The Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany-The Rev Melanie Lemburg
7th Sunday after the Epiphany-Year C
February 20, 2022
When I was in middle school, we lived in
an ante-bellum home in downtown Canton right next door to the Catholic
church. For years, we didn’t have a key
that worked in the door lock, so we just didn’t lock our back door when we left
the house. We would often leave each other notes pinned to the straight back of
the chair that you saw when you opened the door to the house—notes like, “Debra
(that’s my mom), I left the cash on top of your jewelry box. Love, Steve (my dad). One day, someone broke into our house. They took the cash, mom’s and my jewelry,
tvs, vcrs, and my leather-bound bible with my name embossed on it, among many
other things. We did all the things
you’re supposed to do; we filed a police report, we got the lock fixed and
started locking our door; my dad started frequenting the pawn shops in Canton,
and he recovered some of the electronics.
We thought we were safe once we started locking the door. But then they broke in again-forcing entry
into our home and taking more stuff.
Eventually, the police caught them- they were two teenagers-and we went
on with our lives, although I never really felt safe in the house after that.
Years go by, and my dad was serving on
staff at Kairos, an Episcopal spiritual renewal retreat that is similar to
Cursillo or Happening but takes place in prison. Late in the weekend, a young man came up to
my dad. He said, “You probably don’t
remember me, but I’ve met you before.
The last time I saw you, I was handcuffed in the Canton Police
Department; I’m the one that broke into your house. I’m so sorry.
Will you, please, forgive me?”
“Jesus said, "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. Do to others as you would have them do to
you.”
Our Old Testament reading for today gives
us another glimpse of what it means to forgive those who have wronged you. We pick up in the middle of the Joseph
story—one of my childhood favorites, thanks to an early encounter with Andrew
Lloyd Weber’s musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. This
is toward the end of Joseph’s story. You
will recall that Joseph was most beloved by Jacob his father of all his
brothers, and he had the gift of interpreting dreams which had been given to
him by God. What Joseph did not have, at
that point in the story, was wisdom or humility, and he proceeded to tell his
already jealous brothers that he had a dream which showed him that he would be
raised up higher than all of them and that they would eventually worship
him. So the brothers did what most
jealous siblings would do. The sold him
into slavery in Egypt. While serving as
a slave there, Joseph was falsely accused by his master’s wife and thrown into prison. And that could have been the end of it all
right there. But while Joseph was in
jail, it came to Pharaoh’s attention that Joseph could interpret dreams, and
since Pharaoh had been experiencing a rash of troubling dreams, he called upon
Joseph to interpret them. Joseph divined
that Pharaoh’s dreams meant that Egypt was about to have 7 years of plenty
followed by 7 years of famine, and he instructed Pharaoh to start collecting
the food and resources from the years of plenty to see them through the years
of famine. As a result, Pharaoh releases
Joseph from prison and elevates Joseph to a position of trust in his court.
Our reading for today picks up two years
into the 7 years of famine, when Jacob’s sons have come to Egypt to seek
assistance because they are all starving in Canna. Joseph revels himself to his brothers in our
passage for today, and rather than offering them some well- deserved retribution,
Joseph humbly forgives them and tells them how their actions, though meant for
evil, have been a part of God’s plan to bring about good for all of them.
It’s an astonishing moment when we think
about all that has happened to Joseph and how he had been so haughty in
relationship with his brothers before.
And there is only one explanation for how Joseph could have reacted the
way that he did. That is that both he
and his brothers have been transformed by God’s grace.
I’ve been thinking about forgiveness in
light of all this—the story of my dad forgiving the man who robbed us and of
Joseph and his brothers’ reconciliation.
One thing that helped me this week was listening to a podcast on
forgiveness. Here’s what they said in
the podcast: “Forgiveness is not reconciliation. Forgiveness sets us up for reconciliation if
God opens up for that opportunity and if the other person is willing and all
that. But forgiveness doesn’t require
anybody else. It’s something that we do
as a spiritual practice within our own relationship with God that can open us
up to other things, but it sets a realistic expectation for what forgiveness is
and what it isn’t.”[i]
God, through the Holy Spirit, is the one
who begins the work of forgiveness in us.
We can pray and ask God to help us be open to receive that work; and it
doesn’t require any other person in order for us to forgive. Reconciliation is what comes when the other
person is willing to participate in our forgiveness journey, or when, like
Joseph’s brothers, the Holy Spirit has been active in transforming other lives
as well.
Your invitation this week is to think
about an area of your life in which you’d like to be forgiven or to offer
forgiveness to someone else. Begin
praying to the Holy Spirit to open your heart that you may be ready for the
work God will do in and through you.
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