Sermon: What Empire Does To Us

Welcome to Masala Chai Theology with Father Joash P. Thomas: a space to spice up our spiritual journeys with ancient, Empire-resisting, and precolonial Christian ways of understanding God and neighbour - in ways that risk upsetting our Empire-shaped religious palate. This space builds on Fr. Joash’s bestselling book, The Justice of Jesus, which you can buy here for 30% off plus free shipping (US only) or wherever you get your books / audiobooks globally. Paid Subscribers are Fr. Joash’s inner circle of chai conversation partners who generously support his ministry as a priest and public theologian. If you’d like a Paid Subscription to Masala Chai Theology but are unable to afford one in this season, just reach out and we’re happy to arrange one for you until you’re able to afford this.

An excerpt from my sermon at Lakeside Church in Guelph, ON (Canada) this weekend. As is custom, the full manuscript is exclusively for Paid Subscribers, my inner community of chai conversation partners who generously support my ministry and upcoming PhD studies:

Well good morning Lakeside! So if you’re new here, we’re in a teaching series called Saints & Scoundrels where we’ve been exploring some controversial figures in the Bible and trying to make sense of them in a posture of humility, courage and curiosity. So we’ve looked at Eve, Abraham, and Tamar & Judah so far.

But today, we’re going to explore someone in the Bible who mostly only has good things said about them - even though he created an entire economy of slavery!

Now I don’t know about you but I’ve only ever heard good things about the Old Testament Joseph. Let me give us some background on Joseph for those of us unfamiliar with him – or at least, the narrative of Joseph that many of us were taught which has truth but isn’t fully truthful:

Joseph was this dreamer who liked wearing fancy clothes. He was his father, Jacob’s favourite son and he loved reminding his brothers of that. So one day, Joseph’s jealous brothers get sick of him. And they throw him into a dark pit. And then, they sell Joseph off as a slave – which gets Joseph to Egypt.

But once Joseph gets to Egypt, he gets innocently accused by a powerful person and gets thrown into prison where he’s all alone and forgotten. But Joseph always had these leadership skills so he becomes a leader in the prison and tries to do everything he can to get out – including explaining dreams since he’s always been good at dreaming.

But one day, Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt has a scary dream and he wants to know the meaning of it. But no one can tell him what his dreams means until someone recommends Joseph. So Pharaoh brings Joseph out of prison and Joseph explains the meaning of a dream – a long famine that’s coming. Pharaoh is so impressed that he makes Joseph his number 2 in all of the Egyptian Empire.

Joseph then brings his family over to Egypt, forgives them and then saves their lives from the famine. And that’s typically where we stop telling that story in the church.

But Scripture shows us that there’s something dark that happens right after; something we don’t talk about or something about Joseph that we choose to just explain away - something I’ve heard evangelicals even explain away as “good business leadership skills”: