Text: Genesis 37:3-8, 17b-22, 26-34; 50:15-21

image: generated by deepai.org

Watch a video of this sermon on YouTube.

When I read the story of Morris Micklewhite and his tangerine dress, as a parent – especially as a parent of a boy – I really get all the feels. Like most parents I want my kids to be their full and authentic selves and I want them to be loved and accepted by their peers and community as much as I love them. Morris’ mother is so chill in this book. 

This is a very progressive area. Seattle is in the top ten on lots of lists of the best cities for queer and trans folks. But a little boy will still get teased for wearing nail polish to school. Or told that pink is for girls. I know a pink-loving man who teaches kindergarten in Bellevue who says this on repeat: “there are no boy colors and girls colors, there are just colors.”

But Pastor Amy, you may be saying to yourself, while this is a wonderful and affirming story (at least I hope that’s how you feel about it) what on earth does all of this have to do with the Bible or church or the story of Joseph in particular? 

I’m sure I’m not alone in having this be one of the core Bible stories read to me as a child. It’s a staple bible-story book story. It’s a compelling one because unlike a lot of the stories of the Biblical patriarchs and matriarchs it’s got a whole narrative arc. We heard just the beginning and end of it this morning. Sex and violence and  intensity and drama, some of which we also heard. 

It’s sometimes called a novella because of all these features. And it was so compelling that Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice made it into the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat. I am most familiar (though that is not that familiar at all, actually) with the 1991 West End revival starring Donovan Bailey because Any Dream Will Do was a British top ten hit during the years when I lived in Jordan and it was British media that I had access to.

The thing about that technicolor coat, or the coat of many colors, or the ornamented tunic, or the long robe – all various translations – is that what Jacob gave Joseph was a dress. And not just any dress, a princess dress. If that’s true – that’s quite a different way of reading this story that we heard in VBS or Sunday school.

Where am I getting this possibly new and a little shocking interpretation? Well, the words most familiarly translated to “coat of many colors” are ketonet passim. In this context we might read: “Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons because he was born when Jacob was old. Jacob had made for him a ketonet passim.”

That phrase is used only one other place in Hebrew scripture, where it is given a conveniently clear definition. 1 Samuel 13 reads: “Now, she had on a ketonet passim, because this is how the virgin daughters of the King were clothed.” The ‘she’ in question is Tamar, the daughter of of king David. Tamar wore ketonet passim. Jacob wore the same kind of garment worn as Tamar, a princess. In other words, what Jacob gave Joseph was a princess dress. Who knows if it swirled and swished and crinkled like Morris Micklewhite’s?

Trans and queer interpreters of the Bible have embraced this story and some even assert: Joseph was trans! It’s possible, I suppose, though I don’t like to impose modern understandings and expressions of sexuality and gender on the Bible. And even with the clear definition of the ketonet passim offered in 1 Samuel,  interpretation and translation is a tricky and uncertain business. What is clear: Joseph is definitely not one of the boys in lots of ways.

He has this in common with his father Jacob (sometimes called Israel, and used interchangeably in the story). Jacob was described as a man who ‘lived in tents.’ In the tents is the domain of women. His twin Esau was a man of the field and a hunter. Jacob was described as soft and beautiful. He was a favored younger son of a favorite wife. And he was a dreamer. 

Joseph matches these qualities of his father in every way. In both the Quran and in Jewish tradition Joseph is considered striking, beautiful and the rabbis say that he painted his eyes with make-up. (source) For both, their dreams are gifts through which God speaks to them and through them.

As I was researching this I found one article disputing the princess dress interpretation with the argument that a biblical father would never get his son a dress. But I wonder if one of the reasons that Joseph was Jacob’s favorite was because he saw something of himself in his youngest son: a boy who defied gender norms, who liked ‘girl stuff,’ whose relationship with his brothers was contentious because of how different he was from them. Jacob wanted his son to have something beautiful.

Thinking about dads and princess dresses had me searching instagram for a viral video I remembered from years ago when Frozen was a global phenomenon. Some of you might well remember this video too. A dad faces the camera shaking his head slowly and sort of rubs his face and the caption reads, “My son wanted to go to the cinema dressed as Elsa. I said, there is no way you’re doing that…alone!” And you see him and his son both in costume as Queen Elsa, holding hands on their way into the movie theater.

Scott Stuart, the dad in the video has been a champion of kids who express their gender in ways that are the most true to themselves. He’s done this in books and short films and talks and lots and lots of videos with himself and his son @scottcreates. It’s an important message even for cis-gender straight kids who are expressive or creative or outside of the norm in one way or another. Masculinity especially can be so strictly dictated and policed, even unconsciously. 

I explored his page a little after tearily rewatching (multiple times) the Elsa video, and found a post of Scott talking about how we as parents talk to our kids about gender expression. “Are you sure you want to wear that?” “Maybe you want to just wear that at home.” Those are the kinds of things we say because we want to protect our children but we’re putting those fears on our kids, Scott says, and it stifles their true selves, as much was we want to protect them and say, Just tone it down! 

That’s what I want to say to Joseph – cool it buddy! I want to protect him. To warn him. Read the room. Why draw attention to yourself? When he shares his dreams with his brothers he’s just asking for trouble. 

But in Joseph’s family and in the faith tradition within which he lives, the gift of dreams and interpretation was serious. Maybe because of his father’s experience, his family knows that dreams really mean something. Joseph is in a bind – he may know that his brothers won’t like it. He must know they don’t consider him one of them. But he also can’t hide this part of himself.

Like so many non-conforming kids from history and from the present, Joseph’s story leads to violence and trafficking and (although we didn’t read it today) sexual harassment and prison. The God who created him, who gave him the gifts of dreams is his companion through all his troubles, but sis relationship with his brothers is completely broken and he is separated from his father. 

Morris Micklewhite figures out how to be himself in his community by the end of the book. He embraces his love of the dress and he expresses his dreams and his imagination with his classmates and it creates connection, not division. In only a few days everyone is playing together happily.

Reconciliation and a return to relationship is a matter of decades not days in Joseph’s story. Decades before his dream comes to pass and his brothers join him in Egypt. He’s found success and his dreamy-ness has been his gift in the palace of the Pharaoh, a gift that wasn’t recognized and appreciated by his brothers until they needed his help.

They finally final reconnection by invoking the name of their father Jacob. “They approached Joseph, the story says, “and said, “Your father gave orders before he died, telling us, 17 ‘This is what you should say to Joseph. “Please, forgive your brothers’ sins and misdeeds, for they did terrible things to you. Now, please forgive the sins of the servants of your father’s God.”’” Joseph wept when they spoke to him.”

Wept for the years that he had missed with his father. Wept with gratitude to be connected with his brothers, who knelt before him. Wept for God’s faithfulness. Wept to hear that his father wanted him to forgive and reconcile. Maybe it was true. Maybe it was true in spirit. Maybe they were making up these last words of Jacob. What is absolutely true is that Joseph loved and missed the man who had loved him, who had given him a beautiful dress, who had understood the importance of dreams. 

There are so many parents out there who are already doing it right – including Scott Stuart. Including Jamie Bruesehoff, a Lutheran mom of a trans daughter who created a re-naming ritual within her church and who, along with her daughter Rebecca has become a fierce trans-rights activist. I mention her specifically because she’s going to be at Holy Spirit Lutheran Church in a few weeks!

May we parents be as cool and Scot and Jamie and Moira Micklewhite and Israel/Jacob when our kids want to walk outside of our norms and expectations. And may our communities – and our churches! Walk with us and with them, knowing that God will be right there with them and with us too.

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