7th Sunday after Epiphany
Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Today’s gospel reading presents us with one of those texts to which we want to respond with “yes, but”. Jesus is challenging us to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us, but does he really understand what it’s like in our world? Jesus asks us to offer the other cheek, but doesn’t that make us look like wimps and doormats? Jesus wants us to give to anyone who begs from us, but does he realize how quickly we would run out of funds if we did that?
Take the begging and lending challenge. As churches, we really want to be generous, but we have heard so many stories about people abusing our generosity that we have become very careful. We give money to aid organizations and let them sort out the poor. We alert neighboring churches to people who make the rounds, going from church to church with the same story to ask for money.
I am a sucker for sad stories of need and desperation, and I always want to give. But when I do, people tell me to stop it, that I am wasting my money, and that my giving would just encourage folks to keep coming back, and it would never end.
One pastor shared in an online blog about a clothing and furniture ministry in his city. The store is open a few hours a week, and people line up eagerly. They come in and browse the clothing, the accessories, and the furniture laid out. And they can take what they need without having to pay. It is all free.
The pastor thought this was a great ministry. Then he talked to a member of his church who is a landlord of several apartment buildings in the city. He was deriding this ministry, saying, “You should see the boxes of clothes and stuff these people leave behind when they move out or get evicted. And they all come from that ministry in the city. What a waste!”
Jesus’ words are a real and radical challenge, both to us personally and to the church. He lays out expectations we find it difficult to live up to. It sounds so much like Jesus is setting us up to be suckers and wimps and to open ourselves up to abuse. Why would we do that? Would anyone do that?
The answer is: Yes. Verses 35 and 36 point us to the answer why: You will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
The kind of generosity and mercy Jesus describes is exactly what he has observed in God.
God has created this world and still sustains it through his creative powers. He sends sunshine and rain. He makes plants grow and life stock mature. He provides us with daily food, through people who care and through the beauty of an amazing creation. God is generous to the extreme.
How many people receive all the blessings of God’s generosity and never as much as say thank you? How many people keep coming back for more without ever giving back? How many people admire a gorgeous sunset but refuse to give God credit for creating such beauty? God is indeed kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. And now Jesus is asking the same of us.
The fact that Jesus anchors his demands in God’s grace, reminds us that what Jesus lays out here are not just good ideas for community living or a nice philosophy. What Jesus is describing is our response to God who has done all these things for us first. He is not asking anything of us that he didn’t do first. We are to be generous not because it is nice or a good idea, but because God is generous, and God has been generous to us, and we are giving thanks and praise to God by being generous ourselves. Our behavior is rooted in God’s grace.
Looking closer at one of the words in our text adds to this emphasis. The word is “credit”. Jesus uses it three times: “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again.”
The word translated as “credit” is the Greek word “charis”. Another translation for this word is “grace”. Listen to how Jesus’ teachings sound with this translation: “If you love those who love you, what kind of grace is that to you? If you do good to those who do good to you, what kind of grace is that to you? If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what kind of grace is that to you?”
This gives it a different sound, doesn’t it? It points to the fact that we live in divine grace. God’s grace has touched us. In baptism, we are forgiven of our sins and promised eternal life. We have been blessed with the Holy Spirit, with faith, with hope, with a community of believers to support us, and with everything we need for daily life. We are blessed by God’s grace to an unbelievable extend. We live in God’s grace.
And we live to pass on God’s grace. In our generosity, our mercy, our forgiveness, our love of enemies we pass on what we have already received from God. We are not doing those things to earn God’s grace. We are doing those things to reflect the grace we have already received from God.
Jesus has no illusions as to how hard this is.
Give to those who beg without expecting anything in return: Jesus heals ten lepers and only one of them comes back to say thank you.
From anyone who takes your coat do not even withhold your shirt: Jesus will hang naked on the cross while soldiers cast lots for his coat.
If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other cheek also: Jesus will not defend himself against torture and abuse.
Love your enemies: Jesus will forgive the very people who nail him to the cross.
Jesus is our example for how to live these challenges even when it’s hard. He calls us to follow in his footsteps because this is the only way to end the cycle of violence and retribution and hatred that plagues so much of this world.
It is interesting that our Old Testament reading this morning shares the end of the Joseph story with us. This is a story of a family full of jealousy and resentment and abuse. Joseph relishes his favorite son status in an obnoxious way. The brothers get mad and sell him into slavery. Joseph ends up in Egypt and works his way up to second in command. His gift for interpreting dreams allows him to plan ahead for a famine about to strike the land. This famine eventually brings the brothers to Egypt in search of food. They don’t recognize Joseph and he has some fun threatening them. But eventually, he reveals himself to them, forgives them, and reunites the whole family in Egypt.
Joseph in the end is able to forgive his brothers, his enemies, who had sold him into slavery. Our reading tells us how he is able to do that: He recognizes God’s gracious plan behind all of it. “God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God,” he says.
Joseph realizes that this is not about him. This is about God blessing him with food so he in turn can bless his brothers and thus keep the chosen people of God from starving. God has blessed Joseph with gifts and skills and an incredible career. Now Joseph is using those very blessings to rescue his family.
As I was writing this sermon, I looked at many pictures of this reunion scene. Artists over the centuries have interpreted this scene in their paintings. All of those paintings are full of wonder and joy in the faces of the brothers.
Interestingly, the joy is not just in the eleven brothers who had been forgiven, but also in Joseph’s face. Joseph rejoices that the love in his family has been restored.
Joseph had to stop the cycle of violence. It was not easy for him. It took him a long time. But in the end, he trusted God’s grace and guidance, loved his enemies, was merciful as God is merciful, forgave his brothers, and brought peace into the family.
This Joseph story is a wonderful illustration for why Jesus is calling us to those challenging directives. Jesus’ dream is for all people to live in peace with one another. For that peace to take hold in our world, we need to love even enemies, we need to be generous and merciful, we need to trust God’s grace and share God’s grace, even when it’s hard.
I am going to finish with a story that was told to me by a former bishop who had travelled to his synod’s partner church in Liberia a lot. Liberia has suffered from decades of civil war. People did terrible things to each other.
One day, two friends were driving along a country road when they came upon a hitch hiker. They let the man climb in and took him to where he needed to go. After he got out, the passenger turned to his friend in the driver seat and asked, “Wasn’t that the man who beat your father to death?”
“Yes,” the driver said.
“Then why did you give him a ride?” asked the friend.
“Because forgiveness has to start somewhere.”
For violence, hatred, prejudice, and injustice to end, forgiveness it needs to start somewhere. Today, Jesus calls us to walk in his footsteps, rely on God’s grace, and let it start with us. Amen.