The
family-friendly storyline, universal themes and catchy music have resulted in
numerous productions of Joseph ever since. By 2008 it was estimated that
more than 20,000 schools and amateur theatre groups had successfully put on
productions. And still the musical is entertaining thousands as it today tours
the UK. But amongst the well- known tunes and the famous celebrities who have
played Joseph, the biblical story of Joseph has an important message for our
times.
Joseph
was lucky not to have been killed. Envied and hated by his brothers, a
favourite son of Jacob, lost to his helpless father through betrayal, the self
important young dreamer, stripped of his legendary coat with its long sleeves
(or many colours), was sold after a meal into slavery to the Ishmaelites. Despite his brothers’ treachery and duplicity,
Joseph rose to power in Egypt, growing in wisdom, humility and
humaneness, later becoming viceroy of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh. The
brothers, arriving in Egypt to buy food during a famine, do not realise that
the man in royal robes is their brother. After putting them through a series of
trials to show that they had repented of what they did, Joseph revealed his
identity and forgave them – the first act of forgiveness in literature? At the end
of the book of Genesis, a set of sibling rivalry, ends on this sublime note of
reconciliation.
How
was Joseph able to forgive? The bible tells us. He says to his bothers: “Do not
be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because
it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you.......So then, it was not
you who sent me here, but God.” This proves to be the story's vital
hinge. Without it the Hebrews would not have been delivered from famine
and kept safe in Egypt. In conspiracy and catastrophe, everything has
worked together for good.
This
is one of the most transformative and changing passages in the Bible. It
explains how Joseph was able to free himself from the hurt he surely felt at
being betrayed by his own family. Nowadays this is called cognitive behavioural
therapy. Joseph changed the way he felt by changing the way he thought.
Evidently
he had asked himself: “Why has God put me through this suffering?” But there
are two ways of asking it, and it makes all the difference which way we do. One
is orientated in the past: “What did I do to deserve this?” For what sin am I
being punished?” The other is directed to the future: “What is it that God
wants me to do, that I can only do here, now and in these circumstances?”
Joseph
must have asked this second question often during the long years he spent,
first as a slave, then as a prisoner. The answer eventually came. The moment he
was taken to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams – seven years of plenty followed by
seven years of famine – he realised that all the seeming random events of his
life were a preparation for this moment
when he was able to devise a plan that would save a whole region from
starvation. As soon as he had these thoughts, he was able to forgive his
brothers. His fate, he now knew, was not about them at all. “It was not you who
sent me here but God.” That one thought has the power to cure resentment and
banish pain.
Whenever
we come close to despair, the strongest lifeline is to think like Joseph. People who have suffered tragedy have often
found meaning by alleviating the suffering of others. The grief may not
disappear but it is redeemed.
Seen
through the eyes of faith life is not what Joseph Heller called it; “a trash
bag of random coincidences blown open in a wind.” Each of us is here for a
reason, to do something only we can do. Pain and heartbreak are bearable if we
can discern God’s purpose or hear, however muffled, His call.
In
crisis, the wrong question to ask is “What have I done to deserve this?” The
right one is, “What am I now being summoned to do?” Each of us has a task.
Every life has a purpose. We can bear
the pain of the past when we discover the future we are called to make.
Ray Anglesea is a self-supporting minister working in
Durham Cathedral bookshop, Crook Local Ecumenical Partnership and in the West
Durham Methodist Circuit
