April 3 Sermon: The Dreamer
Consider these questions as you listen to this week’s message from Genesis 37:1-11:
1. How does Joseph's role as an informant for his father, Jacob, contribute to the tension and resentment among his brothers in the story?
2. What significance do Joseph's dreams hold in the context of the narrative? How do these dreams intensify the jealousy and hatred of his brothers?
3. In the passage, we see a recurring theme of God's divine plan unfolding through unexpected and challenging circumstances. How might this theme be relevant to our own lives and our understanding of God's providence and salvation?
Transcript:
I am not the type of person who usually remembers his dreams. I know that I dream. If I wear my watch when I sleep it gives a report of how well I slept and it confirms that I had multiple extended periods of REM sleep during the night. While I don’t remember the dreams I wake up knowing that there were periods during my sleep where I remember seeing images but I very, very rarely remember any details of my dreams. Even when I have the ability to recall what I dreamt it is usually just vague recollections. Maybe you are like me and don’t remember many details when you wake from your slumber or perhaps you are like some other people that I know who can tell you significant details about their dreams. I might remember the general theme of what was occurring in my dream but some people can describe the entire scene of what was going on around you down to small and insignificant details. A few years back, I had a goal to listen to or read 100 books in a year. To knock out a significant portion of that number I listened to short introductory books on a host of topics. Most of them were roughly 100 pages books on what particular philosophers or theologians taught but one of them was a short introduction to dreams. I found the book very interesting as someone who doesn’t dream and at the end of it the author suggested that everyone should keep a dream journal that you write down what you dreamt about when you wake up in the morning. I had to laugh because I could seriously probably keep a dream journal for a year on a Post-It note.
As we come to our text today we find that one of the most famous dreams in history has been recorded for us. We return to the book of Genesis to finish up the book of foundations and we are brought back into the story of the people of God by learning more about the children of Jacob and it will be their stories that bring us to the end of the book.
We’ve read the first eleven verses of chapter 37 this morning and I’m going to break this down into my usual three points to help us navigate what is happening in the text.
First, we will see that the story we are tracking through Genesis is shifting to the children of Jacob. We will spend some time quickly reflecting on where we have been in Genesis. We have followed the line to the messiah from all the way back in the third chapter and now we are moving on to another generation once again and we find that the primary focus is going to be on Joseph which is interesting because we will eventually discover that he is not the child of the promise in the line to the messiah. We have been introduced to Joseph but haven’t really had much detail on his life. Here we find that Joseph is the favorite of Jacob and this causes discord with his brothers.
Secondly, we find that Joseph has a dream about he and his brothers that increases these feelings of distaste for him.
Third, we will see that Joseph has a dream about his brothers and his parents and this causes even Joseph to question what Joseph has to say. All of these events set up the final chapters of Genesis and show us how God is guiding and protecting his people.
And so, we land in Genesis 37 and we are brought back into the story of redemption that has been unfolding for us in the book of Genesis.
Genesis 37:1–4
ESV
Jacob lived in the land of his father’s sojournings, in the land of Canaan.
These are the generations of Jacob.
Joseph, being seventeen years old, was pasturing the flock with his brothers. He was a boy with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives. And Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his sons, because he was the son of his old age. And he made him a robe of many colors. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him.
As we have sojourned with the people of God through the book of Genesis so far, we have seen the struggles that they encounter and over and over again we see that it seems as though the promises of God will fail but what happens every time? The people of God are shown that it is God alone who can rescue them.
In the Garden, Adam and Eve plunged humanity into sin but God offered the promise of the one who will come to crush the head of the serpent. Cain kills the righteous Abel and there is not a righteous one to pass on the promise but God, in his mercy, provides Seth and the promise continues. The world becomes unrighteous and violent but God shows his favor to Noah and the promise continues. Abraham is called out of idolatry and he follows God but there is a problem, his wife is barren. Despite Abraham’s attempts to solve the problem on his own God still provides the child of the Promise despite the age and barrenness of Sarah. Isaac and Rebekah also experience barrenness but God answers their prayers and they conceive twins but God reveals to Rebekah that the older will serve the younger flipping the way in which the blessing is usually passed on. Isaac prefers the older Esau and so Jacob and Rebekah deceive Isaac and suddenly there is a threat of Jacob’s life from his brother Esau. But despite the unfaithfulness of Jacob we found that Jacob grew to trust the faithfulness of God and the conflict between Jacob and Esau resolves peacefully.
And, with all that tension in the first 36 chapters of Genesis we shouldn’t expect that chapters 37 through 50 are going to be filled with peace, should we?
And we see some tension right away in the first verse. Remember, in addition to the promise of the one who would crush the head of the serpent we’ve also had the promise of the offspring of Abraham possessing the land. We have seen that Abraham and his offspring have been in the land they have been sojourners, they have not taken possession of it. As this chapter starts we see this drawn out. Jacob lives in the land of his father’s sojourning. He has not laid hold of the land of Canaan and then in verse two we see that the story is being passed on. We’ve seen these transitional language in Genesis before. It indicates that we’ve moved on to another part of the story and now, even though Jacob is still alive, the story is moving on and we get an idea right away on who the story will primarily dwell upon.
We don’t know much about Jacob up to this point in Genesis but what we do know helps us to understand what’s going on with the next few verses. Joseph was the long desired child of the wife that Jacob long desired. Jacob labored 14 years for the hand of Rachel and then she was barren. Finally, when she gave birth to a child it was Joseph and then when providentially opened her womb a second time, his beloved wife died when Benjamin was born.
Therefore it should come as no surprise that Jacob favored Joseph and we see here that this is true. But the first thing that we are presented with is that Joseph is an informant for his father. We don’t know if his willingness to be a tattletale is connected to his favored status with Jacob but I’m pretty sure it didn’t hurt the matter much. This type of informant is a valuable thing but it an interesting position to be in. It gets you in good with the person you are informing and makes you detested by the ones you are ratting out.
Many years back when I was doing youth ministry we would go to a Christian music festival at a large campground near Canton, Ohio. We had a rule that everyone needed to be with one other person, no matter where they went. Well, one year we had an older girl latch on to one of the youngest girls named Tara on the trip and that was her other person. The goal was to be able to force her to go wherever she went because she was meeting up with people she had met online through an internet message board about the festival.
Well, the plan backfired a bit because this young girl basically came to me and told me everything they did. Now, nothing bad was going on, but I took advantage of the situation. I would drop little hints about things I shouldn’t know. At one point in the week, we had a storm warning and we went to the beach changing area as our shelter. While we were in there the older girl was pacing and I asked her if she was nervous about the storm and she told me she wasn’t scared just wondering if her friend was OK. Well, little did she know that the younger girl had pointed out a young man to me about 10 minutes earlier as the boy they were hanging out with. So, I told her not to worry, I saw that her friend was just fine. The look of shock and terror on her face was fantastic and she asked how I knew. I smiled and chuckled as I said “I know all and see all” and walked away. Not long after I recounted this story to my wife and some youth volunteers on the trip with us and I said “I know all and see all and I do it so much better when Tara is around.”
We don’t know if Joseph’s tattletale ways endeared him to to his father even more but we do know that this would have made him unpopular with his brothers. And the text here is very clear on Jacob having Joseph as the favorite. Not only are we told Joseph is the child of his old age but we also see that he gives him a robe of many colors. Now, that seems like an odd gift to me and I’m guessing it sounds that way to you. As a kid, when I heard this story, I imagined it being like a bathrobe and I was really confused but there is actually some significance to this robe that is given to Joseph. Now, obviously if he gives something like that to one child and not another we know that he is showing favoritism but that is something the brothers knew all along and anyone could spot. You didn’t need a robe for that. We don’t know exactly what this coat exactly looked like or was made up of but we know that it would have set Joseph apart. Perhaps even indicating that he was a prince. One who would ultimately take over the role of his father as the leader of their clan. Now, normally that would go to the oldest but I’m guessing not only the oldest child of Jacob was upset by this because you would have had to pass up several other brothers in the process of getting to him.
And you see this in the last verse of this first section we are looking at for our first point. When his brothers saw the love Jacob had for him they hated him and it also tells us they could not speak peacefully to him. The book of Genesis wants us to know that there is deep resentment here. This is more than just them being annoyed with the little tattletale favorite. They detest him to the point that they don’t even speak to him peacefully at all.
And that leads us into the rest of this story as we consider the first of the two dreams of Joseph.
Genesis 37:5–8
ESV
Now Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers they hated him even more. He said to them, “Hear this dream that I have dreamed: Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright. And behold, your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf.” His brothers said to him, “Are you indeed to reign over us? Or are you indeed to rule over us?” So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.
It is interesting that as we are brought into the story of Joseph that we see him having a dream. Now, he probably had a lot of dreams. If I learned anything from that short little book I listened to on dreams it was that we all dream, all the time but we are meant to understand here that this dream is special. We are being informed that Joseph is receiving revelation from God and he is different. He is special. He has a connection with the almighty.
Think back on the different stories about the heroes of the faith we have seen so far in Genesis. Noah has revelation from God to build the ark. Abraham is told to leave his country and kin and follow God to a place he will show him. Before Jacob is even born we are let know that God reveals to Rebekah that the younger shall serve the older. Then we find Jacob having dreams himself with a ladder from heaven to earth.
And now, we are introduced to Jacob and if we couldn’t already feel that the story line is moving to him these short narratives about his dreams makes us certain that we are going to be following Joseph.
And the way this starts out makes me smile a little. Before we even hear what the dream is about we find out that it isn’t going to be a good dream because his brothers hate it. It’s like when someone comes to you and tells you “you aren’t going to like this”. That may very well be true but with that lead in, it almost guarantees it.
And so we get the info on this dream and if we didn’t already know the story of Joseph a little we would probably not be too fond of Joseph as we hear this. His sheaf of wheat stands up and his brothers sheaves bow down to his.
No wonder his brothers are not fond of this dream. They already know their father favors him. He has singled him out with that coat of many colors and now the coat isn’t just resting on his shoulders as he walks around like a big shot. It’s gone to his head. I didn’t grow up with a sibling at home but I had friends who had multiple brothers and this is the kind of thing that would have been, shall we say, legislated by the brothers. Trust me, this kind of thing wouldn’t have gone over well in those families and I’m guessing you’re thinking of incidents with people you know or even in your own family where stuff like this was, uhhhh....taken care of. And we will get into that part of the story of Joseph after Easter but now we see the resentment building. They aren’t like you and I when you tell someone a dream and you are like “what did I eat last night”. No, they know what this dream means and lets not forget that Joseph knows too. This isn’t an innocent “hey fellas, you won’t believe what I dreamt about last night, it was weird, and I wonder why I dreamt this”. He knows. The brothers know.
With the favoritism of their father and the robe to prove it they are growing to hate him even more. And we see this told to us plainly. We can feel it in the text but we don’t have to infer it. It tells us straight away that he is being hated even more by his brothers after he tells him about the dream.
But as we go to the concluding part of the passage we find that the dreams he is having are not just about his brothers and it leads not only to hate but to jealousy.
Genesis 37:9–11
ESV
Then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, “Behold, I have dreamed another dream. Behold, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you?” And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind.
This second dream is very similar to the first but this time it is about more than just the 12 brothers. Once again, we know the story but if you were hearing this for the first time you’d probably be like “Joseph, what are you doing? You’ve got to learn to keep this kind of stuff to yourself, man.” Sharing this with his brothers that already despise him just isn’t too smart.
This time his brothers aren’t sheaves but they are stars. Now that sounds a little better on the surface, right? Stars are pretty. They provide light. They twinkle. Maybe even you could connect it back to the promise to their great-grandfather Abraham where he was promised his descendents would be as numerous as the stars. We don’t start out too bad here with this dream at all but there is another element to this. The sun and the moon are bowing down to him as well. Once again, the dream is not a difficult one to interpret. If he brothers are the stars, his mother and father are clearly the sun and moon. And notice, there are not 12 stars and the the sun, moon, and stars are bowing down to another star. I had always assumed that in my previous readings and I kid you not, I had to read it three or four times to undo my assumption. What we have here is Joseph having these heavenly bodies bow down to him. Imagine what the brothers are thinking with this one. It’s one thing to be one of us and think you should have us bow down but now you think you are different from us and even our parents should bow down before you.
I can imagine the resentment and anger they had towards Joseph included thoughts of “well dad, see what happens when you little favorite gets his ego built up with your little princely robe.
And you have to wonder the emotions in Jacob as well. His answer here gives us the idea that he might be a little upset at Joseph. Hey there, favorite son, I gave you that robe and all but do you really think that your mother, brothers, and I will bow down before you? Do you really think we’ll get down in the dirt and be in subjection to you?
And it is at this point where we read of this jealousy building up in his brothers. That is a strong emotion and you couple that with the hatred we have read about and while we don’t see it in what we read today you can tell that something is brewing. It isn’t just that they think their brother is an arrogant little jerk, they are jealous. They want to be favored by their father. They want to be the one who is most loved. They want the robe. They desire to be the one who is bowed down to.
But notice how the passage ends. It isn’t on the thoughts of the brothers. It dwells on the thoughts of Joseph. He wasn’t wild about the suggestion that they would all bow down to Joseph but he’s been around the block with God and his dreams hasn’t he. He knows that there may be something more to this. Jacob has learned to look beyond the moment and think about the what this means because perhaps, just perhaps this is more than the dream of a self-absorbed, narcissistic young man. Maybe, God is once again on the move and he is going to miraculously preserve his people.
And as we come to the end of this passage we ask ourselves once again, what can we take away from the passage. It would be easy to moralize the passage and say that you and I shouldn’t be self absorbed tattletales but that is not the point of the passage. Genesis isn’t telling us this story for the purpose of us deriving a moral principle from it. This isn’t one of Aesop’s Fables. The purpose of this passage is to tell us the the story of redemption and how God keeps his promises. And so, that is where what we can take into the world this week comes from.
As we land back here in Genesis we are reminded of the promise of God. The promise to bring a savior who would crush the head of the serpent and bring us into right standing with a holy God. You and I have been reminded today that God uses his means to accomplish his purposes. As we head into the story of Joseph we will see that God is rescuing his chosen people from certain death and he is using Joseph to do it and he does it through difficult and unexpected means.
Here we sit just one week from Palm Sunday and so we are well positioned to consider the salvation that God brings. The story of Joseph is going to take unexpected turns but ultimately it leads us to the people of God rescued from death in a time of famine.
As we get closer to remembering the death and resurrection of Jesus we will see an unexpected story as well. Who would expect God the Son to take on human flesh and suffer and die. And the most unexpected turn of events is the resurrection of the Lord Jesus on the third day. And so, as we step into the world this week may we contemplate the plan of God for the salvation of his people. May we look forward to our remembrance of the death and resurrection of Jesus and know that God worked salvation for us. May we trust in his good work for us, day in and day out and may it drive us to holiness as we remember that you and I are his people and he has brought salvation to us through the work of Jesus on our behalf. May we have faith and like Jacob, may we keep in mind what God has done and is doing for us. Amen.
