This Dreamer
Genesis 37:1-28
Genesis 37:1-28 (NRSV):
1 Jacob settled in the land where his father had lived as an alien, the land of Canaan. 2 These are the descendants of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was shepherding the flock with his brothers; he was a helper to the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives, and Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. 3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children because he was the son of his old age, and he made him an ornamented robe. 4 But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peaceably to him.
Welcome, my Friends, to a story about generational trauma and sibling rivalry! It’s got envy, it’s got violence, it’s got abandonment, it’s got goat’s blood…it’s got it all! Is Joseph the obnoxious little brother at the beginning of his developmental and narrative arc? Or is he the oppressed and powerless in his community, i.e, family, not deserving of the animosity being directed toward him? I lean toward option two, though I do find it difficult to choose, since…people are complex.
I’m going to make an interpretive choice to assume the best about Joseph. And Jacob. Jacob, of “stairway to heaven” fame, among other classics. We don’t know what really happened with Joseph and his brothers, in terms of what you could capture on a video camera. This story, in this form, is written centuries after the events in the story would have happened, and used to give clarity about the identity of a destabilized community. We are at the mercy of what was handed down, through oral and written tradition, but also how the priest-theologians, likely editing old materials and writing new materials in the context of the Babylonian exile, chose to tell the story.
I don’t believe words like inerrancy and infallibility suitably explain the nature of the Bible, as much as words like illuminating, telling, messy, and revealing or revelatory. This story, to me, is very…telling…about human nature, our possibilities and liabilities, our capacity to dream, and our capacity to squash the dreams of others, often violently.
The writer tells us that Jacob loves Joseph most, and the brothers seem to think so, too. Is this true? Does he? Is that what the robe means? This ornamented robe—or a coat of many colors, as it might be known by many of us–doesn’t get a lot of airtime in the Joseph story, yet symbolizes Jacob’s love for his son and becomes the catalyst that sparks the resentment and violence of his brothers to come.
Also, we don’t know what the “bad report” is, but…it doesn’t usually go over well with people when you expose them for doing something they shouldn’t? Can’t imagine this endeared the brothers to Joseph, but I wouldn’t fault or shame him for being a truthteller, like his brothers may have done, a move right out of the bully playbook.
5 Once Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. 6 He said to them, “Listen to this dream that I dreamed. 7 There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright; then your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf.” 8 His brothers said to him, “Are you indeed to reign over us? Are you indeed to have dominion over us?” So they hated him even more because of his dreams and his words.
9 He had another dream and told it to his brothers, saying, “Look, I have had another dream: the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” 10 But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him and said to him, “What kind of dream is this that you have had? Shall we indeed come, I and your mother and your brothers, and bow to the ground before you?” 11 So his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.
Nobody really wants to hear about your dream from last night, right? I think people tend to be uncompelling dream storytellers, because we only remember bits and pieces, so our storytelling is so disjointed and nonsensical and vague. “I had this dream, and you were there, but you were different in kind of a weird way…and we were in our house, but our house was, different…and you said ‘heya chop-chop!’ and I knew what you meant, but also, like, I didn’t? And…I think you had…two tails? No it was one tail…or was it two?”
I’ve bored people with my dream-sharing, but I’ve never had anyone hate me for it. And if we're talking about dreams in a broader sense—our visions of the life we want for ourselves, or for all of us—I can see where resentment might arise.
We could say Joseph should have realized his dream would not land well with his brothers. Like maybe keep that one to yourself? Joseph shares his first dream, where he says, more or less, that his brothers will bow to him in reverence. They assume Joseph thinks he should rule over them. But note that Joseph is the 11th of 12 sons of Jacob. Joseph is a latecomer; he is about as far from a firstborn as you can get.
When they ask “Are you…to have dominion…over us?” the narrative doesn’t say Joseph answered with “yep, you’ve got it, I’ll be in charge someday, losers!” I’m not sure Joseph really understands his dream, at this point, and he may have found it upsetting. Does this dream reveal the sinister plot of a villain? Or the earnest hopes of one who just wants his brothers’ love and respect?
Joseph loops his parents in on the second dream, and they seem…intrigued, but not resentful. What neither Joseph nor his parents know is that bad things are about to happen, which will ultimately culminate in Joseph having the opportunity and means to save the lives of many from a horrible famine. I don’t think Joseph’s dream reveals his competitive ambition, but his readiness, despite his social position, to do some good.
The brothers seem predisposed to dislike Joseph, to assume the worst. They hear what they want to hear. But his father, who knows him well, and loves him, doesn’t jump to conclusions, but just keeps it in mind. “Huh…” thinks Jacob…“sheaves, bowing. Fascinating.” Whatever is emerging in young Joseph, his father doesn’t seek to stifle it.
12 Now his brothers went to pasture their father’s flock near Shechem. 13 And Israel said to Joseph, “Are not your brothers pasturing the flock at Shechem? Come, I will send you to them.” He answered, “Here I am.” 14 So he said to him, “Go now, see if it is well with your brothers and with the flock, and bring word back to me.” So he sent him from the valley of Hebron. He came to Shechem, 15 and a man found him wandering in the fields; the man asked him, “What are you seeking?” 16 “I am seeking my brothers,” he said; “tell me, please, where they are pasturing the flock.” 17 The man said, “They have gone away, for I heard them say, ‘Let us go to Dothan.’ ” So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan.
Joseph displays his willingness to follow instructions, with the classic Biblical words of readiness to act: “Here I am.” He is sent on an errand to check on Jacob’s other sons, to…see if they are okay? There’s no reason we must assume Jacob didn’t trust them. I guess this could mean: “I need to make sure they’re not screwing around.” But it could also mean: “I hope my children are okay.” But the brothers don’t hear it that way!
18 They saw him from a distance, and before he came near to them they conspired to kill him. 19 They said to one another, “Here comes this dreamer. 20 Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; then we shall say that a wild animal has devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams.”
You wonder if the brothers weren’t out there stewing, conversing and dialing up the animosity, nurturing hatred in one another toward a convenient and vulnerable common enemy. “Here comes this dreamer.” Later on, we learn that Joseph is not just a dreamer, but a dream-interpreter, too! A gift given from God, but likely cultivated over time by someone who has learned to listen carefully, deeply, discerningly—how to get to the heart of things.
And this gift, along with some great leadership and stewardship skills, allows him to help Pharaoh and the Egyptians survive a lengthy famine. Joseph doesn’t use his gift for self-centered reasons or to dominate others. But the people who have the opportunity to support Joseph, to nurture his gift of dreaming, seek to crush this gift, these dreams, and Joseph himself. Who are the dreamers, among us? Are we listening to their dreams, are we helping make their dreams, if they are good dreams, come true?
21 But when Reuben heard it, he delivered him out of their hands, saying, “Let us not take his life.” 22 Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood; throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but lay no hand on him”—that he might rescue him out of their hand and restore him to his father. 23 So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the ornamented robe that he wore, 24 and they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it.
25 Then they sat down to eat, and looking up they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels carrying gum, balm, and resin, on their way to carry it down to Egypt. 26 Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? 27 Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.” And his brothers agreed. 28 When some Midianite traders passed by, they drew Joseph up, lifting him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. And they took Joseph to Egypt.
Reuben and Judah, in their own ways, stop their brothers from killing Joseph, though the decision is made, after this scene, to lie and to trick their father into thinking he’s dead, returning to their father Joseph’s coat, soaked in goat’s blood—a symbol of what they were willing to sacrifice in…self-appeasement. He may “be our brother, after all,” but they do essentially de-brother him, they cut him off—for twenty pieces of silver. Predictably, Jacob is devastated, tears his clothes in grief, and tells his children “I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning.” In other words, “my grief will never end.”
Was it fair that Joseph got a gorgeous coat, and they didn’t? Or did they already have a coat, did they have many coats that we don’t hear about, but they didn’t have that coat, and wanted that coat! Or at least what they thought it represented. So they stole that gift of…being alive…from Joseph, or at least tried to, and would have, had it not been for a brother or two who maybe didn’t do enough, but at least did something, maybe all that could be done, to oppose the violent forces set against Joseph.
The Joseph story brings up a lot of important questions for me. For example: where does this thing that philosopher Rene Girard calls “mimetic rivalry” come from? Are Joseph’s brothers just fundamentally hateful people? I don’t think so. I have to believe there is good in them, despite what toxic behaviors they’ve learned through, to use Girard’s word, mimesis—imitating others. We certainly see them at their worst, and their actions seem to arise out of a perceived scarcity: that there is only so much of something to go around—in this case, their father’s love. They perceive themselves to not have that love, and want it, and so turn violent toward Joseph. It’s only a matter of time before they turn against each other, right? With Joseph no longer a handy scapegoat? Where do we see this kind of rivalry, this violence, in our world? What about in our own hearts? Who do we find needlessly threatening?
Another question that arises for me is: where do we misunderstand or misappraise others, to the detriment of all? The brothers assume the worst; they’ve cultivated a loathing for Joseph; their appraisal of their brother is informed by their own fears and insecurities. And through moblike groupthink they have nurtured this resentment and rivalry. What choices do people make, today, that nourish the seeds of hatred and war, instead of love and peace? What causes us to make unfair appraisals of who people are and what they want? Where have we un-peopled people, and ignored their humanity?
Another question has to do with Joseph’s gift, a life-saving gift, someday, but a gift currently in its raw, unrefined stage. The brothers don’t see it as a gift, at least not a gift to them, only something that makes them resent Joseph even more. Where do people’s gifts need our nurture, not opposition? Whose growth, whose participation do we stifle, including our own, because we aren’t honoring something beautiful we each have to share? Are we imposters because there are other competent people around us? Can only a few of us truly thrive, or can we all thrive?
A fourth question: Where do people on the bottom who dream of something different…get squashed by those who fear they will lose something should the dreamer’s dreams come true? Jesus was a dreamer. Who stands to lose if his dreams for a thriving human and ecological community, the kin-dom of God, come true? MLK had a dream. Who stands to lose if his dreams of true freedom and equality come true? Joseph dreams of a future where an 11th-born, who has a close relationship with his aging dad, maybe for whom Joseph is a primary caregiver, is given the opportunity to help many, many people, including his own family. Who stands to lose if Joseph’s dreams come true? How many more stand to gain–if the dreams of Jesus, MLK, Joseph, even those we call “dreamers” in our country, today–come true?
A final question: why do humans, historically, think violence will save? Violence won’t save us! Violence won’t win these brothers their father’s approval—which they probably already have! Will this act of violence give the brothers what they feel they lack? Will it soothe them? Will the cycle of violence continue, and be passed down, just as the brothers seem to have inherited it from their predecessors? How can people break that cycle, make different choices, and stop nourishing the seeds of war?
Joseph, in a moving scene at the end of Genesis, says to his brothers, now essentially bowing before him: “though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people…So have no fear; I myself will provide for you and your little ones.” I think we must, as Quakers who testify with our lives to peace and nonviolence, reject any god who utilizes human violence in their creative process, lest we become like such a beastly god.
But I think we can embrace a responsive God, who works with the raw materials of human rivalry and resentment and family trauma and insecurities and gifts and dreams and possibilities, and weaves a story of liberation and Love, a story of an 11th brother, who went through hell but found himself in a position to do a whole lot of good, and found it in his own kind heart to forgive and provide for his oppressors, his brothers. That “responsive weaving” is our opportunity, too, as those made in the image of God.
There is a lot to this story I’m leaving unexamined, today, about places, characters, the symbolism, this family’s relationship to the land, allusions to other stories of sibling rivalry, generational family trauma. And the rest of Joseph’s story! Which really does end much better than this chapter of his life ends. But hopefully what has been said is enough for today, as we listen for what Spirit is inviting us to do and to become.
Queries:
How can we transform destructive competition into creative collaboration?
How can we gain a more generous perspective on others?
Whose gifts are we invited to nurture?
Whose dreams are moving us to take action?
What are we to do in the face of relentless violence?