Love, Hatred, Suffering, and a Princess Dress

Seattle Mennonite Church Sermons

A sermon about a 25 chapter novella, in three parts: 1) Joseph actually had an amazing technicolor princess dress, and isn’t that both telling and fabulous?! 2) Love unevenly distributed produces division, resentment, and - in this story - the hate-filled action of a band of brothers who traffic their beloved brother into slavery, and it’s that terrible?! 3) If (or when) you go through hell, don’t come out empty-handed, and isn’t it tricky to say anything at all about suffering and the good we sometimes wrest from it?!

Sermon begins at minute marker 8:03
Genesis 37.3-8, 17b-22, 26-34; 50.15-21
Resources

• BibleWorm podcast: Episode 603 – Evil Made Good, Amy Robertson and Robert Williamson, Jr
• “Don’t Come Out Empty Handed,” Kate Bowler’s podcast, Everything Happens, interview with Rabbi Steve Leder.
• “Good Grief,” Kate Bowler’s podcast, Everything Happens, interview with Thomas Lynch.
• Image: “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” Tulane Public Relations, CC BY 2.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
• Hymn 205 - Light Dawns on a Weary World. Text: Mary Louise Bringle (USA), 2001, © GIA Publications, Inc. Music: William P. Rowan (USA), © 2000 William P. Rowan (admin. GIA Publications, Inc.) Permission to podcast the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE, license #A-726929. All rights reserved.