The Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany-Year C

The Very Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg The Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany-Year C February 23, 2025 Enemies is such a strong word. I’ve been thinking about this all week and wondering if it isn’t a bit archaic as well? Do we still really have enemies? What are other words that we might use in our modern context to capture what Jesus is getting at in the second out of three parts of his Sermon on the Plain in Luke’s gospel today: “Love your enemies and pray for those who curse you”? Adversary? How about nemesis? Those who irritate you or whom you disagree with? The Greek word translated as enemy here is literally hateful or the hated one. Enemies. It’s a bit strong. Maybe we could soften it somehow. Surely we’re enlightened enough, Christian enough, that we don’t have enemies? I’d gotten pretty far down this path this week until I was pulling out of my driveway headed to work and who did I see? My next door neighbor who is definitely my enemy!!! For those of you who haven’t been here long, there’s a whole history there; it’s a history of lawn fungus and dog drama. So, there I was thinking enemies was an archaic term in today’s gospel when I came face to face with mine. (Denial ain’t just a River in Egypt, Melanie!) Ok, so we have enemies. And usually an enemy is someone who has harmed us in some way; enemyship often involves some sort of betrayal of power or relationship. In last week’s gospel, we had the first part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain, where Jesus is enumerating those who are blessed (which can also be translated as a sort of “atta boy”) and those who are woe-begone (which can be translated as a sort of “shame on you!”). And we pick up today right where we left off last week with Jesus teaching us about what it means to live a faithful life, to be merciful, even toward our enemies. And unfortunately, Jesus is unambiguous: “I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.” And then he says it again: “love your enemies.” And he goes one to talk about the importance of giving over receiving and of forgiving. But how do we go about forgiving someone who has hurt us who we just do not want to forgive? (I am, of course, asking for a friend!) Our Old Testament reading for this week gives us an interesting glimpse into forgiveness of one’s enemies. Today we have the happy ending in the Joseph saga from Genesis, and it’s interesting to me in this context because Joseph has suffered a massive betrayal at the hands of his brothers which leads to his enslavement and imprisonment in the foreign land of Egypt, and then, through God’s involvement, in an exciting twist, Joseph becomes the hero of the Egyptian people, helping safe-guard them from a debilitating famine through his faithful and accurate interpretation of Pharoah’s dreams. In our reading for today, we see how Joseph, who has been betrayed by members of his own family, forgives them and seeks to be reconciled with them, even though he has been horribly wronged by them. And isn’t that also the case with enemies? When I was on my pursuit of a different term for enemy, I ran across a definition someone had submitted to Urban Dictionary for enemy that gets to this: an enemy is “1. A former friend or acquaintance whose company is no longer considered to be beneficial to a relationship; 2. One who is deemed or deems him/herself to be of more use to another as an adversary as opposed to an ally.” We’ve even made up a word for this: we call them a frenemy. The people who are closest to us have the greatest power to wound or betray us. Or perhaps we have different expectations of what love should look like, and those unvoiced or unmet expectations lead to resentments, which can be toxic to us and to our relationships. Joseph’s is an interesting case study on how family systems work. Because most families do follow predictable patterns of behavior, but when one member of the family changes their behavior, it can impact the entire family and its dynamic. It could have been so easy for Joseph to reveal himself to his brothers and to enact his vengeance upon them and their families by just refusing to help them and sending them back home to Canna where they would all eventually starve. But something in Joseph has changed over the years, and his hubris and pride which he used to flaunt around his brothers has been worn away by the challenges he has faced. And so he ends the pattern of sibling retribution that has gone back generations in his family by forgiving his brothers, and inviting them to join him in Egypt to reap the benefits of his position of power there. So, what does that mean for us? How do we live into this call of Jesus and forgive our enemies? For me, I think that’s going to have to start with regular, daily prayer for my neighbor. And here’s what I’m going to try to do. (Someone else came up with this, and I’m going to borrow it.) “Choose an enemy to pray for this week. Write their name on a piece of paper and place it somewhere you will see it regularly. You might use this prayer: ‘May they have enough. May they love and be loved. May they know and be known by God.’” i (repeat it) In closing, I’ll leave you with someone else’s words about making this shift in thinking toward our enemies: “[Christian life] asks us to sacrifice our long-cherished sense of aggrievement toward our enemies, rendering them in the process not enemies at all, but fellow sinners forgiven by God.” ii So, I’ve added my enemy/neighbor to my private prayer list and am committing to pray for her for the week: “May she have enough. May she love and be loved. And may she know and be known by God.” I invite you to join me in this practice this week. i. Haverkamp, Heidi, ed. Everyday Connections: Reflections and Prayers for Year C. Westminster John Knox: 2021, p 124 ii. Ibid. p122 Quote by Robert F. Darden