This whole Christianity thing…

This whole Christianity thing asks a lot of us.

I mean, the whole love your neighbor thing seems pretty straightforward until we really think deeply about who our neighbor might be.

We do not always get along with each other.

We do not always speak kindly of each other.

Of course, we mostly love those who we are close to; we do speak kindly of each other in this room; we tend to get along or try to get along with our neighbors in proximity yet there are those who we identify with being from different tribes or cohorts who we sometimes do not love as we love ourselves.

We draw lines in the sand and say you have crossed that line and you are no longer my neighbor, it is better we are separate.

Because you vote differently from each me, you are different.

Because you have wealth I do not, we are not the same.

Because I wish to hold onto my privilege and you have none, we hold no common bond.

God commands us to love our neighbor.

You are not my neighbor.

So be it.

Yet those are human machinations seeking exceptions to the rule that we must love our neighbor as ourselves.

And these exceptions can prove soothing to us.

Even in our charity, we love others differently for they might be different from us; in a different place, in a different setting, under a different sky.

Yes, we help, but our reliance on maintaining difference through zoning and separation, means that we love our neighbor, but not our neighbor as ourselves.

And that’s okay, we say to ourselves.

It’s okay that I helped.

And yet I wonder if the help we provide sometimes, the help I provide sometimes, would take a different shape if the hunger I fed was my mother’s hunger; if the person to whom I gave a blanket would have been given a warm bed if it was my brother exposed to New England’s winter freeze.

I do wonder about our gradations of love.

Because we are commanded to love everyone, each and everyone, as we love ourselves.

And there is no exception here.

But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt.

There is no exception here.

There are no subtleties in language that we can hide behind and say, I love you but just differently.

Jesus isn’t saying love everyone except your enemies, he is saying love your enemies.

Love those who curse you.

Love those who abuse you.

Love those who strike you.

Love those who hate you.

And to ponder these directions any longer than a few minutes really highlights the seeming impossibility of having to do so.

How do I love those who curse me, who abuse me, who strike me?

Why am I to love those who hate me?

Am I not wasting love on those who would harm me?

Why not celebrate the love that is returned?

Why waste the energy committed to loving those who would not return it?

And yet love is not an investment, we do not love based on projected returns.

We love for we are commanded to love.

We love because it is objectively good to love.

And we love all people, ally and enemy alike, because there is no limitation to our love; especially a love afforded to us through Christ.

Yet there is still that doubt.

There is this sense of impossibility, this idea of wasting love on those who would do us harm, and yet love we must.

Let’s look at this morning’s story about Joseph.

It begins with Joseph in a great position of power; he is second in command to pharaoh.

Joseph has just revealed himself to his brothers for earlier this story, he was thrown into a pit by those same brothers.

You see, one day when Joseph still lived in Judah he went looking for his brothers in the field.

Joseph was his father’s favorite, he was even given a fantastic cloak, and his brothers were jealous of Joseph.

As Joseph was looking for his brothers they saw him from across the fields and they conspired to kill him, throw him in a pit, and tell their father that his favorite was devoured by wild animals.

Yet one brother said that they should not kill him but throw him in the pit only.

So they did that.

They threw their brother in a pit and a caravan happened by.

Realizing there was no profit in killing Joseph, they instead sold him to the caravan traders.

Joseph was then sold into slavery and Joseph’s brothers, after tearing their brother’s cloak apart, returned to their father and told him that his favorite son was killed by a wild animal.

Joseph’s father was bereft; he did not see the lie and mourned for his son who was actually now in Egypt.

In Egypt, Joseph prospered, he rose through the ranks of the Egyptian bureaucracy.

And in Judah, from where Joseph came, a great famine tormented the peoples of that land.

The brothers experienced that famine and fled to Egypt to ask for assistance.

The brothers asked Joseph, one of the most powerful men in Egypt, for help.

They did not recognize their brother though Joseph did recognize them.

Being so powerful, Joseph could have had his brothers arrested or even thrown into a pit as revenge.

Instead he sent them away with their fill of grain and rations so that they might survive the famine.

The brothers returned to Judah and then come back once again to Egypt for they are still in need of food for their families.

And still they do not recognize Joseph but this time, Joseph reveals himself

This is when our story begins.

We heard of Joseph revealing himself to his brothers.

We see their consternation when they realize he is now the powerful one.

And Joseph, well Joseph does not act out a place of conceit, power, or revenge.

He instead acts from a far more powerful place, a setting of forgiveness, of love.

His brothers came before Joseph asking for help having at first not realized from whom they were asking for assistance.

And Joseph explains that he is not seeking revenge.

He is not seeking retribution because he was thrown into a pit.

He is not withholding his love because his brothers abused him, because they caused him harm.

Instead, Joseph offers to share in the wealth he attributes to God.

He offers them respite from the famine; a home to raise their families in a land called Goshen.

Joseph’s love is an example of the love that Jesus is talking about this morning.

Jesus does not say love those except your brothers who threw you into a pit.

But love everyone.

Love your enemies.

Love.

Love so that you might provide those in need respite from the wilderness.

Love so that you might reconcile with those who have done you harm.

Love regardless of reaction, regardless of return.

Love.

This sermon on the plain that Jesus is giving asks us to level ourselves, as level as the plain itself.

And we can only level ourselves, we can only be with Christ as a single people if we love each other, all people, with the ardor that Christ holds for each one of us individually.

We must forgive as Joseph forgave, forgive the harm caused by others, so that we can love as Joseph loved and Jesus loves us to this day.

And we must reconcile with those who do us harm if we are to love as we are all loved by God, a God who loves us despite our flaws, despite our shortcomings.

We are loved perfectly and so we must love others, our friends and enemies alike.

And we love this impossible love so that we might build the kingdom and witness it in our living days and not just as a reward for a life will lived.

God wants us to revel in the kingdom now, in this day and age, and on this level plain and to do so we must love.

No exceptions.

Amen.