Family

If you've been able to join us for our Midweek Evening Prayer services this Lenten season, you know that we have been making our way through Joseph's story in Genesis. Our reflections have been a combination of Rev. Meta Herrick Carlson's notes on the text, as well as my own notes. Each week Rev. Carlson poses 3 questions for our consideration, and my offering has been, "you can contemplate one of these questions, one of your own, or you can reflect on how much you dislike this approach". 

So far, no one has complained to me about the questions. Whew.

A couple weeks ago my own reflections took me down a path that to be honest I'm quite annoyed by as I considered this question: "What complicated distance are you called to close this season?"

I have a familial relationship that I have long struggled with. My own maturing has taught me a lot about my role in this struggle, and reminded me that I have contributed to the brokenness too. However, the struggle remains. The hurt remains. The annoyance at having to be the bigger person remains. I struggle with uncertainty about how to move forward with someone I find it difficult to talk with--and who does not make an effort to be present for in person opportunities where those conversations would be easier to have. 

Joseph's brothers were so hurt by their father's favoritism, and resented Joseph so much, that they plotted to kill him. Their grief, hurt, and anger had festered to the point that they egged one another on, worked each other up so much that they plotted to kill him. Eventually, they landed on selling him into slavery and then lying to their old father about what had happened to his favorite child. 

Growing up, I never related to Joseph. Even I understood that Joseph was tone deaf to his brothers' resentment, how Jacob needed therapy like 2 wives and 2 concubines ago, and that his brothers' anger was not right but was absolutely understandable.

Joseph's forgiveness has always floored me. That after everything he endured, he was still able to forgive and love his brothers. Sure, he tests the waters a bit to see if they had changed as much as he had, but he forgives them, welcomes them, and loves them. 

God uses Joseph to teach us about God's mercy and grace, for it is only by God's goodness that Joseph was able to forgive his brothers for their hateful actions. I have to imagine that it took Joseph every moment of the 20ish years he was in Egypt for him to reach a place where he could look on them with love and forgiveness. Genesis frequently mentions that God was with Joseph through it all, which signals that God was working on, in, and through Joseph. Working to soften his heart and to prepare him for forgiveness.

We haven't reached that part of Joseph's story yet, but we'll be there soon. And as we move towards the end of Joseph's story for this season, I have committed to praying for the person who I have been hurt by. Not to change them or to make them do what I want them to do, but to pray for their well-being. To ask God to change my heart, and to help release me from all that binds me to my anger, self-righteousness, and hurt. 

And to maybe relate a little bit more to Joseph's story, especially the forgiveness bit at the end.