talked about its meaning for you people in our congregation. The best parts of that dialog are presented here today.

John:
Today we are talking about the story of Joseph that is thirteen chapters long, from Genesis 37 to 50. The story is beautifully and artistically woven together like a novel. It is one of the best pieces of literature in the whole Bible.

Ed:
There are other pieces of literature like this novel in the Scriptures. The story of Ruth and King David are other examples of tightly woven short stories that can be easily read at one sitting.

John:
Our lesson for today is about three-fourths of the way through the Joseph story. We want to retell the whole Joseph story because it is a “Biblical classic.” We want to retell the Joseph story so that everybody here understands this epic story.

Ed:
We begin with Jacob, the father of Joseph. Jacob, the old man, had two wives and two servant women. Lumpy Leah who was the mother of six boys; his two female servants gave birth to four boys, and Ravishing Rachel (here name means pearl), who was the mother of Joseph and Benjamin. These two sons from Rachel were the obvious favorites. Rachel tragically died in childbirth when Benjamin was born. So, there were six sons from Leah; four sons from servant women, and two sons from Rachael. Six, four and two adds up to twelve, and so the  twelve sons of Jacob  became the twelve families or tribes in the Old Testament. Joseph and Benjamin were favored.

John:
Joseph was spoiled! The story says that Jacob loved Joseph more than his other sons. Why was Joseph the favorite child, the most loved child? Because his mother was Rachel, the favorite wife. Because Joseph was born when his father was old, the first son of Rachel.

Ed:
Joseph was spoiled rotten as a little boy. He had an elevated opinion of himself. There are three evidences that Joseph was spoiled rotten and thought too highly of himself. Joseph had a dream that eleven sheaves of wheat bowed to him in reverence. He told his brothers that they too would bow to him. He had another dream that the sun, moon and eleven stars bowed down to him in reverence, and Joseph told his family that this meant his mother, father and eleven brothers would kneel before him in homage.  His father also gave him a multicolored robe and nobody else had such a fancy, colorful coat. In other words, Joseph felt he was the center of the world, and all his family would bow down to him. Of course, his brothers came to hate him and wanted to get rid of him.

John:
Then one day, Jacob sent Joseph out to the fields to check up on his ten half-brothers who were tending the sheep. When Joseph got there, the half-brothers decided to kill him because they hated this dreamer so much. But Rueben, the oldest, tried to save Joseph and suggested they throw Joseph into an empty well and then Rueben could rescue Joseph later.  But about that time a caravan was coming through and was heading to Egypt.  The brothers then decided to sell Joseph to these slave traders for twenty shekels of silver.  Then they took Joseph’s coat, killed a goat and put the blood of the goat on the coat so it would look like a wild animal had killed him.

Ed:
The ten half brothers took the bloody colored robe of Joseph to show it to their father. The old man, Jacob, was stunned by the news of his favorite son’s death, the first child by Rachel, and he never recovered from that shocking grief.

John:
Shortly thereafter, Joseph arrived in Egypt and was sold as a slave to Potiphar, one of pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard. The story says that God was with Joseph and he prospered at whatever he did.  Joseph was a great administrator and Potiphar put him in charge of everything he had.  …Then the plot thickens!!  Potiphar’s wife took a liking to Joseph who, the Bible tells us, was handsome and well built. In other words “he was hot.”  She tried to seduce him but Joseph was a man of character and good morals and would have nothing to do with her.  So she framed Joseph to make it look like he seduced her and that got him thrown into prison.

Ed:
Before you knew it, Joseph was running the prison. In other words, wherever Joseph went, he ended up the manager. In that prison, there were two people in prison because the Pharaoh was angry with them. The Pharaoh’s butler and baker. The two men, the butler and the baker, had dreams. No one could interpret those dreams, but Joseph said he could. He was a dreamer, we remember. Joseph interpreted their dreams and said that the butler was to be restored to the Pharaoh’s favor in three days; the baker was to be hanged in three days. Three days passed. The butler was restored; the baker was hung. Joseph’s interpretation of the dreams was accurate. Joseph told the butler to remember him positively to Pharaoh.

John:
Then pharaoh himself had some dreams that troubled him and he needed someone to interpret them for him. The dreams were about seven healthy and seven starving cows and seven healthy heads of grain and seven thin heads of grain.  Symbolically, the seven starving cows ate the seven healthy cows and the seven thin heads of grain swallowed up the healthy ones.  But no one could tell pharaoh what the dreams meant.  Then the butler remembered Joseph. Joseph was still in prison. In the blink of an eye, Joseph was standing before pharaoh and interpreted the dreams. Joseph interpreted that there would be seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. The seven skinny cows ate the seven fat cows. The seven thin ears of corn ate the seven plump ears of corn. That made sense to pharaoh who needed someone to manage his country during the years of plenty and famine.

Ed:
Pharaoh then put Joseph in charge of all of Egypt and made him his right-hand man with a position second only to pharaoh himself.  Joseph got a new gold ring, a new gold necklace, and a new chariot that rode right behind the Pharaoh’s. Joseph managed all the grain storage operations in Egypt during the years of plenty. When the great famine came, all the nations had to come to Egypt to buy food.  The famine was so great that it eventually affected Joseph’s family in Canaan.

John:
So Jacob sent his ten sons to Egypt to buy grain but he kept Benjamin, Joseph’s full brother, Rachel’s other son, from going with them. When the ten sons arrived in Egypt, Joseph recognized his half-brothers but they didn’t recognize him. Joseph slyly asked questions about the family.  Was their father still alive?  Did they have any other brothers?  Then Joseph kept Simeon as a hostage and told the other brothers to take the grain back to their family but they were to come back and bring Benjamin with them. He would then give them more grain.

Ed:
The ten half-brothers went back to Israel and told their father everything. The old man refused to let Benjamin go to Egypt. Benjamin, his only remaining son from Rachel, could be killed or sold as a slave. But the famine got worse and the brothers would have to return to Egypt to get more food. The brothers finally convinced their elderly father to let Benjamin go with them.

John:
So the half-brothers and Benjamin returned to Egypt to buy more grain. When Joseph saw Benjamin, he became very emotional but covered it up.  Eventually, after much tension and discussion, Joseph then sent them home with grain but he had his steward put his own silver cup in Benjamin’s pack so it looked like Benjamin stole the silver cup. Then Joseph sent his steward after them. The steward caught up with them and found the silver cup in Benjamin’s backpack. He brought them back to Egypt, and all the brothers are really frightened. The brothers wondered out loud if God was punishing them for what they did to Joseph so many years ago.  They discussed their guilt in selling Joseph so many years ago, not knowing that Joseph could understand them. 

Ed: 
Finally, Joseph couldn’t  handle it any longer and he ordered all the Egyptians out of the room, so he was alone with his brothers. He then revealed his true identity to them, and what was his first question of them? “How is my father?” Joseph was overwhelmed with emotion and cried so loudly, that the Egyptians heard him sobbing. There was an emotional outburst of tears and feelings in this climax to the story.

John:
Then the whole family, laden with treasures and food and wagonloads of gifts, was sent back to land of Canaan to get their father Jacob and all their families. All of them, seventy in number, came to settle in the land of Goshen in Egypt where Joseph took care of them.

Ed:
Thus we come to the end of the story and the end of the book of Genesis. Jacob and all the twelve tribes, all the twelve sons, were now in Egypt. Their twelve families were expanding and prosperous. And we are ready for the next book in the Bible. We are ready for the Book of Exodus and the story of Moses.

John:
So, Ed, this is a great story, but what does it have to say to us today.  What is the meaning of this story for our lives in 2001?  What does it teach us? 

Ed:
First of all, it teaches us that God can turn evil into good. Joseph said in Genesis 50:20: “You brothers meant evil against me but God meant it for good.”    Joseph was sold into slavery, but that evil event turned out to be part of God’s plan.
What seems to be evil can be turned into good. … This is often true of us in our lives, when something that we think bad happens to us and it turns out later to be good. Let me give you two prime examples from my personal life. Years ago, my wife and I struggled with infertility as many of you know. We were told that we could not have any biological children and were told by the doctor to attempt to adopt. It seems that we were forced into a corner, we were deeply upset and we set about adopting. We then adopted a beautiful little infant daughter, who became a wonderful girl, who grew up to marry Steve, and our two grandchildren are the best in the world. So years later, we give thanks to God for our infertility. At the time, our years with this painful infertility seemed bad but our infertility was turned into something miraculously good. … A second example, a year ago I almost died. The infection attacked my aortic valve, and now I have a new valve and new pacemaker in my heart. As I look back on that disastrous event that wasted me for almost a year, there have been many positive things that have come out of it for me and us. There have been some basic and fundamental changes in my own life. Important things in me have changed. Also people close to me were also positively affected by my near-death experience, and they too were changed.  … So often in life, like Joseph, something we think bad happens to us, but in the long term, it may turn out to be part of God’s destiny for our lives. That is true for you as well. 

John:
A second quality we learn from this story. I also believe that the story teaches us that God is with us even (and maybe especially) when we go through the pits of life.   When Joseph’s brothers threw him in the pit, God was with him and protected him.  When he was sold as a slave, God went with him. When Joseph was falsely accused of attacking Potiphar’s wife, he spent over two years in prison but God was with him during his time in prison and he was put in charge of the prison.  Through all of these hardships and pits, Joseph was made a person of character.  No longer was he the spoiled young son but became a fine man who was respected as a great leader.  … I am reminded of what the Apostle Paul said in Romans 5:  “Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character, and character, hope.  And hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out his love into our hearts.” Suffering can produce perseverance and character.  So even when we feel that God has abandoned us when we are in the pits of life, God is always with us and will strengthen us.  … For example, I recently read the story of Wilma Rudolph.  When she was an infant, she had scarlet fever and pneumonia.  When she was four, she got polio and was crippled in one leg.  At eight she received a leg brace and began to walk on her own.  Then in 1960 when she was 20 she won three Olympic gold medals in track a feat not equaled by any other American woman. Suffering built character into Wilma Rudolph. Likewise, God used the pits of Joseph’s life to build him into a man of great character and I believe God does that for us as well.

Ed:
The third lesson and maybe the most important that we learn from the Joseph story is about forgiveness. Joseph had the right and the power to punish his ten half-brothers for doing what they did to him. He could have gotten his pound of flesh from them, his revenge on them, but in his mercy, Joseph forgave his brothers and wept over them when they finally reconciled. … Some Biblical commentators compare Joseph to God. That is, God has the right and power to punish us and we deserve it; but rather than punish us, God has freely and generously forgiven us, restored the relationship with us and has abundantly and freely blessed us, just as Joseph did to his brothers.  God could have punished us but didn’t and so Joseph is parallel to God and God’s forgiveness and blessings, freely given. … Also, the Gospel lesson for today invites us to “love our enemies and do good to them who persecute you;” to be “merciful and abundant in our forgiveness,” and God will reward us for such a life. In the Joseph story, the enemies are the half brothers who tried to kill him, and Joseph responds to them with love and forgiveness that is described in today’s New Testament lesson. … We hear the words of Jesus from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Joseph forgave his brothers, for they too did not really know what they were doing.

John:
In the Seattle Times Parade Magazine, from April 23, 2000, the front-page article was about forgiveness. The lives of three people were described:  a young police officer who was shot and became a quadriplegic; a young woman who was raped, beaten and left for dead and a boy who’s mother was murdered and his father sent to prison for the crime he didn’t commit. All three of them told their stories of how they came to forgive their assailants and not only that but they used their stories to help others to forgive. … They all talked about how harboring hatred, vengeance and rage were like a cancer that could have destroyed them.  They needed to let go of this vengeance within, of this cancer within. They also said it was a daily process, forgiveness, and they had to forgive again and again. I called Terry Reed who works for prison fellowship, and he reminded me of this story. He told of an only son who was murdered, the murderer was sentenced to prison, and the family of the murdered son went to the prison and eventually adopted the man who killed their own son. True story. True invitation for us to have a heart filled with forgiveness.

Ed:
Joseph. The story of Joseph is one of the greatest short stories of the Bible, wonderfully told, the story of a dreamer.

John:
Joseph had many dreams. And his dreams have relevance for our daily lives here in the year 2001.

Both:
Amen.

SOLOIST;  from Webber’s, JOSEPH AND HIS TECHNICOLOR DREAM COAT, the concluding song, “Any Dream Will Do.” This selection from the rock-opera is a wonderful conclusion to the sermon.


Back to Top