EPIPHANY 7, YEAR C

February 23, 2025

Saints Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R. I.

 

Genesis 45:3-11, 15

Psalm 37:1-12, 41-42

1 Corinthians 15:35-38,42-50

Luke 6:27-38

 

In the Gospel reading that we’ve just heard, Jesus gives one of his most challenging and difficult commandments: “Love your enemies. Do good to those hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you.”

 

How many of us can honestly say that we live up to this ideal? I know I don’t. And many if not most of us, I suspect, are definitely not there yet.

 

But still, there it is, in the Gospel text: “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” Or, again, as the Psalm puts it: “Refrain from anger; leave rage alone; do not fret yourself, it leads only to evil.”

 

Our Lord points out that it’s easy to love those who love us, or to do good to those who do good to us. And the challenge he lays before us goes well beyond mere reciprocity: “Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you.”

 

A basic principle of Christian spirituality is that when we experience a conflict between the ideal of who Jesus calls us to be, and the reality of what we’re actually capable of as the fallen creatures we are, it’s crucial to hold on to both sides of that equation. On one hand, we refuse to jettison the ideal as impracticable and unattainable. On the other hand, we resist the opposite temptation to pretend that we’re better than we really are. So, in our Confession of Sin every week, we acknowledge the gap between the ideal of our destination, and the reality of the distance we still need to travel before we get there. And then we cast ourselves on God’s mercy and ask his forgiveness while we’re still on the way.

 

Today’s Collect reminds us that we don’t get there by force of our own willpower and efforts at moral self-improvement, but only by God sending his Holy Spirit, whose greatest gift is love—without which whoever lives is accounted dead before God, and without which whatever we do is worth nothing.

 

So we do well to pray continually for the Holy Spirit’s gift of love, which alone can remake us into a people capable of fulfilling Our Lord’s commandments. Again, as the Psalmist puts it: “Commit your way to the Lord and put your trust in him, and he will bring it to pass.”

 

And if we need an example of what it looks like when, by God’s grace, someone is able to love and forgive their enemies, we need look no further than Joseph in today’s Old Testament reading from Genesis.

 

You remember the story. Years earlier, Joseph’s brothers seize him in a jealous rage and throw him down a dry cistern to die; but then they think better of that and sell him to a passing caravan of traders who take him down into Egypt as a slave. Finally, they dip his beautiful robe in an animal’s blood and tell their father Jacob that he’s been killed by a wild beast.

 

In Egypt, however, through a series of providential twists and turns, aided by his marvelous ability to interpret dreams, Joseph rises to a position of great power, second only to Pharaoh himself. Moreover, interpreting Pharaoh’s dreams as predicting seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine, Joseph stockpiles the royal grain supply during the years of plenty to provide food reserves for the years of famine.

 

When the famine comes, Joseph’s father Jacob sends his sons to Egypt to buy food. Since Joseph is in charge of the reserves, his brothers must buy the food from him. And so, these many years later, they come into his presence, not recognizing who he is. But Joseph recognizes them.

 

So, at the beginning of today’s reading, when Joseph reveals his identity and says, “I am Joseph,” it’s no wonder that his brothers are dismayed. Certainly they can expect, at the very least, to be put in chains and reduced to slavery, just as they once did to him. And by the standards of the time, he’d be entirely justified in doing so.

 

The really surprising twist in the story comes, however, when instead of seeking retribution, Joseph forgives his brothers. “Do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life …” And he instructs them to return and bring their father Jacob to Egypt to dwell with them in the land of Goshen: “I will provide for you there … so that you and your household and all that you have, will not come to poverty.”

 

Now, what is it that enables Joseph to forgive his brothers so magnanimously? Well, we can say first of all that it’s the Holy Spirit’s gift of wisdom that allows Joseph to understand that God’s been working through all his trials and tribulations to make it ultimately possible for his father, his brothers, and all their households to survive and prosper in the time of famine. Similarly, when bad things happen to us, we need to remain open to the possibility that God is working through those misfortunes to bring about a greater good.

 

But there’s more. A certain tradition of Christian biblical interpretation sees in the story of Joseph a symbolic anticipation of Christ’s own death and resurrection. Joseph effectively died at this brothers’ hands, descended into hell (that is, slavery in Egypt), and rose again in the glory to sit at Pharaoh’s right hand. (We see there the symbolism of the risen Christ being raised to the right hand of his Father in heaven.)

 

Saint Paul says in today’s reading from First Corinthians, “What you sow does not come to life unless it dies … It is sowed in dishonor; it is raised in glory.” Joseph was able to forgive his brothers because, having lost everything at their hands, he’d gained infinitely more. He was no longer clinging to the old life that they’d taken from him; and his completely new life freed him from any need to bear grudges or seek retribution.

 

It follows that we gain the ability to love and forgive our enemies insofar as we live into the risen life that is ours in Christ Jesus. Again, as St. Paul puts it: “The first man was from earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As we have borne the image of the man of dust, so also shall we bear the image of the man from heaven.”

 

Just as Joseph forgave his brothers, so Christ forgives those who caused him to die on the cross. And when we come to see ourselves and our neighbors through the eyes of the risen Christ, then, and only then, do we gain the ability to love our enemies, and to forgive as Christ has forgiven us.