February 20, 2022 – 7th Sunday after Epiphany

Forgiving and loving those who have injured you can only be done by looking to, and receiving grace from – God.

Let us pray.  Holy and merciful God, we give you thanks for your presence in this time and place, and within each one of us. Help us now to open our minds and our hearts to receive the gift of your living word for us this day, and may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.  Amen.

I want to dig a little more deeply into the Gospel Reading that you’ve just heard where Jesus continues to teach about living under God’s reign – living in the Kingdom of God. But first I want to explore a little more about the Joseph story from Genesis. Today’s First Reading was one of the great climaxes in that narrative.

Now some of you may not know the Joseph story or don’t remember it too well.  This is the guy with the “coat of many colours.” His father, Jacob, is a great patriarch amongst the ancient People of God.  He’s been given a new name by God – Israel – and he will be the father of this great nation.  God has protected him and guided him.   He’s become a prosperous and wealthy man.  He has 12 sons from two wives and Joseph, the second youngest, is his favoured son.  He’s born from Israel’s favoured wife.  So the other sons are very jealous of him, and clearly their father favours Joseph in the way he treats him.

So Joseph’s brothers decide to take advantage of an opportunity to rid themselves of Joseph when they meet with him out in the pasture lands. Some want to kill him, but instead they sell him to some foreign traders who are passing by and they take him into Egypt.  But things in Egypt, eventually, go well for Joseph. He’s found favour there and eventually he rises to the position of Pharaoh’s right hand man.  Then a serious famine comes upon all the Middle East and Joseph’s brothers have to travel to Egypt to buy grain so that their family does not starve.  And, of course, who do they have to buy the grain from but Joseph.  But they don’t recognize him.  And he “messes” with them a little bit but eventually he reveals himself to them. He does this in today’s First Reading. And he has clearly forgiven them for what they’ve done to him.  It’s a powerful story of forgiveness and reconciliation – of not taking revenge – and of Joseph’s ability to look beyond the wicked actions of his brothers against him, and see how God works even in the midst of such hostility and violence. Joseph’s focus in all his trials is on God.

Now, with that powerful example, I want to turn to the Gospel Reading where Jesus turns the traditional ‘eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth’ wisdom on its head!  Here’s what he says, “But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again.” And then he follows it up with the Christian version of the Golden Rule – do to others as you would have them do to you.

Now I suspect that this passage is fairly well-known to most of us.  Certainly the “turn the other cheek” phrase is something that we’ve probably referred to ourselves.  In fact, I can recall my mother talking about this from when she was a young school girl – relating this story to me later, of course. She learned this teaching in Sunday School, and so when someone at school slapped her, she didn’t get into a fight.  She turned the other cheek – and they promptly slapped that cheek as well!  Now I don’t recall how my mother worked through this spiritual-theological dilemma, but she was a strong Christian and must have come to terms with it somehow.

So how do you deal with, and treat, this teaching from Jesus? I suspect that for most of us, if it’s a minor offence that we have suffered, then we do choose to “let it go” – we “turn the other cheek.”  And if we’re sharing the incident with a friend later, we might even quote this little proverb – “It was no big deal, I just turned the other cheek.”  But what if it’s more serious?  What if you’re really hurt – really angry - then what? Well if you’re anything like me, this “turn the other cheek – love your enemies” teaching does not come to mind at that point!  Then you are tempted to retaliate – not so much to attack them, but rather so “they know what it feels like” – what you had to go through.  In fact, you might even justify your response as a kind of ‘teachable moment’ – they need to learn from what they’ve done. 

But Jesus doesn’t go down that road either. If he did, I think he’d be trying to threaten Pontius Pilate with crucifixion!  Saint Paul takes up this teaching in Romans Chapter 12.  He says, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written ‘vengeance is mine, I will repay.’, says the Lord.” And then Paul immediately continues with this very teaching of Jesus – if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they’re thirsty, give them something to drink – and so on.

Responding like this was powerfully illustrated for me in a story that I heard from a parishioner in one of my earlier parishes.  It was from World War II and the parishioner, whose name was John, shared with me that he was, for at least a year or two, in a Polish Prisoner of War camp, in the latter part of the Second World War.  And naturally, he received some harsh treatment.  His particular camp was liberated by American soldiers, and when he was liberated one of the American soldiers invited him to “take revenge” on his now-captured prison guard.  But John looked into the eyes of the trembling guard and simply said, “No – because I am not like you!” And he walked away leaving the prison guard in tears.

So we are to leave room for God’s judgement of another and not seek vengeance. But that doesn’t either mean sitting back and hoping that God will smite the person who has offended you! Jesus, instead, says this about following this teaching.  He says, “… 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.” It is because of who we are as children of God – adopted in Jesus Christ – that we are to rise to this ‘turning the other cheek – loving our enemies’ approach.  Our eyes are not to be on the one who injured us. Our eyes are not even focussed on our pain, or grief, or disappointment.  They are to be focussed on God, and following Christ’s example!  Just as on the cross, if you recall, Jesus was not focussed on his executioners, other than asking that they be forgiven. Nor was he focussed on his own pain or sense of defeat. He was focussed on God.  Even when he cries out, “My God, my god, why have you forsaken me?”, he is focussed on God.

So how are we to do this in practice – especially if we feel like we’ve really been sucker-punched, and we can’t just ‘grin and bear it’?  Well – do what Jesus did.  Take your pain, your anger, and your disappointment to God. It is from God the you will receive the empathy, healing, restoration and ability to step back and reflect more broadly on what’s happened to you.  Then, when we have rebounded; when our peace has been restored, our pain has subsided – then and only then, are we in a place where we can reach back out and “be merciful as your Father is merciful” to our offender. Then we’ll be able to show God’s love in our lives.

Sometimes I find this is relatively easy to “do to others as you would them do to you.”  But sometimes it is very difficult!  But we are not called to absorb the pain of the injury and respond out of love on our own!  In fact, we’re not able to do it on our own.  And that is why we pray in today’s Collect Prayer, “Renew your people with your heavenly grace, and in all our weakness sustain us by your mighty power.” And in our Prayer after Communion, toward the end of the service, “Grant that, strengthened by these holy gifts, we may show your love in our lives and know its fulfillment in your presence.” When we have been hurt, injured, offended, we don’t focus first on our offender.  We don’t focus on our own pain.  Rather, we take that pain and focus on God as Jesus did.  As the Psalmist says, “Cast your burden on the Lord and he will sustain you.” It is from that sustenance that we are able to love as God does.

Amen.