There are few stories of family forgiveness as powerful as
this. Joseph has every reason to use his position of power to punish his brothers
who clearly meant to do him harm. I suppose his brothers could argue he had it coming
for flaunting his multi-colored coat and favored position but being thrown down
a well and sold into slavery is hardly the proper response to parental favoritism.
I’m not sure Biblical scholars will agree with me, but I think the Joseph story
is the positive ending to the patriarchal dysfunctional family story. It started
with Isaac who must have told his mother Sarah what father Abraham almost did
to him, ram in the thicket notwithstanding. Isaac compounded the dysfunctional family
system by playing favorites though one could argue Rebekah is the one who set
Jacob up. The whole story of conceptional competition is a recipe for disaster that
Jacob as future father makes worse by setting a favorite son against his brothers.
That is why this story is so significant. It is Joseph choosing not to live in his
past but rather choosing a new future. Listen. We are all products of out past
and our family of origins exert a powerful influence on our present. If yours
was good, God love you. You were blessed. But you are most likely the minority.
For the rest of us may the story of Joseph be a way out of the generation to generation
of family dysfunction. “I've been trying to get down to the heart of the matter,
but my will gets weak and my thoughts seem to scatter but I think it's about
forgiveness.” (Huey Lewis and the News.) Forgiveness isn’t excusing whatever happened.
Forgiveness is choosing to not let getting thrown down a well define your
life.
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