Genesis 37:1-11
Fourth Sunday in LentΒ -Β 26 March 2017
Rev. John Derme
Have you ever had a dream for your future? Do you have hopes and aspirations of what you will experience and achieve? Sometimes people's dreams for the future can become so consuming that they daydream about them, that they even dream about them at night.
Oftentimes, a person's dreams seem unrealistic to other people. Then those people say, "Dream on!" It might be discouraging to the dreamer when other people don't think their dreams are possible. But then again, if the dream truly is unrealistic, maybe that is exactly what the dreamer needs to hear. If the dreamer's aspiration is selfish or otherwise sinful, then that person does need somebody to tell him or her to stop dreaming.
Our First Lesson from Genesis 37 is about a young man named Joseph, the great-grandson of Abraham, whom we talked about two weeks ago. Joseph's future was greater than he could ever have dreamed. But his life wasn't exactly a dream when he was still young. That is because his brothers hated him.
Joseph and his brothers tended the sheep that belonged to their father, Jacob. When Joseph and his brothers were out tending the sheep, the brothers did things that weren't right. They were a rowdy crowd. So Joseph told his father all the things they did wrong. Another reason they hated him was that Joseph was daddy's favorite. Perhaps you've heard of Joseph's "coat of many colors." Jacob gave him an expensive coat that he didn't give to any of the others.
A third reason for their hatred came when Joseph started having dreams: not goals for the future, but visions in his sleep. The first was that all the brothers were tying up bundles of grain in the farm fields, when the bundles that the brothers tied up all bowed down to Joseph's. The brothers didn't appreciate the implication that they would all bow down to Joseph one day. The second dream was that eleven stars, as well as the sun and the moon bowed down to him. Even dad thought Joseph had gone too far, implying that he would bow down to his own son. "Dream on!" they may have said. They certainly didn't think Joseph's dreams were going to come true.
Joseph's brothers hated him so much that some of them wanted to kill him. One of them stopped the rest from doing that, but they threw him into a pit, instead. Then they sold Joseph to some merchants who were heading to Egypt. Those merchants sold him as a slave to an Egyptian man. Although Joseph was a faithful slave, he was falsely accused of a crime and thrown into prison and stayed there for years.
There was more than a sibling rivalry between Joseph and his brothers. This was a dysfunctional family. And it had serious results. Nobody from that family looks great in Genesis 37. The brothers were treacherous. The father played favorites. Even Joseph could have handled the situation better. The way he tattled on his brothers, wore his coat around them, and told them his dreams wasn't very tactful, at least. Why were they so dysfunctional? Wasn't it because each person thought that he should get what he wanted? Each of them had the dream of being number 1.
Do the members of your family ever act like Joseph's family did? Husbands and wives bicker, because of something the other person did or didn't do. Parents shout at their children, and children ignore their parents. Brothers and sisters fight with each other. How many of these struggles come down to the fact that we think we should get what we want, and others should do for us what we think they should do? Just about all of them.
When our families behave this way, we like to keep it secret and act like we have the perfect family around everybody else. We don't want people to think we are dysfunctional. But hiding it doesn't change it. Our selfishness is still a problem.
And it's not just a problem at home. Our selfishness makes us think we are the most important driver on the road, the most important person at work, the one everybody should listen to at church. By nature, each one of us has the dream of being number 1.
We would all like it if we didn't have to do what other people want, and if people would start serving us. No, we'd never say that out loud. But it would be nice, wouldn't it? If that is what you imagine, then dream on! Nobody else is thinking that they are going to start serving you! What do you suppose God thinks about your selfish dream? In his eyes, are you any more important than any other sinful person? There are a lot of people who think that they should be number 1, but the best thing they can get out of that dream will be first place in hell.
It is a good thing that God is not selfish. God doesn't demand that other people serve him. If he did, we wouldn't stand a chance with him, since we haven't served him perfectly. But rather than demanding that we serve him, God has served us by giving us everything that we have and need. Even greater than that, he has served us in the person of Jesus Christ.
Jesus came to this earth to serve people. In all of his years on earth, Jesus never did one selfish thing. Every single thing he did was in service to others. He taught, he comforted, he healed. He served every human being who has ever lived by being selfless in our place and by suffering and dying for our selfish sins.
Jesus saved us with his selfless service for us. With his selfless life, he also teaches us to serve others. Without God's service to us, we would not even know how to serve others. But because of what God has done for you, you can serve others selflessly and never demand to get what you want or need.
That is what the rest of Joseph's story teaches us. Joseph was stuck in prison for a couple of years. During that time he didn't have any more dreams, but he did interpret the dreams of two of the other prisoners. One of those prisoners, after initially forgetting about Joseph, finally told Pharaoh about him when he had a dream that troubled him. After Joseph interpreted Pharaoh's dream, which foretold seven years of famine, Pharaoh made Joseph the second most powerful man in Egypt, in charge of saving food and distributing it during the famine.
Many years after Joseph's brothers had sold him, they came to Egypt to buy food from him. They did not realize he was Joseph when they bowed down to him, just as Joseph had dreamed when he was young. Eventually his whole family moved to Egypt, including his father, and essentially became his subjects. But he did not rule over them selfishly. God used him in his position to serve selflessly. Though Joseph went through terrible difficulties, God worked them all for his and everybody else's good. Joseph could never have dreamed his story would end like that.
You will never be able to dream what God has in store for your life, either. When I think about my life, I realize that I could never have predicted all the things that have happened so far, so I'm not even going to dream that I can predict the rest. Many of you would say the same thing about your own lives. But even though you don't know how your life will turn out, you know that God will work all things for your good. He will continue to serve you in many good ways. He will bless you with many good opportunities to serve to others. And finally, he will give you better blessings than you can ever dream of in heaven.
If you are dreaming of fulfilling your selfish desires and being served, then don't dream on. Stop dreaming, confess your selfishness, and look to your selfless Savior for forgiveness. But now that you have seen what true service is in Jesus, if your dream is to thank him by serving others, then dream on! Do more than dream. Use Jesus as your example, and serve selflessly! What a wonderful dream that is to have and to live!