7th Sunday after Epiphany, Sermon by The Reverend Loree Reed

Genesis 45: 3–15
Luke 6: 27–38
Lord, may we hear your voice in the words spoken in your Name. Amen.

Have you ever been asked to write your own spiritual autobiography?  As a priest, I certainly have, a number of times.  And every time I do it, I am challenged as I try to describe the way things really were in my family – with strong wills, competition, maybe just a tiny bit of jealousy – as well as faith and love.  Maybe your family was a similarly mixed bag.  Maybe you too learned to live within those tensions – ‘the way it was supposed to be’ and the way it really was.  That’s why, this morning, I am glad we have the benefit of Joseph’s honest look back at his own complex family story – and his confidence, twelve chapters later, that God was involved all the way through, for God saw what lay ahead.
Certainly, Joseph’s family was a mixed bag.  You know that story.  Joseph was his father’s fair–haired boy, his father’s favorite.  But that favoritism wasn’t lost on his jealous elder brothers.  Of course, Joseph didn’t help things by telling his brothers some of his big dreams.  Imagine what you would say if your little brother said, “I had a dream.  We were all binding sheaves of wheat in a field and your sheaves all bowed down to mine.”

“Oh really?” his brothers say.

“And then I dreamed that the sun, the moon and eleven stars all bowed down to me.”

“Thanks for sharing.” the brothers say.  But of course, among themselves, they weren’t saying any such thing.  They were saying, “We’ll give that brat something to dream about!”  And one day, they get their chance.  Jacob, Joseph’s father, sent his young son out to the fields where his brothers were all tending the sheep. Joseph, of course, was not required to work long hours in the fields as they were.)  Seeing their chance, the brothers throw Joseph into a pit.  And at the last minute, rather than killing him, they sell him as a slave to a passing caravan of Midianite traders.
But all is not lost, for even enslaved, Joseph’s intelligence and prophetic gifts are clear to everyone around him.  And Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, is impressed.  Unfortunately, Mrs. Potiphar is also impressed.  And Joseph is thrown into jail on the trumped–up charge of conduct unbecoming to a slave.  Yet even there, God’s favor shines on the young man, and he is released from jail after he interprets a dream for Pharaoh, foretelling a great famine that’s about to affect the whole region.  So Pharaoh rewards the young man by placing him in charge of the entire Egyptian welfare program.
Well, one day, two years into the famine Joseph had foreseen, who should show up but Joseph’s brothers, looking for food.  He recognizes them immediately, but they have no idea who he really is – until he finally tells them, “I am Joseph, whom you sold into slavery.  Is our father still alive?”  And then, of course, his brothers are terrified, realizing he has every reason to settle the score by killing them all.
But Joseph has perceived the hand of God in his life, moving him towards a larger purpose.  So he has decided to return kindness for unkindness, generosity for meanness, and love for hatred.  And three times, so they will get the point, he tells them why.  “It’s about God,” he says.  “God sent me before you to preserve life,” he tells them in verse five.  “God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant,” he adds in verse seven.  And then finally, in verse eight, he says, “It wasn’t you who sent me here, but God.  And though you meant it for evil, God meant it for good.”  In other words, Joseph realizes that God is the hero of this story, the author and finisher of Joseph’s own life.  And in God’s strength, God’s mercy, Joseph can now embrace his brothers and forgive them – so they can all begin to live together again on the new lands Joseph grants them.
I think it’s no accident that this reading from Genesis is paired with Jesus’ commands this morning in the Sermon on the Plain, telling us to love our enemies, to do good those who hate us, to pray for those who abuse us.  For Joseph’s story shows us how God can help us adopt his own merciful perspective.
We don’t know exactly when Joseph began to acknowledge God as an active participant, an active companion in his life.  But I imagine the young man grew closer to God as the series of unfair incidents in his life multiplied – first at the hands of his brothers, and then after he’d been thrown into jail for something he’d never done.  Trouble, sorrow, abuse, deprivation – they all have a way of bringing us to our knees, ready to listen to God.  And Joseph’s whole life was full of this.  So he’d learned to lean on God, making him God active companion.  And little by little, he had learned to look at life from God’s merciful, generous, forgiving perspective.
And he isn’t alone.  You notice in this morning’s passage from Luke, Jesus is talking to “you who listen.”  He’s talking to those poor ones he has just called blessed, those hungry ones longing to be filled.  He’s talking to people whom other people hate – just because they follow him and try to live life on his terms.  Just like Joseph, all these people have been brought to their knees by all life has done to them.  So now they are ready to listen to God.  They are ready to hear the terms of life he has for them.  And Jesus gives them those terms, God’s terms, straight.
“Love your enemies,” he says. “Give them the benefit of the doubt.  Try to see, try to understand why they have done such harm to you.”

“Do good to those who hate you.  Maybe, by your generosity, by your kindness, you will disarm them.”

“Pray for those who abuse you.  If you can’t get to them, maybe I can.”

“And give.  Forgive any who ask you to.  Treat each one as I have treated you.  I am generous, so you be generous too.”
You see, Jesus is asking those who listen to God to treat others as God himself has treated them – mercifully, generously, gently, kindly.  He’s heard their prayers.  He’s heard their sorrowful confessions.  And He’s forgiven them, welcomed them back into the fold.  Now he is asking them to treat others in the same merciful way, drawing not on their own resources but on his deep pool of mercy, his compassion, his forgiveness.  These are the terms of life with God – made possible by his own generosity.
And my guess is that you and I already know some of this.  My guess is that we are ready to listen.
Amen.
 
 
Return to Sermons Archived Sermons Home Page