Caught in the Middle

Scripture: Genesis 47: 5-31

Sermon: Caught in the Middle

Topics: Pharaoh, Tension, Jacob

Preached: November 21 AM 2004 Woodlawn CRC

Rev. Mike Abma

Prelude to the Reading of Genesis 47: 5-31

JOSEPH

Who was Joseph?

The story of Joseph is the longest, most complicated, and in many ways the most compelling story in the book of Genesis.

It is the story of Robes:

* the amazing Technicolor robe Joseph received as a beloved son from his doting father.

* the bloody robe draped over this father’s lap as he wept bitterly.

* the robe Joseph left in Potiphar’s wife’s hand as he ran away from temptation

* and finally the royal robe he wore as the prime minister of Egypt.

Joseph’s story is one of riches to rags to riches again.

Joseph’s story is so compelling, it caused the writer Elie Wiesel to write that “one loves Joseph more readily and more joyously than any other Biblical figure.”^[1]

Joseph’s story is also the story of Wisdom:

* he showed that he feared God, which is the beginning of wisdom.

* he showed that he resisted temptation which is the way of wisdom.

* he showed that he could be patient and long-suffering which is the pace of wisdom.

* he showed that he was more interested in reconciliation than revenge which is the practice of wisdom.

In this sense, Joseph is much like Solomon, someone blessed by God and blessed with wisdom.

This caused the Reformer, Martin Luther, to write that you could find “no greater and no wiser a person in the Old Testament than Joseph.”^[2]

In ways, Joseph’s story even prefigures the story of Jesus Christ himself.

* Here is a beloved son sent to his brothers by his father.

* Here is this beloved son, despised and rejected by his own and sold for silver.

* Here is this beloved son, innocent, yet left in a pit to die.

* Here is this beloved son, in prison, between two criminals, and he speaks of death to

one and life to the other.

* Here is this beloved son, risen out of the pit, and becoming ruler over all to save the

world from death.

Such parallels between Joseph and Jesus were already pointed out by Guerric of Igny, a 12^th century Cistercian monk.^[3] They were said again by Blaise Pascal 500 years later.^[4]

So there is a richness to the Joseph story that no one sermon can capture.

There are depths here that no twenty minute treatment can plumb.

What we shall do this morning is visit a hidden corner in the story of Joseph.

A corner that is somewhat darker than other parts of the story.

Read Genesis 47:

So Joseph went and told Pharaoh, ‘My father and my brothers, with their flocks and herds and all that they possess, have come from the land of Canaan; they are now in the land of Goshen.’ ²From among his brothers he took five men and presented them to Pharaoh. ³Pharaoh said to his brothers, ‘What is your occupation?’ And they said to Pharaoh, ‘Your servants are shepherds, as our ancestors were.’ ⁴They said to Pharaoh, ‘We have come to reside as aliens in the land; for there is no pasture for your servants’ flocks because the famine is severe in the land of Canaan. Now, we ask you, let your servants settle in the land of Goshen.’ ⁵Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, ‘Your father and your brothers have come to you. ⁶The land of Egypt is before you; settle your father and your brothers in the best part of the land; let them live in the land of Goshen; and if you know that there are capable men among them, put them in charge of my livestock.’

7 Then Joseph brought in his father Jacob, and presented him before Pharaoh, and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. ⁸Pharaoh said to Jacob, ‘How many are the years of your life?’ ⁹Jacob said to Pharaoh, ‘The years of my earthly sojourn are one hundred and thirty; few and hard have been the years of my life. They do not compare with the years of the life of my ancestors during their long sojourn.’ ¹⁰Then Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from the presence of Pharaoh. ¹¹Joseph settled his father and his brothers, and granted them a holding in the land of Egypt, in the best part of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had instructed.¹²And Joseph provided his father, his brothers, and all his father’s household with food, according to the number of their dependants.

13 Now there was no food in all the land, for the famine was very severe. The land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished because of the famine. ¹⁴Joseph collected all the money to be found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, in exchange for the grain that they bought; and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh’s house. ¹⁵When the money from the land of Egypt and from the land of Canaan was spent, all the Egyptians came to Joseph, and said, ‘Give us food! Why should we die before your eyes? For our money is gone.’ ¹⁶And Joseph answered, ‘Give me your livestock, and I will give you food in exchange for your livestock, if your money is gone.’ ¹⁷So they brought their livestock to Joseph; and Joseph gave them food in exchange for the horses, the flocks, the herds, and the donkeys. That year he supplied them with food in exchange for all their livestock. ¹⁸When that year was ended, they came to him the following year, and said to him, ‘We cannot hide from my lord that our money is all spent; and the herds of cattle are my lord’s. There is nothing left in the sight of my lord but our bodies and our lands. ¹⁹Shall we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land in exchange for food. We with our land will become slaves to Pharaoh; just give us seed, so that we may live and not die, and that the land may not become desolate.’

20 So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh. All the Egyptians sold their fields, because the famine was severe upon them; and the land became Pharaoh’s. ²¹As for the people, he made slaves of them from one end of Egypt to the other. ²²Only the land of the priests he did not buy; for the priests had a fixed allowance from Pharaoh, and lived on the allowance that Pharaoh gave them; therefore they did not sell their land.²³Then Joseph said to the people, ‘Now that I have this day bought you and your land for Pharaoh, here is seed for you; sow the land. ²⁴And at the harvests you shall give one-fifth to Pharaoh, and four-fifths shall be your own, as seed for the field and as food for yourselves and your households, and as food for your little ones.’ ²⁵They said, ‘You have saved our lives; may it please my lord, we will be slaves to Pharaoh.’ ²⁶So Joseph made it a statute concerning the land of Egypt, and it stands to this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth. The land of the priests alone did not become Pharaoh’s.

27 Thus Israel settled in the land of Egypt, in the region of Goshen; and they gained possessions in it, and were fruitful and multiplied exceedingly. ²⁸Jacob lived in the land of Egypt for seventeen years; so the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were one hundred and forty-seven years.

29 When the time of Israel’s death drew near, he called his son Joseph and said to him, ‘If I have found favour with you, put your hand under my thigh and promise to deal loyally and truly with me. Do not bury me in Egypt. ³⁰When I lie down with my ancestors, carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burial place.’ He answered, ‘I will do as you have said.’³¹And he said, ‘Swear to me’; and he swore to him. Then Israel bowed himself on the head of his bed.

CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE

When the story of Jospeh is presented in most Children’s Bibles,

or put into a dramatic production like the enchanting musical, “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Coat”, the curtain drops when father Jacob and all the brothers finally make it to Egypt. This is the “and-they-all-moved-to-Egypt-and-lived- happily-ever-after ending.”

But the story in Genesis doesn’t have quite the same nice and neat “happily-ever-after” ending. In Genesis there is a building tension in the last 4 chapters. This tension can be seen in the 3 main characters of Genesis 47: Jacob, Joseph, and Pharaoh.

On the one hand there is Jacob.

Jacob, the patriarch, has come to Egypt reluctantly.

He is nervous about being in Egypt.

He keeps looking over his shoulder at the land he left, the Promised Land.

So whenever he or the brothers talk about being in the land of Egypt, they always talk about it as a temporary thing. They are sojourners only, pilgrims passing through.

On the other hand, there is Pharaoh.

He is settled and secure, powerful and wealthy.

Right away he hires Joseph’s family to take care of the royal livestock.

Whenever he talks about Joseph’s family being in Egypt, he talks about them “being settled” in the land. For him, this is a permanent arrangement.

These are the two pulls on Joseph’s life:

Jacob, pulling him to the Promised Land, which for him is in Canaan.

Pharaoh is pulling Joseph to his Promised Land, which is Egypt.

Jacob is constantly pointing to the promise of God.

Pharaoh is constantly pointing to the prosperity of Egypt.

Jacob is always trying to get Joseph to think about the future.

Pharaoh is always forcing Joseph to concentrate on the present – how to get the most out of today.

Jacob is a father, whose main business as a father is the business of hope.

Pharaoh is a ruler, whose main business as a ruler is the business of power.

And so, there is Joseph, caught in the middle, between Jacob and Pharaoh.

Which way will he go?

Whom will he favor?

To whom does he belong – his father or Pharaoh?

Joseph tries have it both ways.

He tries to be a loyal son of his father

and a loyal servant of his boss.

He tries.

He tries to be a loyal son. He settles his family in the best part of the land and makes sure everyone has something to eat.

But did you notice what this land is called in verse 11?

It is not called Goshen, but Rameses.

Why Rameses?

Because Rameses would be the name it was called four centuries later.

Rameses would be the name it was called when Jacob’s family was reduced to a nation of slaves building storage facilities for the new Pharaohs of that time (Exodus1:11).

It is given this future name of Rameses to remind us readers that although

Joseph has done what he could to secure his family’s present,

in doing so, he has in fact endangered their future.

The whole long section, from verse 13 to verse 26, makes the cloud hanging over Israel even darker. The Joseph of this part of the chapter is a loyal servant of Pharaoh. As a loyal servant to Pharaoh, we read the rather sad litany of how everyone in Egypt is reduced to slavery.

In order to have food to eat, they first spent their silver.

Then they sold their livestock.

Then they sold their land and their own bodies as slaves.

By the end of the chapter, everyone in Egypt had become a slave — everyone except the family of Israel. But could they be far behind?^[5]

Father Jacob makes a re-appearance at the end of chapter 47.

It is as if father Jacob senses he may be losing the battle for his child, Joseph.

In a request that is both urgent and insistent, Jacob almost begs that he NOT be buried in Egypt. He insists that he be buried in the family tomb in Canaan.

When Joseph says yes, Jacob demands that Joseph swear an oath.

Joseph swears the oath.

To his dying day, Jacob is pointing Joseph to the true Promised Land and the blessings of God.

But Genesis ends with the family of Israel firmly planted in the land of Goshen enjoying the blessings of Pharaoh.

Genesis ends with a question — will the family of Israel remember who they are? Will they remember they are people of the Promise?

The OLD, OLD STRUGGLE

Jacob and Pharaoh represent an old, old struggle for our hearts and minds.

The struggle began at the beginning in the Garden.

God pulled one way, the serpent another.

It was a struggle between two kingdoms:

The kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness.

The kingdom of good and the kingdom of evil.

That is why this struggle between Jacob and Pharaoh for Joseph’s loyalty is bigger and deeper than it looks.

In one of his sermons, the Old Testament scholar, Walter Bruggemann, calls Joseph a fourth generation sell-out. He says that by the end of Genesis, Joseph has forgotten who he is – he is more Egyptian than Israelite. He writes that it is telling that Scripture refers to the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, but that it stops there. No one refers to the God of Joseph.^[6]

I think Bruggemann may be a bit hard on Joseph.

I tend to see Joseph not so much as a sell-out but as a person caught in the middle,

trying to have it both ways,

trying to serve two masters.

In that sense, he is like so many of us.

How many of us aren’t trying to have the best of both worlds.

Setting our hearts on things in heaven one moment,

but then setting our hearts on things on earth the next.

Wearing our Christian hat to church,

then putting on our worldly hat to work.

But can we live with divided loyalties? Can we serve two masters?

And doesn’t that always lead to slavery of one kind or another.

But the good news is that we belong to a family that is in the business of hope.

So when the family of Jacob ends up trapped and enslaved in Egypt for 400 years,

God raised up Moses to go toe-to-toe with Pharaoh.

The Passover Lamb was slain, and the people of God finally left Egypt, through the Red Sea, and began their way to the Promised Land.

And in time, God raised a new Moses to go toe-to-toe with Satan and the powers of darkness.

This Lamb of God was slain, so that we might pass through the waters of baptism and be on our way to the Promised Land.

What did Toru and Rich do this morning?

They affirmed their baptism.

They proclaimed their loyalty to the Lamb of God.

They dedicated their life as one of pilgrimage, following Christ to the Promised Land.

And isn’t this why we come to church week after week?

To affirm our own baptism, to proclaim our own loyalty to Christ alone, and to be reminded of who we are – people belonging to Jesus Christ, body and soul, in life and in death?

So, people of God, be neither distracted nor divided.

Keep your eyes on the author and perfecter of your faith.

Keep your eyes on Jesus.

1. Elie Wiesel, Messengers of God, p. 156 ↑

2. Martin Luther, What Martin Luther Says, p. 1090. ↑

3. Quoted in an essay by Gary Anderson “Joseph and the Passion of Our Lord.” ↑

4. Blaise Pascal, Pensees, p. 223. ↑

5. An interesting note that displays Egypt and Israel as opposites is that in Egypt the people become landless and slaves whereas the priests retain property. In the Mosaic law, it will be the reverse. The families are guaranteed land, whereas the priesthood is landless. ↑

6. Walter Brueggemann, “A Fourth-Generation Sellout” a sermon in Inscribing the Text (Fortress, 2004), pp 59-62. ↑