Sins of the Fathers
Robyn Black • August 8, 2020
Genesis 37: 1-4; 12-28
Two weeks ago I spoke about Jacob whose story is told in the Bible. Jacob fell in love with Rachel, but he was tricked into marrying her sister Leah, who he didn’t love or care for. Then (as they did in the good old days) he also married Rachel, thus being married to sisters.
It’s complicated already isn’t it? Jacob had 12 sons and a daughter. He had 6 sons and a daughter with Leah, 2 sons with Rachel’s servant, 2 sons with Leah’s servant, then his final 2 sons were with his beloved Rachel.
Rachel’s first son was Joseph, and her second son, Benjamin. Joseph was Jacob’s favourite son – the first born from his favourite wife. Remember, there’s 13 offspring, and Joseph alone gets the special coat. The King James Version describes it as “the coat of many colours,” which you may have heard before.
The Bible makes it clear that Joseph was a bit of a dobber as well. He was the younger brother and he spied on his older brothers. When they didn’t do something right with the flocks, he ran straight back to tell his father.
In today’s Scripture reading, we skipped verses 5-11, which describe Joseph’s dreams which further inflamed the relationship with his brothers. In his dreams Joseph saw his brothers and the heavens bowing down to him – the older brothers serving the younger.
Additionally, later on we’re told that Joseph is “well-built and handsome” (Genesis 39:6), all these factors together, and it’s pretty easy to see why his brothers hated him.
One day when the brothers were tending the flocks near Shechem, Jacob sent Joseph to his brothers to see how things were going. When Joseph arrives in Shechem, he can’t find his brothers. He sees another man who tells him that his brothers had left earlier to go to Dothan. Shepherds had to move often to find the best grass for their sheep. So Joseph heads toward Dothan and danger.
His brothers look out across the fields and see Joseph coming. His coat no doubt identifies him at a distance. The brothers quickly put their heads together and come up with a plan to kill Joseph. One of the brothers, Reuben, convinces the brothers not to kill Joseph, but to put him in a pit in the ground. They strip him of his hated special coat, the symbol of all their father’s favouritism, and then begin to debate their plan.
That’s when a caravan of foreign traders passes by on the major caravan route that went to Egypt, and a new idea strikes them. They decide to sell Joseph as a slave to the traders and devise a cover story to tell their father. They agreed to say that Joseph has been killed by wild animals.
This part of Joseph’s story ends here this week on a pretty bleak note.
As I was reading the story this week, I was struck by the impact of generational patterns. And the impact of generational decisions.
Joseph had a grandfather (Laban) who set this whole family off on the wrong path from the beginning. Joseph’s father Jacob was tricked by Laban into marrying Leah, whom he didn’t love. He didn’t treat her well, and he didn’t treat her children very well. This led to bitterness and resentment by Leah’s sons. It wasn’t their fault that their father didn’t love their mother, and it wasn’t their fault that in turn, their father didn’t love them. But the loveless relationship with the mother impacted on the children, and those hurts disappointments and resentments showed themselves in later years.
Jacob did love Rachel and he loved and favoured her children Joseph and Benjamin.
I wonder what biases and decisions still reverberate through your family? I wonder, was there a favourite child that everyone else resented? Was there a bias in the family that impacted on you?
I have a friend who is now in his 80’s, who always felt less than his older brother. He felt his older brother was the golden haired boy, favoured by his parents. He felt his older brother was seen as competent and capable, and he couldn’t compete with that.
Then, he had 3 sisters – all lovely women. But it did seem that their mother favoured the girls. And this had an ongoing impact on him.
He was enormously smart – especially with maths. He’d thought of being a maths teacher or an accountant but his parents said he’d never make it, and he believed them. So he worked in electrical wholesale all his life, selling switches and conduit and light bulbs. He became withdrawn in his relationships. He didn’t visit his family very much, and his kids didn’t have much to do with their cousins. Somewhere along the way when he was a child, I think he stopped trying with relationships. Perhaps he felt he was powerless to make his parents value and appreciate him. And therefore in his interactions with his wife and children, he was withdrawn and uninvolved. Those biases and perceived favouritism reverberated down through the generations.
Perhaps you’ve had similar experiences in your family. And sometimes we think ‘just get on with life, don’t whinge, you’ll be right’. But we see here that sometimes that bitterness or disappointment or deep hurt, leaks out in other ways. Maybe it has had an impact on the next generation somehow, or maybe there are days those feelings are as fresh as they were when you were 10 years old.
Yet, with every fibre of my being, I believe that life lived with Jesus, means that ongoing healing is a possibility. This week I read Psalm 130:7(TPT)
“Keep hoping, keep trusting, and keep waiting on the Lord, for he is tender-hearted, kind, and forgiving. He has a thousand ways to set you free!” I just love that verse. It’s not about being ‘saved’ but living in the same misery we’ve always know. God wants to set us free and continue to transform us. This means that brokenness, pain from the past, is never the end of the story.
The Bible recounts many stories where Jesus healed people – he helped people see for the first time, he helped people a woman who was twisted up straighten out, he helped a man who was paralysed and immobilised move for the first time, he healed someone who was tormented in their mind and gave them peace.
I pray Jesus will help us to ‘see’ where we’ve become bitter because of family dynamics. I pray he will heal those twisted ways we think and understand ourselves. I pray he will help us from being stuck and immobilised in certain ways of thinking and help us move forward.
And I pray that Jesus will bring healing to our tortured minds and give us peace.
Spoiler alert – he was able to do that for Joseph and for his brothers, even though it was many years later.
Keep hoping, keep trusting, and keep waiting on the Lord, for he is tender-hearted, kind, and forgiving. He has a thousand ways to set you free! God bless you this week.
Sermons For The Moment
New Year - Matthew 2:13-23
Do not be afraid - Matthew 1:18-21
Luke 2: 4- 15
Luke 1: 26-33
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Ruth Chapter 4
Ruth 3
Ruth 2
Commitment from Love, Ruth 1: 1-18
This is an interesting Psalm – another psalm of ascent. We spoke about these Psalms of Ascent a few weeks ago. They were songs the Jewish people sang as they made their way to Jerusalem to go to the temple, through the forest, along the tracks, camping by the roads. And I believe songs like this kept them focussed and kept their spirits up. I can imagine days of walking together, tiring, boring, hot and dusty. And singing some of these Psalms keep them focussed on the faithfulness of God. Much better then eye spy for the kids. Journeys are not all their cracked up to be even if the destination is worth it. As you know, when I was growing up we always holidayed at Bawley Point past Ulladulla, and in those days it was about a 4 hour drive from Sydney. We always left later than we meant to…and the last 20 mins was on a dirt road. One year when I was probably about 4 years old it was dark by the time we got to the dirt road, and half way along the dirt road, was a dodgy wooden bridge over a river. I think part of the bridge had been damaged and we had to wait a bit in the pitch black darkness before we could proceed. Dad was out with a torch ensuring the bridge was safe to drive on and mum and us 4 kids were sitting in the darkness – no street lights, no moonlight. Of course, you might be able to guess what I said to mum in that car, with fearful crying…you’ve probably heard it from kids before. I said ‘I want to go home’. Mum said to me, ‘we can’t go home Robyn, we’re almost there’. In truth, after the bridge we had the last 10 minutes of a 4 hours journey left. We safely crossed the bridge and we were OK. But I remember it. I remember the feeling of being scarred in the darkness. I remember not liking this journey at all. Even though I always loved the destination. Well this psalm celebrates the end of the journey and the arrival at the destination. Psalm 126:1-3, “When the Lord brought back his exiles to Jerusalem, it was like a dream! We were filled with laughter, and we sang for joy. And the other nations said, “What amazing things the Lord has done for them.” Yes, the Lord has done amazing things for us! What joy!” Before we can understand the laughter and joy of the Israelites, we have to understand their journey. This Psalm looks back to when they arrived back in Jerusalem after 70 long years in Babylon. The captives had experienced great sorrow and mourning in exile. We read these heartbreaking words in Psalm 137: “Beside the rivers of Babylon, we sat and wept as we thought of Jerusalem. We put away our harps, hanging them on the branches of poplar trees. For our captors demanded a song from us. Our tormentors insisted on a joyful hymn: “Sing us one of those songs of Jerusalem!” But how can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a pagan land?” (Psalm 137:1-4). Their tormentors demanded they sing joyfully, but they were like – that’s impossible, it doesn’t come from our heart. So they just sat by the waters of Babylon and wept. But now by an amazing work of God they were suddenly back in Jerusalem. And so their joy came from their heart. The wait was over, the journey was complete. “We were filled with laughter, and we sang for joy.” The journey is the hard bit though isn’t it? I was reminded of this, this week. An Officer couple I was speaking to, said that their teenager said some very hurtful things to them. Stuff like, ‘you make my life worse’. As they spoke to me, I did very little but listen and pray with them. They do have other supports in their life as well, already seeing a psychologist. But what I was thinking in my head as they were speaking was ‘oh the teenage years, I’d forgotten them’. Though we have 2 wonderful young adults in P and K, they were times when it was more than tense. K wears her heart on her sleeve, and to this day apologises for some of the things she said to me. And P, you wouldn’t know what he was thinking, and then all of a sudden all his thoughts and feelings for the last 3 years would come out like molten lava everywhere. A few days later I checked in to see how the couple and their teenager were going. I mentioned in passing about teenage years and very briefly about our experiences. I didn’t want to make it all about me. But I said teenage years can be painful and those years can really hurt everyone in the family. Teenager included. They know that we have a good relationship with P and K and they said to me, you know, this is helpful. It gives us hope. I was like, yep, this too shall pass. Because when you’re in the midst of the journey of pain and sorrow, you sometimes wonder if there’s light at the end of the tunnel. If you’ll laugh again or experience joy again. You begin to wonder, “Is this all that God has for me? Will I ever be happy again?” And here’s the promise in Psalm 126:4-6, “Restore our fortunes, Lord, as streams renew the desert. Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy. They weep as they go to plant their seed, but they sing as they return with the harvest.” When you are going through a time of deep sorrow, Psalm 126 is strong medicine for your soul. It carries a powerful message of hope. It tells you that times of trouble and sorrow do not last. It tells you that God will turn your sorrow to joy and your tears to laughter. If you are going through a challenging time right now, I pray that this psalm will speak to your heart this morning. Let me tell you right up front, whatever you’re going through, it will get better. God will change your tears to joy. This week I found something I wrote about 10 years ago. I had written it on a piece of paper and there was a whole reflection about my life. At the time we had my mum living with us, she had dementia, and mostly I remember the good times and the fun times with her. I was also the Corps Officer at Glebe and Bob was the manager at William Booth House. After a page of writing I had written something like this “I’m often anxious, I’m usually stressed, I have eczema on my eyelids and ulcers in my mouth. I always feel pressed.” I went out to Bob in the lounge room and I’m like, ‘oh my goodness, eczema on my eyelids and ulcers in my mouth’, often anxious, usually stressed. The thing is, my life feels a long way from that now, and I’d forgotten what that part of my journey felt like. I’m sure when I was there I couldn’t look ahead and see a time of joy…but the truth is that “Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy. They weep as they go to plant their seed, but they sing as they return with the harvest.” This too shall pass. ‘Yes, the Lord has done amazing things for us!’ says verse 3. God is faithful – he does the healing, the restoring, he brings the streams in the desert that renews and brings fruitfulness. I don’t need to tell you – it takes time. Today, I’m praying for a work of healing in your life, a gradual restoration of joy, of laughter. Like me as a kid, sometimes we don’t like parts of this journey at all. Even though we know our destination is good. And ultimately, we have a destination like no other and that’s the promise of God. A home in heaven made possible through Jesus. May God bless you this week as you look to Him, listen to Him, find your hope in Him and find courage and healing in your journey.