Sermon: Genesis 42:1-25 - Joseph Series, October 11, 2026
Scripture: Genesis 42:1-25
Preacher: Ryan Slifka
Sermon: Genesis 42:1-25 - Joseph Series,
Here we are—finally. Opportunities like this only come once in a lifetime. Rarely does life hand you something so perfect and sweet on a silver platter. But here it is.
I am speaking of course, of the fact that nearly all our hero Joseph’s brothers end up in Egypt. Joseph’s brothers, the ones who stripped him naked and tossed him in a pit when he was seventeen years old, then sold him into slavery in Egypt, claiming he was dead. Joseph has–by God’s grace–made it all the way to Prime Minister of Egypt. They lie prostrate before their little brother, bowing down and begging not only for enough food to make it through the famine, but for their very lives. Not only that, but the dream he had way back when–the little sheafs of wheat bowing down to the big one–that’s coming true right here and now. His brothers are taking the knee.
Of course, Joseph’s much older, and done up in the elaborate style of the Egyptian court, so they have no idea that it’s him. And he uses this to play with them a bit, to make them sweat.
“You’ve just come to see the nakedness of the land!” he booms, accusing them of being spies. Of course, you’ll remember that’s one of the things that made his brothers want to kill him way back when. He spied on them while they were out shepherding. He tattled to their dad, Jacob, that they weren’t doing a very good job. So Joseph’s not only like a cat toying with his prey, he’s like the mouse who’s somehow strapped the cat into a chair and is ready to zap it over and over again with a taser. Who’s the spy now?
Then to cap it all off he tosses them all in prison. “I’ll only let you out,” he says, “I’ll only believe you if your dad sends your youngest brother to Egypt to prove it.” They want their freedom, their brother’s gotta come here as corroborating evidence. Then, only then, maybe you’ll go home with some grain.
Of course, he already knows that they’re telling the truth. By throwing them in prison, he’s just giving them a taste of the same medicine they doled out to him the moment they tossed him in that pit and sold him into Egypt. He’s just taking what the scriptures call “an eye for an eye.”[i] He’s turning the knife, the same one that they shoved into his back. Finally, finally, finally… sweet revenge. Joseph finally gets the opportunity to give them what they deserve.
Of course, Joseph’s not alone.
No doubt about it, for some of us, some of you, there’s somebody that comes to mind. Cruel older brothers, maybe. Or maybe even your mom or your dad. Your ex-husband or wife–I’ll be honest for people that a big one. Somebody at work, a criminal, even somebody way back when in school. Or a complete stranger. Somebody who hurt you, humiliated you, caused you great suffering, great pain, somebody whose callousness changed the trajectory of your life. Most of us have got somebody, big or little. You’ve got somebody. And if you don’t—the rest of us can be jealous.
Like, Joseph is living our ultimate fantasy–to finally have them right there in there in the palm of our hands, ready to extract our pound of flesh. Not just to kick them, or wound them, kill them even. But to make them suffer on the way. To finally feel what they made us feel.
Just imagine how many times Joseph’s rolled this all around in his head, how many times he’s stared at the bedroom ceiling in the middle of the night wishing, praying, even for a moment like this… here he finally gets it. I say “imagine” because I know a lot of us have imagined the same thing.
You could say here Joseph is livin’ the dream. A dream that you and I have had. Where the ones who hurt us finally get what they deserve. And make no mistake, they do deserve it. If only were given the same opportunity Joseph’s given. Then we could give them their just desserts.
And yet… spoiler alert–Joseph doesn’t go through with it. In fact, the brothers only end up wearing those orange prison jumpsuits for three days. It appears that over those three days, Joseph has a change of heart. After three days he lets them all out, and he changes the plan.
“Instead of keeping all of you here,” he says, “I’m only gonna keep one to make sure you return. But all the rest of you, go home to your people.” And then Joseph has his servants shove his brothers’ bags full of grain. Joseph has his servants return their possessions–including silver–and then send them on their way with provisions–everything they need to make the journey home, and enough to feed their families. For a while anyway.
He’s got the winning lottery ticket in his hand, but Joseph doesn’t cash it. He has the chance to take the vengeance we’ve all dreamed about, but he doesn’t crush them, even though they deserve it. The law of Moses sets punishment as proportional: “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” Joseph would be within his rights to answer prison with prison, suffering with suffering. Yet he does not give them the punishment they deserve.
But instead he forgives them. He doesn’t say it. And we’re not quite there entirely yet. But that’s what he ultimately begins here. He releases them from punishment. And he not only forgives them, he sends them home with everything they came for… and more. In spite of everything his brothers have done to him. In spite of the fact that they deserve it. Rather than exacting the vengeance he’s owed, Joseph forgives instead. He forgives instead.
Is this what you’d do if you were in his position?
Like I said, we’ve all got at least someone big or little who comes to mind. Somebody who’s hurt us. Somebody who deserves at least the same they’ve done to us. Like, most of us are the products of hundreds of years of Christian culture. We know forgiveness is a good thing, something we should do. We’ve seen countless groups and cultures destroy themselves, caught in cycles of violence and retribution. We see just how necessary it is.
We can even sit back and nod when we see it happen, look at other people caught up in their resentments, and say, geez this guy’s just gotta let it go already. But when we’re actually confronted with it ourselves, it’s not so easy. Like, we all have petty grievances we carry around with us, just waiting for the chance to exert our little amount of power Joseph-style. And these are just little slights–nobody ever through us in a pit! It’s hard enough to forgive the little things, let alone the big ones!
Why? Because forgiveness is hard. It’s letting go of the justice that we’re owed. It’s so hard, one of the hardest things to do. I’d like to think I’d do what Joseph does. But maybe I know my own heart well enough to suspect that with me it could go either way. We may know it’s good, and it’s right, and it’s necessary. But that doesn’t make it any easier.
So how do we do it, then? How do we forgive, especially when others deserve our resentment, our wrath, our punishment?
Well, the Christian answer is that we start by considering how God has dealt with us. That’s a start. What do I mean?
Like just about every other week before this one, Joseph’s story points us forward to Jesus.
In the same way that Joseph was betrayed and wounded by his brothers, the Creator of the universe has been wounded by us. That’s our understanding. We don’t just sin against other people when we hurt them, we actually sin against God.
Which seems unfair. But every human being is made in the divine image and belongs to the Creator. Just as wounding a child wounds their parent, hurting one of God’s creatures hurts God. Like Joseph, God has been betrayed and wounded by us.
Indeed, in the same way that Joseph knows the truth about his own brothers, the Creator of the universe has seen and knows every single thing we’ve ever done. And, like Joseph, who is well within his rights to condemn his brothers, the Creator of the universe–by virtue of being the Creator of the universe–is well within her rights to condemn us for all the things we have done, and left undone. All the ways we have not loved our neighbours as ourselves.
And yet! And yet! Like Joseph, who did not give his brothers what they deserved. Joseph, who, rather than locking them away forever, three days later he gave them life again, filling their packs with grain. Like Joseph, Jesus in his death on the cross has taken everything that we deserve. And in his resurrection three days later he has not only given us life again. But fills our packs with the bread of eternal life.
Rather than rightly condemning us for our transgressions, in Jesus Christ, the Creator of the universe has not only forgiven us, but given us our lives back and more. Like Joseph with his brothers, God has dealt with us not by condemnation. But by forgiveness. And that’s where our forgiveness flows from. “Forgive our trespasses,” we pray every week in the Lord’s prayer. “As we forgive those who trespass against us.
The late Desmond Tutu—Anglican Archbishop and one of the leaders of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa—was often asked how he could be so stridently committed to forgiveness towards those who kept him and his people in racist bondage for so long.
On one hand, some thought that it was an “easy” option, one that let wrongdoers off the hook without getting what they deserved. On the other hand, people marvelled at the capacity to forgive, and thought it impossible to do for themselves.
Tutu, however, saw it as neither easy, nor impossible. In one lecture he gave in America his response was this: “Forgiveness is not cheap, is not facile. It is costly. Reconciliation is not an easy option.” “After all,” he said, “it cost God the death of his Son.”[ii] Reconciliation is not an easy option… after all, it cost God the death of his own Son.
Tutu recognized that forgiveness is a truly difficult thing, not a cheap or easy option. But he was able to do that difficult work of forgiveness, and to encourage reconciliation among his people because he knew that God had gone through all the difficulty of forgiving him. Forgiving us. This is what I think Joseph means when he tells his brothers that he frees thembecause he “fears God.” He fears what will happen to him if he’s unable to show his brothers the kind of grace he’s been shown by God from day one. And throughout his many ordeals.
We’re able to forgive by first understanding our own forgiveness. That, in the words of the Apostle Paul, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.” And he gives us that same ministry of reconciliation in response. And we do it by understanding our own forgiveness.
So, dear friends, as you consider your own life, those who have wounded you, those who have caused you pain. Those who, like Joseph’s brother’s deserve your condemnation. May you also consider this: not only the power, but the necessity of forgiveness. Not simply that we must forgive. But that we can forgive, are able to forgive, on account of the great forgiveness that has been poured out on us all by our gracious God.
May this same gracious God grant you the same spirit of forgiveness that he gave Joseph, and may it give you only a sense of freedom from anger and resentment. And may it also break the cycle of loathing, and vengeance and violence for the sake of the world God loves.
May you forgive as you are forgiven, knowing in the deepest part of who you are, that on account of the God we meet in Jesus Christ, none of us get what we truly deserve. And thank God for that.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[i] See Deuteronomy 19:21.
[ii] Desmond Tutu, quoted in Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 115.