Friday of the Second Week of Lent

 Lectionary: 234

Israel loved Joseph best of all his sons,

for he was the child of his old age;
and he had made him a long tunic.
When his brothers saw that their father loved him best of all his sons,
they hated him so much that they would not even greet him.

 J oseph was the child of Jacob-Israel's old age and his favorite wife's first born son. Genesis 29 recalls how he had been tricked by his kinsman Laban into marrying Leah; and only after promising another seven years of servitude, received beloved Rachel as his second wife. 

Unfortunately, "...when the LORD saw that Leah was unloved, he made her fruitful, while Rachel was barren." It didn't help that the patriarch preferred Rachel and Joseph to Leah and her four sons, not to mention his two concubines and their sons. (And we thought our families were dysfunctional!) 

As the Evangelists recalled the opposition to Jesus and his gospel, they naturally recalled the resentment of the men who, "saw that their father loved [Joseph] best of all his sons, and they hated him so much that they would not even greet him." Was not Jesus the preferred Son of God, and had he not met the same jealous opposition? Had they not plotted the death of Jesus as the brothers plotted the death of Joseph? The resemblances could not be coincidental. 

The story must remind us of the Lord's sovereign right to govern by his own wisdom and according to his own plan; and that we who have little understanding of such matters should only wait and trust in his mercy. We'll often be uncomfortable. Our suspicious minds will raise many questions and fabricate outlandish explanations for the way things are. We can hardly prevent our uneasiness from spawning weird ideas about the God who speaks his Word to us but rarely answers questions. 

We insist we must understand and will not accept God's truth without a full and comprehensive explanation! As a young associate pastor, I tried to answer the questions of seventh graders about the stories of the Bible. But they could not begin to understand the hermeneutics I so carefully explained, and were totally unaware of its sitz im leben. I had as much to learn as they did.

But that curiosity is only a pretext for not seeing the rot of jealousy, suspicion, and unhappiness which eats at our hearts. We think we're superior to our ancient prescientific ancestors; and so -- we're good.

Matthew tells us that the Pharisees got the point of the Lord's parable, 

"When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew that he was speaking about them." 

There was no doubt about the Galilean's wit! His parabolic scalpel cut to the heart but they would not permit the poison to be drawn out of them. 

As we approach the drama of Holy Week, we examine our attitudes, biases, hesitations, and fears. How much comprehension do our uncomprehending minds demand? 

We must ask the Lord to show us our sins as clearly as he revealed the sins of Pharisees, Levites, and Herodians. It's fascinating that he never attacked the Romans and those who had ultimate authority in this world. He met Roman authorities, especially centurions, but he confronted only Pontius Pilate with his blunt reminder of his irrelevant nothingness: 

"You would have no power over me if it had not been given to you from above."

This is not the time to question the Lord's authority to judge, nor insist upon our right to judge him. We have seen where that led. Rather, it is time to do penance.