Forgiveness

Genesis 45:1-15

My six year old grandson had spent the better part of the afternoon being tortured by his three year old brother. You know the ground rules. Andy is older and expected to show mercy and compassion toward his younger sibling.  We forget forgiveness is not a trait easily understood by children. By 6:00 Austin has worn out everyone to the point his mothers declared, “Austin if you don’t finish your dinner you will not go out with grand mommy to get ice cream.” Andy immediately saw this as an opportunity for revenge. “No, don’t leave him home. Make him go to the ice cream store and watch us eat it.” Obviously Andy is not quite ready to imitate the classic story on forgiveness found in the 45th chapter of Genesis. Joseph had the motive to destroy his brothers.  Joseph had the power to destroy his brothers.  Joseph had the opportunity to destroy his brothers.  But Joseph believed that God’s way is purer and holier than our way.
 
An amazing transition took place from the tragic moment the son’s of Jacob put Joseph into the pit until the redemptive moment they unknowingly stood before their brother in the court of Pharaoh.  I am trying to think what I would have done if my sisters had arranged for me to be hauled away as a slave to a foreign land and then by an amazing turn of events, I was given the power to determine if they would live or die.  Maybe I am different from the rest of you.  Maybe when someone treats you poorly you don’t dream about the ways you will take revenge.  Maybe you fully ascribe to the notion that God wants us to forgive as God has forgiven us.  Or maybe, like me, you salivate at the opportunity to take a huge bite out of the person who caused you harm.

Imagine being Joseph, all dressed up in the uniform of the Egyptian court and seeing eleven dusty, travel worn men begging for food.  At first Joseph must have thought, “We only have enough food for Egyptians.  How am I supposed to feed these foreigners?”  But then Joseph’s eyes were opened and he recognized the strangers as his brothers.  Both as a boy and an adult the dreamer had dreamed of this moment    What would you have done?  Would you have forgiven them on the spot?  Would you have revealed yourself and then thrown them empty handed out the door?  Would you have played with their emotions? Certainly it was only right that the brothers be punished for their sins.  But Joseph also knew it was only right that his family be restored and his father receives the greatest news of all, “Your son you thought dead is alive.”

There is nothing easy about forgiveness.  In fact if forgiveness were easy, I am not sure how useful forgiveness would be.  In a very challenging book edited by Dorothy Bass called Practicing our Faith, L. Gregory Jones pulls no punches when he begins a chapter with these words.  “The notion of forgiveness conjures up many painful images in our mind.   The wounds are raw and while we yearn for relationships to be restored, we often believe the person who harmed us is not willing to truly repent.  And even if they do, can we honestly forgive them?  We believe in the power of forgiveness, yet we wonder if it can actually happen.  On paper, forgiveness is great.  The problem comes when we take it off paper and try to make it part of our actual relationships with one another.”

Forgiveness is tough.  Who among us has not faced a situation where someone has acted inappropriately toward us or worse yet, towards a member of our family?  To hear Jesus suggest we forgive as he has forgiven us might be theologically sound but it is downright naïve in the real world.  No wonder we keep forgiveness as a hole card to only be played as an act of desperation.  Living as Christ would have us live is much too difficult.  And yet, if we claim Christ, we must continue to try.

Why is forgiveness so vital to God? Because not only is God the very embodiment of forgiveness, God also understands when we are hurt, or disappointed or wounded, bitterness gnaws at the center of our very being.  We not only lose focus, we lose purpose as anger, resentment, and even revenge becomes our primary motivation for existence.  At some point what was done to us becomes secondary to what we are now doing to ourselves.

Of all the movies in which John Wayne starred, I would argue the greatest was The Searchers.  It received no academy awards, yet this film, directed by John Ford has become an American classic. There was nothing heroic to be found in Wayne’s character. Ethan Edwards was returning from the Civil War to the home of his brother who lived in Texas.  Shortly after his arrival his brother, sister in law and nephew are killed in a Comanche attack.  Ethan’s two nieces are abducted.  A search begins for the two girls, a search that lasted five years.  Throughout the odyssey, the hate that Ethan develops becomes so vehement that when he finally rescues his surviving niece, he wants to kill her because she is has become the wife of the Comanche chief.  Ethan allows his niece to live, but will no longer recognize her as human.  He returned to the desert and lived alone with all the hate that defined him.

Isn’t that what our inability to forgive does?  Hate is such a powerful emotion. It controls our thoughts, directs our actions and allows us to behave in an unacceptable fashion which we would never condone if it were someone else.  But when it is our hurt, when it is our pain, when it is our desire for revenge, it is amazing what we will justify.  Eventually, the fire that fuels our anger leads us to the wilderness of our own eternal discontent.  That is not how God intended for us to live.

A basic belief of the Christian faith is, “We loved because God first loved us.  Amidst all the self-righteousness that has steadily worked against God’s good creation we must never forget that God has always been about the business of reconciling humanity.  Such is the power of forgiveness.  We all know there is nothing easy about forgiving someone.  I imagine Joseph would have loved to have identified himself and then thrown his brothers out of the palace empty handed.  It would have felt so good for a moment…. or a day…. until he realized that he was no better than his brothers and his actions would have killed his father a second time.

One thing you can be sure of is we are going to disappoint folks and folks are going to disappoint us. If we want to live in community, I suspect we will need to learn to forgive.  In fact, I might be so bold to suggest that the capacity for forgiveness is the first step toward being a viable community.

No one said it was easy. Reluctantly, perhaps painfully, we venture forth, either on our own or at the invitation of another to attempt this beautiful and somewhat awkward dance called forgiveness.   First, we must become willing to truthfully and patiently talk about the conflict.  Next we must acknowledge the existence of anger and bitterness but also admit a heartfelt desire to move past both.  Then, acknowledging we are all God’s children, we must attempt to summon up concern for the well being of the other party.  Only when we recognize our own complicity in the conflict, can we make a commitment to change whatever caused or continues to cause our conflict.  Finally we are ready to express our yearning for reconciliation.  I believe it is this yearning for reconciliation that ultimately identifies us as a people defined by God’s grace.
  
Two images should always burn a hole in our soul when our relationship with another has gone sideways.  The first is Ethan Edwards, turning his back on the homecoming of his long lost niece.  The second is Joseph, being reunited with a father who thought he was dead.  Ethan heads into the wilderness where he will live with his bitterness.   Joseph welcomes his family, where reunited they start a new beginning. 

Which will you choose as your life long companion: the wilderness or the community of faith?   One offers the certainty of isolation; the other promises hope for tomorrow.
      
To God be the glory.  Amen