Lectionary Notes: Feb 23, 2025
tl;dr: This week explores power reversals, with or without retribution.
I've joined a group spanning a few churches to share reactions to the lectionary text for the week. Here are my notes going into February 23, 2025, the seventh Sunday after Epiphany.
The Texts
Genesis 45:3-11, 15
This picks up at the (mostly) happy ending of the story. At this point, Joseph reveals himself to his brothers, says something that sounds like forgiveness of what they did to him selling him as a slave into Egypt, and declares how even though they meant harm God worked it out for the good of everyone. He promises to provide for them during the famine and kisses them and wept. That's a pretty powerful story of reunion, reconciliation, and God working even through evil to bring about a good outcome.
But if you read the few chapters before this, starting at chapter 42, Joseph did a lot of torturing his brothers before this big moment of forgiveness. Most of the brothers, all but Benjamin, first come to Egypt to buy food because there's a famine and only Egypt stockpiled enough food (thanks to Joseph's interpretation of dreams). They meet Joseph but don't recognize him, having assumed he died a long time ago or at least was still a slave. He recognizes them, accuses them of being spies, and says that the rest of them will stay in prison until one of them goes back and gets Benjamin, which somehow will prove that they're not spies. He put them all in prison for 3 days, then softens the offer to only making Simeon stay. Then he puts the silver which the brothers had used to buy the food back into their sacks so that they will panic when they see it, knowing that they will be accused of theft.
The brothers (other than Simeon) get back to Jacob and tell them they need to take Benjamin this time. They get back to Egypt with everything they have to offer, including a lot more silver, and immediately explain how they got their silver back on the previous trip. Joseph says that's fine, serves them a giant dinner, and then does the same thing again: sends them on their way but with their silver returned quietly to their bags. That sounds generous. But this time instead of letting them go, he immediately sends somebody to catch them, accuse them of theft, and threaten to make whoever is found to have the silver a slave. That is Benjamin, Jacob's favourite. Judah knows that this would kill his father Jacob to lose Benjamin and offers to stay instead.
That's when we get to this passage and its happy ending. With the time to travel back and forth between Egypt and Canaan, this would have been months of emotional torture of his brothers and father, and keeping one in prison. There is no apology for any of that.
Of course, the big theme here that lines up with other recent weeks and other texts this week: God reverses our power structures. The older brothers meant to harm him, but God took care of him and ultimately put him in a position of power over his brothers where they depended on him. That part is powerful and reassuring in a world where we often feel like we don't see justice. But in this particular story, there is a lot of cruelty along the way, and on its own it might be too easy to fall into concepts of justice that require extensive punishment before forgiveness is possible.
Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40
It largely has the same themes of the reversal of power, but explicitly without a lot of the retribution first. This is clear that you should not fret because of the wicket, refrain from anger, forsake wrath. In short, we don't need to seek retribution because God will make sure things are set right. God is our salvation and refuge, not needing to take revenge into our own hands.
1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42,50
This flows fairly well out of the above theme of the psalm. We trust that God will make things right, not following the logic of the world that demands we take vengeance ourselves. This is supported by the resurrection, where God in Jesus allowed himself to be killed but then came back. This shows that God has power over death and those who seek to wield death. The power reversal happens, but it comes through death which at first seems like it is supporting the existing power. "What you sow does not come to life unless it dies."
Luke 6:27-38
The Luke text perhaps makes these themes a bit more practical. While the psalm and Corinthians declare that God will bring salvation from the wicked powers of the world, Luke gets more down-to-earth in what this looks like when you are oppressed by those wicked powers. Rather than only loving those who love you, Jesus commands that we are to also love our enemies, which in that context would have included some brutal Roman oppressors.
First, there is an interesting three steps of hatred toward you:
- Do good to those who hate you.
- Bless those who curse you.
- Pray for those who mistreat you.
At first, if somebody hates you but isn't directly harming you, you have some potential to actively do good to them, which will maybe cutting them off from hating you. If it escalates to them actively cursing you, you can actively bless them in return. If they are actively harming you, you probably aren't in a position anymore to actively seek practical good for them, but you can still pray for them.
The "turn the other cheek" part is often misinterpreted as encouraging passivity, however. This isn't accurate. The Matthew version of this text, in 5:38-40, is a bit more clear, as it specifies that if someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other cheek as well. What's the difference? Try to imagine if somebody is looking at you and they're right-handed as everyone was assumed to be. For them to slap you on your right cheek, they need to backhand you. This part is still mostly true today: a backhand slap is usually a sign of dominating power over someone who think is clearly inferior to you. You don't backhand someone who is your equal. So when you turn the other cheek, you're essentially saying "you may have the power to slap me but I'm going to make you look me in the eye and treat me as an equal while you do it." And that sounds a lot like nonviolent resistance movements in the modern world.
Conclusion
There is an interesting progression in the order of these texts, which doesn't always work out that way.
- In Genesis, we see God working for the good despite evil situations, reversing power structures to put the little brother sold into slavery back in a position over his brothers. But he still clearly felt he had to do some major revenge first.
- The Psalm encourages us to let go of our anger and trust that God will take care of that power reversal without us needing to take revenge.
- In Corinthians, we see how that parallels the logic of death and resurrection, requiring that we die to self in order to be raised again in God's new life.
- In Luke, Jesus explicitly teaches us to do some of that dying to self by loving those enemies even while they are oppressing us.