Slavery and Freedom

Genesis 45:3-11 & 15

Epiphany 7, February 23, 2025

Holy Trinity Cathedral

“Slavery and Freedom”

Selling Joseph wasn’t the plan.  The original was much worse.  The sons of Jacob were going to kill their little brother.  He was annoying and unhelpful. Dad loved him best. And he persisted in telling them his visions of a future in which they would all be his servants. There were already ten grown sons in the extended family.  This teenager, last to come along and already favoured for the inheritance, was a threat to them all.  So much easier if he disappeared.  Throwing him in a pit for the wild animals to tear apart would keep the blood off their hands.  But already a couple of the brothers were having second thoughts about murder.  One planned to come back and rescue him later.  He was waylaid when the rest came up with another convenient solution: sell Joseph into slavery.  A band of human traffickers heading for Egypt provided the means.  The new plan was put into action. Goodbye to Joseph and all the trouble he was causing them.  Hello Egypt!

Choices were made.  Harm was done.  No family is perfect, we know.  But the story of Joseph and his brothers lays out for us one of the major flaws of our human condition: even when we are dealing with those who are related to us, our tendency is towards selfishness.  We do what will benefit ourselves at the expense of others.  We will try and justify our actions.  Maybe our priority is our spouse or certain members of our family that we feel are more deserving or who have treated us better.  Perhaps we believe that an individual’s behaviour brings appropriate consequences, and it is not up to us to bail them out.  Joseph’s brothers had to live with the hurt and grief they bring to their family.  They do not have an easy time of it. 

Neither does Joseph.  He is sold into slavery into a high-ranking official’s household.  But he is still indentured.  He does not have control over what he does, where he sleeps, when he works, how much he earns in return.  He does not have privacy or rights, even over his own body.  Slavery, in the Hebrew Scriptures, is understood to be part of the way society worked.  But that doesn’t mean it is a good thing or what God wants for humanity.  Joseph tries to make sense out of his situation by clinging to the hope that God will bring something good out of his experience.  That is not the same as God manipulating the trials to make Joseph go through them.  Every step along the way, there are good or bad human decisions that open or narrow the possibilities.  Joseph does the best he can within the confines of his condition.  All he can control is how he reacts and adapts. 

As Joseph’s living conditions get more comfortable, at least materially, the conditions of his family back in Canaan get worse.  His family watches their patriarch dwindling away with age and grief while the fields and livestock that once fed them are ravaged by years of drought.  It gets to the point where they pack up everything they have left to exchange for grain in the markets of Egypt.  The brothers head down to the very place where they made their last bargain with the life of Joseph.   As far as they know, he is long dead and gone.  They have been entrusted with their kid brother, Benjamin, and narrowly escape losing him to the Egyptians too as a pledge for their trade.  It brings home to them the need of their family, their people, to look out for each other. 

The bible passage we get this morning from Genesis chapter 45 is the big reveal.  Joseph, the brother they thought was dead, is alive.  And where once they had the power to kill him; now he has the power over their life or death in his hands.  Joseph forgives his brothers.  But this isn’t a case of forgive and forget.  He has had long years to make sense of what members of his family have done to him, but also his understanding of his part in it all.   God has brought some good out of evil.  Now he has the opportunity to preserve life instead of punishment.  Through the power now invested in him by the Egyptian authorities, he can provide a home and a livelihood for his clan.  Forgiveness means finding a way forward together.  It means learning not to be such jerks to each other as they treat each other like human beings.

Make no mistake, however.  Joseph and his people’s circumstances are dependent on the goodwill of Pharoah.  Joseph is still a slave.  He may wear gold and rings and command servants under him, but he is not a completely free agent.  The land where his family settles in Egypt is a region called Goshen.  It was set aside for foreign workers, away from the nice neighbourhoods for citizens.  And later, when a new king of Egypt comes to power who doesn’t remember all that Joseph did for the good of the country, policies change. 

The single action of the sons of Jacob in selling Joseph sets into play all the events of Exodus.  From the confines of the choices that are made, God keeps working with individuals to bring about not only subsistence but freedom and a promised land. The Biblical Egypt became a symbol for slavery for oppressed people. And there are many who have experienced Egypt in their history.  Humans still find it difficult to see each other as brothers and sisters.  Not just in our families of birth, but across racial and cultural differences.  We are coming to the end of Black History Month, when the stories of black people are celebrated for resistance and resilience in order to teach us important lessons about how we treat others.  We live in a world where the driver of your Uber or the person behind the counter at a local restaurant could be someone with experience of racism. 

We are still in danger from slavery.  In modern times we can call it human trafficking or unfair labour practices.  Our everyday choices make a difference in how we treat those whom God has called to be our brothers and sisters.  We can keep others in servitude or help bring about freedom.  What we buy, how we vote, who we acknowledge all have a part.  It depends on how well we have learned from our family story, from Joseph to Jesus to where we are today.  God’s plan is perfect freedom, if we are willing to go with it.  Amen.