“Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” - Genesis 50:15-26
Reflection by Judy Huntington
Do not be afraid. These words were spoken by Joseph to his brothers, who had sold him into slavery for 20 pieces of silver and who feared retribution now that they were dependent upon him. Joseph recognizes that it was their intent to do him harm but that through God’s will good has come from their evil actions. He will not punish them.
Human history is full of wars and suffering caused by the all-too-human desire to get even, sometimes disguised as a desire for fairness or justice. Most of us have a hard place in our hearts where we nurture grudges against people who have deliberately tried to harm us, and we secretly wish they could be in our power, even if only for an instant, so that we could obtain justice. How much we could learn from Joseph!
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught, “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” This is a jarring statement about the essential unfairness of life, where good things happen to bad people. How we deal with this unfairness is a measure of how well we have internalized this basic Christian message. In his I Have a Dream speech, August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King expressed his theological understanding of this principle: unearned suffering is redemptive. And is not redemption the purpose of our lives?
