To Forget Is to Fail Ethically

The story of Joseph in Prison in Egypt is one of my favorites. It is a story that is relevant today as we dismantle what has been called “mass incarceration,” and as we witness the role of formerly incarcerated people advocating for a just criminal legal system.

Joseph’s plea to the cupbearer, who is going to be released from prison after Joseph correctly interprets his dream, is a plea most people in prison make to people they have done time with who are being released: “Remember me!” It is more than a request; it is a moral imperative. My Biblical reflection on the Joseph story, “The Burden of the Cupbearer,” reminds us: forgetting is not neutral—it is failure.

As Joanne Ciulla notes in Ethics: The Heart of Leadership, leadership is at root a moral relationship between leaders and followers. To forget those we lead—or those who lifted us up—is to abandon that responsibility.

👉 Who are you ethically bound to remember in your leadership journey?

Postscript: Drawn from one of my spiritual reflections, “The Burden of the Cupbearer,” which evolved into “The Moral Imperative of the Cupbearer” — Listen to the sermon here: The Moral Imperative of the Cupbearer, Ciulla’s Ethics: The Heart of Leadership, and Susan P. Sturm & Haran Tae’s “Leading with Conviction: The Transformative Role of Formerly Incarcerated Leaders in Reducing Mass Incarceration.”

This is Part 1 of a 4-Part Mini-Series, beginning Sunday, September 7, 2025.