For those of you who know your lectionary you would've been surprised to hear the story of Joseph in the middle of Epiphany. We a re used to hearing it in Year A when we hear it as part of the history as of Israel. In that context we hear of how Israel ended up in Egypt, became enslaved, escaped from Egypt, and started 40 years of wandering through the w2ilderness and establishing a covenant relationship with YAHWEH before entering the Promised Land.
Today we hear a portion of the Joseph story. It is a story of a sibling relationship that went of the rails. However we define it: jealousy , anger, revenge, Joseph finds himself sold into slavery in Egypt and because of his ability to interpret dreams he becomes Prime Minister and helps Egypt survive a series of poor harvests.
In desperation Joseph's brothers come to Egypt seeking aid. The brothers have an audience with the Prime Minister not knowing that he is their brother. But Joseph recognizes them. Amazingly he responds with compassion. That is amazing because he could have responded with an act of revenge of some kind or another. Admittedly there has been a time of testing between Joseph and his brothers. And maybe that is part of human nature that we need a time of testing when we approach the reestablishment of a relationship because we are worried that a reconciliation or a reestablishment of a relationship won’t be possible or that it won’t work for whatever reason.
Those of you who may have rad the Rabbi Small mysteries may remember Rabbi Small making the comment once that the reason that the commandments are written down is because they are hard to observe. We know that the commandments, the Law can be condensed down to two: 1)to love God with all our being and the second is to love neighbour as oneself. Who is the neighbour, you ask?
Jesus is annoyed with his listeners who don’t seem to be getting it. He says,”I say to you that listen, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you”. Really Jesus, you want us to love our enemies and those who hate us?” Yet, if Joseph can forgive his brothers who sold him into slavery, why is it that we have problem learning to love our enemies or doing good to those who hate us?
There is something in human nature that pushes us as individuals or as a corporate entity, be it the government or church to push back in one way or another when pushed into a corner. We want to retaliate and sometimes that retaliation leads to abuse and judgement and in extreme cases to acts of violence.
And before I go any further I need to say that there will be times when the appropriate response is to stand up to an oppressor, to defend one’s personhood and in the case of a country protect its sovereignty.
But we also know how grudges and conflicts when allowed to simmer are disruptive to the well being of a community. It creates divisions and conflicts which prevent the community from fulfilling its potential.
Jesus came among us to witness to God’s intention that we should live in harmony with each other and with our God. That requires us to learn to relate to each other in a new and different way. It requires us to love all of God’s people including all those who hate us, all those who are our enemies.
I am reminded of this whenever I look at the General Intercessions in the Anglican Book of Alternative Services which has the petition of praying for those who love us and those who hate us and those who have asked us unworthy as we are to pray for them. As I think about it, that petition should not come as a surprise to us because Jesus during the last week of his life and even while he hung on the cross prayed for those who were opposed to him and his message.
When we remember to pray for those who hate us, we need to ask the question: why are there those who hate us? What is it that needs to happen so that there are no longer those who hate us? The obvious response is that we need to understand what it is about us that causes others to hate us as well as discovering what it is within us that prevents us from loving or even caring for those who hate us. From that we move on to understand what we have in common and then trying to find a way to overcome our differences and then move on to reconciliation, a starting over.
We learn to love our enemies and those who hate us because we have discovered that we are loved by God despite our human propensity to divide the world into groups and factions and parties. We learn to be agents of reconciliation because Jesus has shown us how to love those whom we would rather dismiss or ignore or badmouth. As we learn to love those who hate us we begin to create a community where all will stand reconciled before God and a new world order shall come into being. As we learn to love those who hate us we will discover that we are being transformed. In doing so we witness to the God who has come among us and is revealed to us in Jesus of Nazareth, the One whom we say is the Son of God