Sold (but not killed): Family Becomes Enemy
Daily Scripture
Genesis 37:12-28
12 Joseph’s brothers went to tend their father’s flocks near Shechem. 13 Israel said to Joseph, “Aren’t your brothers tending the sheep near Shechem? Come, I’ll send you to them.”
And he said, “I’m ready.”
14 Jacob said to him, “Go! Find out how your brothers are and how the flock is, and report back to me.”
So Jacob sent him from the Hebron Valley. When he approached Shechem, 15 a man found him wandering in the field and asked him, “What are you looking for?”
16 Joseph said, “I’m looking for my brothers. Tell me, where are they tending the sheep?”
17 The man said, “They left here. I heard them saying, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’” So Joseph went after his brothers and found them in Dothan.
18 They saw Joseph in the distance before he got close to them, and they plotted to kill him. 19 The brothers said to each other, “Here comes the big dreamer. 20 Come on now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of the cisterns, and we’ll say a wild animal devoured him. Then we will see what becomes of his dreams!”
21 When Reuben heard what they said, he saved him from them, telling them, “Let’s not take his life.” 22 Reuben said to them, “Don’t spill his blood! Throw him into this desert cistern, but don’t lay a hand on him.” He intended to save Joseph from them and take him back to his father.
23 When Joseph reached his brothers, they stripped off Joseph’s long robe, 24 took him, and threw him into the cistern, an empty cistern with no water in it. 25 When they sat down to eat, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with camels carrying sweet resin, medicinal resin, and fragrant resin on their way down to Egypt. 26 Judah said to his brothers, “What do we gain if we kill our brother and hide his blood? 27 Come on, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites. Let’s not harm him because he’s our brother; he’s family.” His brothers agreed. 28 When some Midianite traders passed by, they pulled Joseph up out of the cistern. They sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver, and they brought Joseph to Egypt.
Daily Reflection & Prayer
Jacob cluelessly sent Joseph to visit his brothers, far from home. They were angry—their brother lorded it over them, their father undervalued them. Reflecting the primitive, violent ethics they saw in cultures around them, they wanted to kill Joseph. Older brothers Reuben and Judah talked them out of killing Joseph. Instead (only slightly better), they sold Joseph to traders going to Egypt. As the traders took Joseph away, the brothers clearly felt they would never see him again.
- The family tension theme went on. Genesis’ first readers would have seen it more easily than we do. “The text refers to both Ishmaelites and Midianites, kinfolk both descended from Abraham…. The forebears of these two peoples were half-brothers to one another (and to Isaac), and uncles to Jacob; thus, these traders are second or third cousins to Joseph and his brothers.” * Family betrayed Joseph. Who has betrayed you? Has surviving that pain made you stronger? If so, how?
- To Joseph’s brothers, slavery in Egypt was virtually a death sentence. But at least they didn’t do something irreversible—without realizing it, they left room for God to work. The apostle Paul wrote, “Don’t try to get revenge for yourselves, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath. It is written, ‘Revenge belongs to me; I will pay it back, says the Lord’” (Romans 12:19). How can you (ideally more purposely than Joseph’s brothers) live out that wise counsel?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, people betrayed you, but you did not allow that to knock you off course. Help me find in your love the source of strength to move beyond any pain I experience from others. Amen.
GPS Insights
Brandon Gregory
Brandon Gregory is a volunteer for the worship and missions teams at Church of the Resurrection. He helps lead worship at Leawood's modern worship services, as well as at the West and Downtown services, and is involved with the Malawi missions team at home.
Family and friends can betray you in a lot of different ways, and it’s not always as clear as Joseph’s brothers selling him into slavery. Loved ones can betray your trust or even be abusive, but subtle betrayals can be just as damaging. When loved ones are the ones hurting you most, there’s a distinction to be made between forgiveness and safety. You don’t have to give up safety to forgive someone; you may also need to forgive someone even when they’re not safe to be around.
I have friends and family in the LGBTQ community. I also have friends and family who have a deep mistrust for this community and actively work to restrict their rights and acceptance. I sometimes felt myself caught in the middle, unwilling to let either group go because of their closeness to me. Since I myself am not in this community, it was easier to just leave these things unaddressed and ignore the dissonance.
The unintended consequence of my inaction was that some of my LGBTQ friends and families had to question whether I was a safe person because of the company I kept. Some of my social network was a complex web of people I knew couldn’t be around each other. When some of my family didn’t feel safe visiting other family, I had to draw some lines.
Now, on the flip side, I’ve seen a reaction from the people that embrace the LGBTQ community. I saw a post online asking whether the online community wanted those people on the other side to suffer. I crafted a careful response saying no, I didn’t want anyone to suffer and wished the best for everyone. This was a wildly unpopular sentiment in this community. The vitriol and hate I saw spewed in that thread made me question the safety of other friends who may be unknowingly lumped into that group.
This introduced me to a new cognitive dissonance. There are people I had to cut out of my life for the safety of others in my life. But love is not optional. The people I had to cut out of my life deserve my love and forgiveness even if they never see the harm that they are causing. There may never be a time when some of my friends and family feel safe around them—so there may never be a time when I can accept them back into my life. There’s a lot of rhetoric right now telling me that it’s OK to hate the people who “deserve it” and hold eternal grudges, but the call for love may require more of me.
If you or a loved one are unsafe in a relationship, please get out of there. The call for forgiveness does not preclude safety. The harder thing to remember is that choosing safety does not preclude forgiveness. I won’t pretend this is easy; betrayal from a loved one is legitimate trauma that may take years to work on. But forgiveness is a process you can work on through even the most trying circumstances, and it doesn’t just help the offending party—it helps us as well.
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Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
References
* Zondervan, NIV, Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible (p. 536). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
