Scripture: Genesis 48:13-20
Video Link: https://youtu.be/a4dc1e1e3Rs
Audio Link: https://soundcloud.com/tawabaptist/sermon-23-june-2024-blessed
Structure:
- Introduction
- Words of blessing
- Hands of blessing
- Conclusion
Introduction:
Good morning everyone.
“A bell is no bell ‘til you ring it. A song is no song ‘til you sing it. And love in your heart wasn’t put there to stay. Love isn’t love ‘til you give it away.”
Who can tell me what stage musical that song line comes from? [Wait]
That’s right, The Sound of Music. ‘Love isn’t love ‘til you give it away.’
This morning we continue our series in the life of Joseph. Last week we heard how Jacob adopted Joseph’s sons. In today’s reading Jacob blesses Joseph and his sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. We could say, “A blessing isn’t a blessing ‘til you give it away.” From Genesis 48, verse 13, we read…
13 And Joseph took both of them, Ephraim on his right toward Israel’s left hand and Manasseh on his left toward Israel’s right hand, and brought them close to him. 14 But Israel reached out his right hand and put it on Ephraim’s head, though he was the younger, and crossing his arms, he put his left hand on Manasseh’s head, even though Manasseh was the firstborn. 15 Then he blessed Joseph and said, “May the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked faithfully, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day, 16 the Angel who has delivered me from all harm—may he bless these boys. May they be called by my name and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and may they increase greatly on the earth.” 17 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. 18 Joseph said to him, “No, my father, this one is the firstborn; put your right hand on his head.” 19 But his father refused and said, “I know, my son, I know. 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.” 20 He blessed them that day and said, “In yourname will Israel pronounce this blessing: ‘May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh.’” So he put Ephraim ahead of Manasseh.
May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.
In these verses Jacob (also known as Israel) uses his words and his hands to bless Joseph’s sons. Let’s begin with Jacob’s words of blessing.
Words of blessing:
When I think of what it means to bless someone, I imagine some kind of tangible action which makes another person’s life better, or at least less difficult. For example, mowing their lawns or cooking them a meal or listening with understanding or doing some act of service to support them. In my mind, a blessing is a practical expression of love.
But this is not exactly the kind of blessing we find in Genesis 48. Jacob doesn’t do anything practical to make Ephraim and Manasseh’s life less difficult. Jacob simply speaks good words over their lives and places his hands on them. In this process though, something unseen yet powerful & lifegiving is communicated.
At the end of the service each week, someone (usually me) speaks a benediction (or a blessing) over the congregation. The word benediction has Latin origins. ‘Bene’ means well and ‘diction’ means speaking. So, a benediction is literally, ‘speaking well’ or ‘saying good things of someone’. [1]
Our society today tends to discount words. We often use words carelessly or cheaply. But words have a certain power of their own, like seeds planted in our soul. We need to be sowing the seed of good words in people’s lives.
Some years ago, when I was training for ministry, I spent a summer working as a chaplain at Greenlane Hospital, visiting patients. There was one man there, around my age, who was recovering from a stab wound.
He told me he was from Maketu, in the Bay of Plenty, not far from where I used to live. Sadly, he believed he was cursed. When he was young, an old woman pointed the bone at him and said some bad words over his life, the opposite of a benediction. Since then, he had been in and out of prison.
Words can be powerful things. What he needed was a blessing. What if that woman had spoken good words over his life, words of peace conveyed with warmth and love.
In verses 15 and 16 we read the words of blessing Jacob speaks over Joseph’s sons and, by extension, Joseph himself.
What we notice with Jacob’s blessing is the way God is front and center throughout. Four times God is referred to in the space of two verses. Jacob does not try to bless Ephraim and Manasseh in his own strength. He calls upon God Almighty to bless them.
Sometimes we Christians carry a heavy burden. We may feel like the weight of responsibility for blessing others rests squarely on our shoulders. It doesn’t. Any blessing (whether in word or deed) is done by God’s grace and in his power. We are simply vessels for carrying and imparting God’s blessing.
If the blessing is the tea, then you are the tea pot. The pot does not make the tea. The pot merely holds the blessing while it brews. God makes the tea (or the blessing) and pours it out at the right time.
As Paul says in his letter to the Corinthians, we have this treasure in jars of clay to show this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.
In verse 15, we notice how Jacob’s words about God are not an abstract theory with no grounding in life’s realities. Jacob’s blessing comes from his own experience of God and the experience of his fathers.
Jacob begins by saying, ‘May the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked…’
This speaks of a God who transcends time and geography. The God who blesses people through Jacob was around a long time before Jacob came on the scene, and he will continue to be around long after Jacob has gone.
What’s more, God is not fixed in one place like a statue or a building.
God moves around with his people. He walks with them wherever they go.
When Jacob talks about his father and grandfather walking faithfully before God, he is probably alluding to God’s covenant with Abraham. God’s covenant called for loyalty and trust. Jacob wants Ephraim and Manasseh to understand that being blessed carries a responsibility to honour the covenant with God.
In the next line Jacob gets personal saying, ‘…the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day…’
Jacob, who made his living as a shepherd, talks about God being his shepherd.
I wonder if David took inspiration from Jacob when he wrote the 23rd Psalm. ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…’
The image here is one of security. To be blessed by God means having God lead, feed and protect you, like a shepherd. This means, for the blessing to be effective, Joseph’s sons must trust God enough to follow where he leads.
In verse 16, Jacob talks about the angel who has delivered me from all harm.
Most commentators think the angel here is a poetic way of referring to God. The key word though is delivered. It can also be translated as redeemed.
As in the ‘kinsman redeemer’. The close relative who gets you out of trouble, who redeems your life from slavery and financial ruin. Boaz (in the story of Ruth) is the classic example of a kinsman redeemer.
Jacob knew God’s deliverance and redemption on more than one occasion. God delivered Jacob from Esau who wanted to kill him. God delivered Jacob from Laban, who wanted to cheat him. And God delivered Jacob from grief and despair by redeeming Joseph’s life.
What we notice here is the way the God of Jacob closely resembles Jesus.
Jesus is the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep. Jesus is our kinsman redeemer.
Jacob frames God’s blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh in terms of great increase on the earth. This probably means having lots of descendants, which did happen over the centuries that followed.
The underlying principle at work in God’s blessing is abundant life. Abundant life may blossom in a whole variety of ways. Often ways that transcend the physical.
When we think of Jesus, we note he died relatively young and had no biological children. Nevertheless, he has millions of spiritual descendants.
Jesus came that we may have life in all its fullness. Jesus was all for abundant life and fruitfulness. However, the path to life and blessing is not always smooth or pleasant. Jesus turns our understanding of blessing on its head.
Jesus described those who are poor in spirit as blessed because the kingdom of heaven belongs to them. Likewise, those who mourn are blessed because they will be comforted. And so on.
To be poor in spirit and to mourn is obviously not an ideal state of being.
But, as painful as it feels, being emptied by suffering and grief prepares us to receive God’s blessing. ‘A heart that is broken is a heart that is open.’ [2]
Okay, so those are Jacob’s words of blessing for Joseph’s sons. What about Jacob’s hands of blessing.
Hands of blessing:
Are you left or right-handed? Historically the left hand often carried negative connotations. The Latin word for ‘sinister’ means ‘on the left side’. And in English the word ‘left’ comes from the old Anglo-Saxon word for ‘weak’. In contrast, the right hand is associated with virtue and honour and being right.
In the Middle Ages lefties were, at times, thought to be cursed and in league with the devil, which resulted in burning at the stake.
The stigma and superstition of being left-handed carried over into the following centuries. King George the sixth, who was monarch of England from 1936 to 1952, was left-handed but his father (king George the fifth) forced him to write with his right hand.
Even today there is a certain negativity attributed to the left hand. For those who are familiar with the dating app, Tinder, you swipe right (so I’m told) if you like someone and you swipe left if you don’t. Right for accept’. Left for reject. Sounds quite brutal.
Perhaps all this prejudice and superstition is because left-handed people are in the minority. It is thought that somewhere between 85-90 percent of people are right-handed, with only 10-15 percent being left-handed.
Now let me say, there is nothing wrong with being left-handed. You are not bad or cursed or anything else if you happen to be left-handed. Our handedness is simply a product of the way God makes us, like eye colour or being good with numbers or preferring savoury to sweet. God likes diversity.
In verse 13 we read how Joseph took great care to line his sons up correctly for Jacob. Joseph made sure his eldest son, Manasseh, was positioned to receive the right hand of blessing and Ephraim, the younger son, was positioned to receive Jacob’s left hand. Joseph believed (like most people of his time and culture) that the right hand of blessing was somehow better than the left hand.
But Jacob upset Joseph’s careful arrangement by crossing his hands over,
so the right hand of blessing went to Ephraim (the younger son) and the left hand of blessing went to Manasseh. Jumping ahead to verse 17, we read how Joseph was displeased by this.
The English translation is a bit soft here. The original Hebrew is stronger.
It says more literally that what Jacob did was evil in Joseph’s eyes. [3]
It was like using the wrong name at a wedding.
Do you remember that episode from the TV show, Friends, when Ross is getting married to Emily but instead of using Emily’s name in his vows he uses Rachel’s name. (Rachel was one of Ross’ old girlfriends.) What Jacob did, in blessing the younger son with his right hand, was like that. A major faux pas.
Joseph, who we know by now is very proper and righteous in all his ways, tries to correct his father, Jacob. Joseph tries to move Jacob’s right hand off Ephraim’s head and onto Manasseh’s head. Maybe Jacob is confused. Maybe his blindness has caused the mistake.
But the old man, Jacob, knows what he is doing. This is no mistake. Jacob says to Joseph, “I know, my son, I know. 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.”
The text does not explain why Jacob crosses his hands. His actions are inexplicable just as God’s actions are often inscrutable. The hand of God is free to move and bless and shape history as he wishes. God’s reasons do not bow to our cultural norms or traditions. God does not need to explain himself.
Jacob is not startled or angry with Joseph for interrupting him.
Jacob understands Joseph’s concern, without changing the decision.
The blessing is irreversible.
To his credit Joseph, now the ruler of Egypt, does not force Jacob’s hand.
In faith Joseph humbly accepts the father’s will, even if he cannot understand it. Note though that Ephraim and Manasseh both get the same words. Both brothers are blessed for the sake of Joseph. Only the younger is put first.
In verse 19, Jacob talks about the younger brother (Ephraim) becoming greater than his older brother. What is greatness?
I’m reminded of the request of James and John, in Mark 10, to sit on Jesus’ left and right in his glory. It seems James and John had ambitions of greatness.
Jesus is not angry or impatient with them. Jesus graciously points out that they don’t know what they are asking. Then the Lord goes on to define greatness…
“…whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
According to Jesus the greatest is not the most powerful or the most successful or the most popular. Rather the greatest is the servant of all.
Joseph was the Prime Minister of Egypt and yet that did not make him the greatest. Joseph was the greatest among his brothers because he was the servant of all. God blessed many thousands of people through Joseph.
Conclusion:
Love in your heart wasn’t put there to stay. Love isn’t love ‘til you give it away.
On hearing that again we might focus on the giving it away part. But before we can give love away, we must first have it put there by someone. We must be open to receive love.
Jacob puts his love in Joseph’s heart by giving Ephraim and Manasseh his blessing. And, to their credit, they receive Jacob’s blessing in an attitude of quiet trust, just as they humbly accepted Jacob’s adoption of them.
It’s quite difficult in kiwi culture to properly receive words of love and blessing. When people speak good words to us, we often deflect or minimize their comments. Good words raise a red flag. Can I trust what they say or is this a sucker punch? Tall poppies get cut down in New Zealand.
As difficult as it may be, we need to learn to accept the blessing God wants to give. We cannot give to others something we have never experienced or received ourselves. We cannot conjure up blessings out of thin air.
If the tea pot refuses to let the tea and water in to brew, it will have nothing to pour out. Before you can bless others, you must be open to receiving God’s blessing. You must let God put his love in your heart.
God’s blessing is often communicated by the power of his Spirit, through ordinary people. So, receiving God’s blessing means letting honest, trustworthy people speak good things into your life, into your soul.
May you be blessed this week with knowing and feeling God’s love and grace for you personally, deep in your heart. Amen.
Questions for discussion or reflection:
- What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?
- What do you think it means to bless someone? What does it mean to be blessed by God?
- What difference have good words (or bad words) made in your life? What was said to you and how did that affect you?
- What is Jesus’ take on blessing? With Jesus’ beatitudes in mind, are you on a path to blessing?
- Are you left or right-handed? What difference does it make?
- Why does Jacob cross his hands over when blessing Ephraim and Manasseh? What might this reveal about God’s ways?
- What is Jesus’ take on greatness? Why was Joseph great?
- Why is it important to receive the blessing God wants to give? How might we remain open to receive God’s blessing?
Outtakes
When Jacob says, in verse 16, ‘may they be called by my name’, he means may Ephraim and Manasseh be reckoned among the twelve tribes of Israel, with a share in God’s covenant promises to Abraham. This is an affirmation of Jacob’s adoption of Joseph’s sons, which we heard about last week.
[1] Refer Henri Nouwen’s book, ‘Life of the Beloved’, page 56.
[2] This is a lyric from a U2 song, by Bono.
[3] Refer Bruce Waltke’s commentary on Genesis, page 600.
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