God’s promise to Abraham that, through his one family, God will bless all the families of the earth. In Genesis 37, that promise doesn’t look like it’s going very well. The large family of Jacob can’t even figure out how to live at peace with one another - let alone show God’s ways to the world. Still, God continues to work through this family - helping them mature in wisdom, helping them set aside petty rivalries and jealousies to work together, helping them work through the messy business of reconciling and forgiving past wrongs - so that by the end of the story, they have become a unified family once again and even one that blesses the world around them in a time of great suffering and struggle.

How is God working in this time of disruption, division, and “involuntary dislocation” in which we are living? Perhaps the same way God is always working - taking what is intended for “ill” and working it for good. God gets into the messy tangle of human lives and communities to move us toward a future in which all people are reconciled to God and each other and living in peace. How might God be involved in the messy tangle of our own lives and the lives of those around us right now? How might God be calling us to be the family that blesses all other families at this moment?