Genesis 45:3-11, 15; Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40; Luke 6:27-3

Over the past month and a bit we have been hearing some challenging yet enticing things from God; here’s a quick summary:

1. Everyone in this church is a minister, with a ministry. That includes me, but it is not exclusive to me, not does it make me the most important. If you have been baptised, then the Holy Spirit is upon you and you have a job to do.
2. Everyone in this church is able to listen to God’s instruction for him- or herself. It is good to check with others, including me, what you have heard from God, (lest you go off and become a one-woman cult), but you can and should ask God what God wants from you; don’t ask me what God wants you to do without first asking Godself.
3. Some of you are being called to ministries of proclamation, and perhaps to proclaim somewhat unwelcome messages. If God has given you a message for the church and the world we want you to speak it out.
4. Some proclamation takes the form of looking ahead. You will tell people to think about what is coming next, and think about what is life-giving and foundational to what we trust now. Our message as a local church is that we are confident because we have heard and experienced how God gives life to us, and energy to finish the work we have been assigned.

Today we are about to hear something different, yet connected, because today we hear God’s wisdom for everyone who hears what God and the Church are saying. It’s not about what the some of you who are called to speak should speak, but about how all of us should listen, and to draw out of God’s story whatever wisdom it brings to each of us where we are.

In today’s story from the Hebrew Tradition we read how Joseph showed himself to his brothers. We haven’t got the whole story here, we are coming in late. So, in case you are new to Church or you’ve forgotten how Joseph’s story goes, here’s what we’ve skipped. Joseph’s brothers sold him to Arab slave traders, which was not very nice of them. Then yada-yada-yada, false accusation, time in gaol, Pharaoh overdoses on pizza one night and has crazy dreams, then there’s drought everywhere and Joseph’s brothers rock up in Egypt amongst hordes of Hebrew asylum seekers, but they don’t recognise Joseph who is now Prime Minister. That’s where we’re up to. In today’s story Joseph does not exact revenge on his nasty-but-thirsty brothers, instead he shows generous kindness and hospitality to them. This is what happened, it is Biblical truth. As preacher and congregation we can draw two things from this story; God’s plans always work out well for those who remain faithful to their calling, and it’s always better to be generous and kind, even to people who are nasty-but-thirsty. Done! (Well, we’ll see.)

Today our Psalm is 37 and bits thereof; a song of patient trust in God, grounded in the assurance that salvation is coming. We can’t say that Joseph was familiar with this song of David, since it was written something like eight hundred years after his day, but Joseph certainly kept faith in God. Joseph understood that God is faithful and Joseph told whoever would listen, even his brothers, nasty-but-thirsty. The message here is that God’s plans always work out well for those who remain patiently faithful to their hope in God; and the application of the Psalm’s truth, read beside Joseph’s story, is that since we know that God is our security and it is not our own efforts that save us we can afford to be generous and kind, even to people who are nasty-but-thirsty.  Done! (Well, we’ll see.)

We read in our Jesus Tradition story this morning from Luke 6:27-38 where Jesus himself is teaching. Jesus says to love your enemies, (and your brothers nasty-but-thirsty), and to listen to your teachers. Jesus is quite a challenging teacher if you think about it, and here is where we find the point of today’s message. Jesus was faithful to God, faithful to his trust in God (the things he knew and believed about The Father), obedient and always seeking The Father’s direction. As an Evangelical I’d like to say that Jesus was completely and utterly faithful to scripture, and I have heard that said before by other Evangelicals, some of whom (but not all) were preachers. But was he? Was he really? I am entirely convinced that Jesus never contradicted God nor the written word of The Law and The Prophets but even here, hear how he uses the phrase “but I say to you…” Jesus often said that, or perhaps he often did that, changing the meaning of Jewish religious tradition and the interpretation of the scriptures in Hebrew or their Greek translation of his day. “You’re reading that wrong”, might be another way of saying it.

Let me give you an example, in a different way. I was once in a group where a conversation took place between a farmer and his pastor, and the farmer was convicted of sin about his farming methods. He had been reading Genesis 3:19 where it says quite clearly by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread. Well, he was concerned that since he was a grain farmer, and the bread thing applied closely, that his newly purchased closed-cabin air-conditioned header didn’t allow his face to become all that sweaty. As a Christian farmer, saved by the cross but still living as a sinner in a fallen world, he asked whether he had become too worldly, and wasn’t he compromising his faith and the word of scripture by not using a horse-drawn plough or a scythe in the sun?  Does the road of the air-conditioned lead to Hell? I believe Jesus would say “well you have heard it said, by the sweat of your face, but I say to you…” and then what would Jesus say? Maybe something like “anyone who works for a living to provide for his family is blessed, regardless of the physical toil involved, because each man is accountable to God for his gifts and responsibilities”. And then in the twentieth century scholars would have added “and each woman” to their commentaries, and twenty-first century pastors would have drawn out applications for women and men who work at white-collar jobs. Would such a thing be entirely faithful to scripture? That depends upon whom you’re asking I suppose; there’s always a hardliner somewhere. My question is, is such a thing faithful to our concept of God? In other words, is the God of Joseph and his brothers, the God of David the Psalmist, the God of Jesus the rabbi who taught love even for enemies, the God of Jesus the crucified messiah who prayed “father forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing”, is that God burning with unquenchable wrath because many of today’s Christians work amidst air-conditioning?

Today I have raced through the set readings, and I have deliberately overlooked other great nuggets of applicable truth for yours and my lives as disciples, to make one common point. My point is that you must read the Bible with the characteristics of Jesus of Nazareth in mind. Something that I have developed as a reader and scripture and a writer of sermons is that as I begin to reflect on any text I ask myself how Jesus would explain it to the woman beside the well in John 4:10, or the woman caught in adultery in John 8:11, or Simon son of Jonah beside the lake in John 21:15. Remember, Jesus never twisted scripture but he often redefined and refuted a harsh interpretation to show the compassion and loving-kindness of God whenever the scribes and Pharisees try to set a trap. In today’s passage Jesus’ own words in Luke 6:36 say be merciful just as your Father is merciful.

There is no doubt that God dislikes sin. Jesus wasn’t too keen on it and he still isn’t, it cost him six blood-soaked and pain-filled hours on a Roman cross beneath a black sky. The message to read with mercy is not about taking a permissive stance on sin or injustice or idolatry or anything else that the scriptures condemn: no way, never. The message is to think of the people involved; the people trapped by sin of course, but for my pastoral heart even more so the people trapped by false interpretations of the scriptures which make God seem petty or petulant and not very nice at all. Don’t laugh at that farmer, help him with gentleness to understand that he is allowed to not sweat and still be a beloved son of the Father in righteousness with his Lord. But more than that, don’t ever be the one who agrees with such a farmer and insists because of the word of God that agricultural machinery is contrary to received revelation and an act of witchcraft in the eyes of a wrathful deity.  But more than that that, and that whatever; do not ever be the one who grabs at that farmer and pulls him bodily from his header and demand he use a scythe or else it’s Hell for him and his family for four generations because that’s what the Bible says.

As the proclaimers of God’s truth that we are, whether we are preachers and teachers in church, or just knowledgeable Christian friends to friends less knowledgeable or Christian than we; as we approach the season of Lent may we all make sure that it is God’s truth we are proclaiming. If what you say contradicts the written gospel, or the letters, law, prophets or poets found in scripture then it’s probably not of God. But if your words contradict the nature and character of Jesus then it certainly is not of God, no matter how many Bible verses you quote.

Amen.