As soon as Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he pretended to be a stranger and spoke harshly to them. “Where do you come from?” he asked. “From the land of Canaan,” they replied, “to buy food.” – Genesis 42:7

Today’s Scripture Reading (May 11, 2012): Genesis 42

Our past determines our future more than we really want to admit. It isn’t that we actively define ourselves by what has happened, but sub-consciously we seem to be continually imprisoned by our history. Usually it happens in the voices that ring out – the ones where someone has told us that we are stupid, or that we will never amount to anything and when we are alone we can actually hear the criticisms of long ago as if the people were still standing in the room with us. I have known a number of smart people that have been so handicapped by voices of the past that have convinced themselves that their critics are right.

As we read through the story of Joseph there is one thing that should bother us. When his brothers show up in Egypt he recognizes them and then asks where they are from. They reply Canaan. It is the same place where Jacob had settled after he had come back to meet Esau. And Canaan was just across the border from Egypt. So why, on his rise to power in Egypt, hadn’t Joseph sent a message to his father telling him he was okay?

It is possible that his job kept him busy enough that he simply hadn’t had the time to send the message. But it had been the better part of a decade since he had risen to power. And with that power he should have been able to commission someone to take the message, even if he was too busy to take the message personally.

It is also possible that he didn’t think that he knew where his family was, but that also doesn’t seem all that plausible. If dad had moved, he hadn’t moved far. So why hadn’t Joseph made an effort to contact his dad? Or maybe more to the point, why hadn’t he rubbed his success in the faces of his brothers long before now? Wasn’t that the point of his childhood dreams?

I don’t think that anyone knows the answer to the mystery, but I wonder if Joseph’s life had been so filled with reversals that he wasn’t able to believe the power that he had attained. In his mind, he was still the annoying kid that his brothers had sold into slavery. He was still in prison, and the only ones that could really release him was his family – and he just wasn’t sure that they would. His silence was better than finding out that his brothers still didn’t believe in him.

There are people in our lives that are holding us in prison, and maybe we just need to realize that. But more importantly, there are people that are in prison because of us – and maybe it is time for us to release them.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Genesis 43