(Genesis 37:1-11)

1. Joseph had dreams: People will bully someone if they feel that there is something different about them. This is the idea of making someone a scapegoat – by picking on someone who is different the group asserts its own sense of identity and cohesion. This is a herd instinct and comes out of an aggressive-defensiveness and a need to justify themselves in front of others.

It is not an easy balance to stand up for yourself without fighting back. I talked to a mother in Bermondsey about the fact that her child was being bullied. What she wanted to know was what he was doing about it. When she heard that he had been pretty upset. She clouted him on the back of the head to try to teach him to stand up for himself. The Christian teaching in this situation is that you get your sense identity through who you are in Christ and not from your peers who are bullying you. You can’t demand that people accept you and so don’t make Joseph’s mistake of drawing attention to what was most annoying people.

2. Joseph talked about his dreams: The person being bullied will then defend themselves on the point of contention that has caused him to be bullied in the first place. It is inevitable that he feels defensive about what is the focus of people’s attention. However, Joseph fuelled their feelings by talking repeatedly about the dreams that had annoyed them in the first place. This is a feeling of defensive-aggressive where the person being bullied reacts to how people are treating him.

People will look for acceptance from those who have treated them badly. In a marriage where the husband is beating the wife, the wife will go to the husband for reassurance. He is the person who is making her feel that something is wrong with her and so he then also becomes the person who can make her feel acceptable. The Christian teaching in this situation is that you bring things out into the open and don’t become trapped in the situation that can make you feel pretty hopeless.

3. Joseph talks about his dreams to his father: People are happy in groups but isolated when unhappy. Joseph is quickly distanced from his brothers and now also from his father. A bullying situation ends up with a circular process of action and reaction. Joseph is being bullied because of his dreams; he defends himself over the dream because this is the maximum point of contention; he is then bullied further because he has brought the dreams to his brother’s attention.

It is easy to criticise Joseph and say that he should have kept quiet and not brought drawn Jacob’s attention to his dreams. However his instinct is correct in that he is drawing the bullying situation to other people’s attention. This can be difficult in practice. If you go straight to the teacher and talk about how you are being bullied then you might bring more attention on yourself. The teacher can only be there for some of the time and you are reinforcing the idea that you are different from others. The Christian teaching in this situation is that you talk to the wider community of people involved in your situation – this will include family, teachers and friends