Tyler Johnson, MDiv
Tyler is an engineer, teacher, and former pastor. He loves to explore truth through God’s word and God’s works. He lives in Kansas with his wife and four children and spends what little free-time he has practicing tae kwon do and pondering the mysteries of light.
As a child growing up in the church, it was common to hear stories from the Bible, especially from the Old Testament, told in a fun and engaging manner. There was always a lesson to be learned and usually that lesson fit the paradigm “Be like ________ because he/she was faithful to God.” This is a fine type of lesson to teach kids, but eventually a deeper reading of the Bible is necessary. Certainly not everybody in the Bible is an infallible model of good Christian character. In fact, upon examination, very few characters are consistently good examples. An adult reading of these stories needs to be able to recognize which traits are worthy of imitation and which are destructive to self or to others and should be guarded against. When I was a pastor one of my favorite sermon series to preach was one I called “Sunday School Revisited,” in which I would take a fresh look at one of the familiar Bible stories that had an obvious lesson for children and see what it had to say to adults. It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that my work on these sermons transformed how I read and teach the Bible.
The story of Joseph is an excellent example of a story that has a some great, and very appropriate, lessons for kids, but a close and thorough reading reveals a dark side to the story. We also find a story of complicity in the face of power and ultimately a slow shift from serving God to serving the empire of Egypt. This is a lesson that is far too relevant to our modern religious, socio-political world for adult Christians to ignore, because the outcome of Joseph’s actions are devastating to the people of God. Let’s dig in.
The bulk of Joseph’s story fits well with the lessons taught in Sunday school. Joseph is one of the youngest sons of twelve brother (from four mothers) and he is his father’s (Jacob’s) favorite. He’s the spoiled child out of the twelve because he is the first-born of Jacob’s favorite wife, Rachel. So there are complex and distorted family dynamics at play from the beginning. Joseph, as any spoiled child is wont to do, can’t seem to keep his mouth shut and continually brags to his older brother about the dreams he has of them bowing down to him. The arrogance of their younger brother grates on the older brothers who eventually find an opportunity to get rid of him. The initial plan to kill him is replaced when an opportunity to sell him as a slave to some Midianites travelers arises. So Joseph’s story begins with being rejected by his brothers, sold into slavery, and taken down to Egypt.
Something must have happened to Joseph during that long walk to Egypt as a slave, because when he arrives there his character and integrity have improved dramatically. He becomes a faithful servant to a high-ranking official in Egypt. He refuses the sexual advances of the official’s wife who then frames him for attempted rape and has him thrown in jail. In jail, Joseph still seems to demonstrate good integrity and faithfulness to God. He doesn’t despair, but makes the most of a crappy situation by accurately interpreting dreams for some fellow prisoners. Joseph hopes this will gain him enough favor with the right people that he will be released from prison, but instead he is forgotten. Until one day, years later, when Pharaoh has a series of dreams that need interpreting and nobody is up to the task. Only then is Joseph remembered and brought out of jail to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams. Which he does clearly, thanks to God’s help. So far so good; we’re still tracking with the Sunday school narrative and lessons.
Pharaoh’s dreams, as Joseph rightly interprets, indicate seven years of bountiful harvests followed by seven years of extreme drought in the area. Pharaoh wisely accepts this interpretation and puts Joseph in charge of storing up resources for the seven years of famine. So Joseph is raised to a senior position in the empire of Egypt and is granted wisdom and insight by God to prepare for a coming drought that would otherwise decimate the area and cause the starvation deaths of countless people. He institutes a kind of tax system where for the seven years of fruitfulness, everyone would give a portion of their harvest to Joseph who stored it away. Under this system, after seven years Joseph had “stored up huge quantities of grain, like the sand of the sea; it was so much that he stopped keeping records because it was beyond measure” (Gen. 41:49). Then the seven years of bounty end and the famine begins, just as Joseph said would happen. Egypt and all the surrounding areas (including where Joseph’s family still live) soon run out of food. Joseph’s storehouses are a saving grace, the only food available in the whole region. At least that is what they should be, what God intended them to be. When the people of Egypt start bringing their hunger to Pharaoh, he redirects them to Joseph saying, “Go to Joseph and do what he tells you” (Gen. 41:55). The lives of countless people literally hang in Joseph’s hand.
It is at this point that the story focuses on the relationship between Joseph and his brothers again. For Jacob’s family is feeling the effects of the famine in Canaan where they live and when he hears that there is food in Egypt he sends his sons to go buy some. I’m not going to rehash all the drama that takes place, but eventually Joseph reconciles with his brothers and invites his family to come and live in Egypt where there is food. With Pharaoh’s blessing he gives them some land in the area of Goshen, so Jacob/Israel packs up his family, leaves the land promised to his grandfather (Abraham) by God, and settles in Egypt. This is typically where we end the story, with the lesson coming straight from Joseph’s mouth: “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Gen. 50:20). This is a great lesson, but at this point in the story, I question Joseph’s ability to clearly discern what is the good will of God and what is are the implicit aims of the empire of Egypt. And the reasons for this are found in the rarely addressed details of chapter 47.
Until this point, we don’t know much about how Joseph went about distributing the food that he had collected as a tax and stored up for the good of the people. But in Genesis 47:13-26 we get all the details, and they are disturbing. First of all, the food that was collected as a tax is sold back to the people. “Joseph collected all the money that was to be found in Egypt and Canaan in payment for the grain they were buying, and he brought it into Pharaoh’s palace” (v. 14). Then, when they are out of money, Joseph gives them food in exchange for their livestock (v. 15). But the famine continues. The people come to Joseph and say “We cannot hide from our lord the fact that since our money is gone and our livestock belongs to you, there is nothing left for our lord except our bodies and our land” (v. 18). So they sell their land to Joseph in exchange for food and when the land is gone, they sell themselves. And here is the crucial verse, “The land became Pharaoh’s, and Joseph reduced the people to servitude, from one end of Egypt to the other” (v. 21). In other words, Joseph is the one who sold all of Egypt, including the Israelites, his own family, into slavery! It was Joseph’s economic system that forced the people to go bankrupt, to turn over all their assets, and eventually to enslave themselves to Pharaoh. I hope it is crystal clear that at this point, Joseph is serving the goals of Pharaoh, not God. God’s gift of interpretation given to Joseph was meant to be for the good of the nations, which means for the good of the people in those nations, not good for the power structures that seek to oppress those people.
I understand why we tend to skip over this aspect of the story. Not only does it besmirch Joseph’s otherwise indelible character, but it also indicates a dark side that is active in our own lives. The church has always been drawn to power; power always corrupts. The modern church is thoroughly situated within a political-economic system that serves the powerful at the expense of the average person. There is no possible way that any person or institution in the modern Western world is immune to the dehumanizing forces of a political system bent towards power and control and a financial system bent towards serving the rich at the expense of the average person. No matter how steeped in the scriptures, no matter how mission-focused, no matter how Holy Spirit inspired, no church is free from the grasp of the slimy, creeping tendrils of evil that are inherent in systems of the world we live in.
(My wife informs me that the previous paragraph is too abstract for many people. She encourages me to offer some more concrete examples. I’ll try.)
When churches and denominations seek to gain influence by aligning themselves with political parties and leaders there will always be a dark side to their actions and real people will be harmed. This is a primary reason why the church is hemorrhaging people and deconstruction is so prevalent.
Some churches and denominations have so thoroughly invested in an ideology or mission that has been defined and demarcated by the world that the gospel they present looks like little more than this same ideology with some Bible verses stamped on top. (Sadly, I find this prevalent in my own denomination.) The only hope in this system is to right the injustices of the world, but seemingly with little to no awareness of the depths of sin inherent in those systems. The transcendence of God is lost for an overly imminent God who morphs into the shape of whichever ideology is pursued.
When churches and denominations seek primarily to grow they inherently buy into a modern business model that is inherently rooted in a love of money and a pursuit of control. Discipleship then becomes developing entrepreneurs who can help promote and expand the church’s brand. Thus people are discipled not more into the character of Christ, but into the character of a modern business person.
But we/the Church/Christians, don’t need to be complicit in these systems. We don’t need to be naïve to the influence that they have on each of us simply because of where and when we live. We need to be wide-eyed and aware of the subtle forces of evil and how they drag all of us away from the good and toward the ruinous. We need to learn from history, and we need to read the Bible well, especially when we are implicated in its critique. We are fallen, fractured people fumbling our way through a fallen and fractured world. We may have found the light, but we must admit that we prefer to view that perfect light through scratched lenses and smudged mirrors that distort our view. In short, we must be humble enough to realize that we are not Jesus, that we are not the light, that we are not God, and that we only serve Him by abdicating power and sacrificially serving others, just as Jesus did.
Or in short, if we can’t rightly read and apply the story of Joseph’s slide from faithful follower of God, to a complicit servant of Pharaoh, how will we have the eyes to see it happening in own lives?