Forgiveness, Part 2
Genesis 45: 1-15 (NIV)
Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cried out, “Have everyone leave my presence!” So there was no one with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers. And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him, and Pharaoh’s household heard about it. Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph! Is my father still living?” But his brothers were not able to answer him, because they were terrified at his presence. Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come close to me.” When they had done so, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will be no plowing and reaping. But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. “So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt. Now hurry back to my father and say to him, ‘This is what your son Joseph says: God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me; don’t delay. You shall live in the region of Goshen and be near me—you, your children and grandchildren, your flocks and herds, and all you have. I will provide for you there, because five years of famine are still to come. Otherwise you and your household and all who belong to you will become destitute.’ “You can see for yourselves, and so can my brother Benjamin, that it is really I who am speaking to you. Tell my father about all the honor accorded me in Egypt and about everything you have seen. And bring my father down here quickly.” Then he threw his arms around his brother Benjamin and wept, and Benjamin embraced him, weeping. And he kissed all his brothers and wept over them. Afterward his brothers talked with him.
Matthew 18: 21-22 (NIV)
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
Good morning, friends.
This morning's sermon is going to be part 2 of this 3 part series on forgiveness that I started last Sunday. As a heads up, for our Gospel lesson for this week and next, I will be going slightly off lectionary, so that I can highlight what our Old Testament lessons are teaching us about forgiveness.
So, I started talking to all of you about this last week, but I really think forgiveness is a very difficult topic. And I don't think that's just my personal experience. It's my pastoral opinion that we, as a society, have a really immature understanding of what forgiveness means, and we frankly don't forgive very often.
But one of the biggest reasons why we don't tend to really, truly forgive people all that often is because we have a lot of false definitions about forgiveness floating around. Last week, we talked about one of those false definitions--that forgiveness is the same thing as excusing, or condoning. The false definition of forgiveness that concerns me this week is when we think that forgiveness is forgetting.
Now, I think that "forgiving" someone or something is totally different from "forgetting" something, and, in a different context, I think a lot of you would agree with me. They're two totally different words. But, when we're talking about forgiveness, and especially when we're talk it about forgiving a friend or family member for hurting us, we have this clichéd phrase that just rolls right off the tongue: "forgive and forget". We've heard it so many times we might not even think twice before we say it.
"Forgive and forget". Even I've said this after having a misunderstanding with a friend. This phrase comes from a really noble place, and I can't argue with that--I think the idea of letting go of a grudge and never bringing it back is very healthy, and very Christian.
In spite of that, though, I still do not agree with this phrase, "forgive and forget", and I'm going to tell you that I think this phrase is one of our worst false definitions of forgiveness. It sounds great in theory, and we really mean well when we say it, but it's not very realistic in practice, and it can lead to some bad consequences when we act on it.
This morning we're hearing the final stretch of Joseph's story in Genesis--his very emotional reunion with his brothers as he rescues them from famine. At long last, after everything he's suffered through, Joseph's story has a very, very happy ending, and he goes from slave to hero. He says himself to his brothers that all the terrible things that happened to him helped him, and he actually wouldn't be where we find him in this morning's passage had his brothers not betrayed him years ago. Maybe it was all just part of God's plan.
If ever there was a good moment in the Bible to use the phrase "forgive and forget", it would be right now. Joseph's in a great place in his life now, he has his family back, and he has no ill will at all toward them. Not anymore. He's made peace with his past. This is exactly the time when we might say that everyone should just move on, and never think of the past again, pretend it never happened.
But I say hold on--the past is Joseph's whole story. The past is the story of the Hebrew people. The past is a story of one man's triumph against the worst odds. If Joseph just "forgives and forgets", he wipes out everything that makes him the great man he has become. He's a mere shell of Joseph.
Certainly, the generations of Israelites that followed Joseph didn't believe that the past should just be left in the past. As they passed down this story in the oral tradition, they told their children, their grandchildren, their great-grandchildren every bit of Joseph's tribulations, leaving out no details of who wronged who. The past was not forgotten by the Hebrew people, and not forgotten to us.
Even if you don't end up living quite as dramatic a life as Joseph, this is true for all of us--it's a shame to want to forget about the things we've been through that have molded us into who we are. I'm not saying everything happens for a reason--that's another cliche, and I don't agree with it. But everything that has happened to you is part of your story.
And sometimes, even after we've forgiven someone for hurting us, and even when we intend to start over with that relationship with a clean slate, it's just not a good idea to "forgive and forget". Sometimes it's not helpful to you or anyone else to sweep the bad moments under the carpet and pretend they never happened.
But if you'd like a Bible story to turn to that will really drive this point home, then I recommend Luke's account of the parable of the prodigal son. I preached on this one about a year and a half ago when it came up in the lectionary, and it's one of those classic tales most of us know well, but in case you don't, the story goes something like this:
A very wealthy man has two sons. They're both due a huge inheritance when this man passes away. One of the sons is contented to stay, be responsible, and pull his weight at home. But the other son decides that if he's going to be rich someday, then he wants his money now. So he demands that his father give him his inheritance--even though he's still alive--he takes the money, and he splits. He hits the road with all that cash, and does the first-Century equivalent of partying it up in Vegas.
Only a few years of gambling, drink, and women later, all of that money is gone, and this son finds himself cleaning up after someone's pigs in exchange for starvation wages. He realizes what he did to his father was horribly wrong, but doesn't think his father would ever give him a second chance. He decides that he'll go back to his father's house and offer to be his servant, hoping he might end up with a roof over his head and a little more to eat.
But when his father sees him way off in the distance, walking with his head hung in shame back home, he runs to greet him, dresses him in the finest clothes, and throws a huge party to celebrate that he has his son back.
All is forgiven. The joy of having a loved one back in your life is more than worth swallowing your pride and letting go of a grudge. This is another great place in the Bible where we might be tempted to say "forgive and forget applies". But I don't think so.
What if the father did "forgive and forget"? What if he did sweep what his son did under the carpet, pretending it never happened? If he did that, I don't think he'd be helping himself, or his son, at all. Forgiving and forgetting would'nt do anyone any good--it might even set this family up for disaster.
It's one thing to drop your resentment. It's another thing entirely to forget the bad judgment calls someone close to you has made in the past. For the sake of his son's safety, this father has to hold on to what happened. He can't just "forgive and forget". He now knows his son has a problem with high-risk, impulsive behavior, and he needs to remember what happened last time he gave his son a large sum of money so that he doesn't make that mistake again. He'll forgive--he'll set a great example for the rest of us of what true forgiveness is--but if he doesn't forget, he can protect his son from getting hurt again.
It's okay to protect yourself and others--it doesn't mean you're not being forgiving. If someone hurt you, and would be likely to do it again if they had the opportunity, then it's okay to hold onto your memory of what went wrong before so that they don't get that opportunity. You know what they say--those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.
"Forgiving and forgetting" can set you up to get hurt again, and because of that I can't get behind that life philosophy. But it's more than that. I also just don't think "forgiving and forgetting" is very realistic, and I don't think that's the kind of forgiveness Jesus teaches us.
When I picked this morning's Gospel reading, I went off lectionary on purpose because I wanted to share the two verses that sum up perfectly what it's really like to forgive someone who has hurt you. Peter asks Jesus, "how many times should I forgive a brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?" Peter hopes Jesus will be blown away by how forgiving Peter is. Instead he says, "not seven times, but seventy-seven times." Other translations say "seventy times seven times". The point is the same--what Peter was willing to do wasn't anywhere near enough. I personally like the "seventy times seven" translation better, because I think it's a better match for what forgiveness really is.
We'd like to think forgiving someone for hurting you is a one-time thing. And in some cases it might be--if it was something minor, then the other person might say they're sorry, you might say, Hey, no worries, and that might be the end of it.
But a lot of times it just doesn't work like that. You can't always just forgive someone in one easy step, and have that be the end of it. Especially if they hurt you in a way that left long-lasting consequences.
Then, you might be reminded all the time of what happened, and every single time, you will have to forgive again. Every time you feel those hurt feelings coming back, you will have to forgive again. Forgiveness might not mean forgiveness for forever, it might mean forgiveness for this moment. Then, you will have to forgive again.
Oftentimes we have to forgive in steps, and in small doses, and sometimes you heal one day at a time. Tomorrow, you will forgive again. The next day, you will forgive again. And eventually, you might lose count--have you forgiven 77 times yet? Or maybe even seventy times seven times?
Jesus understood that there are some hurts that strike us so deeply that we'll carry them with us for a long time. He also understood that inner peace isn't something we achieve in one day, it's something we work on over a lifetime. It's that we keep working on it that's important. And until we can perfect our forgiveness, we have a God that gives us perfect grace.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment