Year C
 Genesis 45:3-11, 15
 Psalm 37:1-12, 41-42
 1 Corinthians 15:35-38,42-50
 Luke 6:27-38

May the words of my mouth O God…  speak your truth…

Author Annie Lamott…  said… You can safely assume…  that you’ve created God in your own image…  when it turns out…  that God hates all the same people…  that you do…

And so what is it within us…  that creates hate…  is it genetically passed down…  does it come not from original blessing…  but from original sin…  does it come from how we were raised…  does it rise up out of fear of the Other…  does it have to be spoken directly to us…  or can it be something as subtle as a parent’s eyebrows that are raised…  or eyes that are rolled…  in response to something that’s just been said or seen on TV…  does it come about because of who our parents associate with…  and who they don’t…  it’s a fascinating process which forms us…  by what we take in…  and by what we reject…

Joseph’s brothers rejected him…  they got rid of him…  sold him into slavery…  but no sooner does Joseph remind his brothers of their great sin…  that he renounced retribution…  and kissed all his brothers and wept upon them…  and he interprets as blessing…  the events that have overtaken the House of Israel…  just as he had interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams…  now Joseph’s experience was very real and very painful…  but it was not the last word…  his last word was a word of life…

Our reading from 1 Corinthians reminds us in pretty stark terms…  that we cannot rise to imperishable life…  until the perishable within us dies…  and that we don’t sow the imperishability that is yet to come…  but we sow the perishability which no longer serves us well…  and so it makes sense that we can’t hold on to boundedness…  and expect also to be able to trust God fully and fall into boundlessness…  so it’s not just flesh and blood that can’t inherit the kingdom of God…  it’s myopic thinking and theology as well…

But tragically…  we’re the centuries-old inheritors of this kind of myopic thinking and theology…  and much of it started with a Papal Bull…  or edict…  issued on May 4, 1493 by Pope Alexander VI… it came to be knowns as the Doctrine of Discovery…  and it mapped out Spain’s strategy to ensure its exclusive right to the lands discovered by Columbus the previous year…  and it effectively gave Spain a monopoly on the lands in the New World…

But more egregious…  much more egregious…  it stated that any land not inhabited by Christians was able to be claimed and exploited…  by Christian rulers…  and it declared that…  the Catholic faith and the Christian religion be exalted and increased and spread everywhere…  and that barbarous nations be overthrown and brought to the faith…  it became the basis of all European claims in the Americas…  including the slave trade…  and served as the foundation for the United States’ embrace of western expansion…  for example…  it was advanced by the United States’ Supreme Court in the 1823 case of Johnson v. McIntosh…  Chief Justice Marshall’s opinion in the unanimous decision held that  this “discovery”…  gave European nations an absolute right to New World lands…  in essence…  Native Americans had only a right of occupancy…  which could then also be abolished…  and then there’s the church’s own history…  participating in and benefitting from slavery…  for which both of our denominations have made formal apologies…

Do to others as you would have them do to you…  be merciful just as your Father is merciful…  do not judge and you will not be judged…  injunctions against impinging on the dignity and the rights of others… which we have yet to do well…  and the final line in today’s Gospel…  for the measure you give will be the measure you get back…  and this final one…  echoes the message in Galatians 6:7…  Do not be deceived…  you reap whatever you sow… 

That’s because when we respond to hate…  with more hate…  we simply end up feeding the hate…  but love can lessen it…  if we are steeled enough to turn the other cheek…  we give our abuser the chance to empty themself of their anger without feeding into it…  and if we judge…  we give those we judge motivation to judge us in return…  and the same thing is true about all the other behaviors which Jesus calls us into…

But it sounds crazy…  doesn’t it…  it’s SO not the way of the world…  certainly not the way things are going on the eastern border of Ukraine…  but we can choose to diffuse the negativity…  as Joseph did…  you see…  Jesus is encouraging us in God’s ways…  and we will choose whether or not to follow them…  and yes…  it may be that while we’re diffusing…  diffusing…  and diffusing some more…  someone else will see us as weak…  and take advantage of us…  or harm us…  or even kill us…  but we have three choices…  we can choose to advance…  we can remain where we are…  or we can retreat…  and all of those choices have consequences…

But Jesus’ instructions and the choices we make can be difficult enough to embrace in good times…  and maybe the uncertainty and the stress and the grief and the trauma of the pandemic has made it more difficult for us to behave in gracious and forgiving ways…  many of us are struggling to maintain our patience and perspective and respond with offers of help…  because those who would never have acted out in public…  or threatened someone at a school board meeting…  or punched someone on an airplane…  can almost not help themselves…

This pandemic has cost us so much…  we have lost so much…  that our nerves are frayed…  our tempers are short…  and we may well have created notions of what’s right and what’s wrong in our own image…  we may have taken what’s normal for us…  and made it normative…  determinative for everyone else…  and the cacophony of voices is so loud…  that it’s become difficult to hear the whispers of the Holy Spirit inviting us into a new normal…  to let the physical and spiritual seed husks in which we’re contained…  die and fall away…

But the Gospel’s first line catches my attention…  I say to you that listen…  Jesus knows that not everyone will want to…  or be able to listen…  and even if…  every person alive began to listen tonight right after dinner…  even if every person began to listen…  and then began to act…  it would still take decades…  or maybe even centuries…  to repair our social systems…  and to right every wrong…  and heal every broken heart…  and be reconciled with each other…  but we have choices…  we can retreat from this work…  we can stand idly by…  or we can move towards it…  and begin to do it…

And our theological imaginations might help us…  if we imagine that God created all of the world’s systems on which we depend… things like healthcare…  and transportation…  and education…  and manufacturing…  and energy…  and one of the outcomes was that there were no social injustices… then the intent of our El malei Rachamim…  our All Merciful God…  would be realized…  and what I think is telling…  is that the Hebrew word for mercy…  is a sister to the Hebrew word for womb…  which is itself…  a place of protection and mercy…

And then we could express Annie Lamott’s sentiment in a slightly different way…  You can safely assume…  that God’s image is fully reflected in you…  when it turns out that you love… all the same people who God loves…