Good morning! I’ve been in Spokane all this week at a ministry conference at Whitworth College, actually now Whitworth University. I had a chance to reconnect with lots of friends, including our former Associate Pastor Steve Lympus. And had a chance to hear from some amazing people: Roberta Hestenes- college President, Senior Pastor and now World Vision board member. My personal guru whom I have quoted for you many times, Eugene Peterson led us in a study of Ephesians each morning. And then University Presbyterian’s Earl Palmer preached at the worship services each night.

I have to tell you, I was amazed at Earl’s ability to tell a story. In one sermon he re-told the story of the Prodigal Son. Now, you have to remember that there are hundreds of people in the audience, most of them pastors, elders, Sunday School teachers who collectively have probably taught or studied the Prodigal Son tens of thousands of times. But when Earl got near the end of the story and said “And then you know what happened?!,” every person in the auditorium leaned forward to find out…how the story of the Prodigal Son ended! Amazing.

This morning is really fun. We’re continuing in our series on the stories of Genesis. We’ve read through the stories of Abraham, through Isaac and through Jacob (re-named Israel. We’ll use both names, but same guy).

In the first three cycles, God shows up blatantly, and if not frequently, regularly. Direct encounters. And so Abraham hears a Voice, “Abraham, leave your country and go to a place I’ve prepared.” And then again a Voice when he’s about to sacrifice his son Isaac, “Do not do anything, for I know you have not withheld your only son from me.” Later, God shows up in a dream to Jacob and says “Jacob, you are part of the Promise, and I will be with you! And still later, God appears in the form of a person, wrestling with Jacob at the river.

Direct encounters. As we move along this life of faith, these do happen to us, I believe. Many, many times. Anne and I just had our 25th anniversary. And as we reminisced I was thinking back to when I wanted to ask Anne to marry me. Right or wrong, I prayed a prayer that said “God, I’m not nearly smart enough to make this decision. So I’m asking you to specifically show me if this is the right thing!” Well, a week went by. Two weeks. Three, four, six. I was getting anxious. I wanted to marry her! And then one day, walking across the Udub campus, I was overwhelmed by this tremendous sense of joy. And I just knew it was right.

We encounter God directly all over, sometimes here in worship. The Spirit moves, a word, a prayer, a scripture just pounds into our senses and we know we’re in God’s presence. Direct encounters with God: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob all had them.

But now we turn to Joseph, the 11th of the 12 sons of Jacob. We run into very something different. The Joseph story is not about big glamorous encounters with God. It’s far less religious, if you will. The purposes of God are at work, but are far more hidden. I think it’s one reason we like these stories, they are more like our day-in, day-out lives. Most often, God meets us subtly. Hovering, nudging, orchestrating, hints, whispers. We have to pay attention, watch carefully for God in this Joseph story.

I’m going to read just from verses 2-11 of Genesis chapter 37, then we’ll walk through the rest of the story.

You know what? This family is a mess! It is! In fact, it’s been a mess for generations. And now here’s Jacob ( Israel) following right along in line. Remember how in Jacob’s own family, his father Isaac was bent towards his brother Esau but his mother Rebekah loved Jacob more?

And now here’s Jacob ( Israel) practicing the exact same kind of favoritism that made his own life miserable…amongst his kids. He has children from 4 different women: his wife Leah, her maid, his wife Rachel and her maid. But it’s Rachel who was his first love, and it is her child Joseph whom he favors. So there are 12 boys all together: 10 grown, then Joseph, then Benjamin (very young). But Jacob clearly favors one. Joseph.

It’s no fun, by the way, to feel like someone else is the favorite. I remember when my brother got to do things my parents wouldn’t let me, just because he was three years older, and I remember how unfair that seemed. Did they like him best?!

My interpretation is that Joseph is no angel. He might even be a spoiled brat. At some point, he’s played the tattletale, getting his brothers in trouble with their dad. And Jacob, in what is clearly one of the worst parenting decisions ever, gives Joseph a special coat. The famous “coat of many colors.”

Now, if you grew up in Sunday School, you undoubtedly colored in some pictures of Joseph’s many-colored coat, probably lots of them. One stripe this color, one that color. In fact, you could use the same markers you used for the rainbow in the Noah’s Arc story! If you didn’t grow up in Sunday School, you might have seen Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, the Broadway Show that ran for many years (and that’s being re-opened in London this very week).

But it doesn’t matter what you look at, Joseph seems to have a rainbow coat. The interesting thing is, the word for this coat is an obscure Hebrew one that even the best scholars don’t really know the meaning of. Rainbow? Long robe with sleeves, as our pew bible says? Richly oranamented garment, per the NIV? But it really doesn’t matter. The color or style of the coat is totally irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that Joseph received something. And his brothers didn’t. And his brothers correctly interpreted that the coat meant their father loved them less than Joseph. And they hated Joseph for it.

Then comes the dream. Actually two dreams, both that leave very little to be interpreted. Joseph lays the first one out in front of his brothers who already don’t like him, maybe a little too cheerily: “Hey, listen guys! Great dream last night! We all were working in a field, the whole fam, but my sheaf (bound wheat bundle) stood up tall and yours all bowed down to mine! Isn’t that cool!?” Naturally the brothers interpreted this as a prediction of how Joseph would reign over them, and resented him even more.

Joseph didn’t get any smarter. He has another dream and immediately tells his brothers and his dad this one. “Hey, can you believe it?! Eleven stars, the sun and the moon were bowing down to me, just lil’ ol’ me!”

Now, the brothers are saying: “Let’s see. Eleven stars, eleven of us, sun & moon, father and mother…” They hated him. Even Jacob can’t believe such arrogance. But while the brothers hated Joseph even more, Jacob “kept this matter in mind.” (it sounds just like around the birth of Jesus, doesn’t it, when Mary “kept these things in her heart?”). Here, Jacob decided to sit with it a bit. Some real wisdom there, isn’t there? We have such a hard time waiting. We respond instantly, we fire off an email or answer the text message without taking two seconds to think or pray.

While I was in Spokane, as I drove to the conference in the morning, I would stop as I occasionally like to for some coffee. Now, I’m used to waiting about 30 seconds for my coffee. But I arrived at the coffee shop at the wrong time, and there was a line of 5-6 people, and I think I had to wait three minutes for my coffee! And I’m embarrassed to report that I caught myself thinking: “This is ridiculous! How can they make me wait this long?! I’ll show them, I’ll just leave right now.” So impatient. It’s not a good way to live. Nor is it a good way to watch for God.

So, eleven verses into Joseph, and have we seen God yet? Well. Maybe. Barely. Look hard. The dreams. These dreams are from God. But they’re given to a cocky 17-year old. Told by him in a way that earned him enemies. Yet it is these dreams which will indeed come true, which will guide the rest of the story, which will preserve the promise. It would seem that God is present here. But we have to keep waiting and watching and reflecting to find out how and where.

Now all hell breaks loose. Jacob sends Joseph to find his brothers, who are a long way off (geographically and figuratively) tending some of the herds. The brothers see him coming, they come up with a plan: Let’s kill him. Reuben, the oldest brother convinces them not to kill him, but to throw him in a nearby pit, an empty water well of sorts. Reuben was sort of half-a-hero, or half-a-coward. He stopped the killing, intending on coming back later to rescue Joseph but apparently couldn’t totally stand up to the others.

The brothers weren’t gentle with Joseph. They roughed him up, stripped his fancy coat off before tossing him into their natural and readymade jail cell. And then, with apparently no conscience at all, they sat down and enjoyed a meal. Quite possibly on the very food that Joseph had brought to them from their father!

A passing caravan goes by on its way to Egypt, and Judah (another elder brother) agrees that they shouldn’t kill Joseph, but rather sell him off as a slave. Twenty pieces of silver lines their pockets and tries to soothe their consciences. I suspect it didn’t work.

Thirty didn’t do it for Judas Iscariot. Reuben returns from an errand, finds out his little brother is gone and is beside himself. He knows what this will do to their father. Together the brothers band together and come up with a plan. They’ll take Joseph’s coat, slaughter a goat and put blood on the coat, and take it to Jacob to dupe him. They’ll trick him into believing that Joseph has died in the wilderness.

Do you get it? This is the irony of ironies. Jacob is the one who did what earlier in his life? Along with his mom, took skins of a goat to dupe his blind father Isaac into thinking he was Esau, and stole the blessing! Now the exact same thing is happening to him. Jacob is being duped by own sons.

It’s a mess. A huge mess. Jealousy, favoritism, enmity, lying, deceit, cover-up. Now, remember. These are the sons of Jacob, of Israel. These are the 12 sons including Joseph. These are the 12 tribes of Israel! These are the very people who are going to not only receive the blessing –land, offspring- but will be a blessing to the entire world! These are the pillars, the 12 tribes of God’s people.

In the book of Revelation in the New Testament, when the redeemed city, the holy Jerusalem comes down out of heaven, with the very radiance of God, it has a high and great wall with 12 gates, and each gate has one name inscribed on it: the name of one of the 12 tribes of the Israelites. The 12 brothers! And the wall has 12 foundations, and on those are the 12 names of the 12 apostles of Jesus. This is heaven, the heavenly city! This is Israel (names over gates), this is the new Israel (apostles’ names), this is the church, these 12 brothers…and it is a mess. A huge mess.

I have to tell you. I find myself talking a lot about this lately. This is nothing new. The church is always a mess. It always has been a mess. And it is the very people whom God is using to reach the world, whom Jesus came and died for that often look the messiest.

I also have a confession. Maybe I hear it more because I’m a pastor, but it’s not totally because I’m a pastor. I’m tired of hearing from people that they “like Jesus but can’t stand the church.” Saying you want to follow after God but stay unblemished from getting too near to God’s people is a total oxymoron. This is who we are. I’m sorry to report, we’re stuck with each other! You don’t pick your family!

And whether you are disgusted with the church at the denominational level, or get driven crazy by the postmodern/emerging church or have been hurt by people in a church experience, the answer is not to abandon the people of God. It’s not to go find a better place, it’s not to go be alone somewhere, it’s not to get your needs met. The answer is not to even to become more like the early church, because it was even more messy than this!

For whatever reason, this is where God has chosen to land. We have no choice but to look and figure out what it is that God is doing here and now, in the middle of wrongheaded, stubborn people who go to work and form friendships and live in neighborhoods and gather together.

Messy? You bet it is. The twelve tribes of Israel are standing here in front of us in Joseph’s story and it just doesn’t get any messier. And in fact, it doesn’t look very hopeful at the moment, does it? It’s hard to imagine how God can redeem it.

One of the musicians I enjoy listening to right now is David Wilcox, a singer songwriter. Wilcox wrote a song several years back that reads like a poem, here’s a piece of it:

“If someone wrote a play

just to glorify what’s stronger than hate,

would they not arrange the stage,

to look as though the hero came too late?

he’s almost in defeat,

it’s looking like the evil side will win

so on the edge of every seat,

from the moment that the whole thing begins,

…it is Love who makes the mortar,

and it’s Love who stacks these stones…

it’s Love who made the stage here,

though it looks like we’re alone…”

I think Wilcox is singing what we’re wondering here. It doesn’t look good. But when there’s confusion and unclarity, it doesn’t mean God isn’t there. The presence of a mess doesn’t mean that God is absent. Hang with it. Be patient. Be faithful. God is around here somewhere.

Is God in this story? He’s around it. About all he’s done so far is send a couple of dreams. I wonder if Joseph is remembering those dreams as he is carried off to slavery. I wonder if the brothers remember them as they reflect on what they have done, I wonder if Jacob remembers them as he grieves the loss of his son?

The dreams are in full force. God is still in this picture, around the edges, in the background. It will take more than a messed up family, vindictive brothers or a messy church to thwart what God wants to do.

I want to say one more word about living in messy situations, because most of us hate them. We are uncomfortable with things that are unresolved or open-ended. We feel unsettled. And so usually what we do is become more efficient. We try to clean things up. In relationships, we just avoid people who don’t fit the box very well, or who make us uncomfortable. In our relationship with God, we look for formulas, lines, diagrams that make things neat. We think that if a situation is messy that God isn’t involved.

It’s just not true. Sometimes we just need to sit tight and watch. It may be we need to look harder or differently. God is far more persistent than we realize. Part of faith is looking for God not just in the lightning bolt moments, but also around the edges.

In human history, there have been many times when people thought God no longer was there. And so at just the right time…God came to us and for us. When we thought we would never see His face again, maybe wondered where He was, wondered if He knew our names, He made himself clear in Jesus Christ.

Years ago, Brennan Manning told a story about an old professor of his who grew up in Holland. The professor had grown up as one of 13 children. One day they were all playing outside, and the boy ran in the back door to a pantry to get a drink of water. His dad had come home from work for lunch, and a neighbor was sitting at the table with him, and they didn’t know that the boy was just around the corner. The dad’s friend said

“Joe, I have a question I’ve always wanted to ask you…but if it’s too personal, don’t answer. You have 13 kids, 13! Out of those 13 kids…which is your favorite? Which do you love the most Now you can imagine this young boy - totally frozen, pressed up against the wall, hoping against hope…that his dad would say his name.

His dad was silent for a moment. And then he said

“Oh, that’s easy. Mary, the youngest, who just got braces on her teeth and won’t go out of house because she’s so embarrassed.

But you asked which was my favorite? Oh, that’s Peter. He’s 23, his fiancé just broke off their engagement and he’s devastated.

But the one I really love? Susan, my oldest. She’s living on her own, and I think she has a drinking problem. I weep for Susan.”

And he went on down the entire list of 13, telling how he loved each one the best. No favorites here, are there? No coat of many colors for one child. Just a God who in Jesus Christ speaks our name. Just a God who is very, very persistent.

I suspect that Joseph, as he headed off towards slavery in Egypt, wondered about these exact things, just as we surely do.

• Was God really there?
• Was God really aware of what he was going through?

It’s a mess. A big mess. Is God in it?

All we know is that despite all appearances, Joseph is alive. The dream and the promise and the future remain in place. And this part of the story ends with the traders who, we’re told, “…sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officals...”

Which is simply another way of saying – “To be continued.” Let us pray.