Genesis 45:1-15; Psalm 133; Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32; Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28
The Rev. Candice B. Frazer
I spent this past week with a group of women from seminary. Every year we go on retreat somewhere and talk about life, God, prayer, our churches, families, and whatever else comes up. We eat, laugh, and try to do something fun. This year we went to Fish Creek in Door County, Wisconsin. We stayed in a little cottage right off the main street and down the block from the Episcopal Church. We hiked Peninsula State Park and kayaked in Lake Michigan. When we weren’t on an adventure, we sat on the porch enjoying the 75-degree weather and simply being together.
Politically, we range across the spectrum in beliefs and ideologies. Theologically, we differ only slightly in the ways we understand liturgy and the lens through which we approach our own sense of pastoral care and call. We are mostly Alabama fans, and those who aren’t don’t really care about football—so that is a wash. But even where we disagree, it doesn’t affect our sense of unity. We are all priests, and we start in the place of our belovedness with God—and that makes us one.
Oh, how good and pleasant it is when brethren dwell in unity!
Ecce Quam Bonum! That is Latin for this first line of our psalm this morning, “Oh, how good and pleasant it is…” It is also the motto of the University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee, where I studied for the priesthood and met the women I was on retreat with this past week. Sewanee drew us together, and we have been friends now for more than fifteen years.
More than a motto, Ecce, quam bonum! is the culture at Sewanee. Students, faculty, seminarians, and residents live into the sense of what it means to dwell together in unity. They also fall very short of the mark.
In our first year at seminary, a neighbor took issue with our dogs. For three years he complained about them and us. We joked about his frustrations with us—even giving him a not-very-nice nickname. But his presence was a reality check: it is great when everyone can dwell together in unity, but unity takes a lot of work. It means that not everyone is going to appreciate or agree with everyone else.
The friends I go on retreat with every year are wonderful, but we do not always agree on things, and we have learned how to negotiate with one another to maintain our unity. We realize that being together is always more important than being right or getting our own way. Six months from now, I am not going to remember my friends for what we agreed on or disagreed about. I will remember them as supportive and kind, always having my back even when we disagree.
Unity is about choice, and sometimes that choice is about letting go of our pride, our need to be right, our expectations of others, and instead leading with humility in our relationships and staying flexible enough that people become more important than politics, perceptions, or even pain.
That is what makes the story of Joseph and his brothers so powerful. Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery and told their father he was dead, all because they were jealous of him. Some of them felt guilty about it, and others thought nothing of it. Years and years later, when they were on the brink of starvation, the brothers go to Egypt to try to purchase food and supplies that might help them survive the famine that has raged across the region. They have no idea that they will be received by Joseph, that he is even still alive. But Joseph, who has risen to be the second-highest-ranking officer in Egypt, greets them. They do not recognize him, but he recognizes them.
Instead of punishing them or sending them home empty-handed, he makes himself known to his brothers and inquires about his father. “I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?” He wept so loudly that the Egyptians and those in the palace heard him. The years of anguish, grief, and anger poured out in one loud cry. But, now he was home—among his brethren—and he chose unity over revenge or punishment.
“‘I am your brother, Joseph, whom 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…it was not you who sent me, but God…’”
“And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.”
Ecce, Quam Bonum! Oh, how good and pleasant it is when brethren dwell together in unity!
Unity does not mean that the wrong never happened. Joseph does not pretend that his brothers did not betray him. He does not erase the pain of what they did. Instead, he refuses to allow their past actions to determine what their future will be. He recognizes that God is still at work, even in the midst of what was broken, and he chooses to participate in what God is doing rather than remain bound to what has already happened.
We hold on to our grievances, the little wrongs that others have done to us, the times we feel that we have been slighted or embarrassed or belittled. We do not hold them lightly, but tightly. We allow them to drive a wedge between ourselves and others. When people don’t behave the way we want them to—when they don’t think like us or act like us—we judge them unworthy or less than, believing our thoughts, perspectives, beliefs, and ideologies are the only ones that matter. We are right, so they must be wrong. We find ourselves stuck in a culture of judging more and loving less. But the people and stories in Scripture tell us something different.
A Canaanite woman refuses to allow her difference—the fact that she is a Gentile— to keep her from receiving the kingdom of God that Jesus’ very presence offers. “[E]ven the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” She leads with humility, not righteous indignation, even when she is treated as less than a Jew because she is a Gentile. And Jesus is touched by this—dare I say, he is reminded—that human beings are all worthy of being treated with compassion, of being healed, of being brought into the expansive unity of God’s kingdom.
This is the movement we see throughout Scripture: God continually calls us beyond the boundaries we create between ourselves and others. The kingdom of God is not built by deciding who belongs and who does not. It is built when we discover that God’s love is larger than our divisions.
When Jesus died on a cross, he did not come back to life three days later to exact his revenge on others. When Paul was harassed and harangued throughout the Mediterranean simply for preaching the Good News, he did not demonize or call out his enemies as wrong or sinful. The Canaanite woman, Jesus, Paul, and Joseph focused on the kingdom and building it up, not tearing down others or blowing up the world.
Joseph does the same thing here. He meets his brothers again for the first time after they have betrayed him and made his life miserable. And he focuses on God’s promise and allows love to lead his heart and heal his relationships.
There is already enough judgment out there, but there is not enough love. We get to choose: will we judge more and love less, or will we judge less and love more?
The beauty in my relationship with my friends from seminary is that we all choose to love more. That choice has sustained us through difficult times in our careers, families, and lives. It has allowed us to trust one another, support one another, and call upon one another when the world feels lonely and the road ahead is filled with fear.
There is power in our relationships, and using that power to build each other up—no matter what side of the aisle you may stand on—will only make the world a better place. Safer and stronger because we are together.
[We are reminded of that power this morning as we baptize Ward Speaks. We profess our faith remembering that we seek to serve Christ in all persons, love our neighbor as ourselves, strive for justice and peace among all people, respect the dignity of every human and participate in the apostle’s teaching and fellowship and the breaking of the bread as a symbol of our unity.]
Psalm 133 does not tell us that unity is easy. It tells us that unity is good. It is pleasant. It is something worth choosing, worth working for, worth sacrificing our pride for. Because when we dwell together in unity, we become a living witness to the kingdom of God—a kingdom where love is stronger than division, mercy is stronger than judgment, and no one has to earn their place at the table.
Oh, how good and pleasant it is when brethren dwell together in unity.
Ecce, Quam Bonum!
Amen