He asked them how they were, and then he said, “How is your aged father you told me about? Is he still living?” – Genesis 43:27

Today’s Scripture Reading (August 3, 2018): Genesis 43

We live in a world of quick and easy communication. Although I often rail against FaceBook, the truth is that it can be an easy way to keep in contact with important people in our lives who are far away. We get to share pictures of ourselves and our loved ones and help to feel like we are still part of each other’s lives. I get to be jealous of the beautiful pictures from my aunt’s cottage 2000 miles away. We can share our love and at least try to support each other in times of stress.

It hasn’t always been that way. Just over 50 years ago, I moved 2000 miles west and away from my extended family and the important people in my life. And back then, we wrote letters to those we wanted to contact who were far away. I remember dutifully sitting down to write to my grandmothers. It brought a little comfort, knowing that my family was just a letter, and a stamp, away. The reality is that I missed my extended family with whom I had lived in the same geographic area for the first years of my life.

I don’t write letters anymore. An email, a text message, or a quick message through Facebook has replaced the act of putting a letter in an envelope, adding a stamp and then placing the package in the mailbox. Now I can know quickly when something important has happened. Messages of births and deaths and pictures of friends are delivered straight to my computer.

But even letters and mailboxes are a product of our modern world. Joseph had no easy way of communicating with his family. He didn’t know what had happened to them, just as his brothers had no idea what had happened to Joseph. And so, as his brothers once again stand before him, Joseph asks the questions that had remained unasked for years. The simple “how are you” questions of life.

As far as the brothers were concerned, were they not under a high degree of stress because of the interrogation of their lives from this mysterious Egyptian official, they might have wondered at the questions that were being asked. Why would this Egyptian care so much about their family? Surely he didn’t have the time to ask every purchaser of grain about the personal minutiae of their lives. 

Of course, the reader of the story knows the answer. This was not just a random Egyptian official. This was Joseph, their brother and the lost son of their father. And this was Joseph’s only means of communication, his early version of FaceBook, where he could connect with the important people of his life who now lived so far away.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Genesis 44