I got kidded about my sermon title for today: “Sexual Power.” It sounds like something you’d see on an issue of Cosmopolitan in the grocery store checkout lane. We focus on the first word – sex – when in reality it is the second word that is most important in today’s bible story and in our faith life in general. What is power? Power is the ability to cause a desired result, to get something to happen. Power is forward-looking – it moves things from point A to point B. Power makes things happen – and when it does, it is never neutral. It either works for good or for evil, for justice or for injustice.
Power is at the heart of the Genesis 39 story. When we last read of Joseph, he had provoked his brothers’ anger, been cast into a pit, sold to Midianite traders as a slave, and later sold by them to an Egyptian leader named Potiphar. Never forget that Joseph is a slave, the property of someone else. The text underplays this fact, largely because the category of slavery was so common then and didn’t fill people with abhorrence the way it does today. The text doesn’t focus on Joseph’s lack of power; instead it emphasizes how God was with him. That is typical of the Old Testament – to praise the God who is ever with us, the God of the blessing found in Numbers 6, where it says: The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make God’s face shine upon you, be gracious to you and give you peace. It is because of the Lord’s presence with Joseph that the writer uses words like “success” and “prosper” to describe Joseph’s condition. Yet we need to hold two images in tension here: We affirm that the loving God was present with Joseph, while never forgetting that Joseph was a slave, a human possession forced to serve Potiphar’s family.
Joseph was young and attractive and at some point a crisis developed. Scripture says Potiphar’s wife “cast her eyes on Joseph and said, ‘Lie with me.’” Here’s where the language of sexuality enters the story. We’ve seen enough movies to easily re-create this scene in our minds. We picture a softly lit room with plush pillows; we hear seductive music in the background; we imagine dark mascara eyelashes fluttering toward Joseph as the woman makes her request of him. Sexuality is usually characterized as an invitation or a subtle seduction. Author Diane Ackerman noted that a pair of sandals from a prostitute in ancient Greece has been found in which one of the shoes had metal studs in its sole that put an invitation in the dust with every step, spelling out “Follow me.”1 Yet this Genesis story is not about sexual seduction. It is about power. Potiphar’s wife is not offering an invitation to Joseph; it is command – and as such, it is not something that Joseph, a slave, is in a position to refuse.
But Joseph does try to refuse the woman. He points to the trust his master has in him and ends with “How could I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” Now, being here in church and hearing those words of scripture, more than likely our minds automatically link the word “wickedness” with the idea of “sex.” Isn’t that what the church has long taught? To paraphrase Nancy Reagan, isn’t the church’s view on sex “Just Say No”, except for reasons of modest procreation? A lot of people think so or preach so and teach as if it were so. It is overly simplistic to believe that Joseph refused Potiphar’s wife just for reasons of sexual purity. Joseph is a slave, being issued a command by his master’s wife. Joseph says “No” to save his life, because to break his master’s trust and dishonor Potiphar in this way almost assuredly would mean his death.
This is a story about power first and sex second. Remember, the dynamic of power is always present in our lives as sexual, intimate beings. And sexual power is either mutual, loving and therefore faithful or it is coercive, manipulative and therefore unfaithful. That is true whether we are talking about heterosexual or homosexual relationships. That is true whether we’re talking about holding hands, kissing and snuggling, or the command to “lie with me.” Power is the ability to cause a desired result, to get something to happen. Power is forward-looking – it moves from point A to point B. And in doing so, it is never neutral. To repeat, at best sexual power is mutual, loving and faithful; at worst, it is coercive, controlling, and unfaithful.
In a real way, this is not a story about sexual purity, but about sexual power – or, in the case of Potiphar’s wife, the abuse of power. She is the one breaking the trust of her husband, even though Joseph raises this as a concern of his own. She is the one who acts as if the rules don’t apply to her, even though her breaking the rules could well lead to Joseph’s death. John Adams once said, “Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak, and that it is doing God’s service when it is violating all God’s laws.”2
A sad sequence of events unfolded that day long ago. Someone of the dominant class, someone in power abuses that power by issuing an unjust command: “Lie with me.” That command is rejected, and what follows are lies, accusations and more injustice. Joseph, the dreamer, the one whom God was always with, had been earlier stripped of his robe of many colors and thrown into a pit to be sold as a slave. Now, Joseph, the one of whom Potiphar’s wife dreams, flees from her grasping hands – only to be stripped of his garments once more. She is left empty-handed except for a discarded scrap of clothing. She is rejected, but she remains powerful. As Joseph runs away, she shouts to all who would hear her, “My husband has brought among us a Hebrew to insult us!” Deflecting the blame first to her husband Potiphar, the woman then turns xenophobic and racist – “This Hebrew insults us.” Bible scholar Miguel de la Torre suggests that it is as if she had shouted, “This black/this Latino/this Asian/this Indian man insults us”, though we well know that even more offensive racial slurs would likely have been used.3
It is sad how this pattern of injustice and racism is so deeply ingrained in our human culture. Power scorned still retains power – so of course the outsider is always the one at fault. “The Hebrew insults us” with his rejection. Emmett Till is uppity to the white shopowner and must be lynched. John Lewis joins the Freedom Riders and must be beaten and arrested. Jordan Miles carries a Mountain Dew the wrong way and gets beaten in Pittsburgh. Trayvon Martin wears a hoodie in the wrong Florida neighborhood and gets gunned down by a vigilante. The unjust “Stand & Deliver” law lets Zimmerman go free, while a 17-year old black youth – stalked, confronted, defending himself, loses his life. It’s a question of power – of injustice – of racism – and it’s just plain wrong.
Back to our story: Why does Joseph not protest? Why does he not explain to Potiphar that nothing happened, that he had fled in order not to be coerced into having sex with his master’s wife? Because this incident is not about sex. It is about power – and Joseph, the slave, had none. At least, he had no earthly power. So Joseph is put in prison. There is no court of appeals, no defense attorney anxious to file briefs for a re-trial. Once again he was stripped and tossed into a pit, at the bottom rung of the earthly ladder of power. But Joseph was not alone. The blessing of Numbers 6 still applied to Joseph: The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord’s face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord’s countenance be lifted up upon you and give you peace. The promise from the beginning of Genesis 39 returns at the end of the chapter. The Lord who was with Joseph and allowed him to prosper in the service of Potiphar was still with him even in that prison cell, showing him “steadfast love.”
This is part of the paradox of our Christian faith. We believe in a God, revealed in Jesus Christ, who creates just and lasting communities through liberating love, not by coercive power. The reign of God comes about not through authoritarian power but by the “authoring” of new life and freedom in relationship with God and one another.4 That is why the story of Joseph is not and cannot be defined by his time in prison, convicted under false accusations. It doesn’t end at that point – any more than Nelson Mandela’s story solely consists of the long years spent in prison on Robben Island – any more than Jesus’ story concludes with that phony trial and unjust crucifixion on the hill of Golgotha outside the city of Jerusalem.
True power gets something to happen. True power is forward-looking – it moves things from point A to point B. And when it is God’s power, it is never neutral or coercive or unjust. It is something that sustains us through all the dark chapters of our life. It is something that gives us hope as we hunger and thirst for righteousness. It is something that causes us to speak truth to power and change unjust laws and work for the justice that will roll down like waters, like an ever-flowing stream. And in Christ, we have the assurance that this power, this love, this blessing is with us always, even to the end of the age. That is our hope – our strength – our joy. Thanks be to God!