Recently I was reading through the story of Joseph with some buddies of mine and I was impacted not by the story of his life. That may sound strange, as we typically read it and all assume we are like Joseph, but this time the Lord led me to the interesting side note on Judah that takes place from Genesis 37-50. Judah is the story within the story.
To summarize, Joseph was Jacob's favorite son and the other eleven decided one day to kill Joseph as they were overcome with anger and jealousy. The brothers agree to kill him but Reuben talks them into beating him until they could decide what the next step would be. As they are waiting, Judah convinces the brothers that killing him was a bad financial mistake when they could make some money out of selling him into slavery. It was bad enough that their jealousy overcame them to the point that they wanted to kill their brother (This was not new as Cain had revealed in Genesis 4), but Judah wanted to get something out of it. Genesis 38 takes a timeout from Joseph and tells a story of Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar. It seems oddly placed for a number of reasons. First, chapter 37 shows a focus on Joseph that would continue, it set the story up with the foreshadowing of his dreams and the lack of resolution at the end of the chapter, thus it steps away from the direction of the narrative. Second, the story paints Judah in a particularly negative light as lacking the integrity of his daughter-in-law, a Canaanite widow who pretended to be a prostitute. Surely this would have been an easy story to leave out, or set aside.
Following this story Judah takes a central role in the resolution with Joseph. In 43:1-11 Judah convinces Jacob to let him take Benjamin back to Egypt. This had been tried by Reuben in 42:37 unsuccessfully. In 44:14 Judah becomes central in the conversation with Joseph, expressing the sentiments of all of the brothers. In 46:28 Jacob sends before him to show the road that led to Joseph. Judah's transformation culminates in the blessing he receives from his father in 49:8-12. It lasts the longest and is the greatest of all the blessings he gives to his sons. The story hinges back at 38:26 where Judah repents of his wrong doing.
I'd like to think the story is included because it shows the transformation that took place in Judah's life. Transformation cannot happen until we recognize the depths of our unrighteousness. I think we like to associate ourselves with Joseph when reading Genesis 37-50 because we think he seems like the innocent one, that everything he touches turns to gold and God blesses. The reality is that far too much of our stories are more like the story of Judah. The depths of our transgression and rebellion is great and even then we long to make more of a profit at our brother's expense. We fail at parenting, we fail as patriarchs, we lie and worse yet, we are quick to condemn someone else when they look to be in sin. It's not until we are forced to face the reality that we are unrighteous, that we fall short of God's standard that life-change can happen.
I like to think Judah changed because of the grace he found in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and his father Jacob and that set him on a trajectory to live radically different. The text isn't explicit, but the author seems to use his recognition of his unrighteousness as a launching pad for transformation. Don't get me wrong, the blessings Judah received were not a reward for better living or a change of heart, but as John says, they were merely "grace upon grace," that Judah's blessings were unmerited and a further testimony of the depths of God's love. What a sweet picture of God's redeeming love for a sinner. Don't miss that story because Judah's story is our's as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment