Luke 6:36-42; Romans 8:18-23; Genesis 50:15-21
In the Name of the Father and of the
+ Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Their father
loved him so because he was the child of his old age and the son of his
favorite wife Rachel, and that made them jealous and angry and filled with
hatred for him and for their father as well. And so, they plotted against him,
and they threw him in a pit and they sold him into slavery to some Midianite
traders. And then, to cover their evil deed, they brought the symbol of their
father’s love for him, the object that inspired their jealousy and hatred, the
beautiful robe of many colors their father had given him, tattered and torn and
smeared with animal blood, and they told their father that his beloved son had
been attacked and killed by wild animals.
Approximately
twenty years later, they traveled to Egypt to obtain grain, as there was a
severe famine in the land. Pharaoh’s second-in-command was merciful to them and
provided them grain for their families. When they returned a second time,
Pharaoh’s second-in-command revealed himself to his brothers. The brother they
envied and hated, whom they sold into slavery and lied to their father about
saying that he was dead, he was alive and powerful and merciful.
But, still,
they were fearful and full of jealousy and hatred. Though they knew he was
their brother, and that he had shown them mercy and kindness instead of wrath
and punishment, still they feared him and they hated him. They murmured amongst
themselves, maybe he will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did
to him. And so, they continued their deceit and they devised yet another lie.
They sent a message to their brother saying that his father had given this
command before he died, that Joseph would forgive his brothers and, get this,
himself too!
Joseph wept.
Jesus wept. God the Father weeps. Why do they weep? They weep because we human
creatures are so very, very corrupted by sin that we are truly blind and cannot
see. They weep because we men, women, and children have such huge, sinful logs
in our eyes that we cannot see the grace, mercy, and love that is being offered
to us. Moreover, we are so very, very corrupted by sin that our flesh and
reason do not want God’s grace, mercy, and love. We do not trust it. We resent
it. We fear it. And so, we lie, and we flee, and we hide. We plot murder, we
try to kill God, and we make excuses to cover it all up. We are afraid of being
caught, of being exposed, and so we hide like cockroaches in the darkness of
our sinful depravity. We assuage our feelings of guilt and fear by judging and
condemning others, so that we can feel righteous and justified ourselves – at
least, more righteous and justified than others.
Joseph wept.
He wept because, though he had shown them nothing but mercy and compassion,
still they feared him and did not trust him, still they hated him and despised
him. Joseph wept because, despite all that, he did love them. Joseph loved his
hateful brothers who wanted him dead. Joseph loved them because he loved God,
and he knew that God loved both him and his brothers. Joseph did not judge
himself better, holier, more righteous than his brothers. There but for the
grace of God go I, he confessed. Joseph knew the grace and mercy he had
received from God, how God delivered him from his brothers, from the
Midianites, from Potiphar, and ultimately from Pharaoh himself. Therefore, Joseph
loved his brothers, even though they hated him. Joseph loved his brothers
despite themselves, and he could see, he knew, that God had worked everything –
even all the evil and hatred of his brothers and the treachery of Potiphar’s
wife – Joseph knew that God had worked everything for good, just as He promised
in His Word. When his brothers threw themselves down before him and offered
their lives in service to him – because they could not see his grace, mercy,
and compassion, but thought only evil of him – Joseph wept and said to them,
“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 people should be
kept alive, as they are today.” The Joseph comforted his brothers and spoke
kindly to them. He gave them the best land in Egypt and provided for his
father, his brothers, and their families.
“Judge not,
and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned.” Any of
you heard that lately? I have, exclusively from folks who were very happy about
this week’s ruling from the Supreme Court of the United States making the right
to same-sex marriage the law of the land. Such folk like to cherry-pick
passages like this to make the case that Jesus is all about grace, mercy, and
love, not judging and condemning. And, ya know, they’re right about that! But,
that’s not the whole of it. Jesus is full of grace, mercy, and love for those
confess that they are sinners and turn in repentance. However, for those who
deny that they are sinners, who refuse to repent, who claim righteousness in
themselves, while He continues to love them and call to them, Jesus can be very,
very heavy wielding the Law of God.
Indeed, Jesus
follows His teaching, “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and
you will not be condemned,” with one additional couplet that gets conveniently
left out, “forgive, and you will be forgiven.” Why do they leave that part
about forgiveness out, I wonder? Ah, it’s because they don’t believe that they need
to be forgiven anything. They haven’t sinned, right? They certainly don’t
believe that homosexual relations are sinful. So, they just ignore that part.
They just leave the forgiveness bit off. Therefore, they completely miss Jesus’
point in this teaching. They cherry-pick and take His words out of their
context, and then they misunderstand, misrepresent, and misapply it.
So, what does
Jesus mean to teach us in this Gospel? It is this: Do not judge, do not
condemn, but forgive, because the holy and perfect Law of God judges and
condemns you all, and what you all need, whether you recognize it or not, is
forgiveness. That is why you are like the blind leading the blind – you are all
blind in your sin and will fall together into the pit of death. That is why you
cannot help your brother to remove the speck from his eye, because you have a
giant log in your own eye obscuring your vision.
My dear
brothers and sisters in Christ, how timely is this Gospel for us today! We are
in no position to judge or condemn anyone, for we, ourselves, are sinners in
need of grace, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness. Let us learn this lesson,
not only from our Lord today, but from the example of Joseph who, though he was
wickedly wronged by his brothers, would not judge and condemn them, but showed
them grace, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness. Joseph could do this, Joseph
had to do this, because he knew what a wretched sinner he was himself, and he
knew the boundless grace, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness the Lord had shown
him.
Still, only
sinners can be forgiven. Jesus did not come to call the righteous, but sinners
to repentance. There is a judge of sin, and that is the Lord and His Word. No,
it is not our place to judge. We are judged ourselves. But the Word of the Lord
is the judge of all. All who confess their sin and repent receive the
forgiveness Jesus died to give. But, those who refuse and reject His
forgiveness, claiming they righteous and just and without sin, they are judged
and condemned already. When it comes to homosexual acts, these sins are no
worse than others before the Lord. But, they are sins, and they cannot be
blessed or accepted as anything but. We do not judge or condemn those who
practice such sins, but we must show grace, mercy, love, and compassion to them
as brothers and sisters who are sinners in need of forgiveness just like us –
There but for the grace of God go I.
However, our
culture, and now our government, has put us in a difficult position. The
culture and the government refuse to acknowledge such acts as sin, but they
have instead blessed and accepted such sinful acts as normal, acceptable, and
even good. Increasingly, Christians who simply say what the Lord has said in
His Word about these acts, that they are sinful, are called bigots and hateful.
Now that the law of the land embraces, blesses, and celebrates such acts, it is
likely that the Word of the Lord will be declared hate speech and that the
freedom to exercise our religion will be ghettoized to our churches and homes
alone. It is even likely that congregations will lose their tax-exempt status,
which will place an enormous financial burden upon the church, likely crushing
a small congregation like Christ the King. What can we expect in the weeks and
months to come? Hopefully, not much. But, I agree with what Roman Catholic
Cardinal Francis George said back in 2010: “I expect to die in bed, my
successor will die in prison, and his successor will die a martyr in the public
square.” However, that is not all that Cardinal George said. Though it is less
frequently quoted, Cardinal George continued by saying that “His successor will
pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as
the church has done so often in human history.”
“For, the
creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who
subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its
bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of
God.” We are all sinners. Our sin goes all the back to our First Father, the
First Sinner, Adam. Adam plunged all of his progeny, even all of creation, into
sin, and corruption, and death. Ever since then, creation has been trapped in
an endless cycle of deterioration leading to death. Joseph knew this, and he
wept. Jesus knew this, and He wept. God knows this, and He weeps. This is why we must not, we cannot judge or
condemn. We’re all in the same sinful, sinking boat!
But, we are
not like those who have no hope! No, indeed! Even as Joseph, despite all the
evil that had been done to him at the hands of his brothers, and at the hands
of enemies of the Jews, did not despair, but he recognized that, though they
meant evil against him, God meant it for good, so, too, will God work this
terrible situation for good. For, if this causes Christians to study His Word
more and to receive His gifts more, to pray more, and to seek to live according
to His Word more, and to witness more in their vocations, to uphold
God-instituted marriage more and to faithfully love and serve their husbands
and wives and children more, to chasten their laxity on divorce and premarital
sex and co-habitation more, and to unite with like-minded and like-hearted
Christians of other denominations more on issues in which we agree while not
capitulating on those issues in which we disagree, then, that is a good thing,
and a hopeful thing, and a blessed thing, and a necessary thing!
Truly, we
have behaved much like Joseph’s brothers towards our Lord Jesus and our
heavenly Father. We have been jealous of Him and have feared Him and have even
sold Him into slavery and murdered Him. And yet, He says to us, “You meant evil
against me, but God meant it for good.” Because of His love for us, and His
grace, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness, we do not judge, and we do not
condemn, but we stand firm on the Word of our Lord, never flinching on the
Truth, while loving and serving in grace, mercy, and compassion, just as we
have received these in fullness and abundance in Jesus Christ.
In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.
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