I got to re-reading the story of Joseph and his brothers in Genesis 37.  It will be one of the Scripture readings for this coming Sunday, the Fourth Sunday in Lent.  Maybe it’s my age that makes me notice things that look and sound off.   It seem we get that way as we age.  It’s been called “crotchety,” but I prefer to think of it as sage perception – or just living long enough to learn some things.  Anyway, things jumped out at me again in that story that indicate no small amount of dysfunction in Joseph’s family.

Family dysfunction #1.  As the chapter opens, Joseph is the seventeen year-old son of Jacob.  Joseph’s grandpa was Isaac and his great-grandpa was Abraham.  Joseph’s mom was Jacob’s favorite wife Rachel.   Yes, who read that right.  Jacob had more than one.  Joseph had brothers born to three other women, too:  Leah, Bilhah, and Zilpah.  All four of those women were in Jacob’s house at the same time. That means Jacob exceeded God’s plan for marriage by 3 wives.  Like that wasn’t going to be a problem.  It was.

Family dysfunction #2 was Jacob’s parenting.  Genesis 37:3 states matter-of-factly, “Now Israel [Jacob] loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made a fully ornamented robe for him.”  That favoritism was plainly evident to Joseph’s brothers.  I mean, how much more could Jacob advertise it than with an extra special robe just for the favorite son?  As you can imagine, that caused a good bit of resentment against Joseph – and against Jacob, too. Stay tuned for the problems that brought.

Family dysfunction #3 came about because Joseph had trouble keeping his mouth shut.  God had some extra special plans for Joseph that would involve his brothers.  He communicated that to Joseph in a series of dreams.  But rather than keep that between himself and God and wait for the plan to unfold, Joseph had to tell his brothers all about it.  Now they were really bent out of shape with Joseph.

Dysfunction #4 was the way they handled it.  No heart-to-heart with Dad about how hurtful the favoritism stuff was.  No conversation with Joseph about the need for a little humility and team spirit.  They first planned to murder him, thought better of it, and sold him to some slave traders heading to Egypt.  The cover-up would be to dip the fancy robe in lamb’s blood and tell Dad that a wild animal got Joseph.  It appears they both wanted Joseph permanently gone and they didn’t hesitate to break Dad’s heart in getting that done.

I suppose a person could read all of this and draw the conclusion that since God did not step in when these things were going on he must approve.  People make that mistake all the time – mistaking God’s patience for permission. Of course, God didn’t have to step in and lower the boom on this family for all that willful dysfunction – their very dysfunction was taking care of that at every turn.  The hurt and anger and brokenness of this family were the natural results of the hurt and anger and the family was inflicting on one another.  Sin is often like that.  It often carries its own built-in consequences in the here-and-now, not just in the hereafter.  If that’s where the story ended, it would be a really sad tale.

But it didn’t end there because God did have a plan – remember the dreams of Joseph?  As the story turns out, Joseph ended up in Egypt as a slave.  But through a series of events that God guided, he was elevated to second in command in Egypt, answerable only to Pharaoh himself.  He was put in charge of a disaster preparedness plan to position the nation well for a coming famine.  God blessed that plan so well that not only did Egypt have plenty of food for all for the lean years, but they could even offer assistance to people around them.  Some of the people who came to Egypt to buy grain were – you guessed it – Joseph’s own brothers.  At first they didn’t recognize him.  When they did realize who it was, they were terrified...for obvious reasons.  Joseph’s answer, however, reveals that he finally understood what God had been up to:  “Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come close to me.” When they had done so, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! 5 And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. 6 For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will be no plowing and reaping. 7 But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. 8 So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt. 9 Now hurry back to my father and say to him, ‘This is what your son Joseph says: God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me; don’t delay. 10 You shall live in the region of Goshen and be near me—you, your children and grandchildren, your flocks and herds, and all you have. 11 I will provide for you there, because five years of famine are still to come.’” (Genesis 45:4-11)

Do you see?  Even though Dad Jacob and Joseph’s brothers and Joseph himself had messed up, God was able to overcome that and even hammer that junk into something useful for his plan.  That’s not to minimize their sin, but it does magnify God’s wisdom and grace.

That’s a good reason to take some time in this Lenten season and think about our own sins.  What have we learned from the guilt and consequences of them on ourselves and on others?  How has God used the heartbreak and school-of-hard-knocks lessons from them to shape us to be a better instrument for his glory?  What have we learned about God’s amazing grace? – that he has so patiently born with us in our dysfunction and so fully and freely forgiven us for Jesus’ sake? 

God has a plan for you.  Ultimately, it is to bring you safely home to heaven by grace alone through faith in Christ Jesus.  But between this day and that one, keep your eyes and your heart open for how God will put you in the right place at the right time to share his wonderful deliverance in Christ with someone else who may be caught up in the dysfunction that is so much a part of this broken world.

March came and Dad went.  On March 3rd my Dad, Cliff, slipped away in his sleep and opened his eyes in heaven.  He was a remarkable yet ordinary man.  He was ordinary in that his work resume looks quite ordinary:  farmer turned farmer/factory worker turned factory worker.  There was nothing particularly flashy about the way he lived his life, either.  He simply worked hard, raised his children, loved his wife, served his community and his church, had the respect of his friends and neighbors, and never had a scrape with the law (even so much as a traffic ticket, to my knowledge).  He was the picture of ordinary.

But even in that “ordinariness” he was remarkable.  His father passed away from cancer when Dad was just 14 years old.  That meant that his mom became a single-mom with a farm to run, and Dad, his brother and his sister were going to be heavily involved in making that happen.  Can you imagine yourself helping to run a farm at 14?  I can’t either.   But Dad did it and did it well. And he played in the high school band.  And he played high school football.  And he graduated.  World War II came and his brother went and served his country.  Dad farmed on as the only son left at home to run the farm.  His brother came home at war’s end and moved on to other things.  His sister got married.  Dad farmed on.

And he was remarkable at it.  Before I was of school age, he was named Outstanding Young Farmer.  Before the sunset on his farming career he would be inducted into the Michigan Farmer’s Hall of Fame and the family farm would be designated a Centennial Farm.  Along the way he served on the Farm Bureau and on the local school board, and just about anything else he was asked to do.  His father didn’t live to see any of that, but he would have been very proud.  I am. 

And then there are the over-and-above things he did in my life.  When I first got the idea that maybe I’d like to be a pastor, he said not a word about wanting me to take over the farm after him.  Instead he encouraged me and sacrificed so that I could go to parochial high school, college, and Seminary.  When, as a high school kid, I got my first part-time job off the farm, he bought a little motorbike for me to use so I could get into town without tying up the family car.  A life-time of motorcycling grew from that little 50cc scooter.  In college, he fronted me the money to buy a set of drums for a band a few of us guys started to earn some extra money at school.  That set is long gone, but I’ve been drumming ever since. 

Mom, the love of his life, passed away just 5 weeks before he did.  Those last five weeks of his life were the most challenging he’d ever faced. His health, very precarious for the last four years, took that loss hard.  As I shared with someone the other day, Jesus and Mom were the two people in his life he loved most, so it just made sense that he’d rather be in heaven than here.

Yes, Dad was a remarkable man.  He still is.  All that’s changed is that he is now that remarkable man in heaven.  And if you could ask him how he accomplished all that he did in life and persevered through all the challenges he faced, he would point you to the One sitting on the throne and say, “He did that.”  I know that’s what he’d say because he made no bones about that the fact that he had been truly blessed to know his Savior.  In fact, that is the most important thing about him.  When all is said and done, that is the most important thing he imparted to me.  His whole life and example said, “Know Jesus and serve him, because he is worthy of it.”

Dad left me with quite a legacy.  I don’t know that he ever said these things out loud, but his example taught them very clearly:  “Don’t embarrass yourself or your family.”  “If you’ve got a job to do, do it right and do it until it’s done.”  “If you shake hands on something, you’d better mean it.”  “You can till and plant and fertilize and pray, but it’s God whose going to make those crops grow, so do your work and trust him to bless it.”  Those things have served me very well in my 36 years of pastoral ministry.  But the most important thing he and Mom ever gave me is the introduction to Jesus they arranged at my baptismal font, a relationship they nurtured by making sure I was in His house and learning about him. 

When we laid him to rest this week, there was no sadness in my heart.  Lots of gratitude, but no sadness.  So whoever you are who’s reading this, take away the most important thing Cliff had to share:  “Know Jesus and serve him, because he is worthy of it.”  There’s no better time than lent to understand why.  There at the cross Jesus reconciled us to our Father for time and eternity.  There he washed away all that would have kept us out of heaven.  And there he gave all the reason we’ll ever need to worship him and serve him.  And there he gave us the message that is the most powerful and blessing-packed seed you can plant.  Cliff knew that.  Be like Cliff.