A Reflection for the Friday of the Second Week of Lent

Anyone familiar with the Broadway musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat knows the story that begins with today's reading from the book of Genesis. A group of older brothers envious of their precocious and favored youngest sibling throw him into a hole and then sell him as a slave to traders heading to Egypt. A story of fraternal jealousy and betrayal will eventually lead to a reversal of fortune and, ultimately, reconciliation. It's a lengthy process, with several ups and down, and testing along the way, but the story does have a happy ending. That ending, with Joseph ruling Egypt and his brothers having learned their lesson, tends to blot out the bleak beginning, but it might be worth meditating on that beginning for a moment.

Divisions within families and within larger communities are not confined to the Biblical past; they are a feature of many of our own lives. Sometimes they are serious, often they are trivial, but nonetheless they are a painful part of our world. Overcoming them can take time and effort, often a bit of luck, but more often patient persistence. As we think about the Lenten theme of reconciliation, we may want to think about the need for it in our own lives, about the gripes and grudges that divide us within families and within larger communities.

Effecting reconciliation is often not an easy task. We are all aware of the intense political and social dichotomies that have been so much a part of our national life in the last decade. Most recently, we have seen a whole nation tragically torn apart by aggression from a near neighbor closely related by genealogy and history. Achieving reconciliation in such circumstances takes enormous time and energy, but it should be part of our hope. Sometimes family rifts take years to heal. Divisions within society can take longer, but as the South African Truth and Reconciliation process displayed, they can be overcome. If Joseph could be reconciled with the brothers who betrayed and sold him into slavery, and if Christ could reconcile this sinful world to God, reconciliation on all levels can be part of our agenda for Lent and beyond.