The Rev. Dr. Brandon Perrine
Proper 15 A
Genesis 45:1-15
August 16, 2026
Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, “Send everyone away from me.” So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it. Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?” But his brothers could not answer him, so dismayed were they at his presence.
Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come closer to me.” And they came closer. He said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are five more years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here but God who has made me a father to Pharaoh and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, ‘Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me; do not delay. You shall settle in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children, as well as your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. I will provide for you there, since there are five more years of famine to come, so that you and your household and all that you have will not come to poverty.’ And now your eyes and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see that it is my own mouth that speaks to you. You must tell my father how greatly I am honored in Egypt and all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here.” Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, while Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them, and after that his brothers talked with him.
~o~
If you’re feeling like you missed something, you’re likely not alone. A lot seems to have transpired since we met Joseph last week and his brothers sold him into slavery and a caravan bound for Egypt. He was originally bought by an official named Potiphar and quickly rose through the ranks to become manager of his household. Then he was falsely accused of assault by Potiphar’s wife and got thrown in jail.
While behind bars, Joseph quickly earned a reputation for interpreting dreams. When Pharaoh needed help with his dreams, Joseph divined that they portended 7 years of plenty followed by 7 years of drought and famine. Impressed, Pharaoh promoted Joseph to second-in-command and charged him with making preparations. When famine struck, the Egyptians had food to spare and their neighbors came to buy it.
Joseph’s own brothers showed up on his doorstep, hats in hand, to procure the food their families needed to survive. They didn’t recognize him though, and Joseph used the opportunity to test them. He had his own silver cup placed in the grain sack of his younger brother Benjamin and then accused him of stealing. Threatened with enslavement, one of his elder brothers stepped in to take Benjamin’s punishment. Convinced that his brothers had finally learned their lesson, Joseph revealed himself and the family was reunited. Israel and his sons moved to Egypt, and they all lived happily ever after. Not really, though.
This story sets the stage for the great drama of the Exodus that will unfold over the next few weeks. It provides ample fodder for a sermon about the power of forgiveness or divine providence—even a sermon about the experience of migrants seeking sustenance in a strange land. But that’s not what I felt drawn to this week.
What strikes me, even now, is the raw and unfiltered emotion of the whole episode. We rarely get to see that in scripture. The episode begins with Joseph weeping so loudly that the entire household can hear it. His brothers respond with anxious horror as they await retribution. But instead, Joseph comforts them. He embraces his brothers and weeps again. And they weep too. It’s raw and it’s emotional and it rings with authenticity. We know what it’s like to feel deeply, to be overcome with emotion—gratitude, relief, sadness, shock, joy—even to the point of tears. We get to feel those things and while we might share them with others, they belong to us.
And like his feelings, his story also belonged to Joseph. In the retelling of it, Joseph interprets all that’s transpired in the 22 years since his brothers sold him into slavery as preparing him to save his family during their time of hardship. He sees the divine orchestrating every twist and turn in the path, placing him exactly where he ended up in order to fulfill his ultimate destiny. Would everyone feel the same way if they were walking in Joseph’s sandals? Would you? Likely not, but it’s Joseph’s story—Joseph’s life—and he gets to be the one that interprets it. He gets to look back and say that it all happened exactly as it did for a reason. That’s the story he has come to tell about his life. And that brings me to the preachable point of this sermon: we get to decide what meaning we will make from our experiences.
How many times have you heard that “God has a plan” or “everything happens for a reason” or “you wouldn’t be who you are today if X-Y-Z hadn’t happened?” How do things like that make you feel? Is it a comfort? Well-intentioned though they may be, these kinds of platitudes are not likely very helpful. That’s because it isn’t for someone else to interpret the meaning of our experiences—of our lives. That belongs to us.
Joseph could have come to far different conclusions, and that would have been his right. When it’s your experience, you get to interpret its meaning. That said, some interpretations are better for us than others. This isn’t about pretending something painful was actually good, or forcing ourselves to find a silver lining where there isn’t one. Some interpretations help us make meaning from the past while clearing the way for the future—like Joseph’s did for him. Others keep us stuck, unable to let go of the past or move into the future. Sometimes, we need help to get unstuck and that’s where therapists, counsellors, ministers, and friends can help us reinterpret our experiences in ways that free us to move forward.
Joseph’s interpretation of his experiences helped free him to move forward and in the process, it also helped him do several important things. It acknowledges the harm done. He doesn’t pretend his brothers didn’t sell him or that it didn’t hurt to be discarded by his family. It doesn’t erase the past, but it does allow him to release some of his anger. It does reconnect him with them and with the rest of his family. It does open a future in which Joseph gets to decide what comes next for himself. A good interpretation of our lives is one that helps us tell the truth about the past without allowing the past to determine the future. But that doesn’t mean that we’ll find the meaning of our experiences immediately.
Joseph had 22 years to process. We don’t have to know right away what it all means. Truthfully, there may be things we never understand about our experiences. Processing is itself a way of making meaning, even if it’s not all wrapped up like a pretty package in a bow at the end. Sometimes meaning-making begins with: “This happened. It hurt. I don’t understand it. And I’m still here.” That in and of itself can be a meaningful step toward the future. The process is about interpreting our experiences, our past, our lives in ways that allow us to keep living and to keep becoming.
For Joseph, the process helped him move from betrayal to reconciliation, from victimhood to agency, from isolation to relationship, from past to future. Joseph’s interpretation, his meaning-making, wasn’t just an intellectual exercise. It changed how he lived. It enabled him to become someone who could imagine a future beyond what had happened to him. And perhaps that is what meaning-making can do for us, too: not tell us why everything happened, but help us decide what comes next.
May it be so. Amen.
