St. Andrew’s, Pictou, February 29, 2004 

MAGNANIMITY

Genesis 45:3-11, 15

Psalm 37:1-12, 39-40

1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50

Luke 6:27-38

Consider how would you feel if you were the youngest child in a large family. Maybe you were even your father’s favourite. Your siblings hated you because of his love and favourtism. In their jealousy and rage against you, they made a terrible plan where you were to be abducted form your family, sold into slavery, and taken to a foreign country so that you would have no hope of ever finding or connecting with your family again?

After many long years, serendipitously, by the grace of God, against all expectations, you were to meet the same siblings who had perpetrated this violence against you. What would you do? What would you say? How would you react? How would you feel about them? 

This is exactly where we find a man called Joseph in our reading from Genesis. As a boy Joseph had been his father, Jacob’s favourite and his brothers hated him for it. His father loved his youngest son intensely. Jacob even had a coat of many colours made especially for him. Joseph could interpret dreams, and so his brothers called him “a dreamer.” They were going to kill him but opted to sell him into slavery where he was taken to Egypt. The killed a goat, soaked his beautiful coat of many colours in the goat’s blood, showed the coat to his father who recognized it and though that his beloved son was killed by wild animals.

As the story goes, Joseph’s gift for dream interpretation brought him into high repute in Egypt and he became chief steward of all Egypt. He predicted a great famine and helped the Egyptian people prepare with food to get them through the famine so that they wouldn’t die.

When the great famine hit, people were hungry and the old man Jacob heard that there was food in Egypt and sent his sons to get food so that they could live.

The man, Joseph recognized his brothers, and “played” with them. He had servants hide items in their belongings so that they were brought back to him. We pick up the story at the point of emotional anguish where Joseph could no longer hide who he was and discloses to his former perpetrators that he is their brother.

“(When) Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood by him, … he cried out, ‘Send everyone away from me!’

So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers.

And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it.

Joseph said to his brothers, ‘I am Joseph. Is my father alive?’

But his brothers could not answer him, so dismayed were they at his presence.” 

Talk about mixed feelings. Can you imagine what was going on in the room?

Joseph had recognized his brothers so he was a little ahead of them, but the brothers must have been in sheer terror. All of these years, they had thought that their dirty little secret was hidden and safe, and here it was now wide open in the place where they were most vulnerable: Jewish shepherds at the mercy of powerful Egyptians with the wronged brother in charge of operations! How would you feel?

The first clew that we have as to how and what Joseph would react was what he said right after his name: “Is my father still alive?”

Over all of the years since his abduction, how many hours had he longed for his father? “Is my father still alive?” Can you imagine who much Joseph wanted to know the answer to that question? 

Joseph’s first inclination was not to express anger in revenge, but to find out if that one he loved was still alive.

The second clew we have is that he said “Come closer to me.”

After the brothers had moved closer, we find Joseph’s fully explained position:

“I am your brother, Joseph who you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life.”

Three times, Joseph emphasizes that “God sent me before you,” (to preserve life.) 

Joseph chose to focus on the result; the result was that by using the same gift of dream interpretation his brothers scorned, God used “to preserve life.”

Although he was in a perfect position to extract justice or revenge, Joseph chose to be magnanimous in victory.

The text of this story can speak to us on many levels:

-who close to us chose to us sell us out?

-where are we distanced from the one that we love?

-like Joseph, how many years do we have to wait to finish our story?

-what crying do we have to do?

-what person do we have to forgive?

-are we living in a way that seeks to preserve life?

-what magnanimity do we have to express to open our lives up to new possibilities?

The word of the Lord is that Joseph was magnanimous in victory.

God did the same thing.

In 1 Corinthians the apostle Paul tries to explain the mystery of the resurrection and what it means. Paul tries to discern what it means if we believe in Jesus and God raised him from the dead.

If God were human and sent his son to us to teach us about how the kingdom of God’s love works, and Jesus came and taught love, and healed people, fed and gave them the bread, wine, and water of life, and humanity killed him, we might expect retribution. We might expect anger. We might expect that we would have to dearly pay for our sins.

But like Joseph, the all powerful God was magnanimous in victory. 

As a gift we are promised salvation, all for the price of accepting love. Now you know why so many people have trouble accepting love: they don’t feel that they deserve it; they don’t feel that they are worthy of it.

We say that if we are Christians we follow Jesus.

The text from Luke presents a list of magnanimities:

-Love your enemies,

-bless those who curse you,

-pray for those who abuse you,

-turn the other cheek,

-if someone needs your coat, give them your shirt also,

-do good, lend expecting nothing,

-be merciful

-do not judge,

-forgive.

Sort of takes your breath away, does it not?

But the issue is simple: you and I break the bonds of earthly slavery and step into the kingdom of God when: we are magnanimous in our attitudes and actions.

When we do that, Jesus plainly says in this text, “A good measure pressed down, shaken together, running over will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”  

Most of what we see from day to day is about control. It is a truth that we have to have a measure of control to achieve many of our earthly tasks. But magnanimity takes us into another “orbit,” another “sphere” of influence beyond the tasks of our everyday life where the notion of control is found to be… an illusion.

If you are stuck on the word, “control” then I could explain it to you as this: “Letting go can be a means of control.”

Theologically, we might say that magnanimity could be seen as a way of passing to torch to God. (Of course we have to trust God to be able to do that, other wise we have to do it ourselves. I would gently remind you that “the God job” is very difficult as many have learned.)

Now I am going to leave you with an illustration of how magnanimity works, how letting go is a means of control, how God’s principle of magnanimity functions and can change with world with our participation. I am reading from a book called: On Forgiveness by Richard Holloway, the former Anglican Bishop of Edinburgh. (P. 91-92) 

“The most tragic failure of a great nation to practice magnanimity or political forgiveness towards its defeated enemy, and thereby release the rough beast of history, is found in William Manchester’s biography of Winston Churchill. He quotes Churchill’s own words the day the Great War ended:

It was a few minutes before the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. I stood at the window of my room looking up Northumberland Avenue to Trafalgar Square, waiting for Big Ben to tell that the war was over.

Manchester says that, when Big Ben Struck, Churchill could hear the baying of the crowds, but felt no jubilation. Since 1914 Britain had suffered 908,371 dead, 2,090,212 wounded, and 191,652 missing. Victory had been ‘bought so dear as to be indistinguishable from defeat.’ Churchill’s wife proposed that they go to Downing Street and congratulate Lloyd George, the Prime Minister. Those already present when Churchill arrived were discussing the advantage of calling a general election. Churchill interrupted to point out that the ‘fallen foe’ was close to starvation. He proposed rushing ‘a dozen great ships crammed with provisions’ to Hamburg, but his proposal was coldly rejected. Manchester tells us that, while Churchill’s suggestion was being rebuffed by his unforgiving colleagues, a twice decorated German non-commissioned despatch runner, who had been temporarily blinded during a heavy gas attack on the night of October 13, sat in a Pomeranian military hospital and learnt of Germany’s plight from a sobbing pastor. Six years later the soldier set down a description of his reaction to the event:

I knew that all was lost. Only fools, liars and criminals could hope for mercy from the enemy. In those nights hatred grew in me, hatred for those responsible for this deed… The more I tried to achieve clarity on the monstrous events in this hour, the more the shame of indignation and disgrace burned my brow. What was all the pain in my eyes compared to this misery? In the days that followed, my own fate became known to me… I resolved to go into politics.                

The soldier’s name was Adolf Hitler.”

AMEN                      Rev. Alan Stewart