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Family Matters |
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10 August 2008 Remember the song about the knee-bone connected to the thigh-bone, the thigh-bone connected to the hip-bone…or something along those lines? In terms of the biblical story-line, we’ve jumped in the Hebrew scriptures from the foot-bone to the collar-bone. Since Pentecost in mid-May, the lectionary readings for the Hebrew scriptures have taken us from the stories of creation, through the flood and Noah’s ark, through God’s call and covenant with Abraham and Sarah. Abraham and Sarah are parents of their only son Isaac, but the biblical story also includes Ishmael, Abraham’s son by the slave Hagar, reminding us that family stories are rarely neat and tidy. The story continues with the births of Isaac’s twins Jacob and Esau, and tells us that Jacob was a schemer and usurper. Jacob fathers a dozen sons, but clearly dotes on the two born of his favorite wife, Rachel, his sons Joseph and Benjamin. Today’s reading begins the longest sustained narrative in the Hebrew scriptures, the story of Joseph. *~*~*~* Those of you who are a ‘certain age,’ will remember the Smothers’ brothers routine, where older brother Tommy quips to younger brother Dick, “Mom always did like you best.” In a nutshell, that is one of the key dynamics in this messy family story. Only of course, it’s the father, Jacob, who loves Joseph best, and anyone who’s ever had a sibling, or anyone who’s ever watched someone else’s sibling dynamics knows just how sensitive to even a whiff of favoritism the other offspring can be. So here’s Jacob, proud patriarch of a dozen sons—the sons who become patriarchs of the legendary twelve tribes of Israel. Only Joseph and his younger brother Benjamin are sons by Jacob’s favorite wife, Rachel. And Joseph is the most favorite of them all. Not only does Jacob spoil Joseph with special gifts—a coat with long sleeves means the wearer isn’t about to be tied down with menial labor—he twists the rivalry knife even more by giving Joseph permission to rat on his brothers. Small wonder they are jealous! On top of that, Joseph’s a dreamer. And his dreams aren’t of the girl next door, or of the next soccer match, or even which college to apply to. He’s dreaming of power. The text is very specific. Look at the words used to describe the dream: ‘reign’ and ‘rule’ [translated in the New Revised Standard Version as having ‘dominion over’]. ‘Reign’…is a royal word [that isn’t used anywhere else up to this point in the Hebrew scriptures in relation] to political power. With the dream of Joseph, something new enters the awareness of Israel;…the [story also holds within it] a drive toward power.[1,301] But Israel’s dreams of political power are another matter for another time. Today, our attention is on the family. It’s quite a family: just in today’s reading, we have favoritism and jealousy, sibling rivalry and arrogance, treachery and lies, dreams and fears. And that’s only the obvious stuff. Freud would have a field day. I’m no Freud…I know just enough to be dangerous. But the Bible would not hold the place it does in our lives if it were not rich in insight into the human condition. The Bible also reminds us that just because someone’s story is in the Bible doesn’t mean their behavior is exemplary. In fact, if we want to focus on the family, there isn’t much in the Bible that supports our idealized Cleavers or Huxtables. What our biblical stories do tell us is that families matter. Even when they’re messy, or annoying, or heartbreaking or courageous, which of course, is true of every family. Our families and the events that happen in them shape us, often in ways we don’t even recognize. When our son Jeffry was just two years old, John and I had the privilege of serving as interim ministers on the island of Kauai for six weeks. Needless to say, we swam every day, playing in the sand and in those remarkable blue waters. Without a doubt, Jeffry was a water baby. We returned to the mainland, and some two weeks later, joined my family on the Oregon coast for a reunion. We did everything we could to prepare Jeffry for Oregon. Over and over, we told him we were going to the ocean again, but it would be very different from the ocean in Hawaii. It was clear that our nuances were not getting through. Sure enough, we arrived at the beach, and Jeffry ran for the shore as fast as his two-year-old legs could carry him. He couldn’t wait to get in that water…. The moment he touched it, he made the fastest U-turn in history. From that point on, he would have nothing to do with the water. Grade school came, and so did summer swimming lessons. They were painful. Jeffry simply couldn’t relax in the water; putting his face in was torture. He did learn to swim; he just didn’t enjoy it much. Years later, after we’d moved out to Maryland, I was sharing a bit of that story with a friend while in Jeffry’s hearing. He stopped everything we were doing. You could see the proverbial light bulb come on immediately as he realized why he had felt such betrayal from his parents, and why he didn’t trust bodies of water. That opened a new world for him—he’s the son who is certified in scuba diving, and spent four years doing research on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. What happened to Jeffry and his sudden aversion to water hardly requires depth psychology to understand. But it does remind us that our behavior is often influenced in ways that have no apparent root. Other times, of course, the roots are all too obvious. Jacob isn’t the only father with issues. Friday’s Washington Post carried an update on the ongoing inheritance battle that followed the death of James Brown, the Godfather of Soul on Christmas day, 2006. Seems he was as prolific as Jacob, and his progeny are engaged in a bitter fight over his estate. Abandoned by his mother when he was four, at the age of six, Brown was turned over by his father to an aunt who ran a whore-house. He grew up neglected and often alone. No special robe for that child. Abandoned himself, Brown became a hustler and a serial abandoner, with major attachment issues, certain that others viewed the world as he did.[2] Brown’s estate is a contemporary Bleak House. Ten lawsuits and thirty lawyers and a whole court procedure tests unacknowledged potential heirs. As in Dickens’ chilling novel, the procedures may grind on for years. Brown’s other legacies of attachment and abandonment issues are likely to be even more tenacious. But even those legacies are never the final word. Back in our biblical story, Joseph’s brothers sell him into slavery, and take a blood-stained robe to their father. They expect that to be the end of the story. Only it isn’t, because Joseph is sold to Potiphar, Pharoah’s captain of the guard. There is an additional player: the giver of dreams, the source of hope. Because this is the Bible, we know already that every story is a story about God. But we need to be reminded anyway, so that we don’t fall into the trap of assuming that we are the only players, even in family matters. Whether the incident is relatively trivial, such as Jeffry’s experience at the ocean, or whether it involves brutal trauma, like Joseph’s being sold into slavery, the reality is that God does not abandon us. Jeffry still learned to swim, and when he understood the root of his fear, the water became one of his greatest sources of joy. Joseph still had his dreams, and when Egypt’s Pharoah was troubled by dreams of his own, he was able to interpret them and bring planning and oversight not only to the Pharoah’s realm, but also to his own family. God does not abandon us, but works with us and within us, bringing healing and transformation – even within the very fabric of our family lives. *~*~* [1] Brueggemann, Walter, Interpretation: Genesis, John Knox Press, ©1982. |