Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost – 11 September 2005

St. Paul Lutheran Church, ABQ NM – The Rev. P. L. Holman

Genesis 50:15-21; Psalm 103:8-13; Romans 14:1-12; Matthew 18:21-35

“Should YOU not have had mercy?”

Calico Butterfly Preschool has a monthly theme that I try to follow for our weekly Chapel time.  This month it’s “Me and my Family” so we are learning about some of the families in the Bible.  I think this week we’ll learn about Joseph and his brothers.

Do you know the story?  Joseph was well liked by his father – even gave little Joe a many-colored coat.  [Ever see the musical “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat”?  That’s the story.]  Joseph’s older brothers were a bit peeved – jealous – about the attention he received from their father.  It seems that when Joseph was about 17 years old he began to exercise his gifts of insight and dream interpretation, in particular around a dream that had Joseph’s older brothers bowing in deference to him and his leadership, and that made his brothers even more irritated.  So they decided to get rid of him.  They didn’t want his blood on their hands so they schemed to make a few bucks by selling him into slavery and then pretend to their father that Joseph had been attacked and devoured by wild animals.  They presented to their father Jacob the coat of many colors soaked in the blood of animals, and Jacob gave up his son Joseph for dead.

Let’s fast-forward a few decades: Joseph had by then established himself as a wise manager for the Pharoah.  His accurate interpretation of the Pharoah’s dream helped win Joseph’s release from prison where he was being held for a crime he didn’t commit.  Forgiven by the Pharoah and warned by his own dream, Joseph was free to prevent seven years of famine from decimating the Pharoah’s household because he recognized the seven years of abundance that preceded it, and he was able to set aside additional stores of grain as leverage against disaster.  When the famished household of Jacob heard that the Pharoah had grain in abundance, Jacob sent his elder sons with money to Egypt to try to obtain some of that grain.  And so the sons of Jacob end up begging their brother Joseph for food, only they didn’t recognize him as their brother.  Joseph, however, did recognize them and proceeded to use several different tactics to test their honesty, their family loyalty, and their persistence. 

The story of Joseph is packed with all the emotions borne of challenging family ties, including the struggle of a wronged brother to forgive his siblings.  Today’s passage from Genesis comes at the end of the story, when their father has died and the brothers worry anew that powerful Joseph will now seek to avenge the wrong they did to him so many years ago.  Harking back to the devotion they all shared to their father, the brothers seek reconciliation.  Joseph offers forgiveness sealed by tears.  By tears and the affirmation that contrary to the vengeance we humans often desire, God desires healing.  “Am I in the place of God?  Even though you intended to do me harm, God intended it for good...” The beauty of Joseph’s response – the wisdom and power he exhibits, resides in his choice: “I am not God.  Nor am I in the place of God.  I am doing simply what God has called me to do.”  God’s healing power of forgiveness prevails.

Forgiveness is heart-changing power.  It doesn’t make sense if what you want is to balance accounts.  It certainly doesn’t make sense if what you want is to even a score.  But Jesus didn’t die to make sense of things.  Jesus died to make love real, to make life possible even in the most heinous of broken and death-dealing situations.  Once we know forgiveness, forgiveness from the heart, we can’t help but see people in a wholly different light.  Did you hear what Joseph said in those last lines today: “So have no fear; I myself will provide for you and your little ones.”  For you and your future.  That’s forgiveness from the heart.  It shapes a life-giving response to the lives of others.

On this anniversary of 9/11 we do well to remember that our life changed forever four years ago, our view of the world was changed forever.  We became linked with one another through pain and healing, through fear and hope, through death and life.  In a reflection prepared for this anniversary, Bishop Stephen Bouman of the ELCA’s Metropolitan New York synod writes: “Four years ago Ground Zero opened up a global window...[globally many windows of opportunity for strengthening the human community.]  In many ways [some choices made] these past four years of war, terror, and national [pride] have also slammed shut many of these windows… As we gather [today] let us see our [church] altars as links on the long mourners’ bench.  Let us pray for places [of mourning,] of hurt and hope to which we are linked around the world.  Let us find ourselves on the long mourners’ bench with a renewed understanding that the only true security in this world is at the baptismal font and in the well being of every child of God in the world, especially the poor and vulnerable.”  In other words, let us see one another through the lens of a forgiven people, blessed to share that blessing with the world.

The healing efforts continue still in Manhattan, even as healing efforts and the restoration of hope will need to continue for years to come among the people devastated by hurricane Katrina and by all the unintended and intended disasters between and yet to come.  The mourners’ bench is indeed long, Bishop Bouman continues, “and God’s attention is infinite.  The one who remembers the sparrow is the one who calls us on this anniversary…to solidarity with all who suffer.  [Even those who wrong us, or those we have wronged?  Yes, even these.] 

“We must not look away and we must never forget.  The Church is God’s reminder that suffering is never isolated, meaningless, anonymous, but always linked to the long mourners’ bench upon which we sit, arms linked in [honest] friendship, and linked forever to the cross and resurrection of Jesus.

“This suffering world needs a story, and needs to know the end of the story.  Beyond the maelstrom is the empty tomb and the presence of the Risen Christ, Immanuel, God is with us.” 

Today Christ is present with us – in bread and wine, in forgiveness offered, in helping heart and hand extended.  Christ is with us, and that presence is hope for healing in every place, for every soul.  Thanks be to God.