Coats and Boats

Genesis 37.1-4, 12-29, Psalm 105.1-6, 16-22, Romans 10.5-15, Matthew 14.22-33

Joseph’s coat may have been many coloured, or it may have had long sleeves. Either way, it was a sign that he was in some way different from his brothers; possibly ‘a cut above them’. Then there was the matter of his dreams, and his possibly tactless interpretations of them.

There seem to be two major themes running through the early part of the Joseph story. One is the difficulty of growing up with an unusual talent, but having real difficulty knowing how to handle it. The other is the almost inevitable reactions to favouritism and privilege.

Nobody needs to react as Joseph’s brothers did, so there’s a third theme. Imperfect people in an imperfect situation react in a way that makes both them and the situation worse. I’ll resist the temptation to say anything about Israel/Palestine this week, except to not that at least the Joseph story has a happy ending (and a worse continuation, then a new beginning, and so on…).

This week’s other story is about twelve people who are all in the same boat, both literally and metaphorically, when the storm comes. Then, intriguingly, the hope of safety comes from somebody who isn’t in the boat at all, but approaching it from a place of even greater danger. The sign of hope isn’t recognised instantly—it takes Peter’s experiment to settle the matter.

Are there parallels between the two stories? Joseph is pushed out of the family boat before he sees any sign of hope, but he does eventually find his feet and become his family’s salvation.

Do either of these stories offer signs of hope to us or our world? We do, after all, live in a world of imperfect people reacting to various forms of favouritism and privilege. We are ‘all in the same boat’ in some ways and not others, but our real hope may be outside it...