Seventh Sunday
after the Epiphany (C)
February 20, 2022
Text: Gen. 45:3-15; Luke 6:27-38
“Be
merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36; ESV).
Our
Lord preaches to us this morning, that God’s mercy toward us poor sinners
should flow out from us toward those who sin against us, and toward anyone who
may be in need. God’s mercy in Christ
fills us to the brim, forgiving our sins for Christ’s sake, and generously
providing for our every need of soul and body, as Dr. Luther says in the Small
Catechism, “without any merit or worthiness in me.”[1] That mercy then overflows in us toward
others, as God designed His mercy to do.
So our Lord Jesus preaches. Now,
if we were to look for a concrete Old Testament example of this in action, we
could do no better than our Old Testament reading. Joseph has mercy on his brothers, forgiving
their sins against him, and providing for them, and for their families.
Now,
this is not to say Joseph was without sin.
At the very least, we can say, he was kind of a snot when he tattled on
his brothers, and in the way he revealed his prophetic dreams to his family, in
which he was the superstar, the center of all authority and
attention. Daddy’s favorite son, he
never seemed to miss an opportunity to flaunt it. So, he was a sinner, like you and me. Maybe his sins are not the same as your sins,
but this is an important point that perhaps your mother taught you. Certainly Jesus teaches you. When you point the finger at the sins of
others, well… you’d better be careful about all those other fingers pointing
back at you. Or as Jesus teaches you
just a few verses after our Holy Gospel, “first take the log out of your own
eye” (Luke 6:42). Then you can help
your neighbor remove his speck.
The
point is not that Joseph was sinless, but that he was (and is still today!) a forgiven
sinner. He received mercy from
God. And so he was merciful. Yes, even to these wicked brothers. And they were wicked. Remember, they threw Joseph into a pit. Some wanted to kill him then and there. But then the profit motive prevailed, so
instead, they sold him to Midianite traders, and lied to Dad about it, posing a
bloodied coat of many colors as confirmation of their claims.
First
a slave, then a prisoner, Joseph’s hardship and suffering were great. Yet even through that hardship and
suffering, there was the Father’s mercy.
God was teaching Joseph to rely on Him alone. For every need of soul and body. Though a slave, God gave Joseph favor
in his master’s eyes, so that he became the head of Potiphar’s house. His master trusted him in everything. (There is, by the way, a lesson here in how
Christians should conduct themselves in their lives and work. Why was Joseph so trusted? Because he acted according to his faith. He worked for Potiphar as though working for
God. Even unbelieving Potiphar
recognized that [cf. Eph. 6:5; 1 Tim. 6:1; Titus 2:9-10]).
And
then, falsely accused, having fled the temptation of infidelity, even there in
prison, literally in the pit house (once again, Joseph finds Himself in
the pit!), God gave Joseph favor in the eyes of his jailer, so he put
him in charge of all the prisoners. And
we know that through a series of divinely directed events, by God’s mercy,
Joseph became royalty in Egypt, second only to Pharaoh himself. The fountain of God’s mercy overflowed in
Joseph. And not just for Joseph’s sake,
but for many. God-given wisdom saved more
than one nation from famine. It
saved Egypt. And in saving Israel, it
saved us all, for from Israel came our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Savior
from sin and death.
And
now, here come the brothers to purchase grain.
And you know the story (and if you don’t, it’s worth a read, beginning
in Genesis 37). I won’t rehearse it all
for you here. But in our Old Testament
reading we have Joseph revealing himself to his brothers, and they are rightly
scared to death. Joseph would have been justified…
well, that’s a tricky word isn’t it… he would have been justified in our
eyes if he’d exacted revenge!
Put those miserable wretches to the wretched death they deserve. But then, our eyes are full of logs, aren’t
they? And Joseph would not have
been justified for doing this in the eyes of God (and by the way,
if he had, he would have preemptively killed Jesus, and then there would be no justification
for us). Do you see the problem with
taking vengeance yourself? There is a
reason God reserves vengeance for Himself (Rom. 12:19). What are you to do? Have mercy.
Having received the unending and overflowing mercy of God through
all his suffering and hardships, Joseph was now bound to show mercy,
even to his wicked brothers. Jesus says
to Joseph, and to us, “I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to
those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you”
(Luke 6:27-28). We can argue about the
rightness and wrongness of all the tests and trials Joseph inflicted on his
brothers in the intervening time. But
even in this, he is a picture of our Father, who put Joseph himself through the
trials of slavery and prison for the sake of his faith, and puts you through
various trials, that you may learn how helpless you are, how desperately you
must rely on the mercy of God alone for every need of soul and body. In the end, though, what does Joseph do? He has mercy.
He forgives his brothers, who didn’t just sin against him a little… they
wanted to murder him, and for all practical purposes, they did. He forgives them. And then he blesses them. Not just with words. With food.
With money. With a place to live,
where they will be preserved. Where
their descendants will also suffer trials, to be sure. Slavery in Egypt. But all under God’s unending mercy as He
molds them into His people. God, who
will bring them out, and settle them in the Promised Land, and bring from them
our dear Savior and Lord.
Now,
we must say, Joseph does judge his brothers’ actions, and even their
motives: “you meant evil against me,” he says to them at the end of
Genesis (50:20). “Judge not, and you
will not be judged” (Luke 6:37), does not mean you shouldn’t call evil,
evil (this may be the most abused verse in all of Holy Scripture, marshalled as
it is to prohibit Christians from ever saying something is bad). You can, and should, identify what is right
and wrong, and what is sin and what is righteousness in light of God’s Word,
and you should root out the sin from yourself by repentance, confessing
it to God and being absolved, receiving His mercy, fleeing infidelity,
crucifying your flesh. And you can, and
you should, having removed the logs blocking your sight, help your
neighbor with his speck. The point is,
you shouldn’t set yourself up as judge in the place of God. You shouldn’t damn your neighbor to hell. Nor should you think of him as a worse sinner
than you are. In fact, what should you
do? You should have mercy. As God has mercy on you. You should be patient. You should forgive. And you should show him God’s
mercy. You should tell him about the
forgiveness of sins he has in Jesus. You
should pray he knows the mercy of God in Jesus.
You should pray he receives life in Jesus. And you should bless him. Not just with words. With your body and with your possessions. Feed him.
Clothe him. Give to him
generously. Forgive him all his
trespasses against you… as you say you do in the Lord’s Prayer. That is what you tell your Father you are
hereby doing in the Fifth Petition. “Forgive
us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” And not just the little sins. The big ones.
Like Joseph toward his brothers.
After all, God has not just had mercy on you for your own sake. He has had mercy on you for the sake of your
neighbor. It is true, Joseph says to his
brothers, “you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it
about that many people should be kept alive” (Gen. 50:20), not just those
Joseph physically saved from the famine, but all of us, eternally,
as he preserved the nation and people from whom the Savior of the world is
born.
Now,
this is all very nice, theoretically, all this talk about mercy and
forgiveness. But you have trouble with
this. I know you do. And yes, I’m well aware of the fingers pointing
back at me, and the redwood tree in my own eye. It is hard to forgive those who sin against
you. Because it requires you to die a
little. It requires you to die to
yourself. And that always hurts.
It
is important to remember, of course, that forgiveness is not a feeling,
and you’ll struggle with bad feelings toward those who sin against you your
whole life long. You should fight
against those feelings, and you should confess them to God. They are sinful. But you’ll have them. Because you are still in this fallen
flesh. I imagine there were times Joseph
looked at his brothers and remembered the terrible things they said, and the
violent things they did, when they threw him into the pit. And he felt the old burning anger boiling up
inside. He had to put it to death. He had to crucify his flesh. But forgiveness happened when he said the
words: “do not be distressed or angry with yourselves… God sent me
before you to preserve life… God sent me before you to preserve for you a
remnant on earth,” and that means the Savior, and that means His
Christians… that means you!... “Hurry and go up to my father and say to him,
‘Thus says your son Joseph… Come down to me; do not tarry… I will provide for
you” (Gen. 45:5, 7, 9, 11). And so
he did. Forgiveness is a word. And then it is that word put into
action.
Of
course, Joseph is only an example of this, and an imperfect one at that. The personification of such mercy is
our Lord Himself. In fact, Joseph is
but a type of Jesus. Here the Son
of God comes to His brothers. He comes
to His own, and His own do not receive Him.
They cast Him out. We cast
Him out. Sold for thirty pieces of
silver, the price of a slave. Falsely
accused, arrested, tried. “The King
of the Jews,” Pilate declares Him (Luke 23:38). Yet “Crucify” is all our breath, as we’ll
hear and sing in the coming days of Lent (Luke 23:31; LSB 430:3). But what does Jesus respond? “Father, forgive them, for they know not
what they do” (Luke 23:34). In fact,
this is all for our forgiveness. Jesus
tells us to be merciful as our Father is merciful. Well, how is our Father merciful? The answer is Jesus on the cross. Jesus is the Mercy of our Father in
the flesh. The Mercy of our Father suffers
all evil for our sake, that we be forgiven.
The Mercy of our Father endures God’s wrath for our sake, that we
receive God’s grace and favor. The Mercy
of our Father dies for us, in our place, and is buried in the pit of a
man named Joseph, that we live eternally as beloved children of our Father. That is how our Father is merciful… In
the giving of His Son, who is Mercy incarnate, God’s Mercy to us.
Mercy
means sacrifice. And it necessarily
means the death of Jesus. But now Mercy
lives. For Joseph’s pit is empty, and
Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. And
now Mercy lives in you, and you live in Mercy.
For you are baptized into Christ, and Christ enters in to you with His
life-bestowing Word and His risen Body and Blood. You cannot have mercy by your own reason or
strength. Neither could Joseph. But Christ is the power that gives you to
have mercy, and Christ is Himself that Mercy.
Now,
go Christ everybody! That is the
point. You bear Christ upon you, and in
you, wherever you go. So go give Him. You’ve been mercied. Go have mercy. God forgives you all your sins for Jesus’
sake. Go forgive everything anyone has
ever done against you. God provides for
all your needs of soul and body. Go
provide for your neighbor’s needs of soul and body. Love.
Do good. Bless. Pray.
Feed. Clothe. Give shelter.
Give alms. Even to those who
abuse you. Even to your sworn enemies. Heap those burning coals, which we pray will
not burn in judgment, but in gratitude and love, embers fanned into faith. Your Father is not merciful toward you because
you deserve it. He is merciful
toward you because Christ deserves it.
You are not merciful toward your neighbor because your neighbor
deserves it. You are merciful toward him
because Christ deserves it. Don’t
look for thanks. Don’t look for repayment. Your Father is kind to the ungrateful and the
evil. So you. It runs in the baptismal genes. And in it, there is great joy. And also a promise: The more mercy you give,
the more room there is to receive even more mercy and blessing from
God. Good measure, pressed down, shaken
together, running over (Luke 6:38). God will
repay. He will reward. Maybe now in this life. Maybe you’ll have to wait for the
resurrection. But it will be more, and
greater, than you ever expected. Not
because of your merit or worthiness. But
because of Jesus.
Now,
we could say a word about men named Joseph, mercifully caring and providing for
Jesus’ ancestors in Egypt, and for Jesus at His birth, and again at His death
and burial. But as Luther would say,
this sermon has gone on long enough, so we’ll save it for another time. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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