Israel loved Joseph best of all his sons … and he had made him a long tunic. What happened to the “coat of many colors,” to say nothing of “the amazing technicolor dreamcoat?” “Long tunic” might reflect the Hebrew better but it doesn’t have the same zip. What does have zip is the family dynamic playing itself out — doting parent, sibling rivalry, big brother bullying, greed… which says that the Bible stories are of interest not merely as something from back in the day but of relevance now. When there is a “master dreamer,” someone who sees a new and better world, let’s not dismiss him or her as pie in the sky but as a challenge for us to live into God’s dream for us.
