August 16, 2026

Pentecost 12a

Genesis 45:1-15; Matthew 15:21-28

Epiphany, Winnipeg

You may recall that last week we heard that story of Joseph’s older brothers selling him to slave traders who took him off to Egypt. The whole story began with the line, “This is the story of the descendants of Jacob,” and it fell immediately into the story of Joseph being sold by his older brothers, as though that’s the only story that matters. We picked up the story today eight chapters later, and twenty-two years later, in that beautiful and touching scene between Joseph and his brothers.

Here’s the super-short version of what happened in those eight chapters and twenty-two years.

After the brothers sell Joseph and then tell their father that Joseph was killed by wild animals, all we hear about them are a few short stories with more bad stuff going on than a few short stories should have.

What we hear of Joseph is that things went well for him. He was sold as a slave to a powerful man in Egypt, who eventually became so impressed with

Joseph that he put Joseph in charge of everything he owned; his entire estate. And Joseph was a slave no more. Things went wrong, though, when complicated things happened between Joseph and his master’s wife, and Joseph ended up in jail.

But - everyone in jail was so impressed with Joseph that he was put in charge of the entire jail and everything that happened there. And after doing time for awhile, Joseph was called upon to interpret some weird dreams that the Pharaoh, the king, had had. And - the Pharaoh was so impressed that Joseph was set free; a prisoner no more. And the Pharaoh was so much more impressed, that he put Joseph in charge of the entire country!

Being sold into slavery wasn’t so bad after all for Joseph.

About twenty years after Joseph’s brothers sold him, the entire world has fallen into a famine, and Joseph’s family back home are starving. But they hear that there’s food in Egypt, so Jacob sends ten of his sons to go and buy grain from Egypt. Egypt, where the brother that they sold is in charge of everything and they have no idea. You can see where this is going, right?

His brothers arrive in Egypt and come to the ruler of the land, their little brother Joseph, and they don’t recognize him. He recognizes them, though, and he sees how much power he has over them, and maybe he thinks, “They sold me, and I was powerless to do anything. And now my brothers are kneeling and begging before me, and I’ve got the power over them. Now’s my chance.” With all that power in hand, Joseph messed with the whole family for a year or two, and sent them back-and-forth from Egypt to home and back again a few times, and today, finally, the brothers stand before Joseph and he can’t keep on with that any more. He starts to sob, and he can’t stop the tears, and he tells his brothers who he is, and something new starts to rise up out of what was so so broken.

I wonder if that just made everything alright. Maybe use your imagination for just a minute and put yourself in those twenty-two years between the brothers selling Joseph, and Joseph receiving his brothers in peace.

What were those twenty-two years like if you were one of the brothers?

Have you been tormented for twenty-two years by the memory of what you did? How you ganged up on your younger brother and did what you did to him? Do you wonder what happened to him, or do you just try to put wonderings like that out of mind? Like there’s a room inside you somewhere, and the story is locked inside but you just try to keep it there and hope maybe it will just go away. Or maybe you never felt anything more about Jospeh at all. You just pocketed your share of the money and never gave him another thought. And now you’re all facing that same brother and you can’t pretend that nothing ever happened.

Maybe you’re Joseph. The very last thing you saw of your brothers, they were taking money from travelling salesmen and you were the product. Can a few years and a few tears make that memory go away? Or has Joseph kept that memory locked away as well, but when these brothers of his show up he just can’t keep that memory hidden any more?

Imagine Jacob, Joseph’s father. For twenty-two years your son has been dead – that’s what they told you happened. So grief has been your close companion for all those years, and now you see that he’s alive…. How do you make sense of that?

And if you’re Jacob, don’t you look at those sons differently now? Think of what might go through Jacob’s mind: “You boys are telling me that Joseph is alive. But you told me that my son was dead. You knew that he wasn’t. You lied to me about my son; are you the ones who sold him? And now I’m just supposed to be happy because he’s alive, and everything is OK between us all?

Then there’s the little brother, Benjamin; we hardly hear a word about him.

And finally, Jacob didn’t just have twelve sons. Did you know that there was a sister in this whole story too? Her name is Dinah, and all we hear of her in the bigger story is that a few things happen to her; we never hear what she does or what she says. And in this whole Joseph story she almost entirely disappears. Is she filled with joy to see her brothers maybe almost trying to be at peace, or is she just thinking that this is just one more thing happening to her?

There’s so much that has gone on in twenty-two years. Whoever sat down to write out this story one day way back when, didn’t think the way we do about things like PTSD and trauma and family systems and power. But from our point of view here we can’t help but imagine how all of these things play out in the story. And if we know the long story about God and God’s people at all, even a little bit, we see that everything doesn’t just get better because someone says sorry, or even if Joseph says, “I forgive you.” And the story of God and God’s people, right up until today, is full of those good moments and all those other not-so-good moments.

We see it around us in so many ways. In 1993 the Oslo accords were signed, supposedly to bring some kind of peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. But signing documents and declaring some kind of new era hasn’t made everything OK in the land of Jacob and his descendants; in the land of all those others who were neighbours of the children of Israel for as long as anyone can remember.

Closer to home here, a government apology in 2008 to residential school survivors and their children and communities didn’t make hard feelings go away, or melt away racism, or usher in an era of clean drinking water on every first nation or the sudden fullness of reconciliation. It will take so much time. And even more recently, there’s talk about how it will take a long time to heal a relationship between two countries that used to be such good friends but who now just aren’t so sure…

Maybe one thing this whole story of Joseph and his brothers reminds us about is that it can take so little time to do so much harm: One impulsive decision to sell their brother Joseph; one vote in parliament to start a residential school system; one signature to fire off a tarrif or a retaliation; one big mistake in my relationship or yours. And it takes so much longer to put together what’s been broken.

But the whole thing reminds us of something else as well. After twenty years of separation and after two years of manipulation and little bits of vengeance, Joseph finally speaks an honest word and asks an honest question: “I am Joseph. Is my father alive?” It can’t make everything better, but something changes when that word stops the games and stops the revenge and weakens the grudge. That honest word starts something in motion, or it points to the possibility that things can be different, and that what is broken can be put back together somehow. That honest word reminds us that what seems so wrong is never the entire story.

When we and the world are filled with so much that can hurt or so much…that can divide us. Joseph’s few little honest words remind us that things can be different, and things will be different. Then little pieces of conversation or moments of grace between people that we see every day become signs for us of the world that our God is continuing to shape, where goodness speaks more loudly and life is stronger and no tombs that we build can keep life from rising up again. The worst of what a few brothers in a hot summer field can devise can not last, because God is sending life that is stronger.

This little story of Joseph and his brothers becomes kind of an Easter story; a resurrection story. And as a handful of people in a church in Winnipeg gather for a meal together, we get a taste of that story. For a moment here today, as we come from all over the city and all over the world, we have some bread and wine together – and some coffee and cake after that – and the God who comes to us in Jesus says, “This is the story: My life, my love, all I have, is given for you, for your healing and the healing of all”. And that life will always be the first word and the last word…and the new word.