"If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?" Once again Jesus asks each of us the difficult question.

We know the brokenness and alienation that we call sin and want to be forgiven—and to forgive as well. We know that deep chasm of separation and long for reconciliation.

I am a Christian in part because our faith tells of God's reconciliation with the world in Jesus Christ. In that hope I find myself united with others who know distance from God, estrangement from family and friends, and even a sense of separation from the best within our own selves.

Jesus speaks hard words about enemies and forgiveness. He asks difficult questions about love. We would despair over the impossibility of all that Jesus says, we would stammer our feeble answers to his searching questions, if it were not for the stories of reconciliation that we find in scripture. Here and there we find witnesses to the power of forgiving love and the ability of God to work for good in life. 

Joseph, the eleventh of Jacob's twelve sons, was, as my college Old Testament professor used to say, a real brat. His father loved him and Joseph knew it. Jacob gave Joseph a wonderful multicolored coat and Joseph flaunted it in front of his brothers.

Joseph was a brat and a dreamer who didn't mind sharing his dreams with others. So he told his brothers "Listen. I had a dream: the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down before me." 

Well those eleven stars—his eleven brothers—knew just how to respond to such a dream. They decided to get rid of this nuisance of a brother. You and I would probably long to do the same.

They took Joseph and threw him into a pit. Then they sat down for some lunch. 

While they were eating a caravan came by. And it occurred to them: why not get rid of Joseph and make a little cash at the same time. So they pulled him out of the pit and for twenty pieces of silver sold Joseph to a band of Ishmaelites on their way to Egypt.

Then they took Joseph's wonderful coat of many colors, dipped it in goat blood and brought it home to Jacob. "To bad about our brother, isn't it, Dad?" 

Well, none of this really worked out the way the brothers planned. Joseph ultimately became a leader in Egypt, second only to Pharaoh. It's a long story filled with intrigue and blackmail and jail sentences—the stuff of contemporary news stories. You can read it for yourself in Genesis, starting in chapter 37. Be warned however that, as with many stories in the Bible, it’s not really for children.

Anyway, Joseph could not only dream—he could also interpret dreams. So when Pharaoh had a dream about seven lean cows eating seven fat ones, Joseph saw that famine was on the way. Joseph suggested that the Egyptians stockpile food during seven "fat" years for the coming seven "lean" years.

During the famine, the sons of Jacob, hungry in Canaan, journeyed to Egypt looking for food. They find the leader Zaphenath‑paneah, the Egyptian name of their brother Joseph, who begins to get some revenge, playing a cat and mouse game with the boys, accusing their youngest brother of being a thief.

Revenge is sweet, we think. But it leaves a bitter taste.

This is the reality: The human longing for reconciliation is stronger than our desire for revenge. 

Joseph, weeping so loudly that the entire household of Pharaoh can hear him, tells the shocked and confused sons of Jacob: "I am Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt!"

It's a great dramatic story. And we came in just at the best part.

Power comes from engagement with others. The ability to act positively increases as we stay in touch with people—even with those whom we dislike, those who have harmed us.

What's the usual reaction?

            I don't agree with Mom or Dad so I stop talking to them.

                        I don't like what my kids are doing so I refuse to see them.

                                    I'm upset about what happens at church so I don't participate.

What's the usual reaction? Take the easy way out. Cut yourself off.

It is much more difficult to be true to yourself and keep the lines of contact and communication open. It's difficult, but being honest about yourself—what you think and feel—and staying in touch with those with whom you disagree creates some wonderful power for the good. 

Joseph plays around with his brothers. He first confronts them with a different name. He is Zaphenath‑paneah, ruler in Egypt. But finally the mask comes down and he uses his family name. He tells his brothers, "I am Joseph."

With contact reestablished, Joseph is able realize God's purposes in all that has happened. He finds new power—not over, but alongside his brothers. His family is restored. A new power—the ability to act—comes from engagement with others. 

Reconciliation surprises everyone. It even surprised Joseph, I think. He is able to say once more who he is. And then there is a growing awareness of what all these years, all this suffering and treachery has meant: "God has sent me before you to preserve life."  Look. The famine in the land is going to continue for another five years. If I weren't here, you'd all be starving. Egypt would be starving. So it wasn't you who sent me here—in spite of your actions.

It was not you, but God. 

Joseph's game of revenge comes to an end. The guilty fear of his brothers begins to melt. The grief over these bitter years is resolved.

Such is the human hope for all relationships. We want the family to be a haven in a heartless world. Stories like this say it is still possible.

We are all still astonished by the possibility of reconciliation.

How does it happen? 

I need to be clear that love is not about self‑destruction. Love does not patiently accept destruction. Too often in churches women have been encouraged to put up with abusive men in order to show them love and forgiveness. Men and women have been encouraged to be patient with growing alcoholism as a way of loving those who harm them.

This is nonsense. Joseph was reconciled with his brothers, but he did not jump back into that pit.

Human patience and forgiveness are not enough. When we depend on our own goodness, on our own power to forgive, the line soon snaps again.

Still, Jesus tells his followers—he tells us—to pray for our enemies. Strange request isn't it? 

We learn to pray for those we dislike and avoid, for those we hate and fear. Such prayer shifts our attention from all the things others have done to us or neglected to do that so wounded and enraged us. Such prayer focuses on what it is in ourselves that permits others to acquire power over us—the power to put us in the hell of anger, or dismay, or insecurity, or fear.

We pray—if we can—that God's goodness will be placed at the center of their actions and attitudes. We pray that God's goodness will work there and flourish.[1]

To pray for enemies, to keep in honest contact with those with whom you disagree, who have hurt you, shatters the presumed world and creates something new. Engagement makes a break with the past so that something else can happen. 

This happens not by our strength but by God's. For God is able to bring about a "genesis"—a new creation after all the sin and separation and disobedience. God's purpose—in all things—is for life. God's purpose is for our life and the life of the world. Affirming that purpose, we hold on to our hope for reconciliation.

In most of the story of Joseph and his brothers, God is hidden. There are no flashy miracles, no trumpeting angels, no voices from the heavens. We find only ordinary human beings going about very typical actions of hurting each other—pretty much what we find in our own lives.

God is hidden. But God is at work for God's purposes in spite of, through, and against every human effort. God does not manipulate human beings created for freedom. Still—to Joseph's great astonishment—God is at work in the actions of Joseph and his brothers. And if God is at work in them, then, could it also be that God is at work in us as well?

In hidden ways, the sovereign God continues to work in the world. If we are able to forgive, to be reconciled with enemies, with family, perhaps it will come from a deeper appreciation of God's hidden activity. For if we can claim—at least by faith—that God is working for life, for good, then maybe we can come to a new understanding of all the events in our lives and a new understanding of all who have hurt us.

Joseph was a dreamer. He dreamed of power gained and used, of his family saved, an empire fed. At the end of his life he would say: "Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good."

Joseph lived his life between the dream and the disclosure. So too, do we. We wait for reconciliation, we hope in its restoring possibility.

We share stories such as that of Joseph and his brothers to remember that, yes, by God's grace, reconciliation happened—at least once. We share stories about the cross and resurrection to remember that, yes, by God's grace, reconciliation still happens today.

And that brings us around to the question of Jesus once more: “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?”

If those words sound as judgment to your ears, as they often do to me, take heart. Certainly there must be some credit—for love is to be treasured anywhere it is given or received.

The point, however, is this forgiveness and reconciliation are great works of the human spirit. As they did with Joseph, forgiveness and reconciliation bring out the best in us even though they might reveal our shadow side as well. They require time, human contact, and a continuing desire for the good.

Yes, there are times when forgiveness and reconciliation are heartbreakingly close and do not happen. Still, we dare to engage in such a great works because God works for good.

God works for the good of the world.

God works for the good in your life.

God works for good in human relationships.

Continue with that great work in your life.

Yes, even in your life, God is at work for good.