Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he had made him a long robe with sleeves. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him.”
NL Daily Devotion for Wednesday, September 27, 2023
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
Sibling rivalry is real. We saw it happen with Jacob and Esau, when Rebekah played favorites. And while that turned out for the best, Jacob seems to have learned nothing from his own childhood experience and blatantly calls out Joseph as his favorite, even going so far as to distinguish him by a gift of extravagant clothing. No wonder his brothers hated him. And no wonder Joseph didn’t seem to develop appropriate boundaries around bragging to his brothers about his dreams in which they would all one day bow down to him. Everyone in this story was completely caught up in himself, utterly oblivious to the emotional needs of anyone else. It was a recipe for a perfect storm of jealousy and revenge.
What can we learn from this? Other than the obvious of not acting in ways to set our children against one another by playing favorites (the truth of the matter is that we do have favorites, no matter what we say, but we absolutely cannot make that known!), I think the takeaway is about letting go of self-absorption. It’s about recognizing injustice in relationships and working to restore balance and mutuality. No one person is more important than any other. Any community is only as strong as its most vulnerable member. When we grab for wealth and security at the expense of others, because we can’t see the interconnectedness of all God’s creation, we set up a perfect storm of jealousy and revenge, which plays out in violence, poverty, environmental destruction, and every societal evil. Instead of choosing someone (usually ourselves) to satisfy with every good gift, God calls us to look beyond ourselves to the flourishing of the world.
What is my experience with sibling rivalry in my own family? What were the results?
