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This morning’s readings explore the power of forgiveness.  In Genesis 45:3-11, 15, Joseph’s brothers “could not answer him, so dismayed were they at his presence,”).  They are filled with shame, as well they might be, having beaten him, left him for dead and allowed him to be trafficked into slavery.  Yet Joseph shows only mercy and kindness, begging them not to feel bad, promising them land and livelihoods, “for it was not you who sent me here, but God.”

Joseph, however can afford to be forgiving because it has all turned out well for him.  But what of those enslaved under Roman occupation, whose oppressors show no remorse and to whom Jesus preaches the power of love and forgiveness in Luke 6:27-38? 

Jesus is right that it is costly to love your enemy and yet he presents this not an act of submission or weakness but a sign of strength.  He offers it as a way of rejecting and subverting the power of the mighty; a way of demonstrating to those with power a different way to live. 

Under Roman law, a master was permitted to strike his slave on one cheek but not on both.  By asking his listeners to offer the other cheek Jesus is recommending a kind of civil disobedience which challenges the right of the master.  It was lawful for a Roman citizen to force a non-citizen to carry his belongings for a mile, but no more, walking the extra mile, as Jesus urged, would compel the Roman to break his own law.  In effect, Christ is saying that when our opponents go low, we need to go high.  Forgiveness is not a call to put up with bad behaviour, it is a call to model a different, better way of living.

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