The Road to Character: "Joseph and the Big Me"

Please watch/read/listen to these in order:

Scripture: Genesis 37:1-11

Poetry: Last Night as I Was Sleeping by Antonio Machado

Sermon: Joseph and the BIG ME by Rev. Dr. Penny Nixon, Senior Minister at the Congregational Church of San Mateo

Penny’s sermon on Sunday (“Joseph and the Big Me”) offered a unique interpretation of Joseph’s story.  Our traditions often celebrate Joseph in a somewhat one-sided way.  He ultimately rose to greatness, but his hubris made him not-so-great to be around, at least in earlier stages of his life.  His brothers’ violent overreaction is one that Bible interpreters often (rightly) suggest was wrong, but it is less frequently that we hear people ask what leads folks to such desperate acts.  Without condoning their violence, we understand that Joseph’s unexamined privilege led him to act in ways that ultimately fomented an extreme reaction.

In order to make sweet honey out of our past failures, we need to work on them.  Joseph was capable of great things, but not when he thought he was.  His arrogance led him to mistreat his brothers, but furthermore, to do so while oblivious about the impact of his words and behaviors.  That Joseph-- egotistical, oblivious, and overly-confident-- was not the Joseph who rose to greatness.  

One of my professors, Rev. Dr. Boyung Lee, says that we become arrogant when we stop asking questions because we think we know all the answers.  Understanding arrogance as a lack of questioning allows me to see how slippery that slope can be.  To believe I have mastered something can be the route to that mastery slipping away from me.  There is a thin line between confidence and overconfidence.  

Penny’s sermon ended on quite the cliffhanger: we left Joseph at his low point.  While that point was a beginning of upward trajectory for him, Joseph needed to sink that low in order to be humbled.  Penny suggested that true humility is seeing ourselves in the perspective of the whole.  Joseph, at the beginning of his story, truly lacked that perspective.  He was unable to see his privilege, the ways that others perceived him, and his hubris.  

This week, for me, will be about self-examination.  After the cliffhanger ending of the sermon, we heard our choir offer a beautiful rendition of “Down to the River” and we meditated on the rivers of our own lives.  As I spend this week at my internal river in prayer, confronting my own reflection in its water, I am reminded that a river is in continual motion.  To draw from the Disney movies of my childhood, I’m reminded of a line from one of Pocahontas’ pieces of music-- “you never step in the same river twice.”  Each of us is in the process of becoming.  While confronting our reflections is important work, it is done with the confidence that change is not only possible, but inevitable.  

This week I hope to pray at my river and meditate on humility.  What does it mean to see myself from the perspective of the whole?  As David Brooks asks in his book, “What are my circumstances calling me to do?”