Sermon for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, Year A (8-9-26)

If you don't know the story of Joseph, don't worry. We're going to get to know him this morning. 

Joseph is one of the sons of Israel. You may remember that Israel was not always called Israel. Last week, we met him as Jacob, wrestling through the night with a mysterious stranger. By morning, he had received a new name: Israel—a name that carried a promise, but also a reminder that his relationship with God had been forged through struggle. 

And now, one generation later, we meet his family again. 

If you've been keeping up with Genesis, you may have noticed that this is probably not going to be a particularly well-adjusted family. Israel is the son of Isaac and the grandson of Abraham, and over the course of those generations there has been plenty of deception, rivalry, and favoritism. Apparently, having a covenant with God does not necessarily make you good at family dynamics. 

Joseph is one of Israel's younger sons, and Israel makes it very clear that Joseph is his favorite. He gives him a beautiful coat, something that makes the family hierarchy fairly difficult to misunderstand. 

And Joseph seems perfectly happy with the arrangement. 

In fact, Joseph has dreams. And in his dreams, his brothers bow down to him. Instead, Joseph tells them. 

And then he tells them again. 

He seems to have inherited Israel's considerable confidence in his own importance without quite inheriting Israel's ability to recognize when other people are getting annoyed. 

So his brothers hate him. One day, when they are out tending their father's flocks, Israel sends Joseph to check on them. They see him coming and decide this is their opportunity to get rid of him. At first, they intend to kill him. Eventually, they settle for throwing him into a pit. Then some traders pass by on their way to Egypt, and they sell Joseph to them. 

And just like that, Joseph's life changes. 

The coat is gone. The family is gone. The familiar landscape is gone. His brothers have betrayed him, and he is being carried away to a country he has never seen by people he does not know. 

And that is where the lectionary leaves us. 

Which is, frankly, a little rude. 

There is something profoundly uncomfortable about being in the middle of a story. We like beginnings and endings much better. At the beginning, we know that we are beginning. At the end, we know what everything meant. The middle is where things get messy. It is where you make decisions without knowing whether they are right, say goodbye without knowing what comes next, and wait for an answer without knowing what it will be. 

And it is where Joseph finds himself. 

He has no idea what is going to happen next. There is no narrator standing beside him saying, "Don't worry, Joseph. This is going to work out." There is no divine spoiler alert. There is just a seventeen-year-old kid in a pit, being sold to strangers. 

And that matters because we have a tendency to read stories like Joseph's from the end. Once we know where the story goes, we can look backward and make everything seem inevitable. Of course he had to go to Egypt. Of course the pit was really the beginning of something. 

But that is not how Joseph experienced it. 

As far as Joseph knows, something terrible has happened to him. 

And sometimes something terrible has happened to us. 

One of the less helpful habits we can develop as people of faith is the urge to explain everything before we've had time to grieve it. Someone loses a job and we tell them God must have something better in store. Someone's relationship falls apart and we tell them everything happens for a reason. Someone is frightened, and we reach immediately for an explanation because sitting beside another person in uncertainty is harder than giving them an answer. 

Sometimes those answers are true. But sometimes they aren't. And even when they are true, they may not be ours to say. 

Genesis doesn't tell Joseph, "Don't worry. God has a plan." Genesis lets Joseph sit in the pit. 

Which means the story gives us permission to admit something we don't always like admitting: We don't know. 

We don't know what God is doing. We don't know what this moment means. We don't know how the story ends. 

The Psalm says, "Remember the marvels he has done." 

Remember. 

Abraham didn't know where his journey would take him. Moses didn't know how the wilderness would work out. But they could look back and say, "God was faithful there." 

Sometimes that is what faith gives us: not a map, but a memory; not an explanation, but a promise; not the ability to see the whole road, but enough confidence to take the next step. 

Which may be why Matthew gives us Peter in the middle of a storm. The disciples are out on the water, the wind is against them, the waves are getting worse, and Jesus isn't there. Until suddenly he is, walking toward them across the water. 

Peter, being Peter, asks Jesus to let him come out of the boat. Jesus says, "Come." So Peter does. And for a little while, Peter is actually walking on water, which is objectively a pretty good morning. 

Then he notices the wind. 

He starts to sink, cries out, and Jesus reaches for him. 

Peter never gets an explanation for what is happening. He just gets Jesus. 

Perhaps that is closer to what faith looks like when we are living in the middle of the story. Not certainty about what comes next. Not an explanation for why we are here. Just enough trust to look for God in the midst of it, and dare to take the hand reaching out to us. 

Joseph cannot see beyond the pit. Peter cannot see beyond the storm. And most of the time, neither can we. 

Sometimes God gives us an answer. Sometimes God gives us the grace to wait. And sometimes God gives us nothing more than the next step. 

That may not feel like enough. 

But perhaps it is. 

Because we are not asked to know the whole story. We are asked to trust the God who does. 

So this week, Joseph stays in the pit. The caravan heads toward Egypt. And we are not going to skip ahead. We are going to leave him there for a while. Because there are times when the most faithful thing we can say is not, "I know how this is going to turn out." 

It is simply: "I don't know. 

But I know who I am trusting while I wait to find out."

Amen.