Forgotten

Genesis 40

Imagine that you are hearing the Joseph story for the first time and the story teller stops at the end chapter 40, “He did not remember Joseph, but forgot him.” What thoughts might go through your head? You might wonder if the cupbearer's forgetfulness was the will of God. Walter Brueggemann poses the question this way, “Is there a remembering done by Yahweh beyond the forgetting of the empire?”[1]

Lest we ourselves forget the story, let’s recap. So far the Joseph narrative has been about a series of tests placed before the purposes of God. God’s purposes are planted in Joseph through a dream, a vision of the future attainable only by God’s power, a future unburdened by the perils of the present. That dream was tested against the anger and fear of Joseph’s brothers. Then, again, it was tested against the lies and deceptions of earthly empires. Today’s story repeats the pattern—God’s dream is tested again. This time, it is tested against the forgetfulness of human beings.

The chief cup bearer and the chief baker are thrown in prison, joining Joseph, and put under Joseph’s care. Joseph notices them looking out of sorts one morning and asks them what’s troubling them, and they both reveal that they had dreams the previous night which were weighing them down. Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t just tell my dreams to anybody. I’ve got to have some degree of relationship and trust with a person before I go spilling the contents of my dreams to them. I believe that Pharaoh’s officer’s willingness to tell their dreams to Joseph reveals that some level of trust and relationship had been forged between them.

Joseph’s request of the cupbearer accentuates this relationship. Remember, it is to the cupbearer that the interpretation carries good news, he will be restored to his former position. “But remember me when it is well with you; please do me the kindness to make mention of me to Pharaoh, and so get me out of this place. For in fact I was stolen out of the land of the Hebrews; and here also I have done nothing that they should have put me into the dungeon.”

“Please, remember me.” This is the request of one hopelessly stuck in a cycle of oppression. Joseph does not belong in prison, he does not belong in Egypt; in both cases it was the lies and deceit of someone with worldly interests at heart that forced him into a situation of pain and oppression against his will. His brothers’ jealousy and desire for an easy buck imprisoned him in a caravan to Egypt, and a wealthy woman defending her broken pride against Joseph’s integrity concocted a lie to throw him in the dungeon. Joseph’s imprisonment and oppression are totally at the whim of worldly powers. “Please, remember me,” he begs. “Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him.”

I wonder what it’s like to be forgotten. I must admit that I do not know. I am white, male, straight, young, Christian, and I must confess that the powers of the world, at least the powers of this country, work in my favor. I am privileged. Privilege doesn’t make me a sinner, but it does make it more comfortable for me to overlook my participation in a system perpetuated by the powers of sin. And if I refuse to admit that the opportunities made available to me by worldly powers are different from the opportunities of those who have been imprisoned and oppressed by the whims of worldly powers…then I am no different from the chief cupbearer, whose favorable treatment by the whims of the world led so quickly to forgotten friends festering on the flipside of his fortune.

Last Monday, the morning before the eclipse, I gathered with a group of pastors and faith leaders from across the city to witness to the public declaration of a statement rejecting White Supremacy. I was totally inspired and encouraged by the gathering, to see so many people standing peacefully, in solidarity against a message of hate and diminishment of human value. I was particularly convicted by a portion of the declaration in which the church was called to repent for its participation with worldly powers. Here is how that part of the declaration went: “WE REPENT because the church has been complicit in the sins of racism, either through the defense of slavery, segregation, and discrimination, or through passive silence and inactivity. We repent because Christians have played a major role in helping create the segregation and racial injustice that we see in our city and nation today. We repent of our own racism, fear, and hatred, both conscious and unconscious. We repent of our reluctance to be agents of healing and reconciliation in our churches, in our city and in our nation.”[2]

I left that gathering hot and sweaty, but also feeling proud for having shown up to something so powerful and important. I grabbed a cold cup of water at a nearby café and sat inside for a moment while I cooled down and checked Facebook on my iPhone. I had run into a small group of alumni and professors from Union Presbyterian Seminary at the gathering, and the communications director had already posted a few photos online. The very first comment on the photos popped my bubble of smug. It was a comment from a young woman with whom I had attended seminary. In other words…we had sat together in the dungeons of the Library. And she commented, and I paraphrase, “Please, remember my family.”

Essentially, what she was saying was: “We feel forgotten by this statement.” This is an intelligent, imaginative, passionate, and provocative woman who fell in love with an intelligent, imaginative, passionate man who just so happens to be from Mexico. They are married and have three beautiful boys, together. She has been battling for her family to be remembered for as long as I’ve known her. As I said…we’ve been in the “dungeon” together. We’ve sat in classes together, shared dreams together, struggled through Old Testament I and II, together. And then I graduated, got a job—a cup was placed in my hand. And I forgot her, and him, and their boys, and their ongoing struggles…undeserved imprisonment and oppression by the whims of worldly powers. Struggles induced by a system guided by wealth over welfare; a system more committed to the health of the economy than the hope of equality.

In my pride and sense of achievement for having shown up to stand in solidarity behind the statement against White Supremacy I overlooked the ways that the statement overlooked the ongoing mistreatment of and resentment towards immigrants and indigenous persons. So I reached out and I told this woman, “I want to listen to your experience; tell me what it’s like to be forgotten.”

Here is how her husband responded: “It feels like watching from the [outside] while everyone else holds a meeting to build a system of liberation. [And when we ask to be remembered] they draw the curtain so they don’t have to see us. It feels like while everyone else meets to lift the weight of oppression off of those at the table they are adding those weights to us, to the forgotten ones, making our burden heavier.”

So often the dreams of the oppressed are interpreted at a table to which the oppressed have not been invited. We live in a country whose founding principles are “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”, but we overlook that the melting-pot about which we brag is a crushing cauldron set upon the flames of the forgotten. Empires tend to be forgetful, and they tend to tempt us to forgetfulness by the “power” of their promises. Just as it was for the chief cupbearer, forgetfulness is a privilege of being embraced by the powers that be. We do not remember that “life, liberty, and happiness” were originally only the whims of white, wealthy, western immigrants overwhelming and overthrowing indigenous Americans under the guise of “manifest destiny”—as if forgetfulness was the will of God.

But forgetfulness is not the will of God. Our central sacrament, the Lord’s Supper, affirms this as we are invited to a table of remembrance. At the Table we tell the story of Jesus asking his disciples to “Remember me.” At the Table we receive and respond to an invitation to sit in solidarity at a feast which serves us a foretaste of the Kingdom of God in which no one is forgotten. We break bread and share the cup of God’s new covenant—we become bearers of the cup of God’s dream. What sort of cupbearers will we be? Jesus, just as Joseph, trust the power and presence of God, but still “await a human act of solidarity upon which the history of [God’s people] now depends.” To be a cupbearer for the empire is to stand in solidarity with those already in power, but forget the oppressed. To be a cupbearer for the Kingdom of God is to stand in solidarity with all God’s children, and forget about the pursuing powers of sin and polarizing privilege.

John McCutcheon wrote a song remembering his mother calling him and his 8 siblings in for dinner, “She’s calling all the children home.” He ends his song with an allusion to the heavenly feast and the call of God to all the children of the world:

“Home to the table, home to the feast Where the last are first and the greatest are the least Where the rich will envy what the poor have got Everybody's got enough, 'though we ain't got a lot No one is forgotten, no one is alone When we're calling all the children home.”[3]

Friends, let us stand in solidarity with the forgotten by taking the time to listen to their dreams. Listen, but do not be tempted to interpret their dreams for them, to tell them what their oppression feels like. “Does not interpretation belong to God?” Remember God’s family. Bear the cup of God’s dream. Amen.

[1] Brueggemann, Walter. “Genesis” from Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Preaching and Teaching. 325

[2] < https://www.richmondpastorsstatement.org/>

[3] McCutcheon, John. “Calling All the Children Home”, Song.