Genesis 37:1-11
Joseph’s Dreams

I admit, “dreamcoat” is not in scripture, but it’s the word that keeps coming to me. We can blame Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Weber for coining the term in the title of their musical about this story, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Scripture doesn’t call it a dreamcoat, just a coat, because it is given before Joseph’s dreams. Most of us churched folks who grew up in Sunday School know it from the King James Version description -- “ the coat of many colors.” Other translations describe it as an “ornamented robe” (NSRV), an “elaborately embroidered coat” (MSG), a “beautiful robe” (NLT), and simply a “long robe” with a footnote of “many colored” in the CEB. However it is described, it is a garment that would be cumbersome (and hot) to wear when doing manual labor and one that would not be suitable for someone in their station in life.  
 
The flamboyant coat or robe obviously has deep symbolism. In fact, the entire story has deep symbolism. Earlier in Jacob’s story, he was renamed as “Israel.” His twelve sons represent the twelve tribes of Israel. Jacob had returned to Canaan, so they are living as immigrants still dreaming of the day when this land becomes theirs, as promised by God. After a long bout of sister-wives drama, Jacob makes a bold statement. He gives a deeply symbolic gift that goes against business as usual.
 
Perhaps Jacob is tired of waiting and wants to do something to move things along. Perhaps he is still grieving the death of his beloved, Rachel, and he gives their firstborn son a special gift in her memory. Perhaps he wants to continue to do the unexpected by giving the symbolic gift to his favorite son instead of the eldest.
 
Joseph is seventeen years old when he receives this gift, so there has to be a lot that we don’t know that influenced this gift. We do have to question why Joseph? He is 11th in the birth order. Why is he the favored one? Joseph is the long-awaited arrival after Jacob and Rachel’s barrenness. Jacob loved Rachel and only wanted to marry her. Laban tricked Jacob into marrying her sister, Leah, first. Rachel’s and Leah’s servants were “given” to Jacob as well, so many of these siblings are half-siblings all living together in one big conflict bubble.    
 
Jacob makes it worse by playing favorites and seeing something in Joseph that places him above the rest. Jacob was a dreamer too, so maybe he saw himself in Joseph. Maybe Joseph had been having dreams that he had shared with only his father before these two dreams. Maybe Jacob wanted to receive favored treatment from his father instead of having to force it, so Jacob is living vicariously through Joseph to be the younger son who has a place of authority and favor.
 
There has to be a deeper reason why Jacob gives Joseph this dream coat. During this time, the fashion was on trend, thanks to an Egyptian influence. Some men wore knee-length, colorful garments. Priests also dressed in robe-like garments. Clothing communicated rank and status, and each part, the fabric, ornamentation, color, and length, indicated the person’s position in society. We don’t know exactly what each meant, but Jacob knew that this gift would set Joseph apart, if only in his eyes.
 
Joseph does end up in a place of authority and favor over his brothers and even his father, but it takes a long time to get there. Was it because of this gift? Did it manifest his future? And, where is God in all of this?
 
Biblical study and interpretation often leave more questions than answers, as this story does, but I invite you to explore the reflection questions to see if you see things differently. Next week, we’ll dig into Part 2 of this dream: The Fall-Out.
 
Reflection questions:
What is significant about the “Dreamcoat” given before the dreams?
Why was Joseph really the favored one?
What is the significance of Joseph’s dreams?
 
Action: Watch Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Is Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Weber’s rendition true to scripture? What does it make you understand about this story?

Genesis 28:10-22
Jacob’s Dream at Bethel

This is a story about when a pillow becomes a pillar. Rocks don’t typically make nice pillows. I like my pillow to be fluffy (but not too fluffy) as if my head is resting on a cloud. It has to be the right amount of fluffiness to give proper alignment. If it’s too fluffy or flat, my neck doesn’t get the right amount of support. That’s the real purpose of a pillow – to support our heads or to prop them against something so we can have a restful sleep.

Jacob didn’t have many choices for pillows when he was in this in-between place. He had left home, but he had not quite arrived at his destination. He was in the middle place between his past and his future. He stopped at this place to rest, and he grabbed the first thing he saw – a stone -- just to prop up his head off the ground.

Little did he know, what seemed like an ordinary stone was actually sacred because it was connected to this sacred place when he would experience a divine encounter. When Jacob is sleeping, God comes to him in a dream. As far as we know, Jacob had never met God personally. He had known about God through his father and grandfather and even prayed to God. But this was the moment when he had his own encounter with the divine, and it completely changed his life.

Jacob found himself in this middle place because of his own doing. His rivalry and deception consumed him until he stole his brother’s birthright and blessing, which infuriated Esau to the point where Jacob was afraid for his life. He fled to this in-between place, this liminal space, for safety and to put to rest his part of the family conflict. But this liminal space becomes a sacred place because God meets him right where he is in this space.

When Jacob awakes from the dream, he is so moved that he sees the sacredness in this place. He takes the stone that was an ordinary pillow and makes it a pillar for the house of God. He anoints it, and makes a vow to follow God back to this place of peace. “This stone” that was once merely a stone now marks the holy place where heaven and earth joined, where Jacob met the divine. This stone that supported Jacob’s head for rest now will be the supporting foundation for the house of God. This stone marked this sacred liminal space where Jacob can let go of his past in order to fully embrace his future which includes peace within his family.

​Have you ever found yourself in a liminal space? Liminal spaces often seem like a bad thing. It’s that place where something has already happened, but the next thing hasn’t happened yet. No one likes to be in the waiting, transitional place, where we’re uncertain which way to go or how long we have to wait. Often, we just feel lost or alone. Jacob was certainly alone in the middle of (what seemed like) nowhere, but the middle of nowhere was exactly where Jacob needed to be in order to meet the divine. Jacob needed to be in this place, so he could be removed from the dysfunction in his family, address his own triggers, and open himself to God’s peace. God meets us in the liminal space too – when we least expect it – and promises to never leave us. God will be with us and keep us until we find peace.   
     
Reflection questions:
What is the significance of Jacob’s dream? The ladder or stairway? The stone?
In what liminal space do you find yourself?  
What do you need to let go from your past?
Where do you need God’s guidance for your future?
 
Action: Look for a stone that could mark a sacred liminal space. Make it a visual reminder that God has called you to this sacred place. Hold it in your hand when you pray, to connect to the sacred. 

Genesis 25:19-34
The Birth and Youth of Esau and Jacob

Isaac and Rebekah are now twenty years into their marriage, and they have not produced any children. We don’t know if they want children or if they are just trying to live into their familial and societal expectations. Abraham is supposed to be the father of a nation, so he is depending on Isaac to help build up that nation. Yet, Isaac and Rebekah find they are barren. They have spent the first twenty years of their marriage unable to produce, create, or grow.

In the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Verse 21 says that “Isaac prayed to the Lord,” and “the Lord granted his prayer” (v.21). The word “granted” doesn’t sit well with me. It conjures the image of a fairy godmother granting wishes. The Common English Bible resonated with me more when it said, “The Lord was moved by his prayer.” The New Living Translation and The Message both said that the Lord simply answered his prayer. The emphasis was put more on Isaac’s action instead of the Lord’s. Isaac “prayed hard” (MSG) and he “pleaded with the Lord” (NLT). His intensity and earnestness were what moved the Lord to act.

The passage doesn’t say how long Isaac prayed. I wonder if it was his perseverance that moved the Lord. Was he praying for twenty years? Or, did he wait in frustration for twenty years, and then decide to pray? Did he finally arrive to the point where he was like, “There’s nothing I can do but pray,” when in fact, he should have been praying from the very beginning. His surrender was what moved the Lord.  

At any rate, the Lord was moved by Isaac’s prayer, and Rebekah became pregnant. However, it was a difficult pregnancy, which moved Rebekah to ask the Lord, “Why is this happening to me?” (NLT, v.22). Often we think that when our prayers are answered, everything is going to turn out ok. Isaac’s answered prayer actually created a situation where Rebekah needed to reach out to God too.

The Lord also answered Rebekah and told her that she had two nations in her womb, which she probably thought God was crazy because she had no idea at the time that she was pregnant with twins. It wasn’t until she “reached the end of her pregnancy that she discovered that she had twins” (v.24). God told her the truth, but she couldn’t understand it at the time. I’m not so sure she was happy about the answer because the fighting didn’t stop when the pregnancy ended. The rivalry continued until adulthood, and Esau and Jacob did not reconcile until after a twenty-year absence.

The Lord answered Isaac’s prayer, which caused strife and difficulty for Rebekah. The Lord answered Rebekah’s prayer, which did not comfort her. The Lord gave her answers, but knowing the answer did not relieve her suffering. The Lord will answer our prayers, but answered prayers aren’t a guarantee that everything is going to be ok in life. The Lord answers our prayers as a way to reach out to us to assure us that we are in relationship with the Lord.

Barrenness, difficulties, and suffering are part of our life journey. No one escapes them. However, we don’t have to face them alone. We can go to the Lord to ask our questions, plead, and pray hard, and the Lord will be moved to respond to our pain. We may not get the answers we want, and we may not always be comforted by the tough facts, but we have God to walk with us through the difficulties.
 
Reflection questions to ponder or explore in a journal:
When have you pleaded or prayed hard to God? Was God moved to answer your prayer?
Have you ever received an answer that you were not happy with the outcome? How did you handle it?
Do you take your questions to God? What do you want to ask God right now? Go ahead, God is listening. 

Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67
The Marriage of Isaac and Rebekah
 
Abraham’s servant tells his personal story of his experience with God to Laban, Rebekah’s brother. The lectionary only gives us snippets of the story, but reading the entire 24th chapter shows us more miraculous ways in which God works. Sarah had just died and Isaac is heartbroken over his mother’s death. Abraham tries to comfort his son by sending his right-hand man, his chief steward, to find a wife for him. Even though arranged marriages were common, this is an impossible task, and the servant knows it.

The servant is a Canaanite, who may not have ever left his region. How could he possibly know where to go and where to find a member of Abraham’s family? And, if he is able to do those things, what if the woman doesn’t want to go with him, a stranger to a foreign land? The servant did pose this last question in verse 39: “What if she won’t follow me? In which Abraham responds, “The Lord, before whom I walk, will send his angel with you and make your way successful (v.40). My God will show you the way.

That’s an important understanding of this story. The servant did not know “Abraham’s God,” and had no experience or understanding or even a relationship with God. It’s pretty amazing that the servant trusts Abraham’s guidance and prays to a God that he has never met. It’s equally amazing that God meets him right where he is, in his need, and shows him who God is. The servant prays a very specific prayer, and immediately it comes to pass. This blows his mind!

He said in verse 45: “Before I had finished speaking in my heart, there was Rebekah coming out with her water jar.” The phrase “speaking in my heart” really drew my attention, and so I explored how other translations interpret this phrase. The Common English Bible said this: “Before I finished saying this to myself.” The New Living Translation: “Before I had finished praying in my heart” and The Message: “I had barely finished offering this prayer”; both translations understand this to be a prayer.

Prayers are the thoughts that we speak in our hearts. Sometimes we verbalize them; sometimes not. We all hold prayers in our hearts that we long to come to pass. However, not all of them will, especially in such a quick and exact way that the servant’s did. Further, is everything that we speak to ourselves in our hearts prayers? Maybe they are just thoughts or desires or fears that we don’t actually want to offer as a prayer to God. So, how do we know what we speak into our hearts are actually prayers, and how do we know what to pray? I mean, how could the servant actually know to be that exact in his thinking/praying?

This is what I will dig into more deeply in my sermon on Sunday, July 9th, so if you’d like to hear more, I invite you to join us on Zoom or in-person at Ramona UMC (ramonaumc.org for more info), or you can catch the sermon afterwards on my podcast (In the Sanctuary) or on YouTube.
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To get you thinking about this scripture beforehand, I invite you to reflect on these questions this week:
 
What is the role of God in this story? Where do you see God acting?
Who initiates what is spoken in our hearts?     
How does the servant and the others respond to God’s actions?
Do you have to believe in order for God to work through you?
Perhaps reflect on your own “God moment” when God met you right where you were and showed up in a big or mind-blowing way. How did you respond? If you shared your story with others, did they see God’s hand in it?