Like Father, Like Son

Opening Prayer

Let’s open with prayer. If you have a prayer concern, just offer it up out loud in this space. It can be a situation, a need, a family member or friend. When I sense we are finished I will close out our prayer.

O Lord, you have taught us that without love whatever we do is worth nothing: Send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts your greatest gift, which is love, the true bond of peace and of all virtue, without which whoever lives is accounted dead before you. Grant this for the sake of your only Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Introduction

We are in the season of the church year called Epiphany, meaning “to appear”. This season celebrates the revelation of Jesus as the Savior of the world. During Epiphany we’re doing a series called The Hope of Glory, and we continue to look at how Jesus revealed his glory, and what this epiphany means for us.

Have you ever been betrayed? Have you ever felt the knife in your back when someone you thought you could trust stabs you? Have you ever experienced crushing grief of when those who are supposed to love you most turn on you? Probably all of us have to one degree or another. How did you respond? We swim in a culture that prides itself on the idea of revenge - in many ways we’ve lifted it to the status of a virtue. “Don’t get mad, get even!” we say. Or the latest version is to simply cancel someone, to remove them from our life, instead of seeking forgiveness and reconciliation.

But how we respond to these injustices shows a lot about who we are and who we are becoming. I called the message this morning Like Father, Like Son (forgive the gender specific language). It comes from the universal observation that children tend to imitate their parents - both for good or for bad. Another version would be “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” This morning I want to addresses the question, “When are we most like our heavenly Father?” The good news this morning is that you are never more like your Father than when you break the cycle of retaliation and instead offer grace.

Problem then

Obviously, the passage we heard from Genesis is the resolution of a story, but I think it’s important that we are reminded of the backstory. Joseph was one of the sons of Jacob. He had eleven other brothers. Jacob, unfortunately, played favorites. He had a favorite wife, Rachel, who gave him his favorite sons, Joseph and Benjamin. Jacob displayed his favoritism by once giving Joseph a special and probably expensive cloak. While none of this was Joseph’s fault, it earned the ire of his older brothers.

Joseph also had some dreams. He saw in one dream that he and his brothers had been out binding sheaves of grain, when all the sudden his sheave stood up and theirs bowed down to his. This was followed by another dream where he saw the Sun, Moon, and eleven stars - representing his father, mother, brothers - bowing down to him. You can’t help what you dream, but this may have been a time when he should have kept it to himself, for it caused his brothers, who were already jealous of him, to hate him even more.

This hatred by his brothers eventually led to them hatching a scheme. When Joseph came to where they were grazing the sheep, they faked his death and sold him into slavery. Joseph experienced in this moment possibly the greatest betrayal anyone could face.

This led to years of suffering, alienation, false accusations, and imprisonment. How many nights did Joseph lie on the ground in tear wondering what he had done to deserve this treatment at the hands of those he loved. The torture of betrayal was certainly worse than the hardships of enslavement.

And yet, we are told through all this that God was with Joseph. God was up to something in Joseph’s life; something Joseph couldn’t see through his tears. God was preparing Joseph for a greater assignment.

Problem now

Who hasn’t felt a similar sting of betrayal? Who hasn’t felt false accusations by others, rejection, and character assassinations? Having a parent - or worse, a spouse - abandon you as a child. A coworker who you thought was a friend stab you in the back to advance themselves. A school friend that hung you out to dry so that you got the blame for something. We can all remember these betrayals along the way. Probably none of us has been sold into slavery. But, similar to Joseph, we’ve been enslaved to the pain, grief, and loneliness that betrayal has caused.

The first thing we can take away from Joseph’s life is this: in your bleakest moments, God is at work. He is up to something. He is refining you, testing you, preparing you for a greater assignment.

God doesn’t bring misery; but he does redeem it for our good. Can you have faith this morning to endure your time of trial, trusting that God is going to raise you to a greater place?

Gospel then

In prison God is near to Joseph, closer than he’s ever been. He gives Joseph, the dreamer, the ability to interpret dreams. He interprets the dreams of the chief baker and cupbearer of Pharoah when they were temporarily confined with Joseph. Later, when Pharoah has troubling dreams of his own, the cupbearer remembers Joseph and tells about him to Pharoah. Joseph is brought before Pharoah, interprets the dreams as a Divine warning of an impending famine, and the rest, as they say, is history. Because of Joseph’s insight, the man who was once a Hebrew slave is made the second in command over all Egypt. That’s a rags to riches story if ever there was one, but remember it came out of a time of crushing betrayal.

After seven year, the dreamed-of famine comes to pass. Joseph’s brothers, who haven’t seen him in decades, come to Egypt to buy grain. They don’t recognize Joseph, but there they all bow before this great man, just as his own dreams foretold. And now Joseph comes to a valley of decision. A crossroads. Those who hurt him, who sold him into slavery, who betrayed him in the most horrendous way and caused him untold grief, now stand before him and are at his mercy. What will he do? What would you do?

Well, we heard the rest of the story read to us. Joseph’s time in slavery and prison changed him. His suffering gave him the gift of Divine perspective. He didn’t give in to bitterness. He kept his trust in God, and now he sees what God was up to. How he was redeeming his situation. God used the very thing his brothers had intended for evil to save them. Joseph was finally able to see the purpose God had been preparing him for. And here we see in Joseph a foreshadowing of Christ, where the One betrayed by his own people becomes the very means of their salvation. Joseph, instead of retaliating, instead of getting even, extends forgiveness, just like another man who hung on a cross and said, “Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing.”

Joseph, at least by our standards, had every right to retaliate, to get even. They deserved punishment! Instead, he [Joseph] breaks the cycle of retribution with reconciling love. And through this love a family was restored and a nation was saved.

Gospel now

This brings us to our Gospel passage. We live in a society that has embraced the myth of redemptive violence. That we should give as good as we get when it comes to our enemies, and that somehow this will settle the score and bring peace. But it never does; it only escalates the violence. Not necessarily physical violence; it could be the violence of increasing hateful speech, the violence of end a relationship, the violence of gossip and trying to undermine our enemy in the eyes of others. And it can turn physical.

I was reminded of some history that happened just to our east during the Civil War. The family feud between the Hatfields and McCoys. This was an intra-family war that lasted 28 years and claimed at least 60 lives. One slight was repaid in kind, one grievance was repaid with a greater one, going on and on, with each side trying to settle the score. And the saddest part is that if you do a Google search on what started the feud you won’t find a consistent answer. Nobody knows exactly how it began, and I doubt that in the end none of the Hatfields or McCoys did either. All they knew is that those people were the enemy. This is truly the most toxic example of “like father, like son”, where sons perpetuate the hate and violence of their predecessors.

Exactly 100 years later, another man stood at the valley of decision; would he choose the myth of retributive violence, or would he appeal to a higher ethic? Martin Luther King, Jr. was a man who also faced every kind of injustice, persecution, violence, and betrayal. Yet, in spite of it all, he refused to pay back in kind. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”

Jesus calls us, his church, to be the ones to break the cycle. To expose the myth of redemptive violence as the lie that it is, and instead to lead the way in offering love and reconciliation to those who treat us as enemies. To offer forgiveness instead of condemnation. This is a calling to love “in spite of”. To bless, to pray, to accept insult, and instead of getting even, to love anyway. To treat enemies the way we wish they would treat us, but to do this regardless of how they treat us. Here we have to resist our culture that insists upon standing up for ourselves, of fighting fire with fire.

How much grace, how much mercy, how much forgiveness do you want? Jesus’ words are clear. The measure you give will be the measure you get.

I’d offer two applications from our message today:

First, God is up to something in your pain. He is preparing you for more. He doesn’t cause it, but if you will surrender it to him, he will use it to form you more like himself. Your season of pain can be your path of promotion.

Second, you can be empowered by the Holy Spirit to break the cycle of retaliation. When others hurl abuse at you, you can say, “Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing.” Loving your enemies, loving your betrayers, will be the hardest thing you will ever do. But you will never by more like your Father, and more like your Savior, than when you do. Amen.

Ministry time...

Communion

As we take communion, we are reminded of the One who came to bring reconciliation. As Jesus hung on the cross, he could have commanded legions of angels to come to his aid, to strike back at his enemies. Instead, he opened his arms wide and absorbed our hatred, absorbed our sin, and in return gave us life.

Words of Institution

The Lord’s Prayer

Invitation

This is the table, not of the church, but of the Lord,

It is made ready for those who love God and for those who want to love Him more.

So come, you who have much faith and you who have little;

You who have been here often and you who have not been here long;

You who have tried to follow and you who have failed.  

Come, because it is the Lord who invites you.

It is His will that those who want Him should meet Him here.