7 Epiphany C February 20, 2022
Genesis 45:3-11, 15 Psalm 37:1-12, 41-42
1 Corinthians 15:35-38,42-50 Luke 6:27-38
In the grand epic of the Hebrew Scriptures, from the period of the patriarchs, the story of Joseph stands as the irony of providence which led to the chance of forgiveness and reconciliation, and things being happy, not ever after, but for a short time.
We like stories with big emotional meaning and that is what the Joseph story is. Joseph was as a boy, the favorite of his daddy Jacob, born of his daddy's favorite wife Rachel. Joseph was a dreaming, precocious, boy, who sported a multi-colored coat in which he pranced like a model on a runway in front of his brothers. He was flaunting his most favored status in front of his brothers, and telling them his dreams about how they would be bowing down to venerate him. This was not a good way for him to impress his older brothers who were sons of Leah, the less favored wife of Jacob. The brothers seized Joseph faked his death and threw him into a pit; told his dad that a wild beast had attacked him, killed him, and they showed him the coat of many colors with animal blood on it as proof of his death.
Joseph was taken as a slave into Egypt and with his cleverness, he rose to become a powerful administrator for the Pharaoh to oversee his drought management program with his predictions of seven bumper crop years to store up grain, and seven years of controlling the grain market during the drought, And this drought brought his older brothers to Egypt for grain and supplies, and like a good play, Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him. He played a game with him to get them to fetch his younger brother and bring his dad Jacob into Egypt during the famine, and in Egypt they became the people of Israel.
At the moment of mutual recognition of Joseph and his brother, there was fear experienced by the brothers. They feared that Joseph would exact revenge for leaving him in the pit. And what did Joseph do? He declared his forgiveness and he declared after many years of waiting, his life was the providence of God for the survival of his family.
When things work out for good, we declare providence. It didn't seem like things were going right; but everything finally came to affirm the "rightness" of all that had happened.
But can everything seeming to turn out right, really justify the injustice and the cruelty that was part of the story? Does the resurrection actually make right what happened to Jesus on the Cross? Providence cannot make cruelty right and acceptable or even reconciled.
Probably the biggest wish of hope is that everything will and can be reconciled in a marvelous way, but such a wish may seem to cancel out as meaningless all the suffering.
Joseph was left alone as a kid in a big hole. He was captured by slave traders and became a slave in Egypt. He was able to rise as high as any slave could rise in Egypt because of his cleverness.
In the time of the early churches, how could the early Christians believe that it was God's will for them and the world to live under the oppression of the Roman Empire? How could they live their lives outwardly without harm, and yet still maintain the values of their inward mystical experience? How could they live this mystical experience in a way that would make people curious about why they were the way that they were?
Amish people can drive their buggies while the rest of us drive on superhighways and ride on the information highway at breakneck speed. Some people might want to get off the modern highway for the permanent Amish retreat. The early Christians could not live as Amish; they had to be seen by Roman authorities and other Roman citizens. How could they live winsomely and not ask for basic citizenship justice for themselves?
This is where the beatitude martial arts program comes in. It is not natural to love one's enemies. It is not natural to bless those who hate you. It is not natural to give your coat and shirt away to one who has neither. It is not natural to give to every beggar, and allow a borrower to keep what they've taken.
Do you and I want to be loved by our enemies? Do we want those who hate us to bless us? Do we want to beg and receive? Do we want to borrow and not return what we've borrowed?
When oppression is the normal state from which there is no easy freedom without having one's life end, how does one live?
One dreams about how one would like to be treated, and instead of demanding such, one treats other people the way that one wants to be treated. This is the golden rule. This is the categorical imperative of the philosopher Immanuel Kant
We hope for ideal behaviors in the middle of everything being far from ideal. And if the oppressor is the cause of things not being ideal, what are we supposed to do? We are not supposed to stand with the oppressor, we are to act in accordance with the ideal because that is the resistance to the evil of oppression. Gandhi knew this, Martin Luther King Jr. knew this, and this is the martial arts teaching of the words of Jesus for people who had to live under oppressing conditions.
When we are faced with oppressors, do not join them. Resist them by living the ideals of goodness. But this is not easy. It takes our entire lives and an afterlife to attain a 10th degree black belt status in the martial arts of Christ-like living.
The sad thing today is that the Christian lifestyle has been used to uphold the lifestyles of the oppressors in direct contradictions to these difficult martial arts of Christ-like living. We have lived too long on the side of the oppressing empires to see how we have forced people of color and native peoples to live the martial arts of Christ-like living so as not to rise up and revolt against the rule of the wealthy and powerful.
The Gospel for us today is to live with the hope that forgiveness and reconciliation can always be attained in degrees on an individual scale, but also on grand scale. Even as Joseph's ill-fated trip to Egypt ended up saving his family; it also became the place of the slavery of the people of Israel, from which they needed to be delivered.
And what does this tell us? That oppression and slavery are ongoing forces that can be defeated in temporary victories like the end of Apartheid and the declaration of emancipation, but we can never rest in the temporary moments of forgiveness and reconciliation, for time and human nature, and the temptations of having absolute power lead to further situations of oppression.
The tasks for us as Christians who have had freedom from oppression, is to convert our positions of privilege, wealth, and power to serve the overthrow of oppression. For Christians in America to live the beatitudes, means that we must be those who liberate people from systematic poverty, racism and any condition that is not worthy of the dignity of the image of God upon our lives.
The beatitudes of Jesus ask us to convert the power, wealth and privilege of our lives for the salvation health of all people and our environment. Let us commit ourselves to the profound martial arts of the beatitudes today, which means nothing less than being Christ-like. Amen.
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