The Coat of Many Colors

The story of Joseph is one of the best known stories in the Bible (Genesis 37-50) and in the Quran.  Every Jewish and Muslim child and every Sunday school student is familiar with it.  Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice made the story known to an even wider audience a few years ago in their popular operetta Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat.  

The story began in today’s Palestine, Syria and Israel around 1650 BC.  Joseph was the 11th of 12 sons of a nomad named Jacob and his second wife Rachel.  Jacob doted on Joseph because Joseph was a product of his old age and the firstborn of his beloved Rachel.  (Rachel also gave birth to second son, Benjamin). Joseph was spoiled.  This was demonstrated when his father gave him that coat of many colors. His ten “half” brothers were jealous, not only of the many colored coat, but offended even more by Joseph’s arrogance and egoism (he had weird dreams that always put him on top of everybody else).

The “half” brothers took revenge by selling Joseph as a slave to a passing caravan.  They faked his death by rubbing goat’s blood into the coat of many colors and thought that would be the end of the story.  But it wasn’t.  

Joseph got to Egypt somehow or another and became an important figure, interpreting the dreams of the Pharaoh, and eventually became Prime Minister.  There was a famine in the land and Joseph’s “half” brothers needed food.  They went down into Egypt to get it.  There they discovered their brother.  Joseph gave them food, but told them that on their next visit they must bring Benjamin, Rachel’s second son, who had remained at home.  (I’m trying to make a long story short.  Jacob and his family, at Joseph’s invite, finally moved to Egypt. That’s how, years later, the Hebrews became slaves there, but that’s another story).

Now when Joseph told his brothers the terms of their receiving further help to save them and their families from the famine in their country (they must bring their younger brother Benjamin) he said, in words that God may be speaking to us today:  “Except you bring your brother with you, you shall not see my face.”

It seems to me that is the most important part of the whole story.  You must bring your brother with you.  It echoes an earlier question posed in the Book of Genesis when God inquired of Cain:  “Where is your brother?”  “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Cain responded.  “Yes” seems to be the divine answer and that answer is reiterated in the story of Joseph. “Except you bring your brother with you, you shall not see my face.”  We must bring our brothers and sisters (as varied as that coat of many colors) with us!

"It was King’s dream to build what he called “the beloved community” in America—a society based on simple justice that values the dignity and the worth of every human being." (John Lewis)