Jealousy

For three years, I had all the attention; then Karen came along. I didn’t much appreciate the intrusion!

One of my jealous episodes involved a potty chair being thrown at visiting relatives. Another involved a certain interrupting baby being hit over the head with one of my white “go-go” boots. We still laugh about both.

Then there was the incident that had poor Mom searching the house after I’d seen fit to stash little Karen away in a closet where she fell asleep, and I went happily about life!

“Jealous” toddlers provide lots of comical moments.

As we outgrow the innocence of childhood, however, those jealous tales become far less amusing. In fact, some of the stories aren’t funny at all.

Like this one:

Joseph, the firstborn son of Jacob’s beloved Rachel, is 17 years old. He's tending flocks with some of his brothers, the sons of servants Bilhah and Zilpah, and he gives his father a “bad report” about them. That can’t have won him any popularity points. At least not among the brothers, but Joseph was his dad’s favorite.

Uh oh.

I won’t say that (if I had multiple children) there wouldn’t be a favorite, but I do hope I wouldn’t be so obvious about it. And not just for the sake of the rest of the kids. In the long run, I’m not sure that “coat of many colors” did Joseph any favors.

This story always evokes memories from grade school days; do you remember how tough life was for kids who had the unfortunate fortune of being “teacher’s pets”? If you ever happened to be one of them yourself, you possibly know firsthand something about jealousy and unkindness.

If only Joseph’s plight were so simple as some childhood squabbling that disappears as everyone matures. Unfortunately, Joseph’s brothers aren’t children, and this is no schoolyard skirmish.

They hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.

And Joseph didn’t help himself at all when he had this dream - and decided to share:

I don’t believe I’d have told that. As you’d expect, now they hated him even more.

Undeterred by their animosity, Joseph has another dream, and he tells it too:

I’m curious about why he did that. Some things, after all, are better left unsaid even if they ARE true, and this may have been one (or two) of them!

It’s possible, I guess, that he was unaware of the depth of their hostility. Also possible is that he was a bold and confident young man who was unconcerned about public opinion and refused to be intimidated. We really don’t know what was in Joseph’s mind, but we know very well what his brothers had in theirs:

Hate.

One day, Joseph is sent to check on them while they are away grazing the flocks. When he tracks them down, the brothers see him coming from a distance and start scheming:

Thank goodness for big brother, Reuben, who steps up and tells them not to kill Joseph; just put him in the cistern. When Joseph arrives, the brothers take his robe and throw him in (alive - but can you imagine how terrifying that would be?)

I don’t know how they had an appetite at this point, but they sit down to eat and look up to see a caravan of Ishmaelites headed to Egypt.

Now, brother Judah poses an idea:

“After all, he is our brother.”

So that’s what they did, and the merchants carted Joseph off to Egypt.

Because selling him off never to be seen again is so much more brotherly than murder - AFTER ALL.

To be fair, Judah’s plan was better than murder, but Reuben’s had been even better. He’d intended to rescue and return Joseph to his father, so imagine his anguish when he returned to find an empty cistern. What to do now???

While I can’t say too much about morality or brotherly love, I will give this band of brothers credit for resourcefulness:

It was, of course, his son’s robe.

Assuming Joseph is dead, Jacob goes into mourning, and though all of his children came to comfort him, he was inconsolable.

“He refused to be comforted.”

If getting rid of their rival was supposed to solve one problem, it created another one.

Now they have an inconsolable father, and I can’t imagine they were any happier than they were before. Some problems can’t be fixed from the outside - envy, resentment, bitterness, and hatred to name a few.

If they cared at all, the only thing these brothers really accomplished was adding one more poison to their spiritual plates: GUILT.

Had they been so blinded by hatred toward Joseph that they hadn’t thought about how broken their elderly father would be?

Were they just too bitter to care, those sons born to servants while (wouldn’t you know it) Joseph’s mother had been their father’s beloved? Joseph, son of Rachel.

Joseph, son of their father’s old age. Joseph the favorite.

Joseph. Joseph. Joseph.

With the dreams of being above them and the fancy coat as a constant reminder of their own less-than-favored status.

I’d understand if some of that resentment they harbored against Joseph extended to their father as well. How ironic that the very gift with which Jacob marked Joseph as the favored above his siblings is the item used to break his heart.

Certainly, we aren’t taking our moral lessons from a band of jealous and murderous brothers, but this seems to be a story where no one wins. That’s how it usually is when envy is at the center.

No winners and a tragic ending. That would have been the case but for one thing:

God had some big plans for Joseph!

Guess who else God has big plans for - You and Me. Let’s keep that in mind next time we’re in the midst of some crisis that seems bigger than we are and satan whispers words like “hopeless” and “game over.”

In the long run, it’s not what “life” does to us but what God does through us that matters. And God is about to do some remarkable things through Joseph.

Until next time, here’s to new beginnings and all of God’s good plans.

Kim