Resurrection Lutheran Church, St Catharines

Do you love your brothers and sisters, or do you just put up with them because your parents force you to do so? Would you treat them well if your parents were not around and would not hear a report about it? Many times a family dynamic changes when the parents are gone. Perhaps you have seen or even experienced that. When you were young and mom and dad were out of the house for a while you may have become more rebellious, more aggressive, more selfish toward your siblings. And after your parents passed away you may have let loose a tirade that you had been holding back for decades, or cut off communication with your sibling rivals, not talking to them anymore. We all know that is not right, and yet it still happens so often.

 

We should become all the more close to our brothers and sisters when our parents are not around. We should recognize that the stability and provision of our parents needs to be supplemented when they are not present. We should be trying all the more to get along, to help, to keep the peace, to protect and to come to the rescue of our family members when the head of the household is absent. We should take up some of those responsibilities to hold the family together and to care for one another, and at the very least not to be the source of strife or make things more difficult for one another. Do we really need our parents to be around in order to have peace with one another?

 

Joseph’s family dynamic was strained from the start. His father, Jacob, had cheated to get the birthright and blessings that should have gone to his brother. Then Jacob had children with four different women living in the household (two wives and their maids). So Joseph had ten half brothers and one full brother. His father showed favouritism toward Joseph because he was the eldest son of the favourite wife. Although younger than his half brothers, it was made obvious that Joseph would be the one given authority over the family. So, before that happened, when he was just seventeen years old, his half brothers planned to kill him. As God directed the circumstances, they instead sold Joseph as a slave, told their father that his favourite son was torn to pieces by a wild animal, and dismissed their brother from their minds.

 

As God directed the circumstances, the slavers took Joseph to Egypt and eventually Pharaoh put him in charge of managing the food supply. When a famine came everyone went to Egypt to get grain and as God directed the circumstances, the brothers of Joseph went to Egypt also. There Joseph was brought to their minds again and they feared that God would repay them for the evil that they had done to their brother. When Joseph saw that they had turned from their wicked ways and showed love and respect toward their father and care and protection toward the remaining favourite son, Joseph’s full brother Benjamin, he forgave them with tears and had the whole family move to Egypt (including their father and their children) where he could care for them all.

 

The brothers were in awe of Joseph’s authority and power. They were amazed that their brother whom they had sold as a foreign slave was the highest authority in all of the Egyptian Empire next to the Pharaoh. They knew that God had directed these circumstances. They knew that God had placed them under the authority of their brother. They knew that they were in his hand and at his mercy. They knew that Joseph loved their father and would not do anything to cause him further grief. But then, their father died. Their family tie to their half brother was gone. What could they expect from the hand of the one whom they had wanted dead?

 

The brothers of Joseph feared him, so they commanded Joseph in the name of their father that he should forgive them for everything that they had done to him. They commanded that he should forgive them because they were his half brothers through Joseph’s beloved father. They commanded that he should forgive them because they were servants of his father’s God. They fell to their knees but commanded that he should forgive them because they would now serve him. They felt Joseph should recognize his obligation as a son of their father. He should follow the father’s commands and do his bidding, even with Jacob no longer present.

 

Well, I’m sure you have heard such things yourself. “You have to forgive him, he’s your brother.” “What would your mother say?” “You call yourself a Christian. How can you refuse to forgive him? You don’t have a choice.” Well, you do have a choice. Joseph had a choice. But forgiveness cannot be fuelled by commands and choices and obligations. Your forgiveness and care and love for your family members cannot be fuelled by any kind of coercion.

 

When Peter asked Jesus, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” (Matthew 18:21), Jesus’ answer was not to give a number to be attained by obligation or command or law. It was a number to show that no obligation or command or law would suffice to be the source of forgiveness. When it comes to forgiveness the law and our obligation to it must step aside. In the parable that Jesus told, the master put the law aside in order to forgive the immense debt of his servant. But that servant would not put the law aside, and so he could not forgive his own debtor. Having pledged himself to the fulfillment of the law, he himself then got what he deserved. There is no forgiveness through the law.

 

Joseph had become the highest law in the Egyptian Empire, yet he said to his brothers, “Do not fear” (Genesis 50:19). And he asked them a very important question. “Am I in the place of God?” ...Although Joseph had risen to the pinnacle of power under Pharaoh, he did not dare to take God’s place in meting out justice upon his brothers. Joseph recognized that although they meant to do him evil, God meant for good to happen through it, and many people in Egypt and beyond and the entire household of Jacob had been preserved alive because Joseph had been sold into slavery in Egypt and placed in authority over the food supply in a time of famine. God, in His mercy had saved many people from lack of food; and God in His grace had saved Joseph’s brothers from dying of starvation.

 

That is not what they deserved. That is not justice. That is not the law. It is God’s grace and mercy. It is His salvation extended toward those who do not deserve it, toward those who deserve to die for what they have done.

 

“Am I in the place of God?” Can I demand that the law exact its punishment upon you, when God has not seen fit to do so Himself? “Am I in the place of God?” Can I forgive you for what you have done to me? Can I be as forgiving as He has been to you? “Am I in the place of God?” Shall I forgive as He has forgiven? “Yes,” Joseph must have concluded, “I am in the place of God.” “So do not fear. I will provide for you and your little ones” (Genesis 50:21).

 

The wicked servant in Jesus’ parable thought that he could act as the master when his fellow servant owed him a debt he could not pay. He thought he was in the place of master over his debtor and could demand full payment. That is the way it is with us when we want to have the power over others. We want to have the power to make them pay, to exact justice down to the last penny. But if the master is forgiving, if we want to stand in the shoes of the Master, then we should be forgiving as well. That is what it means in God’s eyes to be the master, to have the authority, to be in the place of God. It means, to forgive your brothers.

 

For the Son of God came into this world among us, His brothers by flesh. And by our sins we sold Him into the hands of those who put Him upon the cross. He suffered and died for our sins against our brothers and sisters in our families, and in our communities, and around the world. He died on the cross for our jealousies and selfishness and animosity. He died for our wishing our brothers and sisters were dead and for not caring whether they are or not.

 

But He rose from the dead and ascended to the highest place of authority and power, at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. And He puts all of that authority and power to use, not so that we might also suffer and die for our sins and get the full treatment of what we deserve; but so that He can use that authority and power to forgive us. He pours out the grace, mercy, and love of His Father upon us, His brothers and sisters. And He asks us to do the same.

 

Ask yourself: “Am I in the place of God?” When it comes to your brothers and sisters needing forgiveness for their transgressions against you, then yes: You are in the place of God. You are God’s voice telling them that although they meant evil upon you, God meant it for good, so that this day the message of forgiveness and life in Christ Jesus might be given to them.

 

Our heavenly Father has not left us. He is still holding us together as brothers and sisters by His grace and mercy to us in Jesus Christ. He is still keeping the family together by the power of His Spirit at work in the words of forgiveness for sins. The peace that we have is fuelled by His grace, not by choice or obligation or demand. And if we stand in the place of God, then we are standing to forgive those who have sinned against us. If we are not forgiving, we are not in His place or under His grace.