Jacob is still protecting the sons of Rachel by not sending
Benjamin to Egypt to get grain for the family.
He is fine with the other ten boys going but not Benjamin. The brothers don’t recognize Joseph but he
recognizes them and he remembered the dreams. Surely a sly grin crept across
his face at that memory. Their response
to Joseph is true and some places and not in others. Honest men?
Well, perhaps if we overlook the episode concerning throwing Joseph in
the pit and the deception with the cloak.
It is true that they have never been spies. They were off-balance from the start though
when challenged, no one could have expected such treatment. What was the nakedness of the land they had
come to see? Remember back to the flood
story when Ham revealed his father’s nakedness, and remember further back to
naked and unashamed, nakedness is connected with shame and nakedness here
refers to the famine. Joseph’s test for
his brothers is clearly connected with his doubts about what they have done
with Benjamin also and little does he know this is a greater test for his
father than it is for the brothers themselves.
Why did Jesus’ family believe He was out of his mind? He was healing people and crowds were
following Him, but apparently they had never seen Him do such things. Most
commentators also argue that this was a measure of their concern for Him, that
He was working too much and caring too little for Himself. The leaders had a different opinion, Jesus
was possessed by Beelzebul, the Lord of the flies, originally a Babylonian god
but then identified by the Jews as satan.
Ascribing the work of Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, to satan is the
unpardonable sin. We should always test
the spirits but we need to be careful about the conclusions we draw. Men can be charlatans but the Holy Spirit can
indeed do wonders. The final scene has
us back at a home and Jesus’ family there again seeking Him. He re-configures family in this passage,
family is connected with doing the will of God.
Those who do are His family and those who do not, no matter what blood
relationship they share, are not family.
Today’s lessons all seem to be about family
dysfunction. This passage from Paul’s
letter certainly is about serious dysfunction, a man sleeping with his father’s
wife. Paul tells the Corinthians that
tolerance isn’t a Christian virtue or practice when it comes to sin. The community has to deal with sin in their
midst, particularly such an egregious one as this. They have been tolerant and Paul’s fear is
that this tolerant attitude towards immorality will infect the entire assembly
and cause the boundaries of morality to be blurred. Our ability to speak into the culture is
determined by our ability to speak into the lives of our own family. We need to come back to Jesus’ standard for family,
are they doing the will of God?
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