RECKON-ciliation

SCRIPTURE: Gen. 42-45, 50:15-  2 Corinthians 5:18-20, Billie Watts, Associate Pastor

My uncle died this week, my mother’s brother. We called him Tucker. Their family story is not pretty. There were 7 children, from two mothers, all of whom died, one after childbirth. My cousin told a story about Tucker that is similar to the ones our mother told us. Since they had no mother, and men in that day typically did not help much with children, there didn’t seem to be anyone to do the “motherly things,” like brush their hair, wash their clothes. So Tucker, and all of them, would go to school with dirty, holey clothes, disheveled, and unkept. The teachers would often pick up the children as they walked to school, but they refused to pick up those dirty little Mattison kids. They all went on to live good lives and be loving parents. Family was most important to them, a special bond existing between them. But their combined resentment of their father festered. So rare were our visits to him, I wouldn’t have recognized my grandfather on the street. My mother used to say, “He will get his.” One day, he had a stroke, and when she arrived at his bedside, all he could do was cry. All those years they waited until he “got his,” but now, she added, “and it brought her no pleasure.”

 

Philosopher Sören Kierkegaard said that life can only be understood backwards – but it must be lived forward. Life seemed to soften my mother’s understanding, wondering if burying two wives took their toll on him. I call that understanding through the lens of grace. Perhaps this is what happens to Joseph as we witness his unfolding story.

 

Since it is impossible to read three chapters of Genesis as Scripture in the concluding sermon of this series, I chose the text from Corinthians that focuses on reconciliation. In the family of Joseph/Jacob, and maybe in ours, there is a need for it – an understanding of what it IS, and what it ISN’T – and mostly, how we are called to live with such a ministry. What will it cost us – and do we have to do it? This is a timely conversation for us these days.

 

The art of reconciliation comes to Joseph and his band of brothers in the course of several encounters. It’s been twenty years since these brothers saw each other, when Joseph strutted out to them in his long, fancy robe. They were sick to death of his narcissistic dreams– for it never occurred to him that he wasn’t the center of the world.  They took matters into their own hands, plotting to kill Joseph, resorting to selling him, stripping him of his robe and his familial relationships. Then they had to tell Daddy Jacob that he was gone, providing false evidence of his death. They then had to live with that truth, underestimating their father’s grief. I wonder if their deeds became a taboo subject – no one ever speaking of it – the family secret!

 

When the famine was great in Canaan, for God’s people are never immune from the suffering of the world, Jacob sent these same 10 brothers to Egypt, the breadbasket of the world. They didn’t know that Joseph was the Lori Chidgey of the food pantry – feeding the world on the abundance in the storehouse. (We are so grateful for the efforts of all those involved in providing refuge for our guests this weekend, including women and children who risked great harm to come here in hopes of a better life for their children). When the brothers approached him and bowed down to him, something snapped in him. It stirred his aching memories and his dreams. Nevermind that he had a son named “Forget” and a son named “Fruitful,” he responded out of his wounds. He knew who and HOW they used to be, but he didn’t know who or how they are now. He intends to find out.

 

Joseph gives them a taste of their own medicine, accusing them of being spies so that he could question and imprison them. Imagine the irony of hearing them say they are not spies, they are honest men, they are FAMILY. How deeply those words can cut to the one who has been deprived of family. For three days, they are put prison, which is nothing compared to 13 years. Joseph decides that he will keep one, Simeon, as collateral while they others go to get their youngest brother. Will they come back for him – because they didn’t come back for Joseph. We do not get to go back and erase our past – but the notion of repentance is much greater than just regret. When faced with a similar situation, the person has a chance to make a different decision. I call it a “do-over.” He overhears Rueben, the oldest brother, say, “Did I not tell you not to wrong the boy? But you would not listen. So now, there comes a RECKONING for his blood,” (Gen. 42:22).  Joseph is not the only one remembering. The chickens are coming home to roost. It’s payback time!

 

Upon hearing this, Joseph’s tears come from his core. Ever cried like that? From the depths of your being and your deep woundedness? It is recorded that Joseph wept at least five times…at first in private, and then less and less able to hide his tears - healing tears.[1] Sometimes, I’ve managed to stay busy enough to keep my tears at bay. Sometimes, when people ask what I’m going to do as I start this season of personal leave, I answer that first, I’m going to cry –I’m going to stop long enough to cry a thousand tears that have been a long time coming. It’s called lament – and Joseph’s laments grow in intensity.

 

In the work of reconciliation, lament is necessary. It makes space for healing. Walter Brueggemann writes that it is a crucial form of speech at the ecclesial level. If we suppress it, the faith community grows deaf to the cries for justice. Without lament language, victims remain voiceless and the status quo unchallenged.[2] Joseph is finally finding his voice. My son, Jared, needed to find his voice – to lament rejection, cruelty, ridicule. I was unsure how to help, but I knew that he could sing. I signed him up for voice lessons, and his first song was by Mark Wills, “Don’t laugh at me, don’t call me names, don’t get your pleasure from my pain, In God’s eyes we’re all the same, someday we’ll all have perfect wings, Don’t laugh at me.”[3] We have to lament, lest we grow hopeless or numb.

 

The cat and mouse game continues as the brothers return home without Simeon. When told that Benjamin must return with the brothers for Simeon’s release and future food, Jacob staunchly refuses. No WAY is he going to entrust the last child of his true love to them. He wasn’t about to make THAT mistake again. It wasn’t until their bellies began to roar with hunger that Jacob realized that they would all die if they didn’t get food, and he relented. Judah ensures Benjamin’s safety and offers the lives of his own sons to Jacob – his own future, if he doesn’t bring Benjamin back.

 

The boys receive an invitation to lunch when they return. During that lunch, we see a glimpse of Joseph’s loneliness. While he seems assimilated to Egyptian culture, he apparently observes Hebrew dietary laws, and Egyptians and Hebrews do not eat together. He is in a sort of no man’s land – not ready to reveal his identify to his brothers, and yet not able to eat with Egyptians either. He can’t seem to take his eyes off his brothers, probably noticing the similarities between them, the knowing side glances as he seats them in chronological order, which drives his pain deeper. He offers them food from his table, and lavishes food upon Benjamin, maybe wondering if they will resent this special favor upon their youngest brother.

 

The final test comes as the brothers begin their return trip home with Joseph’s silver cup planted in Benjamin’s bag. So sure are they of their innocence, they vow that if one of them has the cup, that one will be Joseph’s save forever. To their horror, it is in Benjamin’s sack, and they tear their clothes in grief. NOT AGAIN! Will the brothers allow Joseph to just keep Benjamin as his slave for this presumed misdeed? It is their moment of repentance–their chance for a do-over.

 

Judah jumps in…he explains to Joseph his father’s devastation over losing his son and his sure death if he loses this one. It will kill him, for Jacob’s life is bound up with Benjamin’s. “Now, therefore, please let your servant remain as a slave to my lord in place of the boy; and let the boy go back with his brothers. For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the suffering that would come upon my father” (Gen. 44:30).

 

There it is…repentance. Joseph cleared the room, and wept so loudly that everyone heard. He didn’t care. Then he told them, “I AM JOSEPH. Is my father still alive?” Of course, they’ve told him this over and over, but he had to hear it again – he had to say, “MY Father.” Joseph told them, “COME CLOSER TO ME. I AM YOUR BROTHER, JOSEPH, WHOM YOU SOLD INTO EGYPT.” There is no glossing over the truth. He goes on to tell them not to be too distressed or angry with themselves. BECAUSE THEY SOLD HIM, GOD SENT HIM to preserve life. He reframes his story – how God didn’t cause this evil deed, but God used it – to bring life. Out of death, comes life. HUGGING, KISSING, WEEPING – and they are a family again.

 

Reconciliation does not come without truth-telling and owning our mistakes. Truth-telling is what closes the distance between ourselves and other parties, but it takes courage to speak truth.

 

This was never more apparent that in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission formed the end of Apartheid in African as a way to bring resolution and healing. Archbishop Desmond Tutu was appointed by then President Nelson Mandela to chair that commission. In a collection of his speeches, Archbishop Tutu writes that forgiving does NOT mean forgetting – or allowing yourself to be a doormat OR pretending things aren’t as they are.[4] There is a recognition that something ghastly happened, and it cannot be glossed over. Is this where we have gone wrong in America? In truth telling, Tutu writes, one may even have to be abrasive about it. Whites in Africa feared, that with the election in 1994, that there would be a ghastly orgy of revenge and retribution from the Blacks, who had been treated so terribly. Instead, they witnessed that the victims amazed the world with a nobility of spirit in their willingness to forgive. The Apartheid regime wanted general amnesty for all who admitted their crimes. They wanted bygones to be bygones –a general “Get over it” attitude. However, the commission decided that this would victimize the victims a second time and just nurse grudges.

 

Amnesty for the crimes in Apartheid would be granted on an individual basis. The perpetrators would be required to tell the whole truth publicly, as horrifying as it was, which often carried its own stigma. They stressed accountability in their actions. They heard hair raising tales of cruelty and torture. But their monstrous deeds did not turn them into monsters, for if that were true, they would not be morally responsible for their deeds. They focused not on retributive (punitive) justice, but on restorative (healing) justice, holding to the belief that all people have the capacity for change.

 

Restorative justice gives up on no one. Truth-telling allowed people to claim the bodies of lost loved ones and experience closure. Truth turned out to be a healer. One man, blinded by police gunfire as later asked how he felt after the hearing, and he said, “You have given me back my eyes.” His suffering had purpose – and many of those who suffered injuries felt they had somehow contributed to liberation, freedom and justice. Whites were injured, too – one by a black man who planned and implemented an attack that killed 21 and injured 219. The White man granted the applicant amnesty. They shook hands and determined to work together for the common good of all. It was later said that they did not want to let go of each other.

Feeling the pain and love of the world begins to transform us. It is that place where grace emerges.

 

Joseph stood at the crossroads of tit for tat, with the power to make his brothers bow and imprison them or set them free. In the OT stories, we find our own – and our own chance to write our stories with God. Will it be power or grace? Revenge or reconciliation? Joseph chose to write his future through the lens of grace. We, too, will stand at that crossroads. Will we choose to restore God’s family through the ministry of reconciliation?

The past is waiting on the present to caste the deciding vote.

Amen.                                     

(personal words of gratitude)