“When Those Who Should Love You Hurt You” [Following God in Real Life Summer Series #10] - Fr. Pete's Sermon for August 9th, 2026, the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

Genesis 37:1–4, 12–28

This is one of those Sundays when we’ll probably want to take a few pictures. Today we celebrate Jean Smith’s 104th birthday, which is itself an amazing gift and blessing to us all. We also give thanks as we install new members of our St. Timothy’s chapter of the Daughters of the King, and as we launch our Junior Daughters of the King. So Dan and others will be taking photos during the service, and then, during fellowship, I’m sure there will be lots more photos as we celebrate Jean’s birthday with cake—because, of course, if there is a party, there should be photographic evidence.

And I love that, because photographs help us remember. They capture special moments in the life of a family, a church, a community. Years from now, someone may look back at the pictures from today and say, “Look how young they were,” or “Remember when we started Junior Daughters?” or maybe, “Who chose that outfit?”

Because, you know, every so often on Facebook or Instagram, someone will post their family photos from many years ago. A Christmas picture, a family reunion, or one of those formal portraits taken in a department store where everyone is posed in front of a fake background. And remember the old church directory photos?

Usually the first thing you notice in such photos is the clothes they’re wearing. The plaid pants. The wide collars. The leisure suits. And then there are the hairstyles: feathered, sprayed, curled, blown out, or otherwise engineered into shapes that seem physically improbable.

Of course, at the time, everyone thought they looked great. Stylish, even. Which is a humbling reminder that forty years from now, someone may look at pictures of us we post and say, “What were they thinking?”

Old family photographs are fascinating for another reason too. Everyone is posed, smiling, or at least trying. Everyone appears to belong. The picture shows who was there, but it never tells the whole story. It can’t show the argument that happened in the car on the way. It can’t show the sibling rivalry, the hurt someone carried home afterward.

Families can offer love, joy, and belonging. But they can also cause wounds that linger for years.

We’ve been on our Summer Sermon Road Trip through Genesis for a couple of months now. Now the story moves to the story of Joseph. Once again, Genesis tells the truth about families. Joseph is the beloved son of Israel (formerly known as Jacob). Rachel is his mother. Genesis says plainly that Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other children. And we’ve heard this pattern before. In the previous generation, Isaac loved Esau, and Rebekah loved Jacob. Favoritism in a family is never a small detail. It affects everything. (Of course, I was my mother’s favorite!)

Jacob gives Joseph a special cloak, a “long robe with sleeves,” this translation says, but it’s also translated “an ornamented robe” and “a coat of many colors.” They did a Broadway musical about this, remember? “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” But whatever exactly the garment looked like, and scholars don’t agree, its meaning was clear. Joseph was special, the favorite. And his brothers hated him for it.

Genesis says they hated him so much they could not speak nicely to him. That’s scary. Before his brothers throw Joseph into a pit, before they sell him into slavery, the relationship is already broken. Violence begins long before hands are raised. It begins when resentment and envy harden, when people stop seeing one another as fully human.

Now, to be fair, Joseph doesn’t help matters. Just before today’s reading, he shares dreams in which his own family bows down to him. You might think Joseph had not yet developed the spiritual gift of tact. If your brothers already resent you, announcing that you dreamed they were all bowing down before you is probably not the wisest strategy.

But nothing Joseph does justifies what happens next. Jacob has sent Joseph to go check on his brothers herding sheep. They see him coming from a distance, and they conspire to kill him.

These aren’t outlaws, they’re his brothers. Instead of saying, “Here comes our brother,” they say, “Here comes that [expletive deleted] dreamer."

That’s what resentment does. It reduces a person to the one thing about them that bothers us. That dreamer.
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At first, they plan murder. Reuben talks them down to throwing him in a pit. And Judah eventually suggests selling him as a slave instead. So they strip Joseph of the robe, throw him into a pit, sit down to eat, and then sell him to passing traders. One detail seems especially hurtful: they sit down to eat. Their brother is in a pit, and they have lunch. Scripture is not subtle here. This is what human beings can do when the heart becomes hardened. We can normalize cruelty.

I could be wrong, but it seems this still happens today! People harm others and still just carry on with ordinary life. They convince themselves that their actions are justified because their resentment feels righteous.

Oh, this is a hard story. But it is an honest one. The Bible does not pretend that being part of God’s story protects people from being wounded. Joseph is part of the promise. Joseph will become an instrument of God’s future. But that does not spare him from betrayal.
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And while that’s tough to hear, it’s also comforting, in a way. Many people carry wounds inflicted not by enemies, but by those who should have loved them better. Family wounds. Church wounds. Childhood wounds. Wounds by friends. Wounds of being overlooked, judged unfairly, abandoned, betrayed, or harmed. Pick one, or more, that resonate with you. And, one of the worst things we can do as people of faith is to cover up those wounds.

We’re going to get to forgiveness and reconciliation later in Joseph’s story. We’re going to get to Joseph looking back and seeing that God was at work in ways he could not have understood at the time. But we’re not there yet. This week, Joseph is in the pit. And when someone is in the pit, the first faithful thing to do is not to explain the pit. It is not to say, “Don’t worry, God has a plan.” Or, “Someday you’ll understand.” Or, “Everything happens for a reason.”

No, the first faithful thing is to tell the truth: this should not have happened. What Joseph’s brothers did was wrong. Their jealousy was wrong. Their violence was wrong. Their willingness to sacrifice their brother for their own relief was wrong. Faith gives us courage to name harm honestly because we trust that God isn’t afraid of the truth.

Joseph’s brothers are responsible for what they did. Yet God is still able to work. Both are true. The story of God’s providence does not cancel the story of human pain.

In Matthew’s Gospel, the disciples are out on the sea in a storm. Jesus comes to them across the water, but they don’t recognize him. They’re afraid. But the storm does not mean Christ is absent. The chaos is real. The fear and danger are real. And still Jesus comes toward them.

Perhaps that’s the word we can hear alongside Joseph in the pit. The pit is real. The betrayal is real. The wound is real. But it’s not the whole story. Joseph can’t see the whole story yet. His brothers can’t see it. Father Israel can’t see it. Nobody standing at that pit can imagine Egypt, famine, reconciliation, mercy, and survival. At this point, all Joseph knows is that those who should have loved him have hurt him. And God does not ask him to pretend otherwise. But God also does not abandon him.

You know, those old family photographs—they may show people like us with awkward hair and questionable fashion choices, but they also remind us that every family picture has more outside the frame than inside it. The camera captures one moment, one angle, one arrangement of people. It doesn’t show the whole story.

Joseph in the pit is not the whole story. It is a terrible picture frame. But it is an honest frame. It must not be denied or softened. And yet God is still working beyond what anyone in that moment can see.
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And maybe that’s enough for today. Not to explain away the pit. Not to rush Joseph out of it. But to trust that even there, God has not let go of the story. Or of us. Amen.