Meditation from The Rev. Peter A. Munson
3 March 2010
Genesis 42:18-28
18 On the third day Joseph said to them, ‘Do this and you will live, for I fear God: 19if you are honest men, let one of your brothers stay here where you are imprisoned. The rest of you shall go and carry grain for the famine of your households, 20and bring your youngest brother to me. Thus your words will be verified, and you shall not die.’ And they agreed to do so. 21They said to one another, ‘Alas, we are paying the penalty for what we did to our brother; we saw his anguish when he pleaded with us, but we would not listen. That is why this anguish has come upon us.’ 22Then Reuben answered them, ‘Did I not tell you not to wrong the boy? But you would not listen. So now there comes a reckoning for his blood.’ 23They did not know that Joseph understood them, since he spoke with them through an interpreter. 24He turned away from them and wept; then he returned and spoke to them. And he picked out Simeon and had him bound before their eyes. 25Joseph then gave orders to fill their bags with grain, to return every man’s money to his sack, and to give them provisions for their journey. This was done for them.
26 They loaded their donkeys with their grain, and departed. 27When one of them opened his sack to give his donkey fodder at the lodging-place, he saw his money at the top of the sack. 28He said to his brothers, ‘My money has been put back; here it is in my sack!’ At this they lost heart and turned trembling to one another, saying, ‘What is this that God has done to us?’
Looking for the Gift
Years have passed since Joseph had been thrown into a pit by his brothers and either sold to some Ishmaelites (Gen. 37:25-27) or kidnapped out of the pit by Midianite traders (Gen. 37:28). Either way, Joseph ended up being sold in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s top officials. After refusing the advances and then the false accusations of Potiphar’s wife, and spending some time in prison, and then interpreting Pharaoh’s two dreams, which had to do with seven years of great plenty coming, followed by seven years of famine – do you remember all this good stuff? – Joseph became Pharaoh’s right hand man. He oversaw a huge food storage program throughout Egypt during the fertile years, so that people in Egypt would have food during the years of famine.
But the famine extended beyond Egypt, and when people in foreign lands heard that there was food in Egypt, they came to Egypt to buy food. So it was that Jacob sent ten of his sons – ten of Joseph’s eleven brothers – from the land of Canaan, so that they could buy grain in Egypt. And when they arrived in Egypt, Joseph recognized his brothers. At this point, he had a distinct advantage. He recognized them, but they did not recognize him. Perhaps they didn’t recognize him because he was older and wearing a different style of clothing. More likely, they just assumed that Joseph was dead, or that even if he were alive, they would never see him again. And when you and I aren’t expecting to see something, we often miss it.
In any event, Joseph had come to a key moment in his life. The brothers who had thrown him into the pit many years ago were now before him. What would he do? Would he exact some kind of revenge on them? It looked that way at first, for he accused them all of being spies and threw them all into prison for three days. But then he reconsidered. That is where we pick up the story, in today’s lesson. He sends all but one of them back to Canaan with bags full of grain, with provisions for their journey, and with their money – the money they had brought to purchase grain – returned to them.
And then one of them opened up his sack to get food for his donkey (verse 27), and discovered his money, laying right there at the top of the sack. And he told his brothers. And what was their reaction? “At this they lost heart and turned trembling to one another, saying, “What is this that God has done to us?”” (verse 28)
Don’t you just love it? Isn’t this what we do, at least some of the time? Something happens to us that we aren’t expecting, and we assume that it’s a bad thing. And maybe we even think that God is behind this bad thing. “God must be getting me back for that thing I did years ago!” Admittedly, they had done a very wicked thing to Joseph years before, and admittedly, they still had a guilty conscience about what they had done. But when something doesn’t go according to plan, why do we assume that God is punishing us, that God is out to “get us back” for something we did a long time ago? (An aside: if we often attribute this kind of behavior to God, it says a lot about how we see God; it says a lot about our personal theology.)
There is a different option available to us when things don’t go as we expect them to go. (By the way, how often does your life go exactly as you expect it to go?) We can pause… and wonder. Wonder, as in, “I wonder why this is happening right now. Could it be that someone meant to put this money back in my sack?”
I wonder… could it be that I am supposed to be going through this experience right now? I wonder… could it be that God wants me to learn something, and this is the way that God is choosing to get my attention? Could it be that what I am going through right now is a gift from God? Could that be possible? Could it be that everything I go through is an opportunity for growth, an opportunity for learning – if I am open to seeing it that way?
You’ll have to read Genesis chapters 43-50 if you want to remember the rest of the story. Suffice it to say that some really good things happened to Joseph and his brothers and to their father, Jacob. Joseph wasn’t out to get them. God certainly wasn’t out to get anybody. The bogeyman wasn’t out to get them. There were other forces at work, and in this case, none of those forces was bad.
When unexpected things happen to us – whether we judge them to be good or bad – it is always possible for us to adopt a stance of awe and wonder. It is always possible to wonder, “Is there some kind of gift for me in this situation?”