This week while I was beginning to mull the topic or topics for this sermon, I went down many a rabbit hole. Where I landed was this, ideally a sermon should have one topic and today’s particular topic is difficult, but it is the only one we can do anything about.
While I was pondering, two different emails came across my screen (well, many more than two, but two that led to rabbit hole ventures). One was from the International Justice Mission. It had a picture of a woman carrying a girl of maybe five years of age in a Mickey Mouse shirt. This girl was being rescued from sexual exploitation, the actions of which had been recorded and distributed around the world. The caption was that the victims were getting younger and younger. And yes, I know this exists, this was not my first time to be made aware of this, but still the email rattled me. I haven’t deleted the email yet, I have a hard time closing or deleting an email like that without lending my monetary support to help those who might break the chain or cycle.
The second email was from the American Academy for the Advancement of Science looking for a person to fill their director for the Dialogue of Science, Ethics and Religion– I received the mailing because I had previously attended one of their meetings. I idly went to the website to see what they are doing these days. There was a featured article on the research from Dr. Rashawn Ray, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland, and senior fellow in Governance studies at the Brookings Institution— the tagline for his article, which is partly about systemic racism, and partly about police violence, was “Hurt people hurt people.”
And doesn’t that just sum up a lot of life? Hurt people, hurt people. Yes, yes, that is what had happened to the exploited little girl and that is what happens All. The. Time. And I don’t mean to dwell on her, I could have picked almost anything. Big event or small event, catastrophic injustice or inconsequential slight. Still, hurt people hurt people.
And then then it occurred to me that the lessons we read for today address ways to break the cycle of hurt people hurting people. They are acts or directions toward reconciliation.
The story of Joseph, the favored child, with the technicolor dream coat, was a childhood favorite of mine, partly because it was with a childhood understanding that I first heard it. Maybe I wished that I could sell my brother away, who I perceived as my parents’ favorite child. Likely, he would have said that he thought I was their favorite. What is more likely is they didn’t have a favorite. But I digress…
Still, let us not gloss over the important fact here that Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery. I don’t care what kind of slavery it was; it was slavery. They made it look like an animal had killed him so they had a plausible story to tell their parents and then they had effectively rid their lives of the problem of having Joseph as a brother. Hurt people hurt people.
There are, of course, various interpretations of this. Calvin, the theologian who gets most credit for the concept of predestination, would echo Joseph’s own words and say that this violence was a good. God had allowed this violence to happen so that Joseph could save others, particularly his family in the years of famine. And yes, I know it’s in the Bible, but most of the time this sort of thinking is not particularly helpful. Or maybe it is only helpful after the fact–when we look in retrospect and justify the stuff that has happened to us because something good comes out of it. However, on the flip side, and with resultant harm, this sort of thinking can lead to statements that God makes people suffer for a reason. From what I, and other more learned than I, can tell, God is not in the business of causing suffering. God may not end suffering the way we would like, and we could talk ad infinitum on theodicy- or why does God let evil happen?- but for my purpose in this sermon, God does not cause evil, but evil does happen. Hurt people hurt people.
We don’t get an inside view of the “why’s” behind Joseph’s actions, but when we read the Gospel we get it. Mercy— Joseph shows his brothers mercy. Joseph is merciful as God is merciful.
And this is where the Gospel gets hard for all people, but before we dig into it, let’s start with an assumption that Jesus does not want you to be a doormat.
However, we learn very, very quickly that God’s way is merciful– more than anything else. Jesus is clear about this numerous times over, but here in this Gospel passage, his clarity is in a didactic manner. Jesus puts the finer point on love. Love those who hate you, love those who don’t expect you to love them, love the unlovable people. Love the people who make you angry, love the people who don’t deserve it, love the people who get under your skin.
And this is it, folks, this is to what we aspire to profess. And these are the words from Jesus, whom we profess to be following. And if we can do this, then we break the cycle of hurt. We do not have to be the hurt people who hurt other people. We can love others instead. This is being merciful as God is merciful.
And lastly, when we do this, it changes whomever it is who has hurt us, and now we love; AND it changes us. It is the one thing we can do; it’s what we have control over. It doesn’t erase the hurt, but it takes it out of the equation. This is what true forgiveness looks like, it is the first step towards reconciling love.
In the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu,
“In our own ways, we are all broken. Out of that brokenness, we hurt others. Forgiveness is the journey we take toward healing the broken parts. It is how we become whole again.”
“Forgiveness is nothing less than the way we heal the world. We heal the world by healing each and every one of our hearts. The process is simple, but it is not easy.”
Amen, Desmond, of blessed memory…, this is the process to which we are called by God.
-Sarah+ Colvin
Genesis 45:3-11, 15
1 Corinthians 15:35-38,42-50
Luke 6:27-38
Psalm 37:1-12, 41-42