23rd June 2013
“You’re my favourite!”
Reading: from Genesis 37 – Joseph’s story
This is the story of Jacob's family. Joseph, a young man of seventeen, took
care of the sheep and goats with his brothers. He brought bad reports to his
father about what his brothers were doing. Jacob loved Joseph more than all
his other sons, because he had been born to him when he was old. He
made a long robe with full sleeves for him.
When his brothers saw that their father loved Joseph more than he loved
them, they hated their brother so much that they would not speak to him in a
friendly manner.
One night Joseph had a dream, and when he told his brothers about it, they
hated him even more. He said, "Listen to the dream I had. We were all in the
field tying up sheaves of wheat, when my sheaf got up and stood up
straight. Yours formed a circle round mine and bowed down to it."
"Do you think you are going to be a king and rule over us?" his brothers
asked. So they hated him even more because of his dreams and because of
what he said about them.
One day when Joseph's brothers had gone to take care of their father's
flock, Jacob said to Joseph, "I want you to go and see if your brothers are
safe and if the flock is all right; then come back and tell me." So his father
sent him on his way and Joseph went after his brothers.
They saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted
against him and decided to kill him. They said to one another, "Here comes
that dreamer. Come on now, let's kill him and throw his body into one of the
dry wells. We can say that a wild animal killed him. Then we will see what
becomes of his dreams."
Reuben heard them and tried to save Joseph. "Let's not kill him," he said.
"Just throw him into this well in the wilderness, but don't hurt him." He said
this, planning to save him from them and send him back to his father.
When Joseph came up to his brothers, they ripped off his long robe with full
sleeves. Then they took him and threw him into the well, which was dry.
While they were eating, they suddenly saw a group of Ishmaelites travelling
to Egypt.
Judah said to his brothers, "What will we gain by killing our brother and
covering up the murder? Let's sell him to these Ishmaelites. Then we won't
have to hurt him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood." His
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brothers agreed, and when some traders came by, the brothers pulled
Joseph out of the well and sold him for twenty pieces of silver to the
Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt.
Then the brothers killed a goat and dipped Joseph's robe in its blood.
They took the robe to their father and said, "We found this. Does it belong to
your son?" He recognized it and said, "Yes, it is his! Some wild animal has
killed him." Jacob tore his clothes in sorrow and put on sackcloth. He
mourned for his son a long time. All his sons and daughters came to comfort
him, but he refused to be comforted.
Sermon
There was an article in my paper a couple of weeks ago which reported the
results of a parenting survey, and in particular the finding that about one in three
of all parents admit to having a favourite child, that they preferred one of their
children over the others. Mind you, if I tell you that the same survey suggested
that the top role model for British parents is the TV presenter Holly Willoughby,
followed by David Beckham in second place, you might decide to take the results
with a pinch of salt! But it provoked two responses on the letters page. One lady
wrote the following: “My mother knew she had a favourite among the four of us. It
was, she firmly stated, the one she was with.” And then another letter came in
which said: “Your letter referring to a Mother’s favourite as being the one she was
with reminds me of when someone raised the same question with my father. It
was, he said with all seriousness, whichever was farthest away.”
Today is a double celebration of family life, life in our own families and life in the
family of God, both of which have a lot to recommend them. And yet family life
can be tricky, and our reading this morning doesn’t give us a very good example
of family life at all. To use a trendy word, Jacob’s family is in fact an extremely
dysfunctional family. As a father, Jacob breaks all the rules of parenting by
singling Joseph out for special preference and making it clear he is favourite with
the gift of a beautiful coat, Joseph reinforces his father’s prejudice by telling tales
on his brothers, and he behaves like an obnoxious brat when he flaunts his
dreams and his coat in front of them. And the brothers themselves hate Joseph
so much that they plot to kill him, and then as a compromise – he is after all their
own flesh and blood – they decide they’ll just sell him into slavery instead.
Everyday life down on the sheep farm – all very Emmerdale!
Because of course, if you watch much television you’ll be in little doubt that that’s
the only sort of family there is. Family life in the soap operas is full of plotting and
lying, and jealousy and deception, and even murder. And even so called “reality
tv” brings us children and families from hell, so wild they need some sort of super
nanny to come and tame them, and I’m talking about the parents as well as the
children! Perhaps Jacob’s family’s pretty normal after all then! Well, normal or
not, they’re certainly far from perfect, and in this opening part of Joseph’s story,
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everything goes wrong as a result. What does such an imperfect family have to
teach us about parenthood and family life? Where’s God in all of this, because
you may have noticed, he didn’t even get a mention in the bible story?
The first thing to realise is that we have no reason to be smug and complacent
about our own perfection. What goes on in Jacob’s family is an exaggerated
version of family life for all of us. We are all imperfect, and therefore our families
will be imperfect, including the family of God in which we are all children. I hope
that Ellis will grow up as a loving son and brother, but if he never has an argument
or misbehaves it will be a miracle. Last Sunday was Fathers’ Day, and Alistair
may have got his first Fathers’ Day card, and may be it said something like ‘He’s
the most super Dad in the world’. I’m sure he and Katy both love Ellis, and will do
their best to bring him up well, but there will be times when they feel cross or tired
or simply just get it wrong, and times when Ellis will feel unfairly treated. And I
wish I could say that we in the church never fall out with one another, but of
course I can’t – and I include myself in all of this. Family life is wonderful, but it
can also be very difficult. We love each other, and yet rub each other up the
wrong way, and jostle for position. There is a Chinese proverb that says,
“Nobody’s family can hang out the sign, ‘nothing the matter here’.”
And of course a real cause of trouble, as in our story today, is favouritism, and the
jealousy it causes. The actions of Joseph’s brothers may be rather extreme, but
perhaps we can understand how they felt. It’s easy to feel resentful if you think
someone’s getting special treatment that’s being denied to you, or if someone
seems to think you’re beneath them. How often do we hear children say, ‘it’s not
fair’, and how often do we think it ourselves. Why do I have to tidy my room? He
isn’t. Why do I have to clean the church? She isn’t. Or why haven’t they asked
me to do that? Don’t they think I’m good enough?
If I mention my newspaper again, you’ll think I do nothing else other than sit
around reading it, but there have been other articles recently about internet dating,
which actually seems to have lost quite a bit of the stigma it once had and become
quite respectable. But perhaps not all of it. There is one dating website which I
believe is still going strong, that has a particular requirement for membership –
they will only accept you if you’re good-looking enough. It’s called
BeautifulPeople.net, and if you’re a would-be beauty and want to have a go, you
have to post a photo on the website, together with a short resume, and it’ll be
rated by other members over the course of three days, and then judgement is
given and you’re in or you’re out. On average only one in 15 applicants is
accepted. That means of us lot here today, only about 5 would be thought good
looking enough to get in, and I’ll keep it to myself who I think the other 4 would be!
And tough luck on the rest of you, you just haven’t got what it takes.
It is hurtful to think you’re not good enough, to be rejected, but the wonderful news
for us, is that in God we do have a perfect father whom we cannot possibly
accuse of favouritism, of whom we cannot possibly say, ‘he loves you more than
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he loves me’, or even ‘he loves me more than he loves you’. It’s an inclusive love,
made particularly visible in the person of Jesus, whose healing and forgiveness
were offered to everyone, the socially acceptable and the socially unacceptable,
the rich, the poor, the Jew and the non-Jew, the beautiful and the leper, without
exception. There was no rejection, at least not from him, only from those around
him. We are none of us perfect, and our families aren’t perfect, we’re not perfect
children, or mothers or fathers, or perfect Christians, yet God loves us and wants
to include us in his plans – and that’s what we celebrate at baptism, a new life and
a new relationship with him. His invitation to belong to his family isn’t just open
to the best and most worthy 6%, and the rest needn’t apply, because he sees
beauty in us all – not beauty on the outside, a beautiful face, or a beautiful coat –
but real beauty on the inside. He values us all and has hopes for us all, in his
eyes we all have potential.
And that includes potential to change. God loves us as we are, but that doesn’t
mean we should just stay as we are. And if favouritism plays no part in God’s
relationship with us, if we are all equally loved members of his family, we should
try and remember that in our dealings with others, with our brothers and sisters,
try and see the beauty in them. If God isn’t mentioned in our bible story today, it
isn’t because he wasn’t there and wasn’t interested, but because he was being
ignored. No-one was looking at the others through God’s eyes, but instead with
their own prejudiced point of view. No-one was treating the others as people who
God loves. Are we guilty too of favouring some of those around us, and turning
our backs on the rest? Do we judge others just like the applicants on that web site
and reject the ones that don’t meet our standards?
There is a joke about the vicar who was making the same point, and said to his
congregation: “So, I’d like to encourage you to stay behind after the service and
talk to someone you don’t like”! Needless to say, that made the dynamic over
coffee rather interesting. But seriously, if we were to look at those around us,
especially the ones we don’t like, the ones that rub us up the wrong way, and say
to ourselves “God loves him or her as much as he loves me”, that could make all
the difference in the world to the way we get along as a family, and to the growth
of that family.
The good news is that God never gives up on us. Favouritism left Jacob full of
grief, jealousy left his sons full of guilt, and arrogance left Joseph full of fear and
uncertainty for his future, and they’d all got themselves into a fine mess. It seems
a hopeless situation. But it’s not the end of the story, many things happen to
Joseph and his family, and when we look back with hindsight, as Joseph himself
does later in the book of Genesis, we discover that God was always looking after
Joseph and the rest of his family too. In spite of all their faults he loved them and
valued them, just as he loves and values us, loves us so much in fact, that he sent
his own Son, Jesus Christ to give everything to get us out of the fine mess we’re
in, and replace it with grace and mercy and hope.
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So we can happily forget about aspiring to be one of BeautifulPeople.net, or
feeling resentful that we’re not. It’s much much more important to know ourselves
to be one of God’s People, a child in God’s family, and to help spread the
invitation to others, to participate in God’s love for others. Today Ellis is one of
God’s people, we welcome him, and God welcomes him, and we pray that he, and
we will lead our lives convinced of God’s love, knowing it, and believing it, and
trusting it and living it.
JG
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