J is for Joseph
This is the sermon I preached on Sunday, July 21 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church. The text is Genesis 50:15-21. J is for Joseph. Families are complicated. Jacob, Joseph’s father, doted on Joseph. Jacob had a coat of many colors made for Joseph. He was clearly his father’s favorite son. His brothers had reason to be jealous! And Joseph wasn’t perfect, either. He also told them about the dreams he had, showing him in a superior position over them. It is not a smart thing to do. How could Joseph be so forgiving? These are the brothers who threw him into a pit, and sold him to the Egyptians because they were jealous of him. None of us is perfect. Joseph was forgiving, but first, he put his brothers to the test when they were reunited. He accused them of being spies. He put some of them in prison, as well as testing them in other ways. “It is not until the brothers ‘pass’ all of the tests that Joseph finally breaks down, weeping ‘so loud that the Egyptians heard it,’ and finally announci