Lent Week One-Tuesday
Gen. 37:12-24 Psalm 48 1 Cor. 1:20-31 Mark 1:14-28
Growing up as an only child I had no direct experience of sibling rivalry. However, as a mother of four I did see it in action. Like Jacob I probably made many mistakes though none which drove my older children to the point of considering murder. (At least, I don’t think so.)
Family dynamics change as children grow and parents gain experience. The older the children the more the relationship of father to child becomes adult to adult. The child assumes more responsibility and eases into the decision-making process. Joseph was seventeen years old, which means the brothers were older than that because he was the baby of the family. It is often difficult to give up that role because it tends to have so many privileges.
We don’t know what Joseph’s responsibilities were except that he was not sent out with the others to mind the sheep (a long and tedious job) but was sent later just to report back on their conduct. He had done this before, and the report had been a negative one. The brothers did not forget.
Then there was the problem of Joseph’s dreams. It appears he was too young to realize how telling the dreams to his family would hurt his brothers and increase their resentment. Perhaps he only found the dreams amusing.
And the older brothers, failing to recognize how their relationship with their father had grown into the adult phase, felt that they were no longer loved because they were not indulged in the same way as Joseph. (I recall one of my own saying, “You never let me when I was that age.”) Lucky for all of them, Reuben spoke up not only to keep murder off his conscience, but for love of his father and Joseph.
Let us pray to weigh the effect of our words and the result of our actions within our families, our workplaces, our communities, our world, before we act.
Ruth Zepeda
The Carpenter's Nail 