Word to the Wise
Thursday, July 9, 2009 - Thursday in the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
[Genesis 44:18-21, 25B-29; 45:1-5 and Matthew 10:7-15]I am your brother Joseph, whom you once sold into Egypt. But now do not be distressed, and do not reproach yourselves for having sold me here. It was really for the sake of saving lives that God sent me here ahead of you.
One can only wonder what Joseph's brothers thought when the brother they sold into slavery reveals himself as someone with the power of life and death over them! But Joseph's words are forgiving and even theological because he sees the hand of God in all that has happened. Sigh! His example has been one I have found very challenging. It's like Jesus' words from the cross: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!" On retreats with college students, I have used an exercise that asks the students to draw a graph of their lives using the familiar curved lines to indicate high and low points. The challenge in the exercise is to see those low points and ask about forgiveness and also how God's providence may have worked through that low point to bring them up. Perhaps Joseph was able to see that if he had not been sold into slavery, he would never have been in the position to keep his family from starving. (They had come to Egypt to escape famine, and Joseph was in charge of the grain supply!) In the lives of all of us there are those strange "If it weren't for that sad episode, I wouldn't now be having the good times now" experiences. Meditating on Joseph's words may help us to understand a bit more the mysterious providential mercy of God. AMEN
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