[A sermon given to the Mill Hill Chapel, Leeds congregation vai Zoom on Sunday 11th of October 2020]
(Readings: Peterson Toscano Reads the Story of Joseph from Esau’s Point of View and Matthew 14:22-33)
I have to start by saying how wonderful it is to be preaching to what for many years was my home congregation while I lived, worked, and studied in the wonderful city that is Leeds.
This must be a really odd time of you as a congregation. You would, in any other year, be recovering from putting on a host of activities as a part of Leeds Pride. However, with 2020 being the year that it is, it was sadly not to be.
Pride may not have been the same this year and I cannot possibly make up for that with a sermon – but I’m going to try. Just for you – and whoever is watching this online afterwards – I am going to try to make this my most Queer Theology packed sermon yet!
Those of you who remember my style of preaching might recall that I like to use something that many other Unitarian preachers do not like at all – the lectionary. This is something that offers prescribed biblical readings for certain days and weeks. I like it because it I like a challenge. Sometimes it throws up a passage or two that are really difficult. This means that I do not fall into the trap of preaching only from my favourite biblical texts. However sometimes, just sometimes, the perfect passages for the week tern up! This is one of those weeks. The best thing is that, if you have friends that go to other churches that use a lectionary based on the Revised Common Lectionary, they will probably have heard the same passages as you have heard today. This means you can talk to them about it and compare notes!
That said, I doubt your friends would have seen todays reading from Genesis being performed by the fabulous Peterson Toscano! If you have not heard of Toscano before you should really check him out. I’ll make sure you get the link to the full video of what we saw today. What we saw today was Toscano performing a monologue as Esau and telling us the story, from Esau’s perspective, of Joseph. Joseph, or Yūsuf as he is know in the Quran, was a looker. We know this as in chapter 39 of Genesis it tells us. In my REB translation it describes him as “handsome in both face and figure”. He was the most adored son of Jacob (or Israel as he become know after fighting with an angel). But in popular culture he is known for his coat of many colours.
Now I have to tread carefully hear as I am not a Hebrew scholar, far from it in fact – I only really speak one language and there is great debate about whether I do so well. Yet even I can tell you that there is something odd about how we have ended up knowing Joseph for his “coat”. Let me explain.
In Genesis Chapter 37 Verse 3 we get the first mention of the garment that Jacob gives to Joseph. The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible – the go-to academic version – renders it as, “a long robe with sleeves”. It then proves a footnote that reads, “Traditional rendering: a coat of many colours; meaning of Hebrew uncertain.”
Something I do understand about biblical translation is that one of the usual methods of a translator, if they encounter a word they do not know the meaning of, is to go through the text and see if they can find the word used elsewhere, as seeing that word in a new context might help. Now, in fairness, the Hebrew that is translated into robe or coat is a short phrase – Ketonet Passim – and this phrase appears nowhere in the rest of Genesis. But what about the rest of the Hebrew Bible? If we find the phrase in another of its books it might not give us the exact meaning but it could give us something to go on right? Well that phrase – Ketonet Passim – does appear in one other place in the Hebrew Bible. It appears in the Second Book of Samul in chapter 13. Not only that but we hit the jackpot as the author of Second Samul has provided a description of what a Ketonet Passim is. We read that “this is how the virgin daughters of the king were clothed in earlier times.” Therefore, Toscarno’s translation as “princess dress” is accurate and should be on the table when we discuss translation of that phrase. The passage in question describes a Ketonet Passim being worn by Princess Tamar, a daughter of King David. It is a very dark passage as it describes how Tamar broke down, cried and tore her Ketonet Passim after being raped by her brother Amnon. A reminder of the violence faced by women and girls of the time. Violence that still far too many face today.
Despite being a man, Joseph’s “princess dress” also seems to get a violent response from his own family. His dress the ultimate mark of his femininity that his brothers detest so much, and they violently throw him into a pit and sell him into slavery. Yet Joseph seems to get on really well with Egyptian culture that he ends up within and the Egyptian’s slightly different understanding of musicality that he finds there. Despite some very bad setbacks, he rises up through the ranks and ever maintaining his religious devotion, and becomes the most senior official in the land bar Pharo himself. This was in part due to his ability to interpret dreams. He alone realises that a dream the Pharo has had means that there will be seven bountiful years of harvests followed by seven years of drought and famine. So, he sets out implementing his plan of storing grain during the good years so that the people of Egypt will have enough during the bad times to come. His brothers are set by their staving households to go and find food in Egypt as climate refugees only to be brought face to face with the brother they wronged so badly. Joseph is overcome with emotion and forgives them.
Who do we, as a society, dump in a pit and hope they won’t come back? Personally, the story of Joseph reminds me of the violence that so many of our tans siblings experience as a result of wanting to proudly display their own gender identity in public by wearing what they want – a freedom too many of us take for granted. It also reminds me of the “LGBT Free Zones” being set up in Poland by President Duda and the movement allied with him. Of LGBT people in Poland who are having to decide whether to try to stay and fight or flee seeking a welcoming home elsewhere – a truly horrific choice to have to make. It also reminds me of how the popular press treats the migrants and refugees desperate enough to risk dangerously over packed and unseaworthy boats in order to join us in this country. Fortunately, our second reading has some good advise on how to assist people in boats.
Matthew 14:22-33 may not be queer as in gay or tans but it is still queer as in being subversive of our society today. It is probably not for that reason that us Unitarians might struggle with it. Indeed, contrary to common belief, I do not think that all of us would struggle with it because of it calling Jesus the “son of God” at the end! No, I think most of us might well struggle to accept someone being able to walk on stormy water! Unless the lake in question was full of custard, we know that what seems to be being proposed here runs contrary to the laws of physics!
Fortunately, more biblical translation scholarship, this time Greek, might be able to help here too. According to the New Testament scholar William Barclay, there are two possible readings of the Greek in this passage. Firstly, that Jesus is indeed walking on water, and secondly that Jesus is walking towards the lake and by the lake. Regardless of your preferred interpretation here, the meaning is abundantly clear: in the hour of the disciples need Jesus came to them. He saw people struggling and he wanted to be with them in their time of struggle. In response to this what more can we do then to stand in solidarity with those in struggle and to remember that, even in the midst of the tempest that is 2020, we are loved.
