God's Crazy Turnaround

When Joseph saw his father placing his right hand on Ephraim's head he was displeased; so he took hold of his father's hand to move it from Ephraim's head to Manasseh's head.  Joseph said to him, "No my father, this one is the firstborn; put your right hand on his head."(Gen. 48:17-18)

God's Crazy Turnaround!
By Rev. William Dohle

I'm convinced: Parents don't realize how their words affect their children.  Not really.

It was eight years ago.  I was driving home with my family back from Utah where my parents and siblings all live.  We had stopped at a gas station just outside town and my father had graciously agreed to pay for our first tank of gas to get us home.

(For some reason I feel like I've shared this story here before...but good stories like this are worth repeating...as we shall see by the Genesis tale where the same theme is repeated again in Joseph's life!).

As we stood there by the pump, my father smiled.  "You know, Billy, your brother is really going to go far in life!"

"Really, Dad..." I said, wondering where he was going with this.

"Yup.  It's funny how different you kids are from each other.  Someday I can see your brother Sam having a big boat and a huge house.  He's going to be the richest one of all of you.  Then he'll have you all out on that boat together and..."

I really don't remember much more from the conversation than that.  I was too busy in my own thoughts.  But those few words stuck in my head.  Maybe you could say they reminded me of our Joseph story for they sounded just like the words Jacob speaks to his sons.  They were words of prophecy, foretelling the future, words of blessing, commending good behavior, and words of cursing, sealing their fates.

When Jacob tells his son, "Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, the first sign of my strength, excelling in honor, excelling in power.  Turbulent as the waters, you will no longer excel..."  I could hear echoes of those words coming from my father.

"Your brother will be the rich one.  In riches he will outdo you..."

True, I know my father loves me and is proud of me.  But at that moment it didn't feel that way.  Maybe it's because I'm the oldest of four and I've always had some form of sibling rivalry going on with my siblings, much like Joseph's family.  Even as an adult, I still feel like I compete for my parents' attention.  And at that very moment, those words hit me in the gut and I felt like the biggest loser of all my siblings.

That feeling, if bottled, might actually be what Joseph and his sons felt as they knelt down at their father Jacob's deathbed.  Joseph had just brought his two boys to their grandfather's bedside.  They knew really nothing of each other.  Each of Joseph's boys(Ephraim and Manasseh) had been born in Egypt with little knowledge of their extended family elsewhere.

Jacob called them over to him.  "Your two sons," he told Joseph, "will be reckoned as mine, just as Reuben and Simeon are mine".   It was an honor.  Joseph's children would become the ancestors of the tribe of Ephraim and the tribe of Manasseh!

Bringing them close to Jacob's bedside, Jacob laid his hands on the two boys' heads.  Ephraim on Jacob's left hand and Manasseh on his right hand.

But when Jacob reached out to touch them, he switched.  Placing his right hand on Ephraim's head, he essentially gave him the blessing that comes from being the oldest, switching their birth orders.

Joseph tries to intervene, but Jacob stops him.  "He too will become a people and he too will become great.  Nevertheless, his younger brother will be greater than he, and his descendants will become a group of nations."


Why he did this?  Why did he switch the birth orders?  Didn't he realize how many problems it might cause?  Didn't he see the sibling rivalry that would ensue?

Maybe he did.  Maybe he remembered what happened with him when he stole his brother's birthright.  Maybe he recalled how God worked through that event.  Maybe Jacob recalled how God chose Jacob, the second born of Isaac, also the second born of Abraham.  Maybe Jacob could see at the end of his life that God's crazy way of turning this world around wasn't stopping with him or even with Joseph, but would continue through his sons and their sons all the way to Jesus.  Maybe Jacob could see that this mistake was no mistake for God!

For in God's craziness, God often chooses the weak to shame the strong.  He chooses the second borns and the third borns, not the first ones, to accomplish His will.  As Paul says: "But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.  God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things--and the things that are not--to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him."(1 Cor. 1:27-29)

So the next time you think to yourself: That person won't amount to anything!  Or the next time you try to figure out what your children will become... stop!  You don't know the mind of God!  God has great plans in store, even for the lowliest among us.  For, it is from bloodline of Judah, a line filled with losers, riddled with sins, peppered with scandals, that Jesus Christ emerges, who is and who was and who ever will be the Lord and Savior of losers everywhere!

With a limited view, Lord, we see the world and each other.  Give us the eyes of Christ that we might see the good and the potential in everyone we meet, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.