It seems like everyone has seen the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The only thing is, what does the Bible say
about that amazing coat? Was it actually
colorful? No, the distinguishing
characteristic of it was long sleeves, not colors!
The idea that the
coat was colorful came about because of a mistranslation from Greek. And that mistranslation happened 500 years
ago and it can be traced to the source, one man – Martin Luther. When Luther was translating the Old Testament
into German he found it difficult to know how to translate what Joseph’s coat
was like. What was distinguishing about
it was that it had long sleeves. So
what?!? Luther’s writing to
Germans. Winters are cold. Everyone’s coat has long sleeves! But what people don’t have is colorful
clothing. Only rich and powerful people
have colorful coats. A colorful coat was
a sign of leadership and power. The long
sleeved coat that Joseph was actually given was a sign of power in his
day. It was a sign of authority in the
family and leadership.
Do you remember
the parable of the Prodigal Son? What
does the father do when the prodigal returns?
He commands the servants to bring out a robe, the best one, and put it
on him, and put a ring on his finger. The
robe would have been a long sleeved robe and the ring was the signet ring used
to seal official documents. All of this conveyed
authority in the family. That is why the
faithful brother is so jealous.
It is this
priority and leadership Luther wanted to convey in his translation. And a father giving his son a long sleeved
coat just wasn’t going to cut it in Germany.
Somehow though Joseph’s colorful coat has caught people’s imaginations
for centuries.
We’ve stepped away from Genesis for
several weeks so let’s remind ourselves of the family dynamics that have led to
Joseph getting a special coat from Jacob, his father. You’ll remember that Jacob is far from a
perfect man, but in later life he starts to show some courage. He was tricked into marrying his first wife,
Leah. His really loved his second wife,
Rachel. But Leah could have children and
Rachel couldn’t; at least not at first.
In competition and jealousy Leah and Rachel throw their maids into the
mix, and by the time we get to our story today Rachel has died giving birth to
Benjamin, the youngest of all the children; and Jacob’s had a total of twelve
sons and one daughter to four different women.
The true firstborn is Reuben. He
is the first son of Jacob’s first wife, Leah.
Joseph is the firstborn of Jacob’s favorite wife, Rachel. You’ll note that both Joseph and Reuben had a
part in today’s story.
The Bible’s story is far more complex
than the musical it inspired. But we
should not be surprised that the ten brothers older than Joseph are jealous of
his position. Is he daddy’s favorite
only because of his mother, or is he truly of superior moral character than the
rest? As the story goes on we’ll
discover that he is truly better, but that all the other brothers aren’t the
same. Even in today’s story we learn
that Reuben doesn’t want to kill Joseph, but he doesn’t want to stand up to his
brothers either. It is interesting
because you’d expect Reuben to be the most jealous. He is, after all, the true firstborn. He should be getting the special coat. In the end Reuben though comes off being
spineless. He participates in the deceit
of destroying the coat and smearing it with goat blood.
The brother Judah also stands out for
being scheming and seeing a way to make a profit for selling Joseph, rather
than killing him.
No family is perfect. I’d say this one is as messed up as it can
get, except we meet the Herod family in the New Testament and they’re even
worse!
Anyway, what to make of all this…
What stands out the most to me is
something that I find still existing strong in human nature. People can be very tolerant of an opposing
viewpoint or something they disagree with, but only until it starts to hurt
their bottom line. The other brothers
certainly did not like Joseph. They
could tell he was daddy’s favorite but they didn’t do anything about it. However, when Joseph receives the coat which
proves his superior status then it is time to take action.
Last week I brought this up to the
confirmation class. I used the example
of Martin Luther and the 95 Theses.
Don’t for a minute think that one day Luther got mad at what he was
seeing in the church and suddenly decided to post his complaints and
immediately the church went wild. No,
Luther had been preaching against the sale of indulgences for years. And in September of 1517 he released what he
called Disputations Against Scholastic
Theology. These 97 theses were far
more challenging to the church than the famous 95 Theses he posted on October
31st of 1517. But no one
responded to Disputations Against
Scholastic Theology, and it has largely been forgotten.
Why did the 95 Theses stick, while a
more shocking document earlier didn’t?
Because Disputations Against
Scholastic Theology didn’t hurt anybody’s wallet! The 95 Theses only got Luther into trouble
because Albert of Brandenburg, the Archbishop of Mainz, was in desperate need
of cash. The 95 Theses ruined his
fundraising campaign. Otherwise the 95
Theses would have been ignored as yet another silly theological rant by an
over-zealous monk stuck in his own righteousness.
I told the confirmation class that they
should always stand up for what is right.
But that they will probably be ignored until standing up for what is
right starts to impact someone’s wallet or their power or their public
image. Then watch out!
It happens every day. We know what is right and what is wrong. We like to think we’ll choose what is right,
but that gets hard when it starts to cost us.
Sexual harassment has been in the news a lot lately. I certainly hope you’re not guilty of it, but
when you see it happening do you do anything about it? Maybe, maybe not. I have a feeling that for most people they
will consider the cost to themselves or their careers when they decide whether
to do anything about it. If there’s no
cost, then standing up against it isn’t hard.
But if you know it’ll cost you your job or an advancement then you think
twice.
Racism is another big issue. The entire membership of this congregation is
categorized as either white or Asian/Pacific Islander. We don’t experience racial discrimination as
a group. It’s an issue for us, but not
one that really hurts us. My colleague
Imani O’Lear, the black pastor at Reformation Lutheran Church is only one of
two black pastors in our conference. She
leads excellent presentations and workshops about racial issues. I’ve thought about bringing her here to do
one. But how many people would actually
come? I’m sure you’d appreciate what she
does and you’d be impressed if I had her do something during worship time. But of course she’s a pastor and she has her
own church on Sunday mornings. If I
scheduled something some other time would you feel a pressing need to make time
for it in your schedule? Maybe, maybe
not. The point is, you can afford to
ignore it. If violent racial riots
erupted in Ontario County and several of your homes were vandalized and people
were killed you’d have a different approach.
There is so much brokenness in the
world. We pray “thy kingdom come” but it
is so easy to not do anything about it.
Now there’s nothing wrong with living
in a nice and safe community. And there
is wisdom to knowing when to fight and when not to fight. But it is very easy to cross the line into
doing nothing about an injustice because it doesn’t impact you, or if doing
something will hurt you.
Remember, we are children of God. That is our first and our last identity and
it is our identity every day of our lives.
Let us not be selfish weaklings who go through life seeing only to
ourselves and avoiding all conflicts except those that directly impact us. Let us use being children of God with
boldness and confidence, knowing that God is by our side. Next week we’ll again look at Joseph, then
we’ll see he’s become a powerful man who could seek revenge against his
brothers. We’ll see that his brothers
have not changed. Not surprisingly
though, Joseph will stay true to what is godly and right, even though it brings
him no benefit.
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