When it comes to getting what you want, where would you draw the line? If something is important to you, would you be willing to lie in order to get it? Or, would you be willing to manipulate someone else to do what you want so that you can get the result you want? Philosophers pose these kinds of questions a lot, and quite often the scenarios they give are ones that don’t have a clear right answer. They ask things like, “Would you steal a loaf of bread if you needed to in order to feed your family?” knowing that stealing is wrong, but so is allowing your family to starve. The question they are really asking is, “How far are you willing to go to get what you want? Where would you draw the line?”

In any English or writing class, students are told over and over that any good television show, movie, or story has to have a conflict. Without a conflict, the storyline is boring and the characters have no motivation to develop or change over the course of the story. The coyote tries to catch the roadrunner, and the conflict is that the roadrunner is fast and smart and dodges everything the coyote tries. The conflict in the movie Home Alone is that Harry and Marv are trying to break into Kevin’s house, and also that Kevin’s mother encounters obstacle after obstacle as she tries to get home to her son.

Quite often, conflicts in stories are obvious. They are what makes us move closer to the edges of our seats. What I didn’t realize when I was first writing stories is that quite often, the conflict central to the story is internal. The main character faces a situation and has to decide how far they are willing to go to get what they want. 

I recently started watching the television show Ugly Betty–I know, I’m really late to the party. I’m only a few episodes into the series, so please, no spoilers if you’ve watched it all the way through. But only a couple of episodes into the series, and I’ve noticed over and over the way these internal conflicts are central to the development of the characters. Is Betty willing to lie–or “twist the truth”–to keep her job, just like everyone else around her is willing to do? Will she throw her boss or a co-worker who has harmed her under the bus if it means she can keep the job she has been dreaming about having ever since she was a little girl?

Here in Genesis 37, we find this question asked again: how far would you be willing to go to get what you want? And, more directly, who would you be willing to hurt along the way? Last week, we kicked off our sermon series on Joseph, and Jeff talked about how this story is really about God. It’s about God protecting and preserving the people of Israel. It is about God working through dysfunctional people who get it wrong so that we would have the opportunity to know and experience God’s love.

This week, we continue following the story of Joseph’s life, and we get a close-up view of the dysfunction in Joseph’s family. Joseph’s father Jacob loved Joseph more than his other eleven sons. He made Joseph a special coat because he loved him so much. The Hebrew description of the coat is hard to translate. It could’ve been a multi-colored coat. It could’ve been a coat that went down to Joseph’s ankles and had sleeves to Joseph’s wrists. It could have been an ornate and highly decorated coat. In any case, I imagine this coat was highly impractical for a shepherd (have you ever tried to cook while wearing something with long, flowing sleeves? Trust me, it’s a disaster waiting to happen). The coat also symbolized to Joseph’s brothers the love and favoritism of their father. Some commentaries even suggest that the gift of the robe to Joseph indicated that Jacob intended Joseph to be his heir, even though Joseph was the eleventh son out of twelve.

In our Scripture passage for this morning, Joseph’s brothers are out shepherding their father’s flock. Jacob sends Joseph to check on his brothers and on the flock. Joseph, for whatever reason, decides to do this errand for his father while wearing his special coat. He goes to Shechem where the brothers were supposed to be with the flock, but they aren’t there, so Joseph wanders around until he comes across a man. The man asks him, “What are you seeking?” Joseph tells the mysterious man that he is looking for his brothers, and the man points Joseph in the correct direction. 

As Joseph gets closer to where his brothers are, they see him in the distance. This reminds me of the story of Jacob and Esau just a few chapters earlier in Genesis. If you remember the story, Esau was the oldest son, but Jacob tricked him out of his birthright. Jacob was the favorite child of his mother, even though he was the youngest, and this created a feud between the two brothers. Jacob leaves home, gets married, and has children. He decides to reach out to Esau in hopes that the brothers can have a peaceable relationship again, and Esau responds that he is coming to meet Jacob and he is bringing 400 men with him. Jacob panics! This does not sound like it is going to end well for him.

 But Jacob continues on the way to meet his brother Esau, and he sends present after present ahead of him, in the hopes that he can win his brother over. Eventually, Esau and Jacob see each other from far away. Jacob is afraid, but Esau runs to his brother. He embraces him and they are reconciled. 

Just one generation later, and brothers are feuding again. Jacob, who had been favored by his mother, now favors Joseph, and this favoritism causes a conflict between Joseph and his brothers. Joseph’s brothers see him coming towards them, and rather than reconciling with him, they start to plot against him. They say, ”Here comes this dreamer. 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.”

Here comes this dreamer. The brothers are consumed with jealousy because their father favors Joseph, and they are angry because Joseph’s dreams make it sound yet again like he’s the most important son. How far are they willing to go to get what they want? For at least some of the brothers, they are willing to go so far as to kill Joseph, and along with Joseph, his dreams.

Reuben, Joseph’s oldest brother tries to persuade them to just throw Joseph into an empty water cistern instead. That way, Reuben can make his brothers think he’s on their side, while also keeping Joseph alive. Reuben’s idea gets some traction, and the brothers throw Joseph into a pit. Then the brothers sit down to eat their lunch. Nice, right? 

Eventually, some of the brothers decide to make a profit off of their brother. They’ve decided killing him isn’t the way to go, but they still want him gone, and if they can make a buck at the same time, even better. So, they sell Joseph into the hands of some Midianite traders who were heading to Egypt. They lie to their father and give him Joseph’s special coat, covered in blood. Their father grieves and when they try to comfort him, he says he will go to his grave grieving for his beloved son, and at no point do any of the brothers decide to tell the truth. They are so determined to put an end to Joseph’s dreams, an end to Joseph’s special place in the household, that they lie and sell their brother. Even their father’s heartbreaking grief isn’t enough for them to admit what they’ve done.

Last week, Jeff talked a little bit about dreamers, and about people who have ideas that the world isn’t quite ready for yet. Even though that ended up not being the main point of his sermon, it is an important word for us today. Who are the people in our lives–our families, our communities, our workplaces, our schools, who are dreamers? And how far are we willing to go to silence their dreams so that we stay comfortable?

We live in a time of extreme reactions, not much unlike the extreme reaction of Joseph’s brothers to their jealousy. If someone says something we don’t like, we shut it down. We don’t listen all the way. We hear a word, and we’re done. Someone proposes an idea at work or at school that isn’t how things have always been done, and we squash the idea without even investigating it. 

We know that God worked miraculous things through Joseph, and we know that his brothers’ horrific sin against him ended up putting Joseph in a position where he was able to keep his family from starving, but I do wonder how the story would have played out if such extreme actions hadn’t been taken. I imagine God would have found another way for Joseph to fulfill the dreams God had given to him. God would have still found a way to provide for his people. But instead, Joseph’s brothers heard his dreams and wanted to put an end to them. 

The most counter-cultural thing we can do is listen to people we don’t see eye-to-eye with. This is incredibly difficult. Someone may say a word that sends our blood pressure through the roof. They might propose things that seem ridiculous and impossible. But, what if we didn’t spring to judgment, but instead listened. What if we asked God to open our hearts and send the Holy Spirit to fill us with patience, kindness, generosity, and self-control? What if we saw the person behind what was being said?

Because of their jealousy, Joseph’s brothers betrayed him. They wanted so badly to have a place of favor in the household, and they were willing to do absolutely anything to get it. Friends, the good news is that–because of Jesus–we already have a favored place in the household of God. We don’t have to push anyone down or silence anyone’s dreams to be noticed by God. We are heirs of the promise, chosen children, beloved members of God’s family, and there is always room for more people to join us. It’s not a competition where only the brightest and best can get in. There is abundant room in God’s family because there is no end to God’s grace. 

Let’s be people who buck the trend of silencing others. Let’s be people who are courageous enough to listen, even when what we hear is hard to hear. And let’s be people who remember God’s radical and abundant grace to us so that we might be people who offer that same grace and love to others. Amen!