Luke 6:36-42; Genesis 50

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

In today’s OT reading, Joseph said, “Am I in the place of God?”  Joseph’s brothers were afraid that he was going to judge and condemn them.  A long time earlier, you recall, they had plotted to kill Joseph. They saw that their father favored him; and Joseph had told them these seemingly-delusional fantasies of his that one day his family would all bow down to him. And so they took him and threw him in a deep pit, leaving him to die. But then they saw some traders passing by on their way to Egypt, and they decided to sell him. They got twenty pieces of silver for him. And Joseph became a slave in Egypt.

Even in the midst of this web of hatred and betrayal, of suffering and loss, God was at work. He used the evil done by Joseph’s brothers to put Joseph in a position to become a ruler in Egypt, and in that way to save the very brothers who had plotted to kill him.

But now, their father Jacob is dead. And the brothers are fearing that Joseph will, at long last, get his revenge. It must have been tempting for him. Joseph had soldiers and guards to command. He had more money and more power than we can imagine. But instead, he said to his fearful brothers, “Am I in the place of God?”

Let us ponder that question today as it applies to us.  For that is precisely the thing that Jesus is addressing in today’s Gospel reading. When you show no mercy, you act as if you are God in place of God.  When you judge someone not under your authority, you seize the right of God and act as though you are the Lord.  Who are you to condemn? Who are you to withhold forgiveness? That is what Joseph was saying. “Am I in the place of God? Only God has the right to judge you. Vengeance is the Lord’s.  It is my place to forgive and show mercy, and even though you harmed me, I will forgive. And besides all this, I see that while you meant it for evil, God meant it for good.”

We learn something most important in Joseph’s words: God uses even evil for His own purposes; the Lord uses the disordered wickedness of the evil one to accomplish His own good and gracious will.  We should keep that in mind in the midst of all the evil and suffering in the world that we see.  God is not the author of any of it; but He does enter into it to accomplish real good for us.  The ultimate example of this is the crucifixion, where God takes the greatest evil ever perpetrated–the murder of the Jesus His Son–and works that suffering for good: the taking away of the world’s sin, the forgiveness of your sin and mine.

And so both Joseph and his brothers are examples to us: Joseph’s brothers confessed their sin and asked for mercy; and Joseph forgave them readily.  Nothing is better for family unity and reconciliation than openly acknowledging sin when it occurs and freely forgiving sin.

When Jesus says, “Judge not!” we could put His meaning this way: “Stop having an attitude of criticism and fault finding.”  Our lives and relationships are corrupted by this, especially those we know very well–when we’re constantly focusing on other people’s flaws and problems rather than focusing on their strengths and good qualities and explaining everything in the kindest way.  Beware of creating narratives in your head where the other person’s good qualities are minimized and their flaws are magnified.

Now, these words of our Lord, “Judge not” are among the very few verses that unbelievers like to quote, right?  “Judge not” is often misused in a deceitful way to rule out any discipline at all, to take off the table any notion of absolute right and wrong.  But Jesus does not rule out the legitimate use of judging.  A judge and jury in a court has not only the right but the duty to judge; a teacher in a school must judge the students and grade and assess their work, despite recent efforts to avoid real grading; parents have the commandment of God to discipline and judge and correct their children; citizens have the right to judge and debate whether this or that law or this or that candidate is the best one to vote for; pastors have the commandment of God to call people to repentance and to faith in Christ alone; and the whole church, all of you Christians have the command to judge doctrine and discern the spirits, whether they are from God, and to avoid all false teaching. It’s interesting to note that Jesus’ “Judge not” statement occurs also in Matthew 7.  In that very same chapter Jesus tells us to “Beware of false prophets.”  And that requires you to judge whether or not what they are saying is true and according to God’s Word.  In fact, you could make the case that a lot of what has gone wrong in the world is that governing officials and citizens, parents and teachers, pastors and believers have stopped doing the judging that God has told them to do for the good of all.

So Jesus is not declaring anarchy here and the end of all legitimate judgments, or that the commandments no longer apply and we should just be fine with everyone living however they want and rejecting what is true and good.  Rather, what Jesus is doing here is calling out our constant tendency to criticize and find fault in others. In the same way that we naturally cover up our own imperfections, we should be applying the same courtesy to others, as St. Peter says, “Love covers a multitude of sins.”

When we exercise our God-given duty of making judgments in one of our various vocations, that is right.  But to do so outside of that is wrong.  So within our offices, where God has given us authority, we are to exercise judgment in a godly way.  But to our neighbors, where God has not made us judge or put us in any office over that person, then we are to show only mercy.  Our attitude is to be just as Joseph’s: “Am I in the place of God?” “Who am I to judge you?”

Jesus asks, “Can the blind lead the blind?” Jesus warns us about being blind to our own faults. We easily see the speck in our brother’s eye, but do not so easily perceive the log protruding from our own face.  If we are careful to analyze the depth of our own sin, the faults of others will then appear as mere specks by comparison. St. Paul spoke of himself as “chief of sinners,” and that’s how we are to consider ourselves.  And by the way, those who demonstrate that sort of humble attitude are much more likely to actually be able to help others with their specks.

So when we see someone else sinning, even doing some wrong against us, we should learn to see that as a tiny speck of sawdust.  For if God graciously forgives our many sins and is resolved to forget our big beam, how can we not be merciful in regard to our neighbor’s speck?  We should say, “Dear brother, may God who has overlooked my many planks and has forgiven all my sins, may he also forgive your splinter of sin.”

In doing that, of course, we are not condoning sin, nor are we earning merits to save ourselves–Christ has accomplished that for us. We are learning how to be disciples and followers of Jesus, which means loving our enemies and forgiving those who trespass against us.  This is what it means to live as a Christian.  Our Lord says,“Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.” He doesn’t mean be merciful only to people we like, people who are close to us, or people from whom we can expect some good thing in return. He means be merciful to people we can’t stand, people who have hurt us, people that we would like to write off and never talk to again.

And of course, that’s not easy! We don’t want to do it. So when that challenge comes, we have to remember this: We have broken every commandment in one way or another.  We have despised God and His Word. He would be justified in saying, “Why should I not send those wretched hypocrites straight to hell?” But instead, He sends the rain to water our earth, He gives us food from the earth, and makes the sun to shine. He gives us beauty and joy in this world, a body to delight in His creation; and beyond all of that, He sends His Son to redeem us and give us eternal life. That is the kind of mercy He practices, and it is the kind of mercy He wishes for us to learn to practice.

So constantly meditate on how merciful and kind God is to you. If you think God is a harsh judge, then that is how you will treat others. But when you remember that He is merciful, that He is love, then you will want to be merciful and loving to your neighbor as God in Christ is to you.

 So, in the light of that truth, we can now see Joseph’s rhetorical question in a very different way: “Am I in the place of God?”  And the answer actually is “Yes, you are in the place of God, to show mercy even as He does.”  You are in God’s place because God put Himself in your place.  God in Christ took on flesh, and all the judgment for your sin was poured out on Him to set you free.  Jesus suffered all the vengeance of the whole world’s sin on the cross to take it away.  Everything that you had coming, everything that anyone else deserves, too, Jesus experienced that in your place to save you.  The cross has absorbed all vengeance and has freed us to love and forgive even our enemies.  

So in a very real sense, Joseph was in the place of God.  He stood in the stead of Christ, as an icon of Jesus in giving the forgiveness of the Lord to his brothers.  That’s how it is in the church still today, both for pastors and laypeople.  You are in the place of God.  According to my office I stand in Christ’s stead as an icon of Jesus to give you the forgiveness of the Lord in the absolution.  You are forgiven, fully and freely.  And then you also stand in Christ’s stead as an icon of Jesus to give the forgiveness of the Lord to your neighbor wherever God has placed you in this world.  As a member of the body of Christ, you stand in the place of God to forgive and love one another.  For Christ dwells in you by your baptismal faith to be merciful just as your Father in heaven in merciful.

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

(With thanks to the Rev. Christopher Esget)