{"id":798,"date":"2026-10-11T07:41:39","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T12:41:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/?p=798"},"modified":"2026-10-11T07:41:41","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T12:41:41","slug":"he-says-it-to-their-faces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/2026\/10\/11\/he-says-it-to-their-faces\/","title":{"rendered":"He Says It to Their Faces"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<!-- POST TITLE: He Says It to Their Faces -->\n<style>@import url('https:\/\/fonts.googleapis.com\/css2?family=Oswald:wght@400;500;700&family=Newsreader:ital,wght@0,400;0,500;1,400&display=swap');\n.ohands{--bg:#F5ECCC;--darkest:#17343B;--mid:#275C65;--heading:#C04B42;--cool:#2F83A3;--light:#FFD279;--surface-verse:#FFF6E3;--surface-deep:#DCE8DE;font-family:'Newsreader',Georgia,serif;color:var(--darkest);background:var(--bg);max-width:720px;margin:2em auto;padding:2.5em 2em;line-height:1.7;font-size:1.05em}\n.ohands .eyebrow{font-family:'Oswald',sans-serif;font-size:.85em;letter-spacing:.18em;text-transform:uppercase;color:var(--mid);font-weight:500;margin:0 0 .4em}\n.ohands h2{font-family:'Oswald',sans-serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.3em;letter-spacing:.08em;text-transform:uppercase;color:var(--mid);margin:2em 0 .7em;border-bottom:1px solid var(--heading);padding-bottom:.3em}\n.ohands .verse{font-family:'Newsreader',Georgia,serif;font-style:italic;font-size:1.08em;line-height:1.6;letter-spacing:normal;background:var(--surface-verse);border-left:4px solid var(--heading);padding:1.1em 1.4em;margin:1.4em 0;color:var(--darkest)}\n.ohands .verse-cite{display:block;font-style:normal;font-family:'Oswald',sans-serif;font-size:.82em;letter-spacing:.1em;color:var(--mid);margin-top:.6em;text-transform:uppercase}\n.ohands .divider{border:none;border-top:1px solid var(--heading);margin:2em auto;width:80px}\n.ohands p{margin:0 0 1.1em}\n.ohands .pull{font-family:'Oswald',sans-serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.15em;letter-spacing:.04em;color:var(--darkest);border-top:1px solid var(--heading);border-bottom:1px solid var(--heading);padding:1em 0;margin:1.6em 0;text-align:center;line-height:1.4}\n.ohands .ohands-deep{background:var(--surface-deep);border-left:4px solid var(--cool);padding:1.1em 1.4em;margin:1.4em 0}\n@media (max-width:600px){.ohands{padding:1.6em 1.2em}}<\/style>\n<div class=\"ohands\">\n<p class=\"eyebrow\">Open Hands &middot; Week 4 &middot; Sunday &middot; HURT<\/p>\n<p>I want to start with what actually happened to Joseph, because we tend to skip over it on the way to the nice ending.<\/p>\n<p>His brothers took his coat off him and put him in a hole in the ground.<\/p>\n<p class=\"verse\">So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe&mdash;the robe of many colors he was wearing&mdash;<span class=\"verse-cite\">Genesis 37:23 (BSB)<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"verse\">and they took him and threw him into the pit. Now the pit was empty, with no water in it.<span class=\"verse-cite\">Genesis 37:24 (BSB)<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Then they sat down and had lunch. That detail is in the next verse and I have never been able to read past it quickly. They ate a meal while their brother was in the pit. Then they sold him to a passing caravan and went home and told their father an animal had gotten him.<\/p>\n<p>Years go by after that. Egypt, a house he does well in, a prison he did not earn, Pharaoh, a famine. And then one day his brothers are standing in front of him asking to buy grain, and they do not recognize him, and he recognizes them.<\/p>\n<h2>What They Were Afraid Of<\/h2>\n<p>He tells them who he is eventually, and the family comes down to Egypt, and their father lives out his years there. Then the father dies, and the brothers have a very human moment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"verse\">When Joseph&rsquo;s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, &ldquo;What if Joseph bears a grudge? Then he will surely repay us for all the evil that we did to him.&rdquo;<span class=\"verse-cite\">Genesis 50:15 (BSB)<\/span><\/p>\n<p>They have been living under his protection for years at this point, eating his food, and they still think the only thing holding him back was their dad. So they send a message ahead of themselves, because they are too afraid to come in person. And when the message reaches him, Joseph weeps.<\/p>\n<p class=\"verse\">&lsquo;This is what you are to say to Joseph: I beg you, please forgive the transgression and sin of your brothers, for they did you wrong.&rsquo; So now, Joseph, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.&rdquo; When their message came to him, Joseph wept.<span class=\"verse-cite\">Genesis 50:17 (BSB)<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Why does he cry? I think it is because after everything, they still see him as a man waiting for his turn. That is its own kind of wound and it is not the one they are apologizing for.<\/p>\n<h2>He Does Not Soften It<\/h2>\n<p>Then he answers them, and this is the part I keep coming back to.<\/p>\n<p class=\"verse\">But Joseph replied, &ldquo;Do not be afraid. Am I in the place of God?<span class=\"verse-cite\">Genesis 50:19 (BSB)<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"verse\">As for you, what you intended against me for evil, God intended for good, in order to accomplish a day like this&mdash;to preserve the lives of many people.<span class=\"verse-cite\">Genesis 50:20 (BSB)<\/span><\/p>\n<p>What you intended against me for evil.<\/p>\n<p>He leaves it in. He does not say it was a misunderstanding, or that they were young, or that it worked out so let&#8217;s not dwell on it. He names it, out loud, to the faces of the men who did it, and then he forgives them in the same breath, and then he goes and makes sure their kids have food.<\/p>\n<p class=\"pull\">He named it and forgave it in the same sentence. Most of us think you have to pick one.<\/p>\n<p>I think a lot of us have the order wrong. We believe that to forgive someone we have to agree to stop calling the thing what it was; that naming it and forgiving it are opposites. Joseph does both at once. The naming is not something he had to get past on his way to forgiving. It is part of how he forgave.<\/p>\n<p>And notice the other thing he refuses. <em>Am I in the place of God?<\/em> His brothers are on the floor calling themselves his slaves. They are handing him the judge&#8217;s seat, because it is the only role they can picture him in. He will not take it. He does not want the chair.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ohands-deep\">\n<p>There is a thread in Scripture that runs through this. The one who was despised ends up being the one who saves the people who despised him, and that pattern shows up again much later and much larger.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"verse\">He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. Like one from whom men hide their faces, He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.<span class=\"verse-cite\">Isaiah 53:3 (BSB)<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Where We Are Going This Week<\/h2>\n<p>Hurt that does not get dealt with does not sit still. It moves. It goes down into the next generation, or sideways into the people who did nothing to you, or inward until it has rearranged who you are willing to be around.<\/p>\n<p>This week has five people in it. A brother reading a will. A father hearing his own father come out of his mouth. A woman telling a story she has told a hundred times. A teenager who has stopped going places. A man owed real money by someone who wronged him.<\/p>\n<p>Tomorrow we start with a document on a kitchen table, with a blank line at the bottom.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Open Hands &middot; Week 4 &middot; Sunday &middot; HURT I want to start with what actually happened to Joseph, because we tend to skip over it on the way to the nice ending. His brothers took his coat off him&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":799,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-open-hands"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/SU_20261011_BLOG.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":800,"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798\/revisions\/800"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}