Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity, 2009

Text: Genesis 45:1-15, 25-28

The Rev. Jerry Kistler

St. Stephen’s Reformed Episcopal Church

Montrose, Colorado

“Here Endeth the Lesson”

The lesson in grace comes to its great conclusion in our Old Testament reading today, as we see Joseph finally reveal himself to his brothers.

Then Joseph could not restrain himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, “Make everyone go out from me!” So no one stood with him while Joseph made himself known to his brothers. And he wept aloud, and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard it. Then Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph.”

What is it that made Joseph unable to restrain himself any longer? We’ve got to go back in the story a little bit, to the beginning of chapter 44, where Joseph, having received his brothers with amazing grace when they expected him to accuse them of being thieves in addition to being spies, sends them away again, back to the land of Canaan, back to their father Jacob with youngest brother Benjamin safely in tow, back with their brother Simeon recently released from prison. Things are on the ups for the brothers. They figure they’ve been pretty lucky to dodge some serious bullets by this point. But Joseph has just one more trick up his sleeve to knock his still graceless brothers – his brothers who still know only one word: retribution – to knock them down from whatever position they still think have to buy themselves out of trouble. Actually, he drives them to the point of total despair. Why? For what purpose? So that they can then be in the position to receive his grace as just that – as grace, as nothing but totally undeserved, unearned favor - and also so they can finally be reconciled to him on the basis of his grace, and not on the basis of what they think they can do to pay of their debt to him. In the same way the Law of God drives us to despair of our own righteousness, so that we can be reconciled to the God we’ve offended by our sins purely on the basis of His grace, and not on the basis of our works to try to make things right.

You see, there was nothing the brothers could do to pay their debt to Joseph. They could never return the years they’d stolen from him. They could never give him back the lost time with his beloved father and his younger brother. And so it could only ever be on the basis of grace that they’d be reconciled to him. And that’s the same way it is with us. There is nothing we can do to pay our debt to God. How can you pay an infinite debt to an infinite Being? So if we are to be reconciled to Him, it can only be by His totally undeserved, unearned favor – by His grace. But we first have to be brought to the point that we know we can’t earn God’s grace to able to receive God’s grace as grace.

So what is the final measure Joseph takes to get his brothers to that point? After the feast of the night before, the brothers prepare to leave for home early in the morning. But once again, Joseph has something hidden in the bag of one of his brothers. This time it’s his own silver cup – his diviner’s cup, a symbol of his office as governor. And this time he has it placed in his youngest brother Benjamin’s sack, the brother whom, you’ll recall, his father Jacob was so anxious about sending down to Egypt in case some terrible thing happened to him, and then he’d be deprived of both his sons by his wife Rachel – the wife he loved. You’ll also remember that other brothers had sworn to protect Benjamin. Judah, in particular, swore to be his surety. Whatever happened to Benjamin, Judah would bear the blame before his father.

And so they start out on their journey home, happy that things have gone so unexpectedly well for them. But then suddenly the same steward who had so graciously received them the day before comes running out accusing them of stealing his master’s cup. They can’t believe it. The charge is so ridiculous that they rashly swear: “If any of us has the cup, let him die, and the rest of us will become the master’s slaves.” You see, they still only think in one category: retribution. The steward, however, has more grace. He says, “It will be done according to your own words, but only the guilty one will be punished… He alone will be made the master’s slave, and the rest of you will go free.” Then, of course, what happens? To their utter dismay, the cup is found in Benjamin’s sack, and out of their own ungracious lips they’ve condemned him.

So they return to Joseph, and for the third time they fall down before him, and they confess their guilt. Judah speaks up for the group: “What shall we say to my lord? What shall we speak? Or how shall we clear ourselves? God has found out the iniquity of your servants.” I don’t think he’s talking just about the cup. I think he’s confessing their guilt that goes all the way back to how they treated him all those years past. This is Judah talking – Judah the unmerciful, as I like to call him. Judah, the one who came up with the idea to sell Joseph into slavery in the first place, because what profit was their in killing him? “You can’t make any money killing him. Let’s sell him instead.” Judah, the one who wanted to stone his daughter-in-law Tamar for adultery, even though it was he himself who got her pregnant when he mistook her for a prostitute. Judah, who wouldn’t have any mercy on himself if something happened to his baby brother Benjamin. And so now it’s Judah the unmerciful who grovels at the feet of his unknown brother. But he still doesn’t know anything about mercy. He goes through this whole long speech about how his father’s going to die if doesn’t bring Benjamin back with him, and how he could never live with himself if that happened. But he still can’t get himself to ask for mercy. He pleads instead for vicarious retribution: “Let me be made a slave instead of my brother.”

Judah reminds me a lot of the other main character in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables – the antagonist, Inspector Javert, who’s never been able to show mercy, and so he can’t even ask for mercy when he thinks Valjean is about to kill him.

So Judah the unmerciful, and all of the brothers, have finally hit rock bottom. They’ve finally reached the point of utter despair. How can any of them return to their father? They might as well all become slaves. They have nothing left to bargain with to earn Joseph’s favor.

But it’s here, at this point, that Joseph brings his lesson in grace to its conclusion. He sees the pitiful state his brothers have been reduced to, and he can no longer restrain himself. He’s totally emotionally spent, and so he begins to weep uncontrollably and orders all his attendants out of the room. And then he calls his brothers around himself and finally reveals his secret: “I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?” Totally speechless, the brothers just stand there with their mouths open in shock and dismay. Imagine yourselves in their place. Hearing no anwer, Joseph says again, “I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Egypt” – like, “Remember? Remember me?” How could they forget? Imagine the total conflict of emotions you’d be feeling at that point. Your brother’s alive, but this is the guy you sold into prison, and now he’s got all the power in Egypt

But look at how Joseph responds. His first thought is about how he can comfort his brothers and unburden them of their guilt. “But now, do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.” Imagine the grace it would take to say such a thing! “Don’t be grieved or angry at yourselves for selling me down here, because I’m not angry with you.” This is the offer of forgiveness. Joseph is offering to wipe the slate clean, to count no past wrongs against them. And that’s what forgiveness is. But forgiveness has to be received for there to be reconciliation. The question isn’t whether Joseph will forgive them, but whether they’ll receive his forgiveness or insist on carrying their burden of guilt and grief.

You know there’s a proper kind of grief and even anger we should have over our sins, and then there’s an improper kind of grief. There’s the kind of grief over our sins that makes us confess, “The remembrance of them is grievous unto us; the burden of them is intolerable.” But then we accept the absolution of our sins as God sending them as far away as the east is from the west. That’s the proper kind of grief we should have over our sins, a grief that’s in the context of faith in the grace of God that, if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.” But then there’s a grief that’s a kind of chain that binds us to our sins and never allows God to release us from our burden. It’s the kind of grief that refuses absolution and drive us to try to make atonement for ourselves, and yet never can make atonement because we can never do enough to work off the guilt. The best illustration of this I know comes from the movie “The Mission.” The character Rodrigo, in the heat of rage, kills his brother in a dual, and then when he realizes what he’s done, he’s stricken with remorse. And so in an attempt to atone for his own guilt he proceeds to literally carry his burden. He ties himself to a big pile of junk and starts pulling it up the mountain behind him. And at points it causes him to slip and fall and slide back down parts of the mountain so that he has to start all over again. It’s an excruciating scene. And he continues to drag his burden behind him until one of the Indians he used to hunt to make slaves out of cuts the rope and sends his burden flying down the cliff into the river. I think that’s perfect symbol of absolution. It’s only when our former enemy cuts us loose from all the junk, all the guilt we insist on carrying around with us, and we stop trying to pay our own penance, that we’re truly able to receive forgiveness as a free gift.

Do you grieve over your sins? Is it the proper kind of grief that confesses “the burden of them is intolerable,” but then accepts and believes that Christ has cut you loose and has cast your sins from you as far as the east is from the west, because He Himself has born your burden? Or are you still trying to drag all your junk behind you to atone for your own sins? It doesn’t work. In the penitential office we pray, “And though we be tied and bound with the chain of our sins, yet let the pitifulness of thy great mercy loose us.” It’s hearing and receiving the absolution of ours sin – Christ’s absolution – that breaks our bonds. But we have to receive that absolution by first coming to the point that we accept that we can’t make atonement for ourselves.

Joseph, the type of Christ, says to his brothers, “Do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here.” And then he gives them the reason. “For God sent me before you to preserve life.” “God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you who sent me here, but God.” Or as Joseph would later say to his brothers, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.”

This is remarkably similar to something we hear in the book of Acts. You could never have a greater reason to be grieved and angry at yourself as those who personally gave up Christ to be crucified. But listen to what the apostle Peter says to them. He says, “You denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Prince of life.” What an indictment! But Peter goes on to say, “Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled.” That is, by your sin in giving him up to be crucified the will of God for your forgiveness has actually been fulfilled. “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.” They meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.

Isn’t grace remarkable? That God in his infinite grace can turn even our worst evil into our eternal good. That doesn’t make our evil any less evil. It doesn’t make us any less culpable for our sins, just as Joseph’s brothers were no less culpable for their sins. But it does mean we must not be so grieved and angered at ourselves because of ours sins that we come to think that there could never be atonement. We’ve done the very worst we can: we’ve crucified the Lord of Glory. And yet God meant if for our good. Therefore there is nothing too sinful for God to forgive. Yes, le us grieve over our sins, but let us also cease trying to pay our own penances. +