Blogging Genesis 48-50
Then Israel charged his sons and said to them: “I am to be gathered to my people; bury me with my
fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite. . . There
they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife, there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his
wife, and there I buried Leah. . . And when Jacob had finished
commanding his sons, he drew his feet up into the bed and breathed his last,
and was gathered to his people (Genesis 49: 29 - 33).
In his letter to the early church in Ephesus, Paul explained
how to live as a good Christian in a world and in a church where other people
don’t always live like good Christians.
Drawing on Old Testament advice from Psalms 4:4, the apostle said, “Be angry, and do not sin”: do not let the
sun go down on your wrath (Ephesians 4: 26).
As a pastor who’s performed, it seems like, a LOT of
funerals I’ve noticed a trend in obituaries where instead of “birth – death”
the program will say “sunrise – sunset.”
The image of death as a sunset is beautiful and perhaps comforting but combined
with Paul’s advice it’s also challenging.
Challenging because a fair number of Christians
enter the sunset of their lives as Jacob, aka Israel did. It isn’t a state that negates one’s salvation,
but it is a state that can have far-reaching negative consequences. So, please don’t go out like Jacob did.
And he died often.
Jacob was like that old auntie who sends for the whole family in June because
the Lord is calling her home and she gets out of the hospital 2 days later; then
she calls the whole family to her bedside in October because the Lord is
calling her home and she gets out of the hospital that afternoon; and next
August she sends a message that can you fly in because she wants to see you one
last time before the Lord calls her home and when you get to the hospital they’ve
already discharged her, etc., etc.
Jacob was at death’s door when he first thought that
Joseph had been killed
And all
his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him; but he refused to be
comforted, and he said, “For I shall go down into the grave to my son in
mourning.” Thus his father wept for him (Genesis 37:35).
And, when he reunited with Joseph.
And
Israel said to Joseph, “Now let me die, since I have seen your face, because
you are still alive” (Genesis 46:30).
And, when he called in Joseph to explain his wishes
for his funeral.
When the
time drew near that Israel must die, he called his son Joseph and said to him.
. . Please do not bury me in Egypt, but let me lie with my fathers; you shall
carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burial place”
(Genesis 47:29-30).
And, when he amended his will to include two of his
grandsons.
Now it
came to pass after these things that Joseph was told, “Indeed your father is
sick”; and he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim (Genesis
48:1).
But when the Lord did actually, finally call Jacob
home, Israel went out in a blaze of bitterness.
First of all, he made Joseph’s sons joint-heirs with
their uncles.
And now
your two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, who were born to you in the land of Egypt
before I came to you in Egypt, are mine; as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be
mine. Your offspring whom you beget after them shall be yours; they will be
called by the name of their brothers in their inheritance (Genesis
48:5-6).
The firstborn son is assigned the double inheritance.
So basically, on his deathbed, Jacob-Israel told his 10 oldest sons “I never
really liked ya’ll anyway. As far as I’m
concerned, Joseph is my firstborn.”
To Jacob’s credit, he didn’t publicly call out his
sons for selling Joseph into slavery.
Joseph had forgiven them and Jacob apparently let that go, too. But, Jacob did use his dying breaths to go all
the way back to the oldest of old offenses that his eldest 3 sons had every
committed.
In his last words, Father Jacob cursed his eldest
children.
“Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might
and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity and the excellency
of power. Unstable as water, you
shall not excel, because you went up to your father’s bed; then you
defiled it. He went up to my couch.
“Simeon and Levi are brothers; instruments
of cruelty are in their dwelling place. Let not my soul enter their council; let
not my honor be united to their assembly;
for in their anger they slew a man, And in their self-will they
hamstrung an ox. Cursed be their
anger, for it is fierce; And their wrath, for it is cruel! I will divide
them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel” (Genesis 49:3-7).
Jacob dumped that on his sons and their descendants inherited
the emotional baggage of their grandfather’s curse.
Imagine being a Reubenite, Simeonite, or Levite
(like Moses) for the next 500-plus years.
Imagine that every time you heard or spoke the name of your nation you
remembered that the father of your nation cursed your community ---- with his
dying breath.
(Cough . . . cough. George Washington was a slaveowner
until the day he died and Thomas “all men are created equal” Jefferson’s will
only emancipated 5 of his dozens of slaves and those 5 did not include Sally
Hemmings the slave by whom the married Jefferson had at least 6 children . . .
cough . . . cough)
That’s a lot of emotional baggage to pass down through
the generations.
You might even expect some of those the descendants to
carry some latent rage.
And a
man of the house of Levi went and took as wife a daughter of Levi. 2 So
the woman conceived and bore a son. . . And when she saw that he was a
beautiful child, she hid him three months. 3 But when she could
no longer hide him, she took an ark of bulrushes for him, daubed it with
asphalt and pitch, put the child in it, and laid it in the reeds by the
river’s bank. . . And the child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh’s
daughter, and he became her son. So she called his name Moses. . . when
Moses was grown. . . he saw an
Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren. So he looked this way and that
way, and when he saw no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand (Exodus
2:1-12).
You might expect some of those descendants to carry
some self-hate.
Jacob was an important man whose words of blessing
and words of cursing had profound consequences.
But Jacob was just a man.
No man’s words to you or about you is the final say,
not even if they’re your father’s final words, not even if the words are a
prophetic declaration.
God alone has the last say about you and your
destiny.
The descendants of Levi were divided among and
scattered across the tribes of Israel, but not as nomads or vagabonds. God made the Levites the tribe of priests and
judges. Jacob said: let not my honor be united to
their assembly. God overruled Jacob
and gave Levi the united honor of all Israel.
Daddy or granddaddy or founding fathers declare
their opinion, preference, and predictions about who you and your people are
and can be. But you don’t have to
conform to that. Those historic men were
important, but those men aren’t God. Prove
them wrong. Succeed anyway.
Jacob-Israel installed Joseph as his firstborn,
intending for descendants of his 11th son to rule over all the
others. But Judah and his descendants
didn’t care.
Now the
sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel—he was indeed the firstborn, but because
he defiled his father’s bed, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph,
the son of Israel, so that the genealogy is not listed according to the
birthright; yet Judah prevailed over his brothers, and from him came a ruler,
although the birthright was Joseph’s (1 Chronicles 5:1-2).
Israel died old-man angry and bestowed an
unnecessarily painful legacy on a segment of his population. Don’t die angry. Don’t let the sun set on bitter words that
God has to spend generations undoing.
And if you are living in the shadow of an angry parents’
death ----- defy them.
Succeed anyway.
Define your legacy for yourself. Prevail.
The Levites defied Father Israel’s curse and gave us
the Moses, the Law, and the sacrifices that laid the foundation for the gospel. The
sons of Judah defied Father Israel’s expectations, defined their own legacy,
and gave us kings and psalmists and books of wisdom and the Bible’s dirty love Song
---- and Jesus.
Don’t let an angry sunset determine the rest of your
days.
--Anderson
T. Graves II is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education,
ministry, and rural leadership development.
Rev.
Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama. He
writes a blog called A Word to the Wise at
www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
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