Anger: Are You Responsible? (Part 1)

I love to hear a different take on a familiar story because I get to glean a new lesson. I never realized that Joseph’s brothers weren’t the ones to actually sell him into slavery. It’s kind of a minor detail that is easy to read right over. This is the scenario: after Joseph’s brothers threw him into a pit, they went off for awhile and when they got back, Joseph was gone. The text says, “Then Midianite traders passed by. And they drew Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver.” (1) If the Midianites sold Joseph, why do we get the impression it was Joseph’s brothers’ fault? (2) Because… it was.

If your anger causes the circumstances of someone else’s suffering, even if you didn’t directly “do anything,” you are still responsible. It’s a hard thing to admit. It took Joseph’s brothers twenty-two years to verbalize their own responsibility.

A famine struck the land, and Joseph’s brothers went to Egypt to buy food, unknowingly from Joseph, who had risen to second in command in all of Egypt. Joseph, though unrecognizable to his brothers, recognized them. As a test to see if their hearts had changed at all, Joseph put them in jail for three days and then demanded they leave one brother behind, go home and return with their youngest brother, Benjamin. Listen to what the brothers said amongst themselves when they found themselves in jail, “In truth we are guilty concerning our brother (Joseph), in that we saw the distress of his soul, when he begged us, and we did not listen. That is why this distress has come upon us.” (3)

The brothers were angry at Joseph, and in their anger, they caused the situation that led to irreparable harm. It’s really easy to get angry. And, it’s really easy to hurt people in our anger. So, if we are serious about living a life worthy of being called a disciple of our Master (who felt anger, yet did not sin), we’d best be aware of some principles of anger. The brothers learned these principles the hard way.

#1 Anger is hot at first and then cools down over time i.e. plans can change. #2 Everything you do matters and will affect others. #3 You can’t control the element of time. And, #4 you don’t get to choose the consequences of your anger.

#1 Anger Cools
Joseph’s brothers were angry, and they began to plot against him. Their first plan was plain and simple…murder. They said to one another, “Here comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits.” (4) That plan began to change because Reuben didn’t want to do something that drastic and thought he could maybe save Joseph later. He convinced his other brothers to cool down a bit by suggesting, “Shed no blood; throw him into this pit here in the wilderness but do not lay a hand on him.” Though the brothers still wanted him dead, they thought Reuben’s idea to let him starve to death was better than to have Joseph’s blood on their hands.

After the brothers tossed Joseph into a pit, their hunger got the best of them, and they apparently went a ways from the pit to eat lunch. As they were eating, their plan cooled a little more when they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites in the distance. At that point, a new idea came to Judah, and he proposed, “What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.”

Though their plan had cooled from murder to selling him into slavery, they didn’t actually get the chance to sell Joseph because the Midianites got to the pit first. As the Midianites were traveling, they probably heard Joseph hollering for help, pulled him out and decided to sell him. No human court would’ve been able to find the brothers guilty of selling him because they were not the ones with the money in their hands. But, they were still liable to the Heavenly court because their choices made in the heat of anger set a course of events that could not be undone.

#2 Everything You Do Matters
 The text also tells us that when Reuben returned to the pit and saw that Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes (as a sign of mourning). The brothers had run out of time to make modifications to their plan. Joseph was gone, and the blame lay at their feet. Joseph’s story illustrates the principle that “Everything you do matters.” (5) We all have stories where we can look back and see the results of decisions made. The trick is looking forward to what might happen.

Just recently I was driving my van and had a collision with a motorcycle. If any one thing in the course of that afternoon had gone differently, it wouldn’t have happened: If I hadn’t misplaced my keys. If the kids riding with me hadn’t disobeyed me about getting in the van. If one of them hadn’t asked to go home with someone else. If the young man driving the motorcycle wasn’t going over the speed limit. If he hadn’t been able to pass the slowpokes in front of him before he got to me. If he hadn’t been on a tight corner. If he hadn’t looked behind him…. If any one thing had been different, he wouldn’t have hit me.

“Ifs” are like hiking up a path that leads nowhere. You just get exhausted. But, the principal remains that even the seemingly inconsequential things you do matter, and they will affect other things and people. We don’t have to be paranoid, but we should be mindful and intentional about the decisions we make, knowing there are consequences to our actions, almost always ones we can’t pick and choose from.

#3 Element of Time
Time is another big “If.” Sometimes time is your friend. Sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes you have time and sometimes you don’t. Joseph’s brothers’ initial impulse to kill him got less and less severe over time. And, time seemed to be on Joseph’s side. But, even the brothers couldn’t control the circumstances because time eventually got away from them. What might have happened if the Midianites hadn’t found Joseph and sold him? What would the brothers’ next plan have been? It might have just been something as innocent as, “Let’s just scare him and teach him a lesson,” and history would’ve been very different.

#4 Anger’s Consequences
But, they couldn’t control how much time they had, and they found themselves left with the bitter consequences of the choices they made in their anger. Joseph’s father, Jacob, refused to be comforted in his mourning. I’m sure that drastically changed home life for everyone, and not just for a few weeks, for twenty-two years. Joseph himself, as a young man, was torn away from family and would never have a “normal” life. The Scriptures don’t record the details of how it affected each brother and each family member personally, but I’m sure there were many stories of the fallout.

We don’t get to choose what wounds are created because of our anger. We have to live with what happened. And, we don’t always get to take stuff back. Since we don’t always have time, we have to be careful about what actions we take in the heat of the moment.

Joseph’s brothers’ were angry. They had good reason to be. They were actually quite justified in being angry. Their father had bestowed the rights of the firstborn son on a child who was 11th in line. It’s O.K. to be angry. The Scriptures teach us, “Be angry and do not sin.” (6) And, how does that work? Through great courage, skill and strength, keeping oneself from doing or saying something irrevocable or that causes damage.

“Who sold Joseph into slavery?” is an entirely different question than, “Whose fault was it that Joseph was sold into slavery?” Even though Joseph’s brothers didn’t “do it,” they caused the conditions that put him into slavery. Can you be held accountable for what happens because of your anger? You bet. It takes much emotional strength to be angry and not sin. This religion of ours is not for the weak of heart.

• Have you been the recipient of the consequences of someone else’s anger? How could you handle the fallout? Read Joseph’s response in Genesis 45:3-8.
• Have you caused damage in your own anger? What are some ways you could seek to redeem those situations?
• A definition of responsible is “capable of being trusted.” Angry people can’t really be trusted because most of the time, they refuse to accept responsibility for their actions. Are you trustworthy?