It’s Time for a Family Reunion - Sermon for Pentecost 12A (Genesis 45:1-15)
In just a few days, I will be flying out to Oregon for my fiftieth High School reunion. Since this year is the 250th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence from British rule, that means I’m a bicentennial graduate! During my senior year, the bicentennial celebration dominated life at school. I was even part of a color guard that wore Revolutionary-era uniforms as we led the band in parades. Of course, that was a long time ago. I won’t be dressing up in a Revolutionary-era costume for the reunion, but I am looking forward to reconnecting with classmates, some of whom I’ve not seen in fifty years.
Our reading this morning from Genesis 45 speaks of another kind of reunion, the reunion of a very dysfunctional family. That reunion would involve the estranged sons of Jacob. This estrangement was rooted in paternal favoritism, arrogance on the part of one brother, and jealousy on the part of others, which led to a conspiracy to sell the offending brother into slavery in Egypt. The brother who was sold into slavery was Joseph, the son of Jacob’s favorite wife, Rachel. Joseph’s older brothers conspired against him because Joseph not only had an annoying habit of telling his brothers that he was their father’s favorite son, but he would also tell them about his dreams in which they would one day bow before him. You can see why there might be problems in this family.
Now, there are different kinds of family reunions. Some of you may participate in regularly scheduled reunions in which the extended family gathers at a favorite spot for fun, food, and games. These family reunions can be awkward and uncomfortable if a family feud has taken place. There might be an empty seat or two because certain family members feel unwelcome or excluded from the family. So, while some family members receive the invitation to the reunion with great joy, others will receive it with dread.
I come from a rather small and scattered family, so reunions rarely occur. In fact, it took my mother’s memorial service early in 2025 to bring together members of the family, some of whom I hadn’t seen in more than fifty years. I will confess, I was blessed to reconnect with a cousin and a half-uncle I hadn’t seen since I was in high school. While my experience isn’t quite the same as Joseph’s, I can identify with his joy at being reunited with long-lost family members. In his case, the reunion would lead to reconciliation between Joseph and his estranged brothers.
Joseph, as I’ve noted, represents the many dysfunctional families we find in Scripture. Here in Genesis, there is Cain’s decision to murder his brother Abel because God preferred Abel’s offering to his own. Then there is Abraham’s decision to send into exile in the wilderness his second wife, Hagar, and firstborn son, Ishmael. Then there is the story of Joseph’s father, Jacob, who tricked his brother Esau out of his birthright, after struggling for primacy in the womb. So, it’s not surprising that Jacob’s sons might have their own family problems, especially since they had different mothers.
So, I imagine this reunion between Joseph and his brothers was a bit awkward and uncomfortable. Joseph may have been delighted to be reunited with his brothers, but his brothers were suspicious of his motives. Besides, Joseph had put them through the wringer before he revealed himself to them. So, as the narrator tells us, his brothers were dismayed, or even terrified, when he revealed himself to them. You can understand why, especially since he had the power of life and death in his hands. I’m sure they were feeling just a bit guilty about selling him into slavery and then telling their father that Joseph had been eaten by a wild animal. But Joseph isn’t out for revenge. So this story that could have turned out very badly becomes a story of forgiveness and reconciliation, and isn’t that a word that’s needed today?
Dysfunctional families are common. Many families have experienced divorces, whether with a partner or as a child in the family. Many young adults are delaying marriage or forgoing it altogether because they’re not sure the institution is still workable. Parents and children fight with each other. Siblings may do the same, especially when it comes time to divide their parents’ estate. Marriage and family therapists are rather busy these days helping people navigate the challenges they face in their daily lives.
But it’s not just families. Churches, communities, states, and nations can be dysfunctional. When it comes to churches, there are all kinds of specialists who serve a similar role as a marriage and family counselor, helping churches overcome the dysfunction they face as a community. If only there were a similar kind of specialist to work with our governmental institutions!
Joseph held the lives of his brothers in his hands when he revealed himself to them. He could have had them arrested and imprisoned or worse, but he wanted a family reunion. So, even though he was effectively the Prime Minister of Egypt, he recognized he was part of a family that needed to be reunited. So, Joseph had an opportunity to choose forgiveness so he could bind up the wounds of his family. He chose to invite his brothers to retrieve their father and settle down in Goshen so their broken family could experience healing.
Joseph told his brothers not to be afraid of him because what they had done in anger ultimately served God’s purposes. Because they sold him into slavery, Joseph rose to a position of power in Egypt that not only allowed him to provide for the people of Egypt during a time of famine, but he could do the same for his family. So he told his brothers not to be afraid of him or angry with themselves because of what took place in the past. Things worked out in support of the covenant God had made with Abraham.
In the reading from Romans 11, we hear Paul tell the church in Rome that even though his own people had resisted the messiahship of Jesus, God hadn’t rejected God’s people. The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable, which means the family bonds can’t be broken. So, Paul envisions a time of reconciliation between Jew and Gentile through the ministry of Christ (Rom. 11:1-2a, 29-32). So, Joseph told his brothers: God has used me in this place to rescue you from this famine, and with you all of Egypt.
Although the reading from Genesis, along with what Paul has to say in Romans 11, can be interpreted in such a way that God is essentially a puppet master, overriding our freedom to choose, I believe that Joseph had a choice here. He could have turned his back on his family, but he didn’t. Instead, he saw this reunion as an opportunity to heal the pain of estrangement that he and his family had experienced. So, Joseph chose to partner with God in bringing reconciliation to his family and their descendants so they could fulfill their calling to be a blessing to the peoples of the earth.
As I ponder the story of Joseph’s reunion with his brothers, with my own high school reunion ahead of me, there’s another family reunion story that comes to mind that involves reconciliation within a family. You may know this story because it is from a famous movie about a man named Ray Kinsella who hears a voice that tells him to build a baseball field in the middle of a corn field. Ray hears this voice that tells him: “If you build it, he will come.” The question that is left hanging throughout the movie, Field of Dreams, concerns who it is that will come if he builds this baseball field that could easily bankrupt his family. Is it Shoeless Joe Jackson, the disgraced member of the 1919 Chicago White Sox? Is it the author and activist of the 1960s, Terrance Mann, who really wants to be left alone and not be reminded of his former fame? Is it Moonlight Graham, the now deceased doctor who had made it to the majors, but never got to bat? Is it any of these figures, whose pain he believes he needs to heal by building this field? I hope this won’t come as a spoiler since this movie came out several decades back, but as the movie closes, the ghost of Shoeless Joe points to Ray and tells Ray that it is his pain that needs to be eased. In that moment, Ray spots this young baseball player getting ready to enter a game with other legends of the long past. Ray realizes that it’s his long-dead father, who once had a dream of a major league career, with whom Ray had been estranged since he was a young man. In a scene that always brings tears to my eyes, Ray asks his father’s ghost, who appears as he was as a young baseball player, a version of his father he never knew: “Hey Dad, . . . You wanna have a catch?” And his father says, “I’d like that.” In that moment, we watch a family reunion take place. The pain of two men, long estranged, is eased. This is the message that has been given to us, such that the pain we help ease may be our own.
Preached by:
Dr. Robert D. Cornwall
Pulpit Supply
Tyrone Community Presbyterian Church (PCUSA)
Tyrone Township, MI
August 16, 2026
Pentecost 12A
Image attribution: Swanson, John August. Story of Joseph, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt University Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://act.library.vanderbilt.edu/artworks/56562 [retrieved August 15, 2026]. Original source: Estate of John August Swanson, https://www.johnaugustswanson.com/.
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