The Gospel’s Dramatic Irony

Scripture: Genesis 42

Sermon: The Gospel’s Dramatic Irony

Topics: Irony, Surprise, Education

Preached: October 29, 2017 AM Woodlawn CRC Joseph Series #6

Rev. Mike Abma

Genesis 42

When Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons, ‘Why do you keep looking at one another? ²I have heard’, he said, ‘that there is grain in Egypt; go down and buy grain for us there, that we may live and not die.’ ³So ten of Joseph’s brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt. ⁴But Jacob did not send Joseph’s brother Benjamin with his brothers, for he feared that harm might come to him. ⁵Thus the sons of Israel were among the other people who came to buy grain, for the famine had reached the land of Canaan.

6 Now Joseph was governor over the land; it was he who sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph’s brothers came and bowed themselves before him with their faces to the ground. ⁷When Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he treated them like strangers and spoke harshly to them. ‘Where do you come from?’ he said.

They said, ‘From the land of Canaan, to buy food.’ 

⁸Although Joseph had recognized his brothers, they did not recognize him. ⁹Joseph also remembered the dreams that he had dreamed about them. He said to them, ‘You are spies; you have come to see the nakedness of the land!’ 

¹⁰They said to him, ‘No, my lord; your servants have come to buy food. ¹¹We are all sons of one man; we are honest men; your servants have never been spies.’ 

¹²But he said to them, ‘No, you have come to see the nakedness of the land!’ 

¹³They said, ‘We, your servants, are twelve brothers, the sons of a certain man in the land of Canaan; the youngest, however, is now with our father, and one is no more.’ 

¹⁴But Joseph said to them, ‘It is just as I have said to you; you are spies! ¹⁵Here is how you shall be tested: as Pharaoh lives, you shall not leave this place unless your youngest brother comes here! ¹⁶Let one of you go and bring your brother, while the rest of you remain in prison, in order that your words may be tested, whether there is truth in you; or else, as Pharaoh lives, surely you are spies.’ ¹⁷And he put them all together in prison for three days.

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.

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?’

29 When they came to their father Jacob in the land of Canaan, they told him all that had happened to them, saying, ³⁰‘The man, the lord of the land, spoke harshly to us, and charged us with spying on the land. ³¹But we said to him, “We are honest men, we are not spies. ³²We are twelve brothers, sons of our father; one is no more, and the youngest is now with our father in the land of Canaan.” ³³Then the man, the lord of the land, said to us, “By this I shall know that you are honest men: leave one of your brothers with me, take grain for the famine of your households, and go your way. ³⁴Bring your youngest brother to me, and I shall know that you are not spies but honest men. Then I will release your brother to you, and you may trade in the land.” ’

35 As they were emptying their sacks, there in each one’s sack was his bag of money. When they and their father saw their bundles of money, they were dismayed. 

³⁶And their father Jacob said to them, ‘I am the one you have bereaved of children: Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and now you would take Benjamin. All this has happened to me!’

³⁷Then Reuben said to his father, ‘You may kill my two sons if I do not bring him back to you. Put him in my hands, and I will bring him back to you.’ 

³⁸But he said, ‘My son shall not go down with you, for his brother is dead, and he alone is left. If harm should come to him on the journey that you are to make, you would bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to Sheol.’

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

INTRODUCTION

Isn’t this a delicious story?

Here, in the 42^nd chapter of Genesis, we have all the original characters back in play: Father Jacob, Joseph, the Brothers.

The question is, after 20 or so years, what has changed, and what has seemingly stayed the same?

JACOB

Let’s start by taking a look at Father Jacob.

He has both the first words and last words of this chapter.

Right from the beginning, do you get the sense that there is still tension in this family?

Just listen to Jacob’s opening words to his sons:

“What are you doing, just standing there looking at each other.

Don’t you know we are going to starve?

Now get down to Egypt and buy us some food!”

You can almost hear Jacob barking at his boys.

And Jacob is still playing favorites.

He sends the 10 brothers to Egypt for food,

but he does not send Benjamin –

Benjamin was too precious to part with.

By the end of this chapter, this blatant favoritism becomes painfully obvious.

Jacob is again barking at his boys who have just returned from Egypt,

these boys who can do seemingly nothing right in Jacob’s eyes.

Jacob howls,

“You have given me nothing but grief!

Joseph is no more.

You’ve just bungled this job and now Simeon is no more.

And you want to take Benjamin, my precious Benjamin, away from me too?

Never!

The chapter ends with Jacob’s defiant cry:

“Never!

My son, my only son, will never go to Egypt!

His brother Joseph is dead,

And now Benjamin is the only one I have left.”

Remember, Jacob is saying this to all his other sons.

Benjamin alone is left.

Wow.

After over 20 years and Jacob’s favoritism has only deepened.

JOSEPH

The 10 brothers meekly make their way to Egypt

and somehow find themselves before the Grand Governor of Egypt himself.

You have to wonder how that was possible.

Egypt was attracting hundreds, thousands of people, all trying to buy grain.

But these brothers end up before the Grand Governor himself.

I imagine it is sort of like crossing the border into the US.

Most of you have crossed the border.

You know what it is like, waiting your turn.

Well, every once in a while, they randomly tell a car to pull over.

They want to check inside the car.

They want to ask some questions.

So imagine getting out of your car,

being ushered into a border control building

and suddenly finding yourself being interviewed by none other

than the Secretary of Homeland Security, Elaine Duke herself!

I imagine it was that kind of shock for these brothers –

suddenly finding themselves being personally questioned by

the Grand Governor himself.

No wonder they were bowing to him with their faces to the ground.

Of course, we know that this Grand Governor is actually Joseph.

And we know that their bowing to him with their faces on the ground

is actually a fulfillment of Joseph’s dream in Genesis 37.

We know this.

Joseph knows this.

But the brothers are totally in the dark.

What we may wonder about is why Joseph is so tough and so harsh with them?

Can I just say that in the way this story is told,

Joseph sounds a bit like Yoda from Star Wars.

The questioning goes something like this:

Joseph: Spies you are.

And the land’s nakedness to see, you have come.

Brothers: Oh no, oh no. We are honest men, not spies.

Joseph: Spies you are.

Brothers: Oh no, we are not spies.

We are in fact brothers all of one father.

Joseph: Spies you are.

And tested you shall be.

Joseph is tough – but not only tough.

He is also tender.

He is hard, but also soft.

He is both bad cop and good cop,

both frost and sunshine.

He is hard when he throws them all in prison

telling them they all must stay there

while one of them returns for the younger brother.

He is softer when, 3 days later,

He turns things around and says

They can all go home for the younger brother,

But one of them has to remain behind in prison.

He is hard when he charges them full price for the grain.

He is soft when he slips the money back into their grain sacks.

He is hard when he threatens them with death

unless they return with their younger brother.

But he is soft when he quietly supplies them with everything they need

for the journey home.

Why this hardness, then softness,

this coldness, then warmth,

this frost, then sunshine?

It is all part of their education.

It is all to test who these brothers are,

and what sort of men they have become.

BROTHERS

In this chapter, Father Jacob has a role to play, barking at his boys;

and Joseph has a role to play, coming off as an Egyptian tyrant,

But the focus of this chapter,

the real focus,

is on these brothers.

Will they stick together?

Will they turn on their younger brother Benjamin, the way they turned on Joseph?

What will they do?

If Father Jacob is weighed down by grief,

These 10 brothers are weighed down by guilt.

Guilt has followed them for over 20 years.

Guilt has followed them all the way into Egypt.

And when they insist they are “Honest Men”,

they know, in their heart-of-hearts

that this is not the whole story.

After 3 days in a dark Egyptian prison,

Their guilt begins to see the light of day.

They talk together about how

They had never gotten over

What they had done to their little brother

All those years ago.

Can you imagine the guilt?

And this chapter simply adds to that guilt.

Can you imagine the added guilt when they are forced to return home,

knowing that they are

leaving their brother Simeon in a pit of a prison in Egypt

like they left Joseph in a pit all those years ago?

And can you imagine the added guilt

When they opened their sacks and there were all those pieces of silver –

Silver like they received for Joseph years ago

And now it was as if they were getting it for Simeon.

The truth is,

By the end of this chapter

Things are looking very, very, grim.

Father Jacob is raw with grief,

And these brothers

Having got rid of a little brother years ago,

Having just abandoned a brother in Egypt,

And facing the prospect of losing a third brother in the future,

Well these brothers were overwhelmed with guilt.

No wonder this chapter describes these brothers

As being dismayed,

As losing heart

As losing hope.

DRAMATIC IRONY of the GOSPEL

From Father Jacob’s perspective

And from the brothers’ perspective

Things have gone from bad to worse.

But from our perspective,

The readers’ perspective,

Things do not look nearly so bad.

We know that nasty Egyptian governor is actually Joseph.

We know that his treatment of his brothers,

Though it looks harsh, is actually out of love.

We know that when the brothers whisper together about their guilt,

Joseph is weeping tears of affection.

When the reader of a story knows more than the characters in the story,

We call that dramatic irony.

Dramatic Irony – when things are not as they appear.

* the coat covered in blood, is not what it appeared.

* Simeon locked away in prison, is not what it appeared

* the demand for the little brother Benjamin,

Is not what it appeared.

There is more to this story.

Jacob does not know it.

The brothers do not know it.

But we know – there is more to this story.

That is the wonder of the gospel — there is always more to the story,

More than the eyes can see,

More than the mind can comprehend.

Nothing is quite as it seems.

The first are in fact last

and the last are in fact first.

The greatest are in fact the least,

and the least are in fact the greatest.

The strong are in fact weak,

and the weak are in fact strong.

The wise are in fact foolish,

and the foolish are in fact wise.

That is the wonder of the gospel

the surprise of the gospel.

Nothing is quite as it seems —

For the criminal on the cross

is in fact the King of all Creation.

CONCLUSION

Nothing is quite as it seems,

in this Genesis story

in the Gospel story

and in our stories too.

The hard truth is that

things often look grim in our lives.

We are faced with

hardships and harshness.

Our hearts are weighed down

with guilt and with grief.

The diagnosis sounds dire

and it seems like our little lives are just wasting away.

But listen,

Nothing is quite as it appears.

Our afflictions,

whatever they be,

whether they are afflictions of guilt and grief,

or afflictions of distress or disease,

or afflictions of heart-ache or heart-break,

these are not what they appear to be.

As Paul tell us at the end of 2 Corinthians 4,

These afflictions, whatever they are,

are actually preparing us,

educating us

molding us

for an eternal weight of glory

that is far beyond what we can imagine.

That is why

When we look at the details of our lives

The grim details of our own stories,

We need to remember

There is more to our stories than what we can see.

We are believers in the Gospel.

We are believers in the Good News.

We are believers in the absolute reality of the Kingdom of God.

We do not simply stare at what we can see,

but we look beyond, to what we cannot see.

For we know that what we can simply see

is temporary, it is fleeting, it is Not the Whole Story.

But what we cannot see,

Why that is eternal,

That is solid

That is more than we could ask or imagine.

AMEN

PRAYER

Lead us, O Lord, through our days and through our nights.

Whatever we do,

Wherever we go,

By waters calm

Or by troubled sea,

Lord, by your hand,

By your grace

By your promises,

Lead us, now and always

Amen