The Upside-Down Kingdom of God

In the Name of the One God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

In my homiletics class at seminary, we were taught to narrow the focus of our sermons to one text. Well, don’t tell my preaching professor, but I’m going to ignore that guidance. There’s just too much connection between the first lesson and the Gospel for today. So, buckle up, y’all.

We’ll start with the Old Testament lesson from Genesis. You surely know the backstory; holy Joseph’s brothers—jealous scoundrels that they were—plotted to kill him. They took him far off, tossed him in a hole and intended to leave him to waste away, to die an agonizing death to the elements. Sibling rivalry taken to the extreme. But Judah, one of his brothers, felt bad and they decided to sell him instead to a band of slave traders that happened to be passing by. Such generosity! Anyhow, Joseph is sold into slavery and is enslaved at Potiphar’s house. He has many struggles, but eventually becomes great—becoming second only to Pharaoh—in Egypt. He becomes a wise leader, preparing the land for a famine which God reveals is coming soon. With the food stored up under Joseph’s rule, the Egyptians—and even their neighbors!—are fed. God took all of the horrors Joseph endured, and used the situation to bless the nations, continuing to fulfill the promise He made to Abraham. Through Joseph, God blessed the surrounding nations with food during the famine, preserving them from starvation.

You know the rest of the story: Joseph’s brothers made their way to Egypt and met Joseph whom they didn’t recognize but who recognized them, and after a little testing, Joseph revealed himself to his brothers. And that’s where we find ourselves today. Joseph forgives his brothers. He weeps with his brothers. He releases them from their guilt.

This story of forgiveness is antithetical to our sinful nature’s desire to hold someone’s sin against them. We live in a world entirely devoid of forgiveness and mercy. And so, this story is foreign to our ears. By the standards of our world—which haven’t changed much over the passing millennia—Joseph had every reason to be angry with his brothers. He even had the authority to have them killed right then and there, and no one would dare blink an eye. They deserved it, after all. Right? But rather than severing their heads from their necks, he wept on the necks of his brothers. Rather than chastising them, he told them: “Do not be distressed or angry with yourselves for having sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.” What beautiful words! Instead of punishment, he offered freedom. Instead of vengeance, he offered mercy. Joseph’s act of forgiveness shows the difference between the ethics of the Kingdom of God versus the ethics of this world: The Kingdom ethic is based on mercy and forgiveness, whereas the ethics of the world are based on a perverted view of justice founded on self-satisfaction. These two ethical systems are entirely opposed to one another, and we as Christians are called to follow the ethics of the Kingdom, even if they don’t seem especially pleasant to us.

Now fast forward to our Gospel lesson. We’re picking back up right where we left off last week with the Sermon on the Plain. Like the Sermon on the Mount, this sermon attacks the world’s values and presents Kingdom values in their place. Our Lord began with a blessing of the poor, the hungry, those who are weeping, those who are hated and persecuted, people that the world’s values would have us believe are the most miserable and worthless. As if this wasn’t radical enough, Jesus continued with pronouncing woes to the rich, the full, those who are full of worldly happiness and those who enjoy popularity. These are people that the world’s values tell us are blessed, fortunate, whatever adjective you wish to use. And here’s this radical Hippie preacher preaching the exact opposite. The ethics of the Kingdom of God are antithetical to the ethics of this world.

Jesus continues His assault on the world’s values in today’s Gospel: “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either.”

Love my enemies? Do good things for the people who hate me? Ask God to pour His blessings on those who speak evil of me? Pray for those who abuse me? These are perhaps some of the hardest teachings of our faith; that we are to do good to those who hurt us, we are to pray for them and ask God to bless them. And yet, this is precisely what Jesus is telling us to do, and even more: when someone strikes us on the cheek, we are to offer the other as well. As one of our theologians recently put it; “We may be good about turning the other cheek, but we certainly aren’t good at praying for the one who strikes us.” This passage is hard, especially for those who have experienced—or are currently experiencing—abuse or other forms of mistreatment. Let me be clear, Jesus isn’t saying to stay in an abusive relationship. By all means, get out! But pray—pray for those who abuse and hurt you—pray for those who cheat on you, abandon you, and do all sorts of wrong to you. Pray that their hearts may be turned.

Jesus continues: “Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.” Give to everyone who begs. Notice, Jesus doesn’t say “Tell them, instead, to get a job” or question their life choices. He simply says “give.” Don’t demand back that which was taken from you. And do to everyone as you wish they would do to you; ah yes, the so-called “Golden Rule.”

Why should we, after all, love only those who love us? Why should we do good things only for those who treat us well? Even the atheists do that. And why should we only lend our money and goods in order to get something back? Even the atheists do that. Those are the world’s values. The Kingdom, however, has different values. This Kingdom turns the world’s values upside down. You, dear Christian, are to love even your enemies—even the vilest, most despicable person you can think of—and do good to all, giving freely without expecting anything back. Again, the ethics of the Kingdom of God are antithetical to those of this world. We are called to a different life. We are called to be merciful, as the Holy Trinity—whose life we share through our baptism—is merciful.

And now we get to verse 37, which stands as one of the most misunderstood verses in all of Scripture. “Judge not, and you will absolutely not be judged, condemn not, and you will absolutely not be condemned...” So often, the first part of this verse is used to deflect any criticism; “you’re telling me to stop sinning! Woah dude, judge not!” Well, dear friends, we most certainly are called to discern—judge—between right and wrong. We can judge actions; I can definitively say that murder is wrong, because it violates the 5thCommandment. I can definitively say that adultery is wrong, because it violates the 6th. What I—what we—cannot do, however, is judge ourselves as better than those who murder, commit adultery, or whatever else. Our sinful nature loves to set ourselves in the place of judge, jury, and executioner: deciding who is or is not worthy of life, deciding who’s the biggest sinner, condemning others while always giving ourselves a pass. After all, we’re just great. Right? Wrong.

Dear Christians, we in the Church are often rightly criticized for being judgmental. We love to judge our neighbors, we love to judge those who come into our community, we love to judge each other in the most pedantic ways. “Did you see the shoes that so-and-so wore to church?” “Hmm… haven’t seen you in church for a while.” “Did you hear about so and so…” We, like the Pharisee in the Temple in St. Matthew’s Gospel, love nothing more than to thank God that we aren’t like our gay neighbor, our trans neighbor, our socialist or capitalist or libertarian neighbor. We love to thank God that we’re smarter, holier, better-looking, wealthier, and all around better than others. We love to criticize our neighbor and make ourselves look like the golden child. Repent.

One of my favorite early church fathers, Ephraim of Syria, once wrote a prayer that our Orthodox brothers and sisters pray daily during Lent, and that I would commend to your use, as well. It’s printed in your bulletin, but I’d like to draw your attention to the last line: “Yea, O Lord and King! Grant me to see my own errors, and not to judge my neighbor. For Thou art blessed unto ages of ages. Amen.” Indeed, O Lord, let us see our own sins, our own mistakes and errors, and never to judge ourselves as better than neighbors. Amen.

Verse 37 ends with Jesus admonishing us to forgive, that we may be forgiven. Like Holy Joseph, we are to forgive, no matter what. No matter how horribly we’ve been treated, we are to forgive. Now, of course, forgiveness doesn’t always mean restoration to trust; we can forgive those who abuse and hurt us without ever letting them near us again. What Jesus is saying, here, is to give up the poison of grudge-holding. It only ever hurts us, never helps us. There is great blessing with forgiveness; spitting out the poison that slowly turns us sicker and sicker. Our Lord doesn’t desire us to die the slow, agonizing death of grudge holding. So He tells us to forgive, the Greek here is something akin to releasing, letting go. The devil, on the other hand, rejoices to see us poisoned from the inside. Spite the devil! Forgive your enemies!

Folks, Jesus is holding up the mirror of the Law to our faces today, showing us our sins, how we’ve missed the mark entirely on loving our neighbors, forgiving those who hurt us, and giving to those in need. When I read this passage, I cringe. I hold grudges. I don’t give to all who ask of me. I don’t love my neighbors. And I absolutely give myself over to the temptation to judge others, and to set myself up over them. When I am confronted with this passage, with the reality of my sins, I am reminded of the words of one of my favorite unwitting theologians of the 21st century, Billie Eilish: "I'm only good at being bad.” Whether or not Ms. Eilish is aware of it, she’s hit the nail on the head when it comes to explaining our sinful nature. As good as we may try to convince ourselves that we are, when we hear these words of Jesus, we see clearly that we haven’t measured up. We’ve missed the mark. We have failed to love, failed to forgive, failed to give to those in need. We see that we’ve judged ourselves better than our neighbors, as if their sins are greater than our own. We see that, left to our own devices, we’re hopeless.

And, yet, dear friends, there is good news for you today: God offers you what He has always offered: mercy and forgiveness. Those are the values of His Kingdom, into which you were brought through your Baptism into Christ. Your sins, your failures, your regrets, have been dealt with on the Cross, where Jesus Christ died for you. You are forgiven. Mercy and forgiveness have been showered upon you. And not only this, but our good and gracious God is at work within you, filling you with the Holy Spirit, filling you with love for your neighbor. We can’t love those who hate us, forgive those who’ve hurt us, or give with truly generous hearts without God’s grace, and that is precisely what He is pouring into you here in this place, week after week, growing you in love, both toward God and toward your neighbor.

Dear friends, be refreshed today by God’s grace, poured into your life! Receive the gifts given here in His church: His Word, His Body and Blood, given for you, as a sign and seal of your salvation. Know that you are forgiven and are equipped to go out to love and serve your neighbor, living in the ethics of God’s Kingdom: mercy and forgiveness. Thanks be to God. Amen.