Ascensioncast
Sermon by The Rev. Patrick J. Wingo, February 24, 2019 (re-recording)
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Sermon Text
Sermon for Epiphany 7C 2-24-19 CAK The Rev Patrick J Wingo
Jesus said, Love your enemies.
What is an enemy?
When I think about how my understanding of enemies were formed as a child, I think about Wile. E. Coyote as the Road Runner’s enemy.
Or, since I was a child of the Cold War, how I learned that the USSR was the clear enemy of my country.
Or, as I got a little older, how my coach might have portrayed the other team when he was firing us up before a game.
It’s pretty easy to find the origin of the word “enemy.”
It comes from the Latin “in amicus” or “not friend.”
Your enemy is not your friend.
Well, I could have told anyone that when I was five years old and saw the Coyote trying to drop an anvil on the Road Runner’s head.
But enemies became harder to understand as I got older, because the reality is that there are some people in our lives, people whom we may call our friends who don’t at all act like it.
Those who are critical of your every move.
Those who may not support you as you try to live in healthier ways.
Those who gossip about you to other friends.
For some people this even extends to family.
Think about the Joseph saga in our Old Testament lesson for today.
What if your brother wasn’t your friend because you were your dad’s favorite?
What if you had a different mother than your brother, and it was clear that your dad liked the children that your mom had better than the children of his first wife?
Maybe he liked you so much he gave you, and only you, some expensive clothes, and your brothers got really jealous.
And what if all your brothers were mad at you because you had these amazing dreams, and all you wanted to do was tell them about the pictures in your head, but they thought you were a little smarty-pants because in your dreams you were the ruler over them, even though they were older than you?
And what if your brothers got so mad at you that they planned to do away with you, and they did just that, and then lied to your father, broke his heart, in fact, when they told him that you had been killed by a lion, when really they sold you as a slave and you ended up in another country?
‘Inimicus.’ Not friend.
My brother is not my friend.
It is interesting that in all the characters in the book of Genesis, Joseph gets far more attention than anyone.
The Joseph saga plays out in chapters 37-50 of Genesis, and while part of the intent of the story is to tell how the Israelites ended up in Egypt, there is far more here about how God puts the man who was wronged into a position to forgive, so that acts that were meant for evil came to be used for God’s purposes.
The part of the story we hear is after Joseph has been through tremendous danger and suffering, but has risen to be the right-hand-man to Pharaoh, after he correctly interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams.
Joseph has great power in Egypt, and his position has allowed him to save the country from a terrible famine.
Joseph’s brothers travel to Egypt looking for food, and they are granted an audience with this powerful ruler, second only to Pharaoh.
It’s been twenty years, and they don’t recognize the brother they sold into slavery.
But Joseph recognizes them.
And in that moment he truly did have ultimate power.
He could have had them thrown into prison, he could have had them killed, he could have done anything h
