An End to the Secrets--June 16, 2023

An End to the Secrets--June 16, 2023

"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...." [Genesis 45:4-7]

So many times in our lives, we are afraid of people finding out "the truth" because we're worried it will wreck our relationships with them.  But sometimes the truth is the thing we were waiting for to remove an obstacle that had been keeping us apart.  Sometimes when truth is spoken, we are at last able to reconcile.

I need to remember that, and so I find in this story much needed hope.  This is a story that reminds us all how truth-telling can be what brings us together.  You are likely familiar with the story of Joseph and his brothers (the same Joseph who becomes the central character in the rock opera "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," if you're an Andrew Lloyd Webber fan), and how those brothers had sold young Joseph into slavery because they hated him.  You might also know that, through a dramatic journey of twists and turns, Joseph ends up rising from slavery and imprisonment for a crime he did not commit to becoming the chief advisor of Pharaoh and that he develops a plan to get both Egypt and the surrounding lands through the seven years of famine that have fallen up on the region.   So at long last, after decades of separation, Joseph's brothers come to Egypt seeking food but convinced that their long-lost brother is either dead or still enslaved somewhere far away--and eventually, Joseph himself reveals who he is.  It is the truth, "I am your brother," that allows them to restore their relationship.  It is the speaking of that truth that allows love to hold them together once again.

It can be very easy in our own lives to think that the family secrets, unspoken histories, and difficult truths of our lives need to stay hidden and buried.  From long-lost siblings to "black sheep" that just aren't talked about to scandals of a previous generation, families sometimes keep secrets in the name of avoiding trouble or hurt feelings.  So often, the question is left hanging, "What good could it do if So-and-So found out the truth?" or it's stated directly, "Telling them what really happened would only cause more heartache, so we need to keep this secret."  But Joseph's story suggest the opposite--that truth-telling can be the way we finally can put the past behind us because we can finally deal with it.  Like James Baldwin says, "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."  What Joseph does, at long last, is to finally face the truth that his brothers thought they had buried for good, and to help them face it as well.  I'm sure it wasn't easy to have that conversation, and I'm sure there were tears all around--but all of it was what allowed love to hold them together after so long apart.

I don't know what things you are dealing with in your life--if there are family secrets you've been pressured to keep, or taboo topics that "we just don't talk about," or questions you're not allowed to ask about, or chapters of history that are left blank.  And I make no promise that bringing those things out into the open will be easy or painless or without resistance.  But I would say at least that Joseph's story dares us to imagine what good might come from truth-telling, even if we have a hard time imagining that it could be so.  Maybe it's time to pick up the phone, set somebody free from the truths they've been forced to hide, or to encourage someone to end their silence so that everyone can be healed.  Maybe it's time to speak difficult truths so that they can be faced... and so that there can be healing, rather than letting old wounds fester.

Today, let's dare to be truthful, so that love can grow.

Lord God, give us the courage to hear and to speak the truth, so that reconciliation can happen where we need it.