Let’s look at the Old Testament story first. You know Joseph’s story, of course; born into the most dysfunctional of dysfunctional families, his father and grandfather both liars and cheats.
Joseph has a lot of growing up to do, and it takes a false accusation and many years in prison to help him grow up. But eventually he is freed and given an important post in the Egyptian administration, preparing for the forthcoming famine and then administering food relief when it comes.
And so his brothers come to beg for food relief. And at first Joseph is angry enough with them to first of all insist they bring the youngest, Benjamin, with them next time they come – he had stayed at home to look after their father – and then to plant false evidence that he had stolen a gold cup. He says he will let the others go but keep Benjamin as his slave, but the other brothers explain that it will kill their father if he does so.
And at that something breaks inside Joseph, and he makes himself known to his brothers, forgiving them completely for all they had done to him – pointing out, even, that God had used this for good, as he had been able to organise the food relief, knowing there would be five more years of drought and famine to come. And he sends for his father to come and bring all the households and settle in Egypt. The family is reunited and – for some generations, at least – they all live happily ever after.
Five hundred years or so later, the son of another Joseph is preaching to the people. And what he says is completely revolutionary. Here is a modern paraphrase:
The thing is, of course, that we don’t do it! None of it. We know it in our heads, but we haven’t made it part of us. We’re taught to stand up for ourselves, we’re taught to look out for number one. Even though we’re taught to share, we understand that we may have our turn on the swings in the playground, or whatever. Maybe as adults, we reckon we’ve a right to our turn at the remote control….
But from what Jesus is saying, we don’t. We need to put other people first. We need to allow other people to walk all over us, to hit us, to steal our possessions. It does sound as though we’re supposed to be doormats, doesn’t it? As though we need to just stand there, being totally passive, allowing other people to run our lives for us. No wonder we don’t do it!
But are we supposed to be doormats? I don’t think so! Jesus wasn’t, after all. Yes, he allowed himself to be arrested and crucified, he refused to defend himself at his trial. But before that we see him arguing with the Pharisees and teachers of the law. He doesn’t say “Oh well, I expect you’re right,” but tries to show them what he is all about, what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. He took up a whip and drove out the traders in the Temple – was that being a doormat?
“Treat people the way God treats people.” Of course, there are those who go around saying that God hates this group of people, or that group. There are those who would like to exclude all sorts of people from God’s love. But that’s not what the Bible says. Our Methodist doctrines teach that everybody, no matter who, can be saved.
God doesn’t hold things against us. It worries me, you know, that people’s whole careers can be ruined because of a thoughtless tweet they may have published ten years ago. People move on. I don’t know about you, but there are things I’ve thought or said in my past that make me cringe to think about them now – had there been social media when I was young, I’d probably be utterly disgraced now! And you can probably think of occasions in your own lives, too.
But the thing is, God doesn’t think of them. “So far as the East is from the West, so far has God put our transgressions from us,” says the Psalmist. And Jesus reminds us, here as elsewhere, that because that is so, we need to forgive, too. Think of the story we call the Prodigal Son.
I often think forgiveness is the Christian’s secret weapon. All of Jesus’ teachings in the passage we have been looking at this morning seem to be about forgiveness. If someone hits us, we forgive them, rather than hitting back. If someone steals our coat, we forgive them, and perhaps even offer them more of our clothes. And so on. After all, that’s how we’d like them to treat us, isn’t it?
But as you know, and as I know, the world isn’t like that. And we tend to conform to the world’s standards, rather than God’s standards.
But what if we didn’t? What if we really did do as Jesus tells us? What if we really treated people the way God treats them, the way we would like them to treat us?
The first Christians were known as the people who turned the world upside-down. But that was two thousand years ago, and over the centuries we have watered down Jesus’ teaching. We have got used to it, and we don’t see how revolutionary his teaching actually was.
Joseph, as we have seen, was able to forgive his brothers – it took him awhile, but when he got there, he really forgave them. He saw how God had worked everything together for good, and not only forgave them, but invited them to come and settle locally. He really is the poster child for forgiveness.
Jesus promises us that if we give generously – and I don’t think he means just material giving, but giving of ourselves, of our time, of our love, of our forgiveness – then God’s generosity to us will know no limits, either.
What do you think, I wonder? If you did as Jesus says in the gospel reading – would you turn into a doormat? Or could it be, possibly, just might, it prove to be dynamite, something to turn the world upside-down? Amen.
