Throughout these eleven verses, we are told that Joseph is a young man, that he is a good son, and that he is a dreamer. Verse 2 tells us that Joseph is only seventeen. He is loved by his father more than any of his other sons because Joseph is the son of Israel's old age (v 3). The first bit of Joseph's character that is revealed comes in the form of a report that he brings to his father concerning some poor behavior on the part of Joseph's brothers. This can be understood as a love of good on Joseph's part, a zeal for righteousness; or it could be seen as what modern middle-schoolers call a 'tattle-tale' or 'goodie-goodie'. In the second option, it may not be that Joseph loves the good, but that he wants to be in close with his father, and thereby increase his already advantaged position.
We are then told of Joseph's dreams. In the first dream he sees twelve sheaves in a field. His sheaf stands upright and the other eleven bow down before him. It seems that his brothers rightly interpret this to mean that Joseph will one day rule over them and they will bow down to him. They are upset by that, and hate him even more. Joseph's second dream has the same message but has expanded to include his father and mother. This dream is of the sun, moon, and eleven stars bowing down to him. He tells this dream to his whole family and his father has a similar reaction to the brothers. He is outraged that Joseph would think that he would rule over the entire family. Both of these dream run counter to the cultural customs of the time. The father always ruled over the family as head of the household, no matter how old or inept he got. Next in line were the sons, ranked by age, with the oldest have precedence over the others. Joseph was at the bottom of the ladder, with no claim to rule over any of his brothers or father. Yes, he enjoyed the love of his father, but that did not invalidate the existing systems of the day.
Despite these cultural norms, it's easy to see the sin of the brothers and the father. As readers of Scripture, even this early on in the Bible, we know that God can and does work outside of the norms of cultures. He often acts in ways counter to what we would expect. So we do not doubt the validity of these dreams. And so, as insiders with the narrator, we can see the sin of pride at work in the brothers and the father. We can see clearly that God chooses to exalt those who otherwise would have no claim to leadership or high status. He exalts the lowly, the meek, and the weak. He chooses the Joseph, the Moses, the David to lead His people time and again. Israel and his sons are on the wrong side of the biblical narrative.
In addition to this, it is easy to identify with the brothers and see a bit of pride at work in Joseph. Many of us have experience someone tattling on us and revealing our wrong-doing to others. Many may even have experienced someone being very vocal, perhaps even bragging, about a vision or dream from God, or some other gift. Was there not a better way for Joseph to handle this situation? It's hard to read this and no get a little miffed at Joseph. Yes, God chooses those who otherwise do not qualify; but that is to God's glory, not our own. Perhaps Joseph left off that last part and saw these dreams as owing to his greatness. After all, there is no mention of the Lord in these dreams and his interpretation, only of his rulership.
I think that we are aided in our contemporary application of this story by the New Testament reading today. 1 Corinthians 1:1-19 tells of a similar situation to Genesis 37. In the church in Corinth there are those who have been lifted up and given gifts by God to lead, but they are using them quite ungracefully. The way that are using them has led to divisions in the church. But the rest of the body is not innocent. Like those brothers of Joseph, they seem to be a bit miffed that someone else has become a leader, someone that they do not think qualified, especially in the expectations for leadership that they held. "Who made him an apostle?" "Who put him as a bishop over us?" And these words are not so very far from our own lips, are they?
As members of Christ's body, we have the privilege of seeing God at work; at work in the lives of the lost, the weak, the meek, and the powerless. All of us are sinful and in need of God's grace; all of us powerless to save ourselves. And yet, we still fall into the trap of either Joseph or Joseph's brothers. When we are lifted up and given gifts, in whatever capacity, it is very easy for us to point to something within us that earned us the grace of God. We were in the right place at the right time; we were more open to God's working; whatever it may be, somehow we forgot to give credit to the only One to whom it is due.
Again, we are too often also in the position of Joseph's brothers, where one who has no right (according to our standards) to be lifted up as a leader, we chafe. How dare they step out of line. What makes them think that they can rule over us? It is the subtext of many of the church conflicts with which I have been familiar (which is, admittedly, not many).
I both of these sets of sin, I am reminded of Karl Barth's words regarding spiritual gifts. In the following words, Barth shows the phenomenal blessing that the Spirit working in the body is, how awesome of a thing it is; and yet he also shows the danger and fragility of these earthen vessels.
“The Holy Spirit is the quickening power which underlies, capacitates and actualizes the act of the individual in the Christian community in its totality, giving to it both its distinctive character and scope and also its distinctive direction. It is He who awakens man—each one in the form and to the task which He Himself allots to him. It is He who endows him with the corresponding abilities and freedoms and powers. It is He who enriches the whole Christian community with this endowment of the individual Christian, thus deepening and broadening its whole life, and extending its power for the fulfilment of its mission in the world.
But those to and in whom the Holy Spirit is mightily at work in this way are men. Indeed, they are sinful men. And it is their human action which by His action He authorises [sic] and claims for service. This means that His gifts are jeopardised [sic] both in the person of each individual among them and also as they accrue to the Christian community as such. When the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit (Rom. 816) all too easily that in the hearts and heads of Christians the spiritual riches entrusted to them are unfortunately transformed into intellectual, moral and religious riches which each can begin to handle as if he had himself created them, as if they were at his disposal, as if he could claim them as his own possession and power and glory, playing them off against others and what seem to be their corresponding possessions without any regard for the fact that what is given him is not given him for himself but to equip him to serve the community, and that it is only relatively that what is entrusted to him is of greater or less importance…The more intensive the work of the Holy Spirit, the richer and more powerful His gifts, the greater obviously is the attraction and danger of this transformation and the more urgent the critical question, which no appeal to the power and plenitude of the life of the individual and the community must be allowed to suppress, concerning that which genuinely characterizes [sic] as Christian the forms of their action (even as a human action) as awakened by the Holy Spirit. The more urgent it is indeed to call them back to this distinctive reality, which is love.”
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (IV/2, 825-826)
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (IV/2, 825-826)
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