The Unimaginable

Sermon by Pr. Craig Mueller on the Seventh Sunday after Epiphany + Sunday, February 23, 2025.

Hamilton, the musical, opened ten years ago this month. What a different world that was! I have seen Hamilton live twice but have wanted to see the movie version.  The movie is a recording of a live performance from 2020, with Lin-Manuel Miranda playing Hamilton. Since it is only on Disney Plus, waited until I was in staying in someone’s home who had the Disney subscription. That happened last month.

Like many others, I get weepy during the song “It’s Quiet Uptown.” It’s not a rap song like most of the others. It’s more a ballad and it’s so very sad. Alexander Hamilton is estranged from his wife because of a very public infidelity that ends his career. He gives his son terminal advice about how to behave in a duel. Alexander and his wife Eliza are grieving the loss of their son, and going through the unimaginable, as the lyrics state. During the song Eliza stands expressionless and motionless. Hamilton can’t talk his way out of this. His words can’t fix this. He has hit bottom. If only Eliza would let him stay, it would be enough. Then in the middle of the song, without changing her expression, Eliza subtly takes Alexander’s hand. The chorus in lovely harmony simply intones, “forgiveness.”

Forgiveness isn’t easy. In fact, sometimes it’s unimaginable when you are the victim of something horrific. Or when someone has taken something from you that can never be replaced. Eliza’s forgiveness comes not from restitution, but from love. It’s a “grace too powerful to name,” the lyrics state.

There’s another unimaginable scene in our first reading today. Most of us know this well-known story in Genesis. Joseph is sold into Egypt by his brothers and later becomes second-in-command, under Pharaoh. In the midst of a dreadful famine, Joseph’s brothers come and bow before him, needing to purchase food. But they don’t recognize their now older brother. When Joseph reveals himself, they are shocked, ashamed, yet glad to be reunited. Instead of retribution, Joseph offers forgiveness. In fact, in a beautiful scene of reconciliation Joseph weeps upon his brothers.

This story was told hundreds of years before Jesus proclaimed love for one’s enemies as a central tenet of his teaching. And many, many centuries before Martin Luther King, Jr. made “love your enemies” a central part of the civil rights movement.

We are living through unimaginable times. Many of us overwhelmed just hearing the news. Thing happening so quickly we can barely take them in.

How we ache for political leaders like Joseph. Rather than using power for his own gain, Joseph uses it for the common good. In the face of a catastrophic famine, he helps the nation survive through wise stewardship of national resources. Rather than being motivated by personal vindication, Joseph sees himself as an agent of God—one who matures and grows through what he and his people face.

Frederic Luskin teaches people skills to live happier and more fulfilling lives through forgiveness, gratitude, and meditation. He is the author of a book, “Forgive for Good.” He was recently interviewed on one of my favorite NPR shows, “The Hidden Brain.”

When discussing grudges, Luskins says: “I never tell people to forgive and forget. I tell them to forgive and remember differently. I explain to them that forgiveness is not condoning. It's saving your life. I remind them that forgiveness has nothing to do with seeking justice. Forgiveness is inner healing and making peace with the life you had, not endlessly arguing with what you didn't get.”

Luskin reminds us that holding on to grudges, grievances, and anger has a physiological effect on us. Sometimes we can use our anger for good, like responding when someone is hurting your child. But when the anger builds up inside us, it does its number on us and affects our body and mind. Ironically, forgiving someone else is more about your healing. The other person has already stolen so much from you. Don’t let them steal more.

I’m not exactly sure what Jesus was thinking when he talked about forgiveness, not judging others, and loving your enemies. But what does come across is mercy, mercy, mercy.

And the values in our gospel today could not be further from what is being acted out by so many today in the public sphere. Certainly, we are not called to merely turn the other cheek in every circumstance. As Pr. Sharai mentioned this past week, loving our enemies sometimes means speaking truth to power and not backing down. And justice certainly means holding perpetrators of violence, crime, and abuse of all kinds--accountable!

As unimaginable as loving your enemies may sound, here are examples of people living this gospel maxim. A victim of a hate crime refuses to retaliate with similar words. Someone imprisoned and tortured for confronting injustice prays for her oppressors. Abused as child by his alcoholic father, the son sits in vigil as his father is dying. Tears flow in a moment of healing.

In the end, forgiveness and love for one’s enemies is complicated, messy, difficult, challenging, maybe for some even unattainable or unimaginable. And we honor people where they are.  

That’s why we gather in community. That’s why we confess our sins, our complicity, our helplessness. That’s why we gather around a Savior who himself was ridiculed and tormented—yet offered forgiveness to those who abused him. May Christ teach us to be signs of divine mercy in a world saturated with power and retribution.

It’s a grace too powerful to name. And only grace can save the world.