Forgiveness

 Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Genesis 50:15-21:

There is a story told about a new minister to a congregation and on his first Sunday there he preached a sermon on forgiveness, which was well received. The next Sunday he preached exactly the same sermon, which left people a little puzzled, but wondering what he would do the next week. But on the third week, he delivered exactly the same sermon of forgiveness, and so that week some leaders of the church paid a nice visit told him to tell him that while they appreciated the message the first time, they wanted to make it known that they expected to hear something different the next Sunday. But, for the fourth time he delivered the same message, only this time he added at the end, and when we start practicing forgiveness in all that we do, then we’ll move onto a new topic.

Now giving the same sermon on forgiveness over and over again is probably over-kill, although it does make sermon prep really easy, we can’t really hear about forgiveness enough because while we very often talk about God forgiving us, it’s also, and just as importantly as us forgiving others and us seeking forgiveness. Indeed, Jesus says that unless you forgive you will not be forgiven. Pretty high standards. But here is some good news. The first is that holding a grudge, the desire to get revenge is actually programmed into us by evolution. We want retribution for what has wronged us. We want vengeance. We want something bad to happen to the other person. This is a natural part coming from the base part of our feelings. Even people who are opposed to this, still feel it, as maybe perhaps summed up by an essay written by Rev. Mary Lynn Tobin in response to September 11, called “Vengeance is the Lord’s (but something inside me wants to ‘bomb the hell out of them’).” and so if you judge yourself because you hold grudges and want revenge, you can let that go because it’s natural. But it’s a matter of what you do with those feelings.

And so here is even better news. Forgiveness is also a part of who we are. It too has been programmed into us by evolution. The desire to heal and rebuild relationship and community are just as much, or maybe even more, a part of who we are as revenge is. In fact, in every animal that has been studied except for one, they have demonstrated acts of forgiveness, conciliation and reconciliation.  The one animal that doesn’t do this is the house cat, and for those who own cats, and those who dislike cats, this should not come as a surprise.  The reason why it is found in other animals, including humans, is because we live in community, and to stay in community which is necessary if we are to survive, we have to have the ability to forgive wrongs.

If we were to hold on to every wrong anyone had done to us, we wouldn’t be able to keep going, and, as it turns out, holding onto the hurts we have received does not injure the person who hurt us, but it inures us. And thus is we don’t forgive, and then we allow them to continue to damage us. But, just because forgiveness is a part of us, doesn’t mean it’s easy. That’s why Jesus says that we have to forgive not just seven times, but 77 times, or as some manuscripts say 70x7 times, because we have to keep working at it. We may think that we have done all the work of forgiveness necessary, that we have laid the resentment aside, but something will happen that brings it all right back up, and we have to do it all over again. It’s not about forgiving once, but about continuing to forgive, just like we continue to breath, over and over again. (Thanks to Rev. Steve Garnass-Holmes for that analogy)

Now for the past three months, we have been hearing stories from Genesis that consists to a large degree of people injuring each other in numerous ways. But, what we haven’t really talked about yet was some of these actions being overcome. Ishmael and Isaac, for whatever might have come between them, come back together to bury their father Abraham. And even though Esau plots to kill Jacob, they eventually come back together, there is some reconciliation. But what we don’t hear about in these stories is anything about forgiveness. In fact, before today’s passage at the very end of Genesis, the only other time we hear about forgiveness is in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, when Abraham is arguing with God to try and save the cities by having God forgive their sins. And then we have the brothers ask Joseph to forgive them for what they had done. And let’s not forget, this is not an insignificant thing. First they plotted to kill him, and then after being talked out of it by Reuben, they either sold him into slavery or at least set him up to be sold into slavery. Not a good position to be in, and while Joseph ends up in a good place by overseeing all of Egypt for the Pharaoh, he wasn’t an easy path to get there, and so we might think that Jacob has every right hold a grudge against his brothers. Indeed, in the intervening stories when the brothers end up in Egypt because of a famine in Canaan, and end up before Joseph, we might think that he would deny them any grain at all. But, of course that’s not what happens. He has already shown magnanimity towards his brothers.

But, after Jacob dies, the brothers are concerned about what’s going to happen now, and so the NRSV, using the Greek version, says they went to see Joseph, whereas the Hebrew says that they sent a letter to him, which is reflected in the NIV. But either way they contacted Joseph to seek forgiveness, although they pitch it as a request of their father. We never hear this request made by Jacob, so some have wondered if perhaps they were making it up, because, after all, their reason for seeking forgiveness is for their own protection to avoid retribution. But here is a crucial point about forgiveness. It’s not about the person who injured us, it’s about us. And so the reason why someone is seeking forgiveness doesn’t matter. It doesn’t even matter if they are even seeking forgiveness. They don’t even have to feel or express remorse for us to be able to forgive, because it’s not about them, it’s about us. Now there are some people who need to be forgiven so they can move on, but, again, that’s their issue, not ours. Something we can talk about more in a series on forgiveness.

But, while we’re on the subject, if you want to seek forgiveness and want to express genuine remorse for what you did, don’t follow the example we all too often see in public apologies of people saying “I’m sorry if I offended you.” Or even worse, “if you were offended, I’m sorry.” Anything beyond “I’m sorry” or “I was wrong” is us simply trying to justify or explain away our behavior. And so the brothers ask for forgiveness from Joseph, and in hearing this Joseph weeps and the brothers also weep, and then Joseph gives an answer that has been, in my opinion, misused over the years. He says that while the brothers intended to do harm to him, although the Hebrew here is actually the word for evil, that God intended it for good.

So two things. First, it’s important to name what was done, and Joseph says that what happened was evil. For the forgiveness process to happen, and as Jesus tells us it is a process, we have to say what happened and why it hurt us in order to be able to move forward. And then the second thing is that while this has been interpreted to mean that God intended all along for Joseph to be sold into slavery, that it was part of God’s plan, I don’t think that’s what Joseph is saying, and it’s not what we see in the other Genesis stories. Instead, as Paul says, it’s not that God caused this, but God can redeem it. Joseph is saying that evil doing is evil, and it is not the work of God, but that God was there and God can overcome our will and our evil desires and even bring about good out of the situation. And if there is anything that scripture shows us, it is that humanity constantly works to thwart the desires and plans of God.

If we did everything God wanted us to do, we wouldn’t need Jesus, because we wouldn’t fall short of God. Or, as Rabbi Harold Kushner said, if everything is God’s plan, then God is on the side of the Nazis, and not on the side of the victims of the holocaust, or he was on the side of the terrorists on 9/11 and not on the side of the victims. And if everything was a part of God’s plan then we wouldn’t even need to seek or give forgiveness, because forgiveness is about the brokenness in which we live in not living into the wholeness of the creation that God calls for us. And just as an example from Genesis, we have seen lots of shenanigans taking place over which son the promise will go through, and who will inherit the Promised Land, always working to make sure it’s one son but not the other. But ultimately who does the promise go to and through? All 12 sons of Jacob. Does that mean all the other plans were thwarting the will of God? I think we have to at least consider that as a possibility.

And so it appears that Joseph forgives his brothers, not because he utters those words, but because of his actions towards his brothers and their children. He lives the forgiveness out. And while forgiveness is about the restoration of relationship, but it doesn’t have to be. You can forgive someone and not be in relationship with them anymore because that’s what’s needed, because, again, forgiveness is about us. After having spent twenty-five years in prison, Nelson Mandela was asked about his feelings toward his jailers and those who imprisoned him, to which he responded: “I hated my jailers when I left, but I realized I had to leave it all behind. Otherwise I would still be in prison – a prison of my own making.” We must forgive. There is no boundary line; there is no line in the sand we can draw, that says we only forgive up to this point, that everything beyond that is unforgivable. That is the responsibility of loving and being loved by God and that is the challenge of being a disciple of Christ.

And so here are three simple tools to help us begin to learn how to forgive, and it comes with an acronym of RAP courtesy of Adam Hamilton. The R stands for remember our own shortcomings. It’s a lot easier to forgive someone when we remember the ways in which we too have failed, the ways we have hurt other people. If we think we are perfect and have done no wrong and have nothing to seek forgiveness for, then not only are we wrong, but it’s more likely we are not going to be open to giving forgiveness. 

The second is assuming the best of intentions. When something happens to us we can only see it as we see it, and therefore often assume the worst of the other person. But, if we assume the best of intentions then we become more lenient. So, for example, the person who cuts you off in traffic, rather than just thinking they are a jerk, imagine instead that they are rushing to the hospital to see a family member in need, or they just got terrible news and are not able to concentrate. Thinking that totally changes our perception of what happens. Now there are times in which we can’t assume the best of intentions, such as for sexual abuse, amongst others, but it can often work. 

Then the P stands for prayer. It can start with praying for ourselves to be able to forgive, of asking God’s assistance in living in forgiveness. And then it’s about praying for those whom we need to forgive. And this is not praying that God will strike them down, or that God will help them see the errors of their ways, but simply that God’s blessings will be with them, or maybe that they will live in and know God’s forgiveness. And what you will learn is that when you pray for your enemies and those who persecute you is that it doesn’t change them, or at least not necessarily, but it will certainly change you. And so to start forgiving others, we remember our own shortcomings, we assume the best of intentions and we pray.             

It’s been said that not forgiving others is like drinking poison and hoping that it will hurt the other person. But, of course, the only person it hurts is us.  The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that." Our love to the world begins with first accepting Christ and through him God’s forgiveness, and then offering that forgiveness to the world. And what we see is that in seeking forgiveness and giving forgiveness the dynamics of the relationship between Joseph and his brothers, and the trajectory of the family of faith are changed forever. So may we begin to learn to forgive not just once, or seven times, or 77 times, but even 70x7 times. May forgiveness be like the air that we breathe. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.