Bible Challenge Day 17: Spiritual Growth (Genesis 43-45; Matthew 15)

I did not really agree with the Bible Challenge author on Joseph. He seems to like Joseph. Maybe it is because I am an eldest child, but Joseph seems to me to have started out pretty obnoxious and to have become positively cruel by the end. I suppose I have to give him credit for forgiving his brothers . . . .

But the character who is more interesting to me is Judah. He is the one who originally proposed selling Joseph into slavery (37:26-28). In the next story, he does not do right, including impregnating his daughter-in-law! But Tamar (the daughter-in-law) shames him, and he actually grows up. At the climax of the Joseph story, Judah is the one who offers himself as a slave in place of his brother Benjamin (44:33). He has come a long way! Joseph is so moved that he finally reveals himself to his brothers. So the real interest of the whole story to me is less Joseph’s rise to greatness than Judah’s growth in love and responsibility.

I would not want to push this argument too far, but it is possible to see a similar growth in Jesus. When he sent out his disciples to preach and heal, he was explicit: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samarians, but go rather to the lost sheep of Israel” (Matt 10:5-6). In our story he repeats his commitment to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (15:24) and compares a Canaanite woman to a dog. That seems pretty narrow minded. But when the woman persists, Jesus changes his tune, heals her daughter, and praises her faith. I do not know exactly what to make of this, except to say that Jesus’ mission broadens, and it happens in our reading for today.

I love seeing these stories of growth—they always give me hope!

 

Fr. Harvey Hill