September 16, 2018
For Joseph, it was all downhill. Joseph started out on top of the world. Joseph was his father’s favorite – and that was a big deal in those days – even though he was not the oldest or even the next oldest. He was the 11th son of Jacob. But Joseph was the first child born to Jacob’s true love, Rachel, so he was his father’s favorite.
Jacob honored Joseph with an expensive coat – the legendary coat of many colors. This made his brothers angry. Joseph didn’t help matters, though. He thought he was pretty special, too. He had successive dreams in which, first, his brothers and, then, his father and his brothers all bowed down to him. And Joseph told them about his dreams.
That made his brothers even more angry. One day, when he came out to the fields, they decided to kill him. The oldest, Reuben, put a stop to it. Still, his brothers stripped him and threw him down into a pit. When some slave traders bound for Egypt passed by, they sold Joseph to them. They ripped up his precious coat and poured lamb’s blood on it. They gave it to their father and told him his favorite son had been mauled by a mountain lion. And Jacob wept like he would die.
When Joseph got down to Egypt, things went well for him. He was sold as a slave to Potiphar, an officer in the pharaoh’s army. He gained Potiphar’s trust. Potiphar put Joseph in charge of his entire household, so that they only thing Potiphar had to do after a long day at the office was to decide what to have for dinner.
But Potiphar’s wife had other designs on Joseph. She tried to seduce him, but he resisted. He kept resisting until one day she trapped him. She grabbed his shirt when he ran. She showed it to Potiphar and claimed that Joseph had tried to force himself on her. Potiphar flew into a rage and had Joseph thrown into the dungeon.
When Joseph went down into the dungeon, things went well for him. He gained the trust of the chief jailer. He cared for the other prisoners. That is how, one day, he met the pharaoh’s cup bearer and the pharaoh’s baker. They both had dreams. Being a dreamer himself, Joseph correctly interpreted their dreams. The cupbearer was restored to his position, but the baker was put to death.
The cupbearer forgot about Joseph, until the pharaoh himself had dreams that no one could understand. The cupbearer remembered Joseph. He was brought up before the pharaoh and he correctly interpreted them. There was great famine that was coming. The pharaoh must prepare during seven good years, Joseph told him, so that they would be ready for the seven lean years.
The pharaoh was so impressed he made Joseph his secretary of agriculture. Joseph instituted a conservation program. Food was saved for seven years, so when the famine came, no one died of hunger.
That is how Joseph’s brothers came to Egypt. Because of this famine, they were hungry. They wanted to buy food. They did not recognize him at first. Joseph toyed with them awhile. But eventually they were reunited. They brought Jacob and the rest of his family to Egypt. The old man lived out his days in peace, knowing that his favorite son was still alive and was restored to him.
At last, Jacob died. The brothers were afraid that Joseph would now seek to revenge what they had done to him. They went to him and said, “On his death bed, our father told us to tell you not to seek revenge on us for what we did to you.”
But Joseph said, “Do not be afraid. Am I in the place of God? What you intended for evil God intended for good, that many people might be saved from hunger, as you can see.”
In this way, Joseph resisted the temptation of the serpent – You will become like God, knowing good and evil. No, Joseph says, I am not God, and I do not truly know good from evil. So, Joseph lived with his brothers in peace.
For Joseph, it was all downhill. He went down to the pit, down to Egypt, down to the dungeon. He did not wallow in self-pity. He did not live a life of regret. He did not curse God. Despite what happened to him, he continued to trust God. He lived a life of service, following God’s way, trusting that God would work everything else out. Out of that trust – despite his suffering, or perhaps because of it – Joseph developed compassion.
It’s all downhill for Jesus, too. Jesus starts out on top, geographically and narratively. In the middle of Mark’s gospel – chapter 8 – he takes the disciples on the long up-hill trek from Bethsaida, north of Galilee, up the slopes of Mount Hermon, to Caesarea Philippi. He is as far north as you can get from Jerusalem and still be in Israel.
Jesus asks them, “Who do people think I am? What are you hearing?”
And the disciples say, “Some think you are John the Baptist. Others think you are Elijah or one of the prophets.”
But then Jesus says, “But you – what do you say about me?”
Peter steps up and says, “You are the Messiah.”
This confession is the high point of the gospel, but it does not mean what they think it means. To their surprise, Jesus tells them, “I don’t want the word to get out. I’m not what people expect. I'm going down to Jerusalem. There I’m going to suffer and be rejected and killed and, after three days, I will rise again.”
This is not what people expect. It’s not what the disciples expect. They expect that the Messiah will be the king. He will cleanse the temple of corruption and take his place as the high priest. He will drive the Roman rascals out and take his place on David’s throne in Jerusalem. He will lead Israel to new heights of glory. This is what Peter expects, too. So, Peter tries to set him straight.
But Jesus sets Peter straight. “You are not thinking like God at all! You are thinking like a man! This is what’s going to happen to me. You better get ready for it, because it’s going to happen to you, too. If you want to find your real self, then you need to set your plans and programs, your agendas and ideas in the trash. The only way to real life is by sacrifice, surrender, and service. It is not a path that goes up. It is a path that goes down... For the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve – to give his life so that many might be free!”
One of the things I did in Wisconsin before we moved to Washington was to teach mindfulness meditation in state prisons. We started in a maximum-security prison and spread from there. I eventually was leading a group in a medium-security facility as well.
At that prison, I met a young man named Rudy. I don’t know what his crime was or how long he had been incarcerated. But one day he told a story.
When he was transferring from maximum-security to medium-security, he decided he had too much stuff and was going to de-clutter his life. Under very strict guidelines, prisoners do actually get to keep certain possessions in their cells. It couldn’t have been much, but Rudy decided it was still too much. So, the only thing he brought with him when he came to that prison was his Bible with all of his favorite Bible passages marked with little pieces of paper.
At security, upon entering the new facility, the guard told him he couldn’t take his Bible in because the pieces of paper were contraband. The officer told Rudy he could remove the pieces of paper or send it to the chaplains’ office for approval, but he couldn’t take it in as it was.
Rudy got really angry. He knew something bad was going to happen, so he stepped back from the guard and began to focus on his breath, just as we had been doing in mindfulness meditation. He calmed down enough in the moment to let the guard take the pieces of paper out of the Bible. He decided he would rather lose his favorite Bible passages than let go of the Bible altogether.
That night after he got moved into his new cell, Rudy was lying in bed and he was still angry. He was still angry at the guard, angry at the rules, angry at the system, which forced him to give up his favorite Bible passages.
Then Rudy started to recite the Bible passages he could remember to himself. One by one, he recited them, until he realized, he could recite them all – every single one. And when he realized that he could recite them all, he felt his anger vanish.
With his anger gone, Rudy said he felt something else. He began to feel compassion for the guard.
The spiritual path is a downward path. This does not mean it is taken in desperation or in despair. It is certainly not a means of self-punishment. Rather, we set out on this path to let go our misconceptions about what we need to be happy, to lose our illusions about the nature of the world, and to begin to change our habituated reactions to life and to the people we encounter.
How do we do this? We may, like Joseph, trust the working and wisdom of God, despite our outward circumstances. We may, like Jesus, not grasp on to what we think is our life, but let go and let God and take the form of a servant. Or we may simply, like Rudy, step back, take a breath, see what’s happening inside of us and then open ourselves to the next best action for ourselves and for others.
Whatever path we take, we embark on it to step beyond our narrow concerns. There we discover something deeper, wider and more powerful than our own ego. We discover a well of compassion – for us and for others – the compassion that is ours in Jesus.
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