STUDY

The Very Rev Colin Sinclair considers the lessons from Joseph’s incarceration, detailed in Genesis 40.

DOING the right thing doesn’t always feel right! 

Joseph is in prison, not because he did wrong but because he did right. Here is the single most important fact about Genesis 40; at the beginning Joseph is in prison; at the end he is in prison. That’s not fair, but there it is.

For some people their situation does not change, at least not at once. Waiting for change that doesn’t come can be very hard. It may be about your work or health or money or relationships. The question remains, are you willing to wait for God?

For Joseph there is nothing else he can do. He can’t get out of prison, he can’t appeal his sentence, and he certainly can’t escape. He’s stuck in an Egyptian prison, far from home where they think he’s dead anyway. He has been falsely accused of rape by Potiphar’s wife. You don’t have too many friends in that situation. So he waits. Remember, unlike us, he doesn’t know what is going to happen. He had no inside knowledge how it would end. Yet once again he buckled down and starting winning trust by his willingness and work ethic. He was given responsibility for prison life and the Lord was with him. What will that mean?

Joseph has to wait to see what happens next. We probably all have things we are waiting for. In life the drama is small and waiting forms a large part of the rest. However, through this period of imprisonment Joseph grew up. It prepared him for future responsibilities. He just built his own daily routine. Life had to be lived a day at a time and he made the best of what he had been given and got on with the next thing that had to be done, as best as he could.

“ The only people who can help him think he’s dead, or they think he committed a vile crime, or they have forgotten him completely.

After some time he found he was being asked to share his cell with two others, a cup-bearer and a baker. He quickly won their trust and they shared with him the dreams they had had. Little did he know that his involvement with them would eventually open a door for himself. Dreams are woven into the Joseph stories, both his and others, and they play a crucial role. Joseph’s willingness to interpret his cellmates’ dreams shows he had not given up on his own dreams. He trusted that God could show him their meaning, for prison was no barrier to God.

So he listened to them and to God and, without hesitation, he explained the meaning of their dreams, for good and for ill. What he said would happen came to pass, death for one, life for the other. Joseph asked the cupbearer to put in a good word for him, but his response proved to be a “piecrust promise”, easily made and quickly broken. He forgot all about Joseph. Instead a further two years of imprisonment lay ahead.

But the clock was ticking and his release would come, but not yet. The only people who can help him think he’s dead, or they think he committed a vile crime, or they have forgotten him completely. What do you do then? He seems to have hit a dead end. However, it all depends on how big your God is.

Wait and see!