Proper 15 (A) + Grace abounds + 8.20.17

(Earthseed, Godischange.org)

M. Campbell-Langdell

All Santos, Oxnard
(Genesis 45:1–15; Ps. 133; Romans 11:1–2a, 29–32; Matthew 15:(10–20), 21–28)

Oh, how good and pleasant it is, when brethren live together in unity! (Ps. 133:1)

How sad that we have not seen this unity in the world recently. Sometimes, looking at the events in Charlottesville and Barcelona, one begins to ask – where is the unity?
And what does forgiveness look like in a world of hateful actions and speech?

The story of Joseph and his brothers in the book of Genesis is a powerful one. If you recall, Joseph was a special kid, favored by his father and even given a special multi-colored coat. There was something different about him, even as a kid, and it drove his brothers up the wall. So they first tried to abandon him and then sold him to slavery. And then told their father he was dead. Really caring brothers! But the amazing thing is how God turned all of this around. Because Joseph was gifted, he first rose in the Egyptian court, then ended up in a difficult situation, but then due to his dream interpretation skills, was able to rise again, higher than before, in fact to the highest position in the land, as the person in charge of all of pharoah’s goods, and this at the time of a famine. Pretty amazing. Because he was touched by God and he had a gift. So in today’s passage we see his brothers, affected by famine and coming begging for his help. And first, he gives them a hard time. Was it to see if they had genuinely changed, or was it just because he was still a bit mad? Who knows. But it is clear that he needed to test them a bit or something. And the brothers dealt well with the challenge, offering to sacrifice their own wellbeing for their younger sibling. So Joseph realizes that it is safe to reconcile.

Interesting here is that his words do not talk a lot about forgiveness. But his actions do. His actions say he is willing not only to overlook the past but to provide a future for his family. He, robbed of his father, has become like a father to Pharoah, such is his power, and here he chooses to share that abundance and clout with his family. He, an Israelite by birth, has become like an Egyptian. And here the forgiveness is all in Joseph’s hands-he becomes overcome with emotion and reaches back out to his brothers and by extension his father. There is so much of God’s mercy and loving-kindness in this story, the story of a wounded person rising to esteem and wealth and being able to share love and forgiveness, not punishment.

Sometimes stories in the Bible seem harsher than what we see in everyday life.
But today our story is at times harsher than the Bible story. Because for example the Egyptians in our midst, or the African-American people who were once enslaved have not all risen to power but are still disproportionately affected by long entrenched economic and social systems in our country that favor those of us with fairer skin and relatives with bigger bank accounts. Many people of color have to fight difficult odds to experience a life with different opportunities than their parents had.

But there is still so much room for grace in this country of ours. There are so many examples of people rising above the odds. And in fact one of the amazing things is that God often uses the so-called minority voices to call us into new possibilities and new realities. Joseph was a minority voice but he helped save a region from starvation. The Canaanite woman cleverly shows Jesus a rhetorical ploy based on different cultures’ table manners to show him how God’s grace is big enough for all. She does this by pointing out to Jesus, a Jewish man, that people of the Greek cultural background often fed their pet dogs at the table, something a Jewish person would consider unclean. Hence, both pets and people can be fed, and both Jews and Canaanites can be healed and saved by God! Of course, to a Jewish person to be seen as a dog would be a terrible insult. But this woman has a different mindset, being of a culture that saw dogs as pets. So from a different mindset, a new window is opened onto God’s grace, even to Jesus! Astonishing.[1]

God’s grace and possibilities are often so much bigger than we can ever imagine, and Jesus models something for us here, openness to changing our mind. We need to be open to changing our mind in order to envision new, hopeful possibilities for the future, possibilities beyond zero-sum futures in which if people of color succeed, white people lose, or vice versa. Or where if we believe in a different religion or follow different cultural customs we need to react with violence rather than claiming and trusting God’s grace.

Sometimes it takes a different voice, a voice like Joseph’s. Or we need to ask for forgiveness and be open to a different future, as his brothers were.
I am reading a science fiction novel called Earthseed: Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, and in it future society has broken down and many people who are addicted to a drug that makes people addicted to setting fires are terrorizing whole communities. And a young black woman, only eighteen years old, sees what is happening and hatches a plan for how to survive and build a community that will help each other. What distinguishes this community is that it is multiracial and it is mutually supportive, helping the weaker members, even though the rest of society has begun to victimize the weak and divide into racial or ethnic groups. And Lauren, the protagonist, shares a belief in a God of change. A God who allows us to co-create the future. There is a lot of semi-new-age philosophy in this religion but what I love is the protagonist’s ability to look beyond how the people of her context are acting-namely out of fear and with violence, and call others to a better and more unified way.

This speaks to me of what the church can be today, looking at how we may interact with others and bring out their best, most collaborative sides and strengths, in a world increasingly driven towards division. If you look at the people today who are showing us a vision for moving forward, it is in fact often our Dreamers and other people with a so-called minority voice. This is why the church needs to fight for protections for our dreamers and other vulnerable groups. Not just for their sake, but for our own. We need dreamers like Joseph to help us build a future in which we will not starve in our ignorance but can thrive. And we need humble hearts ready to see how all can be fed.

How can we set a stage for grace and forgiveness? By using every moment to call ourselves and others to our and their better selves. This happens at an individual level, in our day to day conversations in person or online. But it also happens at the level of national dialog-what news do we consume? Can we be savvy in who we read or more wise about whom we interact with online? Can we push past assumed divisions toward real conversations?
Sometimes, just like Joseph did with his brothers, we will need not to punish others but to see if they are ready to be in real conversation. We cannot waste our energy on those addicted to fire and death and division. We cannot waste our words on those who cannot hear. But we can speak with those who would hear and share that this is God’s world.

A world in which a brother so wronged by his brothers that he has literally been thrown out like trash and sold into slavery can have a change of fate; can rise and can meet those same brothers and forgive them.

In this world, in God’s world, even someone who might have seem to be far from God as Jesus at first assumed the daughter of the Canaanite woman to be, can be healed and saved. In this world, we can pray for and forgive those who would spread hate even as we deplore their actions.
In this world, in God’s world, we can use our interactions with others to open space to spread God’s grace and love through forgiveness, reconciliation and transformation.

And then there will be abundance—not just in Mar-a-Lago or Washington or Goshen –but in all the world; abundance for all of our fathers and mothers and all of our friends and kin. Amen.

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[1] Mitzi J. Smith, Commentary on Matthew 15:[10-20], 21-28, https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3360.