This week we begin our series on Joseph. We meet Joseph in Genesis 37 and then he appears in all but one of the remaining chapters of Genesis. So, Joseph’s story is an important one for us to read and consider. His is a familiar story to those of us who love musical theater. Joseph’s story was immortalized in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and made most famous by Donnie Osmond’s portrayal of Joseph several years ago. While not entirely biblically accurate, Webber’s depiction of the story is not entirely off. Many, many years ago, our youth choir did this show and even took it on tour! And so, the images of the Broadway show and the images in Genesis are intertwined for me in a lot of ways.

Because of our love for this show, I took my sister to see a traveling version of it for her birthday a few years back. Near the beginning of the show, Joseph is thrown into a pit and then retrieved to be given over to the Ishmaelites. When the brothers went to pick Joseph up out of the pit, Joseph hit his face on the scenery and fell out of sight. Being familiar with the show, we realized quickly that something was wrong. Joseph never came out of the pit. The narrator changed her part to cover his and we had a brief intermission after the scene. It turns out, the actor playing Joseph broke his nose and passed out! He had to be replaced by his understudy (one of the brothers) for the remainder of the show.

I tell this story because it captures something of the chaos and the calamity of the entire scene between Joseph and his brothers in our passage for this week, Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28. The brothers are sick of Joseph and his dreams and his fancy coat. They conspire to kill him but (thanks to Reuben!) ultimately decide just to get rid of him and deceive their dad. It’s a tough passage of betrayal between brothers, of dreams and deception. I hope you’ll join us this Sunday as we look at this story together.

With Joy & Hope,
Julie