Sermons

Over past Sundays we have dealt with the radical origin of sin, namely, the corrupt heart, and its radical nature and extremity whereby “what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person”, since it is out of the overflow of the heart that the mouth speaks. Therefore, “out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.” All these come from the heart. These are what defile a person (Mt 15:19-20a).

Consequently, “if your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and cast if from you. It is better for you to enter into life lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the everlasting fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire” (Mt 18:8-9).

Having thus dealt, radically, with the radical source, nature and extremity of sin, then, our lessons today deal with the origin of the even more radical remedy, namely, God’s radical love and compassion. For what could be more radical and what greater extremity than the sting of sin, which is death? This the psalm writer readily affirms in a historic Introit for this Sunday. “The pains of death encompassed me. And the pangs of the grave laid hold of me; I found trouble and sorrow” (Ps 116:3).

I surmise the psalmist sounded their depths. And out of that great deep, faith, already present, sounded forth. “Then I called upon the name of the Lord”, the name faith seizes hold of and doesn’t seize up: “O Lord, I implore You, deliver my soul!” (v 4) And God who gives faith and inspires faith’s entreaty answers forthwith. This the psalmist also acknowledges. “The Lord preserves the simple; I was brought low, and He saved me” ( v 6).

Thus saved, the grateful petitioner prays, “Return to your rest, O my soul, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. For You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling.” Thus sustained, “I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living” (vv 7-9).

So we’ve come full circle. We’re back where we started from with verses one and two of this Introit, Psalm 116. “I love the Lord, because He has heard my voice and my supplications. Because He has inclined His ear to me, therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live.” Here we come to the radical source of the radical cure-all for radical sin, that is, God’s radical love and mercy to which this Introit so ably points, as found in our appointed Psalm for this Sunday, Psalm 103:1-13. “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love” (v 8).

In His steadfast love and mercy, this our gracious God will not do. “He will not always chide, nor will He keep His anger forever.” No, this He does not do. “He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities” (vv 9-10). In other words, He does not give us our just desserts, but spares us those heaping portions. But this He does do, in love and mercy. Imputing His own righteousness to us in lieu of our guilt, He executes the same by executive order, by fiat, out of nothing on our part, out of nothing period except His love and pity.

“The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed” (v 6). Yes, this He does. This is the first and foremost of His many benefits to us His beneficiaries, this our beneficent benefactor. He forgives all our iniquities. Following this, He heals all our diseases; He redeems our lives from destruction and rescues us from the pit of despair. He crowns us with lovingkindness and tender mercies; He satisfies our mouths with good things, so that our youth is renewed like the eagle’s (vv 3-5).

And this is the reach of His radical grace. “For as high as the heavens are above the earth,” so great is His unfeigned, unfailing love toward those who love Him. And this is the full extent of His radical fix for the radical nature and extremity of sin. “As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us.” And here is the source, the fountainhead. “As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him” (vv 11-13). And as the Lord pities us, so He has compassion on us and shows mercy to us, yes, showers it down.

And the radical remedy? It’s forgiveness, pure and simple, which Joseph models in our Old Testament lesson. You recall Joseph’s story. How he was his father Jacob’s favorite son, and his brothers hated him for it. He had a dream which he related to his brothers. He said, “Hear this dream that I have dreamed: Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright. And behold, your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf.’ And his brothers said to him, ‘Are you indeed to reign over us?’” (Gn 37:6a-8a) And they detested him even more.

Then he had another dream which he told them as well, saying, “’Behold, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.’ But when he told it to his father and to his brothers his father rebuked him and said to him, ‘What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you?’” (vv 9b-10) His brothers were all the more jealous of him, “but his father kept the saying in mind” (v 11).

When the former saw their chance of taking revenge on him, they took it. They were shepherding their father’s flock. When Joseph drew near, they conspired to kill him, saying among themselves, ”’Here comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits. Then we will say that a fierce animal has devoured him, and we will see what will become of his dreams” (vv 19-20).

But Reuben, one of his brothers, rescued him out of the other brothers’ hands, reasoning with them, ”Let us not take his life. . . .Shed no blood; throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but do not lay a hand on him” (vv 21-22). ANOTHER BROTHER, JUDAH, LIKEWISE INTERVENED, SAYING, ”What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother, our own flesh” (vv 26-27).

There happened to be a caravan of Ishmaelite traders passing by on their way down to Egypt to trade their goods. So they sold Joseph to them for twenty shekels of silver and the Ishmaelites took Joseph to Egypt. Now Joseph wore a robe of many colors which his father gave him because he was his favorite. Having stripped Joseph of it, his brothers took his robe and slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood. And they brought the robe to their father, and said, “’ We found this. Tell us if it is your son’s robe or not.’ And he identified it, saying, ‘It is my son’s robe. A fierce animal has devoured him. Joseph is without doubt torn to pieces.’

“Then Jacob tore his garments and put sackcloth on his loins and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted and said, ‘No, I shall go down to the grave to my son, grieving.’ Thus his father wept for him” who, alas, was no more (vv 32-35).

You are familiar with Joseph’s many hardships, beginning with his brothers’ dastardly mistreatment of him. How, despite his suffering, God was with him to deliver him and enable him not only to endure but come out on top of his successive ordeals and retain his right standing. Working his way, you might say, from the bottom up, with God’s gracious and miraculous intervention Joseph literally worked his way into Pharaoh’s service and confidence, specifically, by interpreting Pharaoh’s dream which no one else could do, of seven years of great plenty followed by seven years of equally devastating famine throughout the whole of Egypt and adjacent lands.

To Joseph’s counsel that Pharaoh appoint a discerning and wise man over all the land of Egypt to skillfully manage the great bounty of the seven plentiful years in preparation for the seven years of severe want Pharaoh responded, “’Can we find a man like this, in whom is the Spirit of God?’ Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, ‘Since God has shown you all this, there is none so discerning and wise as you are. You shall be over my house, and all my people shall order themselves as you command. Only as regards the throne will I be greater than you. . . .See, I have set you over all the land of Egypt’” (Gn 41:38-41).

Consequently Joseph was second only to Pharaoh in authority and power. With God’s abundant blessing, everything prospered in his hands. Hence the stage was set for the confrontation between Joseph and his brothers when they came down to Egypt to buy grain for themselves and their families, all the household of Jacob, because the famine was severe in all the land.

As irony would have it, divine irony, to be sure, in keeping with Joseph’s dream, without recognizing this brother whom they had despitefully sold into slavery so many years before, Joseph’s brothers did in fact bow themselves before him with their faces to the ground. Now they would find out what would become of his dreams, this dreamer they had so spitefully taunted and abused!

For though they conspired to rid themselves of him and to profit from the exchange, he conspired to test their words, whether they were honest men and spoke the truth and would act accordingly. And his trying of them produced the desired results, namely, conviction and contrition and confession, as they admitted their wrongdoing to one another. “’In truth we are guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the distress of his soul, when he begged us and we did not listen. That is why this distress has come upon us.’” To this Reuben, who had tried to rescue Joseph from their clutches, added, “’Did I not tell you not to sin against the boy? But you did not listen. So now there comes a reckoning for his blood’” (42:21-22).

Joseph’s supreme test involves Benjamin, his younger brother by their common mother, and Jacob’s youngest and favorite son since Joseph’s alleged demise. Joseph’s tests prove conclusive. His brothers are changed men, changed for the better, insofar as self-giving love for their aged father and younger brother Benjamin and remorse and repentance for their wrong done to Joseph moves them to offer themselves in place of Benjamin, so that he may be restored to their father, lest they bring down his gray hairs to the grave in unspeakable grief.

Yes, Joseph’s brothers and their families, the whole household of Jacob, the remnant of Israel, were about to find out what would become of Joseph’s dreams, this dreamer whom his brothers conspired against, who instead, by God’s grace, tried and proved them! For this is what Joseph’s dreams come to: their contrition and confession, their repentance and forgiveness and reconciliation, in answer to their plea placed in the mouth of their father Jacob.

“Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you” (50:17). And this is the reason. In forgiving the sins of his repentant brothers he is forgiving the sins of the servants of the God of his father, their God and his God, his fellow servants. And this is the best part, the climax of Joseph’s dreams. “’Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me. But God meant it for good, to bring it about that many should be kept alive, as they are today. So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.’ Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them” (vv 19-21). Thus God comforts and speaks kindly to us all—forgiven sinners everyone!

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There is a sequel to this faith-inspiring, forgiveness-begetting story. It is the question posed by Peter in our Gospel lesson, who is in a quandary over these very matters, and put to Jesus, the inspirer of faith and begetter of forgiveness. “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Imagine that. As many as seven times, though surely no more!

Jesus says to us all, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven” (Mt 18:21-22). Think of it. Forgiveness seventy times seven! Amen.